Half the time, Black’s dialogue is just announcing what we’re looking at, from diamond swords to flying hot air balloons that look like goth squids. But it’s the gleam in his eyes, the gusto in his delivery, that makes every line zing.

The Kid Detective is an unexpected mix of disparate elements that in the wrong hands could have resulted in lumpy parody but, fortunately, pours out as something smooth, funny, dark and potent.

Sparkling 1934 comedy-mystery derived from the Dashiell Hammett mystery and directed by W.S. Van Dyke. It dared to suggest that a sophisticated married couple, Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) could have fun with each other. [14 Jul 1996, p.4]

Erika Cohn’s documentary Belly of the Beast, which depicts the fight to ban non-consensual sterilizations performed on female prisoners in California, is at once a thrilling legal drama and heartbreaking depiction of devastating human rights violations that you can’t imagine happening in the 21st century.

By the time this distinctive 1986 film is over we have been treated to a lavish fugue on the themes of childhood, wolves, eroticism and myth. [11 Jun 1989, p.2]

Sometimes when the moment comes to reconcile our feelings, we freeze or fumble the opportunity; other times, when we finally process the emotions and can articulate the thoughts, it is too late to communicate them. Coming Home Again, sweetly, sometimes painfully, evokes this experience.

It’s a rousing and illuminating tribute to a brilliant musician who burned out quickly, but burned so brightly.

Elia Kazan drew from the experiences of his own uncle in this profound and exhilharating 19th-Century immigrant saga, made in 1963 and expressing passionately a love of this country. [27 Feb 1994, p.6]

Lovely, lavish 1935 adaptation of Charles Dickens' beloved story about a plucky young lad living in 19th century England. [15 Oct 2006, p.E10]

The movie naturally pulses with life and energy, invigorated by its narrative sweep, its nimble camerawork and propulsive musical score composed by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans. But Bahrani scrupulously resists the temptation to turn India into a flashy, exoticizing spectacle, as more than a few critics accused “Slumdog Millionaire” of doing.

Schepisi may have made the first truly and intelligently uplifting spy movie. His style here is magisterial yet playful: The melancholy grandeur of Russia, on view at last for the whole world to see, has turned him into an eye-popping enthusiast.

No Man’s Land comes out of the blue to comment memorably on the immigration crisis by simply giving human life its due. It’s wise and empathetic and worth a watch.

Polak’s film is an unflinching exploration of beauty, identity, sex and self in the wake of a life-changing event.

A splendid, unjustly neglected 1973 British film in which Sean Connery, at his very best under Sidney Lumet's direction, plays a veteran police sergeant haunted by years of contact with terrible crimes and on the brink of a total breakdown. [27 May 1990, p.10]

The result is something refined, naturalistic, specific, enigmatic and funny — not unlike an Eisenberg story, for one thing — but also akin to any trip one might make in a reflective yet anxious state of mind, with people you think you know but might be unsure about.

Think Guy Maddin as the long-lost seventh Python. But it’s also one of the more vivid and amusing excursions in a year marked by unclassifiable realities and the need for diverting art.

This intimate slice-of-life doubles as a haunting meditation on the meaning of “identity” to someone who has long felt discouraged from expressing every part of who she is.

Ordinary but sufficiently effective in its execution, the film’s most resonant segments are those where the upstanding son reflects on his torn family and a rotten system in which paroling alleged offenders even after so much time is seen as an affront to the toxic institutional loyalty to police.

A first-time performer without formal training, Betancourt is a true revelation and the most accomplished player in an impressive ensemble of nonactors.

Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges and Susan Tyrrell are all superb in this downbeat boxing drama adapted by Leonard Gardner from his novel. Conrad Hall supplied the gorgeously stark cinematography. [16 Dec 2002, p.8]

The riveting and superbly acted Iranian drama, based on a real variety show, poses a moral crucible born out of a theocratic system that disfavors women amid the heightened tension of the on-camera spectacle.

Despite the film’s compact length, it contains a wealth of tense action, complex emotion, deft observations, vital messaging and gorgeous vistas.

