Never loses its priceless stamp of individuality. Reduced to its essence, this is a joke told by a person, not a corporation--and that makes all the difference.

“Donnie Darko" was one of the best pictures released in 2001. Now that it has returned in a 20-minute longer--and richer -- director's cut, it seems sure to be ranked as one of the key American films of the decade.

The gift of The King's Speech is that it allows us to look on as a pair of masterful actors re-create a monumental test of wills.

With the perfect assist from their actors, all of whom are well in on the joke, this affectionate look at the frozen North brings the Coens back in from the cold.

The genius of Parallel Mothers lies in the way it gathers up so many of its maker’s preoccupations — the heroic fortitude of women, the tragic absence of men — and rewires them in an unexpected and entirely necessary direction. It finds Almodóvar doing something new by doing what he has always done well: finding grace and beauty amid suffering, and keeping memory alive.

That Hell or High Water makes you empathize with and understand (though not excuse) each member of this disparate quartet is a tribute to the way Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay works equally well as a thriller, character study and pointed social commentary.

Rarely has any film, let alone an animated one powered by the logic of dream and fantasy, been able to move so successfully -- and so effortlessly -- through so many different kinds of cinematic territory.

A knotty detective yarn, a funny valentine to Singapore and one of the year’s most ardent expressions of movie love, it tells a story of cinematic theft, and in the process, becomes an entrancing feat of cinematic reclamation.

Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce remains a rip-roaring entertainment.

Lanthimos may have cobbled together a rambunctious psychosexual odyssey from many Frankensteinian parts — a little “Alice in Wonderland,” a dash of “Metropolis,” a soupçon of Voltaire by way of the Marquis de Sade — but he and his skilled collaborators have marshaled them into a remarkably coherent and purposeful vision.

A graceful, affectionate yet clear-eyed portrait of daily Middle America small-town life in which no individuals are interviewed but instead are observed with detachment as they go about their lives.

Even though the film's tone grows ever more elegiac, it stubbornly remains a celebration of the Kurdish capacity to endure.

Some might well accuse this stubbornly singular woman of living in the past, but to watch Aquarius is to see her surrendering again and again to the bliss of the present moment — never more so than in a final scene of thrilling, annihilating ferocity.

2000 Meters to Andriivka is a war chronicle like no other.

It's big, cartoonish and empty, with an interesting premise that is underdeveloped and overproduced. [3 July 1985, p.Calendar 6]

It's a fitting tribute to the influential journalist-essayist-filmmaker: insightful about the life of a successful writer, engaging about how a smart modern woman navigated the world, but also quizzical about how Ephron was as a daughter, sister, wife and mother.

Toy Story 2 may not have the most original title, but everything else about it is, well, mint in the box.

Energized to a thrilling extent by a myriad of Afrocentric influences, Black Panther showcases a vivid inventiveness that underscores the obvious point that we want all cultures and colors represented on screen because that makes for a richness of cinematic experience that everyone enjoys being exposed to.

Each scene, beneath its surface calm, throbs with longing, dislocation and intricately woven layers of time.

Swinton manifests, with magnificently nuanced modulation, an emotional tangle; at times, it is raw with a cathartic force, while enmeshed with meekly conciliatory moments of codependence. Wielding a hatchet with violent purpose or begging for a final rendezvous, Swinton’s every scorching word cuts deep.

A godsend for audiences who hunger for rich emotion presented with wit, grace and not a trace of sentimentality, Brooklyn illustrates the power of restraint in dealing with poignant, impassioned material.

Beguiling but long-winded.

You feel protective about Leigh's work because its almost indescribable virtues touch the heart, yet far from being some delicate flower, Life Is Sweet has the wild, brazen, anything-goes energy of a 2-year-old, willing to take chances that would freeze the blood of another, more timidly conventional film.

One of the unexpected but welcome things Apollo 11 accomplishes is restoring a sense of how insanely complex the lunar mission was, and how audacious.

The plot is bare and a little cliched, but the film's dramatic scenes, usually shot with a roving camera and lighted in fairly crude ways, are realistically, almost voyeuristicly, staged. [04 Jul 1991, p.13]

If the second film never reaches the highs of the first -- we have met the players before and there are no new worlds of wonder -- it nonetheless invests moviegoing with a sense of adventure.

The Belgian directing brothers deal with themes they have made their own: the difficulty of being moral in an amoral world and the grinding, unforgiving nature of reality for those forced by poverty to live on the margins of society. These are not easy films to experience, but they are uncompromising and unforgettable.

All in all, Jane Fonda in Five Acts proves a captivating, extremely well-told and crafted, decidedly fitting tribute to a Hollywood legend, fighter and survivor who just might surprise us one day with a “sixth act.”