Brave has a manic, almost daffy energy and sense of humor.

Tom Hooper's terrific, Oscar-worthy film is not merely a spot-on period piece; it's also a heartfelt study in the shadings of courage, a film about duty and friendship that's often warmly funny and sometimes painful to watch.

Up in the Air is also optimistic about the perpetual themes that preoccupy so many movies that endure the test of time: Life is better with company. And everybody needs a co-pilot.

The film is precious and adorable, but it isn't naïve, and the movie breathes so deep that Anderson even gets a real performance out of Willis (this is his best work in years).

In The Act of Killing, director Joshua Oppenheimer pulls off the impossible: He confronts great, incomprehensible evil and puts a human face on it.

Like every war before it, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has generated its share of movies. But The Hurt Locker is the first of them that can properly be called a masterpiece.

Richly enjoyable on its own terms: modest, funny and sad. It is Woody Allen at the top of his art. [28 Jan 1984, p.D1]

The movie, shot in lovely, grainy 16mm by cinematographer Ed Lachman, is so elegantly staged you can practically smell the characters’ perfume. Haynes’ direction is methodical and precise without being fussy or oppressive. Every detail has been weighed and considered.

Although it is technically a sequel, Before Sunset stands perfectly well on its own. In fact, the new movie plays better if you haven't seen the original for a while, so its details have grown appropriately fuzzy.

A visually thrilling experience.

The Straight Story truly is one from the heart, and it is wonderful.

Ever the satirist, Payne mines humor from his characters, be it Randall's cockeyed pyramid-scheme ideas or the banality of a ridiculous wedding toast.

Feels like a miracle, a movie that exceeds even the most formidable expectations without straying from its singular path. All hail this King.

Basterds isn't so revolutionary or so finely crafted as "Pulp Fiction" was, but it crackles with the same energy and imagination and chutzpah.

Inside Llewyn Davis is one of the Coens’ smallest movies — this one doesn't have the broad appeal of "True Grit" or "No Country For Old Men" — but like Llewyn’s music, it comes from the heart and it is deeply felt. It is also one of their best.

The movie itself is a nominee for Best Animated Feature, and it's good enough to pull a surprise upset over the beloved Finding Nemo. It's a mad masterpiece.

But this is also his funniest, nimblest picture: There are long stretches in it that could pass for a comedy.

A best picture Oscar winner, and one of the finest of all American films. [04 Aug 1989, p.37]

With compassion, a touch of melancholy and a sense of wonder, Brooklyn reveals the profound truths in a simple, familiar story, ending on a note that’s achingly bittersweet, no matter where you’re from.

The movie has such a profound and compassionate understanding of human behavior, family ties and the way ordinary people respond when they're forced into a moral quandary, I can't imagine anyone not being transfixed by it.

Sometimes, the simplest, smallest things require the greatest courage. Moonlight is Miami’s first bonafide movie masterpiece.

It's the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat their tale's darker subtexts that makes Finding Nemo such a resounding piece of storytelling.

Spotlight is simply a great story exceedingly well told, through characters whose fingers are perpetually stained with ink.

One of the most searing experiences to be had at the movies this year.

Spike Lee is one of a handful of great filmmakers working in mainstream movies today, and he has a moral vision that is pure and simply uplifting. See his movie. See it often. [7 June 1991, p.G5]

A thoughtful, audacious meditation on love and relationships that finds a group of wildly disparate talents clicking together in perfect unison.

It's so rare to be swept away by a presentation of this magnitude. By all means, go.

A truly great and deceptively simple work, redefining the power of film.