Director Rene Laloux and his co-writer, illustrator Roland Topor, in adapting Stefan Wul's science-fiction novel Oms en Serie, have created a surreal nightmare worthy of Dali, one that is filled with seemingly magical phenomena and bizarre and dangerous flora and fauna. [09 Oct 1998, p.F18]

A superb bit of tongue-in-cheekery, stylish and fun but also deeply affectionate. [11 Aug 1985, p.5]

[An] often hilarious film...Abrahams and Proft’s nonstop throwaway humor keeps spirits lifted and a smile on our faces, and it also has the admirable effect of deflating those action movies that exploit violence in the name of a pious, if dubious, patriotism.

The result is a sharply assembled multiformat collage of memory and investigation that starts like a trip any of us might make into a what-made-him-tick past, but ends in the present with scattered feelings and tenuous bonds.

An engrossing peek inside the Mideast peace talks during the Clinton administration.

Lo’s humane film helps us glimpse the lives of those who are often overlooked, whether they walk the streets of Istanbul on four legs or two.

The Man in the Moon, a gently scary ballad of a movie, is about how love can open your eyes and then blind them with tears. Perhaps that sounds overly sentimental. But this deeply moving film, directed by Robert Mulligan and produced by Mark Rydell, from a script by first-time scenarist Jenny Wingfield, never strays into bathos.

A vibrant and transfixing revelation, You Will Die at 20 is as novel a vision as we may see this year. From its meaningful ideas on the here and the hereafter, its lesson for Muzamil is that after perishing a rebirth may follow.

In Kawase’s delicate hands, however, it breathes with an everyday poignancy.

M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity succeeds where so many documentaries about artists fail: It provides real insight into the art. It’s a welcome trip for those fascinated by his iconic, mind-bending depictions of illusions, evolutions and eternal cycles.

Popcorn is such fun for lovers of schlock (intended or otherwise) that it hardly matters where it is set.

Dynamic in a Hollywood-friendly manner, the film has a deliberately broad tone, but by no means does that detract from its thematic acumen.

Dr. Giggles is one horror comedy that actually is laugh-out-loud funny, a fast and frequently hilarious collision of gore and gags, and a tour de force of smart, sophisticated exploitation filmmaking. It’s an exciting feature directorial debut for Manny Coto.

For Mwangi, Softie serves as testament of the domesticity he’s been absent from to satisfy the demands of his thankless vocation. But for the rest of us, it stands as a portrait of the kind of selfless, unifying and much-needed patriotism, from both Mwangi and Njeri, that could enact improvement if more subscribed to it wholeheartedly.

As a piece of drama, What Happened Was . . . isn't any great shakes; it's essentially an actors' workshop exercise that exists primarily as a showcase for its cast. And because Noonan and, especially, Sillas are so good, it triumphs. [06 Oct 1994, p.F10]

How It Ends works both as an alternative to the usual, race-against-time or humanity-sucks apocalypse dramas, and as a personal exploration of settling affairs — and it’s a comedy.

In Scum, one of only three features he directed for the big screen, Clarke finds a bleak beauty in an institution devoted to controlling, yet also propagating, all manner of human ugliness.

An enjoyable, absorbing, characterful testament to shuffling the whole deck of genre conventions, and then politely setting it on fire.

Leo and María — and, judging from their on-screen rapport, Amalia and Ale as well — spin on a wavelength where their irrational lifestyle and coping mechanisms are logical to their comprehension; we are only lucky to be invited to visit this two-people planet for a short while.

This period piece is slow-paced yet peppered with enough gory attacks and smartly staged scare sequences to appeal to horror connoisseurs.

Like any good sunset, the beauty to be found in “Cusp” is in between the darkness and the light, in the almost imperceptible shades of gray. Most important, it’s found in the bonds the girls have with each other.

Strawberry Mansion is one of the most unique American independent films to open its doors in recent memory. Only time will tell if it can attain the cult status that its charming idiosyncrasy most definitely merits.

You may not respect What’s Love Got to Do With It, but enjoying it is inescapable. A high-energy mixture of spectacular music, vigorous acting and cliched situations, this is a rough-and-rowdy fairy tale with a feminist subtext, and if that sounds perplexing, Love so pumps up the volume you won’t have much time to think about it.

It’s remarkable how fully fleshed out Bateman’s hell-scape is, given that much of this movie was shot in an empty storage facility. There’s something haunting and poetic too about the simplicity of this story, which is primarily about how people find reasons to persevere once they find a companion.

