From Russia with Love, the second of the Bonds, remains one of the best. It finds Sean Connery's 007 going up against a diabolical Lotte Lenya and a psychopathic bleached blond, Robert Shaw. All the usual ingredients have been blended in just the right proportions under Terence Young's direction. [10 Apr 1988, p.2]

Even if the story of a widower (the great Chishû Ryû) and his daughter weren’t such a naturally compelling variation on Ozu’s themes of family, devotion and sacrifice, the exquisite balance of hues and textures in every shot would render it essential viewing.

Glaciers might be melting, the polar caps might be crumbling, but not even the passage of half a century has taken the frozen edge off this brilliantly icy film.

A terrific campy wallow from 1964 starring Bette Davis as twins. And double the Davis means double the fun. [08 Aug 2004, p.E14]

After suffering through two screenings of Dr. Strangelove, I would sooner drink hemlock.... To me, Dr. Strangelove is an evil thing about an evil thing; you will have to make up your own mind about it.

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]

Structurally, High and Low, which is remarkable in many ways--the camera work alone could serve as a primer in film technique--is quite a departure for Kurosawa.

There are plenty of brawls -- the stars end up in a mud pit and O'Hara runs through the town in her undergarments with Wayne on the case -- along with romance and fun. McLintock! certainly isn't subtle, but it was and is one of Wayne's most popular vehicles. [09 Oct 2005, p.E13]

Polanski over-thinks much of this film -- in the same ways that many of us may over-think the details at these moments. He reaches for a psychological instead of an active tone. But the movie still has a taut and creepy impact, like a bug crawling up your arm. [25 Oct 1991, p.F29]

Tom Jones is a product of the excesses as well as the experimentalism of its time: Some of the style quirks are just silly, and there's a tiresome nudge-nudge, wink-wink quality to much of the humor. It's well worth a repeat visit, though. [25 Oct 1989, p.F11]

Norman Jewison directed, but overall it's surprisingly labored, with that cheesy, set-bound look of a lot of many early '60s Universal pictures. [25 Mar 1988, p.22]

One of the most entertaining escape movies ever made, a rousing 1963 big-scale production directed by John Sturges and written by James Clavell. [12 May 1991, p.4]

A minor but enjoyable romp. [03 Mar 1991, p.66]

It's pure soap opera, but the race sequences are pretty impressive. [19 Sep 2007, p.E6]

A rare Williams comedy, this featherweight 1962 version, directed by George Roy Hill, is made palatable by the performances of Jane Fonda and Jim Hutton as newlyweds. [27 Apr 2003, p.29]

The Manchurian Candidate proves that its fascination is intact. [12 Jan 1998, p.C1; Re-Release]

Arguably one of the best translations to film of any Broadway musical. [15 Nov 1991, p.F26]

Lolita may be a flawed adaptation, but it's still a great movie. While the film fails to capture the compulsive, microscopically detailed obsession of Nabokov's antihero, Humbert Humbert, it does explore (sometimes shockingly, even now) a kind of sexual destruction in frank (and often hilarious) ways. [30 Jan 1992, p.11]

The Road to Hong Kong was the last of the Hope-Crosby "Road" pictures, and even though a lot stiffer in the joints than the others, well worth watching -- especially for Peter Sellers' wacky scene. [07 Dec 1990, p.F20]

Despite studio indifference, this was perhaps the one time in his career Sam Peckinpah enjoyed an uncomplicated, nearly universal critical response: The movie was instantly hailed as a modern Western classic. [18 May 1997, p.81]

Just like the play, the first half is a delicious, hotel-room-set duel of desperate characters, while the second half goes awry. [01 Dec 1989, p.F18]

Saucy, sophisticated 1961 comedy. [26 Apr 1996, p.F22]

One of the scariest films ever made. Deborah Kerr gives one of her greatest performances as a rather high-strung governess. [15 Aug 2003, p.18]

It's an ode to heroism, idealism and romance that still sweeps us away.

I daresay most spectators will also find the pull of this film irresistible. The — hardest — problem faced by its adapters must have been one of intangibles — how to make an essentially ballet-opera form believable as realistic cinema — and they have all but licked it. West Side Story never quite shakes off an aura of pretentiousness but its portentousness is stronger and that is all to the good.

Its reflection of the Westerns makes it more accessible to an American audience than some of his other movies and, although his characters have complicated moral shadings typical of Kurosawa films, Yojimbo can be enjoyed on a surface level. The simple plot moves and carries you along. [11 Apr 1991, p.13]

A silly action-adventure written and directed by the master of movie disasters, Irwin Allen. It stars a stiff Walter Pidgeon as the admiral of a U.S. nuclear submarine whose mission is to save the Earth from the Van Allen radiation belt that has caught on fire. [24 Jul 2002, p.2]

A charming comedy, liberally laced with slapstick. [26 Dec 1986, p.27]