Remains a remarkable, almost timeless study.

The film wouldn't work at all, though, if Sarsgaard didn't strike the perfect balance between snaky predator and love-struck fool.

Harrowing and grueling, Lebanon ends on a gentle, hopeful note.

What makes Exit Through the Gift Shop so fascinating -- and it is riveting, regardless of your interest in the art world -- is the eloquent way in which it illustrates how beauty and meaning really are in the eye of the beholder and how that eternal phrase still holds true: There's a sucker born every minute.

A marketable counterpoint to last year’s "Boyhood."

What makes the story seem larger and more important than it is are the quality of the performances -- uniformly first-rate -- and the deftness of the director, Neil Jordan, for opposing the several cultures and thereby causing a clash. [8 Aug 1986, p.D1]

Knocked Up is filled with comic exchanges and bits of business that, while not essential to the central plot, keep the movie's comedic energy chugging (like Debbie's throwdown with a doorman at a popular nightclub who won't let her in because she's too old).

By the end, Turtles Can Fly becomes a lyrical and heartbreaking reminder of the human toll of war.

This is the most vibrant, exciting and invigorating movie-movie of the year.

This delicate, transporting movie, which keeps dialogue to a minimum to tell its story primarily through images, is also a triumph of sheer cinematic craft that mirrors its characters' contemplative natures while extolling the virtues of lives simply led.

A hard and hilariously ironic look at the bottom line. As it turns out, love was not all you needed; hard cash came in handy, too.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the anti-Bourne of espionage movies, a deliberate, cerebral, grim and utterly absorbing film that makes covert operations appear as unsexy as the Bourne films made them seem fast-paced and thrilling.

When Pfeiffer is good, she's great. And when she plays bad, she's even better. [13 Oct 1989, p.G4]

A big, bold movie that gets at undeniable truths about the way no one, no matter how powerful, is immune from manipulation.

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.

If you found "Crouching Tiger" a stunning bore, you probably won't fall under Hero's spell. But the rest of us, well, we'll be more than happy to savor every moment of its strange, ravishing beauty.

There's a lot more at work in this raucously entertaining movie than cross-dressing clichés.

Holy Motors is wild and unfettered and playful - the work of an artist who carries his love of cinema in his bones, and knows how to share that affection with the audience.

The Dark Knight is dark, all right: It's a luxurious nightmare disguised in a superhero costume, and it's proof that popcorn entertainments don't have to talk down to their audiences in order to satisfy them. The bar for comic-book film adaptations has been permanently raised.

This is a smart, wise and compassionate movie about young people in the act of finding out who they are and not always behaving properly but never crossing the line into cruelty or crassness. If you happen to have been around during 1980, the soundtrack is just a bonus.

Unlike "A Separation", in which Iranian culture and mores played critical roles, the theme in The Past is more universal and spelled out in the title.

A strange art-house film, a must-see for punks and nightclubbers, a puzzle for the merely curious.

The interpretation is so painstaking and moving that almost every moment delivers a shuddering jolt to the head and the heart.

The movie plays out as a series of memories, so exact and evocative that watching it becomes an immersive experience.

It's Leigh's rawest, most self-indulgent film to date. At times the movie seems to go on and on, noisily spinning its wheels. There's no dramatic arc to speak of, and the scenes in his girlfriend's flat are much less involving than Johnny's street experiences... Whenever the movie lets Johnny loose to wreak his own brand of hellish emotional havoc, however, Naked seethes with primal fury. [25 Feb. 1994, p.G5]

Although it strikes a perfect balance between otherworldly, slimy menace and 1950s B-movie cheesiness, The Host's computer-generated mutant isn't what makes this frantic, wild picture so much fun.

Restrepo makes time to observe these men during brief off-duty stints -- at one point four use an iPod to form an impromptu, joyous dance party -- but the bulk of the film centers on their insanely dangerous and heroic work.

The kind of uplifting film families can enjoy without any reservations.