It’s a tricky, harrowing little film. Kazan keeps things fairly schematic--every plot point is secured, every look is “knowing"--but the overall effect is ambiguously unsettling.

A trenchant conversation piece from a promising new director, Test Pattern provides ample room for one’s biases and privilege to shape our interpretation of what’s on screen.

In the air Memphis Belle is unstoppable, giving us--earthbound and safe--a clear-eyed look at the nuts and bolts of bravery.

A refreshing instance of world building where the emphasis is on satirical wit, activist smarts and character, it feels like one of those movies we’ll be looking at decades from now and, however tech has transformed our lives, saying “Yeah, ‘Lapsis’ had that.”

Some may also wish this low-key film spent more time with Pak and Hoi together than it does with them apart. Yet this approach lends the story a kind of mosaic quality, effectively fleshing out our protagonists vis-a-vis their friends, family members and home lives.

A refreshingly original thriller that is also a wrenchingly poignant family drama.

Boiling Point is taut and crisp, and when it’s required, Harris handles violence with swift dispatch rather than the large-scale fireworks that have become de rigueur.

In this existentialist delight, whimsical and profound, the mundane gains new enlightenment.

Edel’s empathy with actors--which he showed in 1981 with the harrowing heroin saga, Christiane F.--is further strengthened by the remarkable performances here.

This story of a lonely Kansas City hairstylist (something Gevargizian knows about) is creepy in unexpected ways, poking at the audience’s rawest nerves.

Singles is a bright and beautiful piffle about love American-style, junior division.

This two-part, three-hour film is marked by immediacy and breadth, as if an on-the-fly news bulletin had naturally morphed into the richest of character-driven sagas.

Feel-good yet not cloying, Language Lessons wraps its comforting graciousness around you and says, “No estás solo / You are not alone.”

Restless and bracing, Wojnarowicz gives a notorious life its due. Even at its clunkiest, it leaves you breathless at the heights of personal expression he achieved.

In any genre, a distinct filmmaking voice and clever avoidance of cliches earns a closer look; perhaps even more so in the realm of sci-fi/horror. And no spoilers, but where Come True lands is extremely satisfying.

Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli have crafted a morally complex film that mingles sex and violence in ways that are meant to make the audience uncomfortable.

Subtly sensorial more than conventionally narrative, The Fever inhabits an ethereal plane that centers Indigenous beliefs and cultural practices not as primitive but valid modes of engagement.

Calamy delivers a beautifully open performance at the center of an utterly winning comedy about the most important journey a person can take: toward finding themselves.

The ending is ambiguous enough to be refreshingly un-clichéd. While “I’m Your Man” is very romantic in its own way, the movie is elevated by pondering not just love but life and our impending relationship to advanced artificial intelligence, a question that is surely already upon us.

In his sleek, punchy and altogether captivating Sonatine, Japan's fabled writer-director-tough guy star Takeshi "Beat" Kitano makes it seem as if we've never seen such a tale on the screen. In doing so, Kitano creates one of the most effectively anti-violence violent movies since The Wild Bunch. [10 Apr 1998, p.F10]

Grünberg effectively incorporates archival photos and footage, drawings, and lyrical, illustrative bits of animation into this brief but rich documentary, which ends on a lovely note that brings Elbaum’s journey full circle.

On one level, Microcosmos is the strangest act of voyeurism ever recorded, with bugs caught au naturel, eating, working, metamorphosing. We're even treated to a steamy scene of unexpurgated snail sex. When this couple gets together, it redefines intimacy and stick-to-itiveness. On another level, the film is a spectacle and celebration of life, in all its phases. [11 Oct 1996, p.F15]

William Wyler directed this hard-hitting, beautifully acted 1951 adaptation of Sidney Kingsley's Broadway hit. Kirk Douglas is remarkable as a tough-nosed, moralistic police detective who is accused of roughing up a shady doctor. [25 Oct 2005, p.E3]

The off-the-rink sequences bristle with as much passion and energy as the dazzling skating sequences, featuring some of the world’s greatest figure skaters.

The distinctive visual style is notably fluid and detailed. The layout artists craft lovely painted environments with rich textures. The action is enjoyable and character-specific. As one would expect from an anime this popular, the imagination is off the charts.

Zinnemann doesn't seem to know he is directing a Great Broadway Musical. The result is a well-staged drama that just happens to have great songs in it. [16 Dec 1994, p.F26]

Hermanus, as a Black, queer South African, isn’t about to paint Nicholas’ predicament as on a par with apartheid’s true victims. But the emotional intelligence he infuses Moffie with — all the way through its inevitable march to the front line — feels personal nonetheless, and empathetically inquisitive about the kind of masculine indoctrination that fuels oppression through rituals of violence and the criminalizing of identity.

She may have a terrible co-star inside trying to upstage her, but with humor, strength and messy honesty, Blair makes a memorable case for why her show must go on.

Ghastly humor coated in serrated-edged commentary on corrosive power creeps in through Jordan’s yearnings for a world before online accountability.

A classic gay coming-of-age story, told with the utmost perception, sensitivity and humor by writer Todd Stephens and director David Moreton. [16 Jul 1998, p.F16]

The upshot, deftly blending over-the-top violence and healing crisis management sessions, ultimately ties all the laugh-out-loud audacity and tender sweetness together with a festive Christmas bow

A glorious, mostly lighthearted adventure celebrating the mythical freedom and excitement of the outlaw life in the Old West. [09 Feb 1986, p.4]

Poetic and painterly, personal and political.

What’s remarkable is that you come away from the movie laughing at Graham’s murderous indiscretions and yet you’re frightened by them too. Caine makes you taste the ashes in this black comedy.

Norbu charts an inspired, fittingly meditative journey to enlightenment.

Jackass Forever transcends the body horror to achieve a kind of nirvana: The crew invite themselves to laugh so they don’t cry, and ask the audience to do the same. It’s a reminder that pain is temporary but friendship is forever.

It's Nolte's boldest, most spellbinding performance; his subtleties in playing this Irish-American monster who believes himself on the front line of "us against them" are profound. [27 Apr 1990, p.F1]

This is a compelling, often profound film, one that creatively surmounts its inherent limitations and shines a vital and heartfelt light on being transgender.

As the film's linchpin, Falk comes across as a crummy, low-life Pied Piper with a stupefyingly irresistible charm. [18 Aug 1985, p.5]

Inextricably rooted in lead Arndis Hrönn Egilsdöttir’s quietly defiant performance, The County tells an immersive, timeless David vs. Goliath story set against a contemporary backdrop of shifting societal norms.

To the less patient viewer, the lack of clarity on the finer points of high finance and characters’ backgrounds and not getting period-orienting news updates about the political situation, might seem confounding. But Azor works without them, because those details would only disrupt the artfully portentous chill Fontana gets from the pitch-perfect performances and design, and Gabriel Sandru’s cinematography.

[Barden] becomes the vessel to express Riegel’s quiet cri de coeur, which is not just yearning to escape one’s own circumstances but the absolute necessity of it.

If “Killers” miscalibrates its balance of perspectives, it also discovers, in the luminous recesses of Gladstone’s performance, a quality of contemplation that beautifully suffuses and modulates Scorsese’s faster, more frenetic rhythms.

If perception has its limitations, this deeply sobering, stimulating film suggests, that may be another way of saying that it is fundamentally limitless. There is so much — too much — to see here, and no end of vantages from which to see it.

The story is fantastical, predictable and utterly delightful, allowing the audience to engage in familiar generic pleasures that have been cut and trimmed to fit every curve neatly.

The film is never just some glassy exercise in the idly loaded’s languorous cruelty, though. In each magnetic performance (especially Schneider’s), in the sparse but piquant lines from the script co-written with the great, recently departed screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière (working from an Alain Page story), and in Deray’s attention to emotional humidity, lies something resolutely curious about human frailty in relationships.

Director Dennis Hopper has the anarchic spirit to make “Chasers” pay off, and writers Joe Batteer, John Rice and Dan Gilroy have provided him with a smart script, a deft mix of slapstick, sharp repartee and sentiment.

Consider the sequel curse broken: Fear Street Part 3: 1666 satisfyingly wraps up Netflix’s R.L. Stine movie trilogy with deepened themes, more fully realized characters and enjoyable twists that lend dimension to the arching story.

It’s also worth remembering that someone as complex as Alvin Ailey isn’t going to be captured in any one film. Ailey is, therefore, best absorbed as an elegant, impressionistic primer, a chance to bask in his mastery of movement and dance, as framed by those near enough to him to know what it took out of him to gift it to the world.