It's an antidote to complacency. The question is, whom is it trying to wake up?

The beginning is awkwardly earnest, but the play matures considerably while retaining its youthful energy and enthusiasm

In this visually and emotionally severe landscape, Reichardt has created the sort of film that will inspire grad students to write passionate thesis papers - and casual moviegoers to feel as lost as her would-be settlers.

One of the most extraordinary films you’ll see this year.

A film that is both deceptively modest and deeply resonant.

Explores the comparatively enlightened Berlin culture that had allowed homosexuality to flourish in intellectual and social circles before the Nazis forcibly changed the national mind-set.

How dangerous it is to be a woman in Iran, especially one going against the wishes of her menfolk, is brought home time after time in these related vignettes.

The real revelation of Sound and Fury is how it introduces hearing people to a culture they insist on ignoring.

This sensitive drama will appeal to anyone who has strained against the confines of family - or basked happily in its comforts.

The nearly three-hour runtime, though, may be one of the film's biggest hurdles. But the time seems necessary for a story that adds more layers the further we're taken down the rabbit hole.

It's a stunner.

Though overly self-conscious, this "Tale" is nonetheless wry, observant and frequently heartbreaking. It's also bound to make you feel better about your own holiday plans.

The story's fractured structure - and Christopher Doyle's dreamlike cinematography - make for a striking mood piece.

When boy meets girl in Steven Soderbergh's jaunty, sexy Out of Sight, it happens with a bang.

And oh, what stories these heroes have to tell - and what incredible sights they brought back with them.

Director Lee Chang-dong's soulful, affecting film is as quiet as a tomb and has a disturbing, critical underside that's hard to shake off.

Cuarón relies on his ample visual style, and he has indeed created a film you cannot tear your eyes away from.

Smith's gleeful, touching documentary records the agony and the ecstasy of realizing your dream, and intangible ways that such dreams help keep people alive.

A solid delight, the sort of cinematic concoction you might expect from a time-warp collaboration between Preston Sturges and Jim Jarmusch.

Though not as impactful as Anderson's strongest works - including its adolescent cousin, "Rushmore" - "Kingdom" unfolds with an asymmetrical lyricism of its own.

Some of the artists appear ecstatically transported as they play. Others are just having one hell of a good time. Believe me, it's contagious.

In addition to the strong script, the ensemble performances are topnotch, with no one hogging the limelight.

One of the best things about Michael Apted's uniquely ambitious and continuing documentary series on the lives of a group of British schoolchildren is that you don't have to have seen the last one to enjoy the next.

A tart, funny and tremendously sobering movie about the deepest recesses of personal unhappiness.

Writer-director Danis Tanovic, a Bosnian who spent years documenting his homeland's turmoil, makes a bold feature-film debut with this funny, sobering message movie.

The sunny, funny, toe-tapping Lagaan is the answer to those who ask why they don't make movies like they used to: They do, but in India.

May be the year's most derivative film, but it's also the most original.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the best film therapy one can recommend.

Kubrick leaves himself wide open to ridicule from the minute he picks up Dr. Floyd’s space investigation of the mysterious monolith...The setting is a technical marvel, but advertising plugs make it a super-commercial and destroy its impact.

Sauper captures a world in which life and death are treated with equal practicality - and disregard. His camera is unflinching; your gaze may not be quite so steady.

Haneke's superb cast provide beautifully measured hints at the disconnect between the ribbon's symbolism and the entire town's unspoken atrocities.

Clever as it is, Blood Simple is derivative and self-consciously stylized.

Trier's voice and vision, are thrillingly unique. His ever-searching camera, which never stops moving, takes us into places we've never been, know too well and won't soon forget.

Early on, it seems that The Witch is tapping a higher metaphor for coming of age...or religious intolerance...or man's uneasy balance with nature...or something. It doesn't take long into the film's hour and a half running time, however, to break that spell.

Gordon-Levitt is flinty, and Willis, on his A-game, is fiery. Together, they take us on a helluva trip.

The tale is layered and lovely, although talk about the real self, eternity and death will stun the adults in the audience.

It's not the best of von Trier, but the movie is shot in an unforgettable, haunting style that evokes both Bergman and the silent era.

Features some of the year's most beautiful scenery and two of its most wooden characters.

A little miracle, Azazel Jacobs' lovely story of a life lost and found tackles big issues -love, maturity, fulfillment - in deceptively modest fashion.

For a black comedy whose tangled sequence of events is completely improbable, Pedro Almodóvar's Volver feels absolutely authentic. So, think of everything as metaphor and enjoy one of the year's most delectably twisted treats.

The historically essential document they’ve created here pulses with an immediacy that will leave you simultaneously enlightened and stunned.

Payne's observational humor and attention to detail yield something emotionally epic. Everything from beachfront jogs to hospital confessions reveals layers of humanity and absurdity.

It's rather confusing. But in the context of this wildly imaginative movie, it's all, rather exciting, too.

Long stretches go by without dialogue or discernible action. But there are significant rewards for those willing to accept the movie's deliberate pace.

The film features plenty of elements that seem familiar from previous cinematic dystopian visions — class warfare, decrepit living, a feeling of terminal velocity — yet you can’t help but admire director Bong Joon-ho’s high-wire act.

Is it possible to enjoy the company of the world's most irritating woman? Mike Leigh's surprisingly sunny dramedy makes a pretty good case that, in fact, it is.

With a respectfully committed cast, gorgeous scenery and two sad-eyed leads that will break your heart (the kid and the dog are equally adorable), this is clearly not your typical family film. Which will make it that much more appealing to every member of your family.

An adorable, infectious work of true sophistication.

Once in a great while there's a movie that's so funny, infectious and welcoming - a movie that makes you feel so good about America and the people in it - you just want to climb inside the screen and live there. That's the case with Dave Chappelle's Block Party - part comedy, part concert film, part avant-garde experiment, and all of it a joy.

This powerful, compact trilogy speaks volumes about women in Iran.

The film is at its most compelling when the witnesses are telling their stories, and at its least in covering Pinochet's circuitous legal route to Britain's House of Lords.

The movie adds nothing to the political dialogue, and the love story is mood-killingly sad. The lure of the exotic can be deceptive, it says. The moody, murky atmosphere leaves nothing clear except that mixed intentions will always yield mixed results.

It never ever falls into painting him as a victim of anything but his own hubris, neurosis and psycho-sexual issues. Never once do we hear Weiner complain about anything except how easy it is for headline writers to make fun of his name. He knows who got him into all this trouble — himself — which is also refreshing to watch.

Visually arresting and deeply disheartening, James Longley's impressionistic documentary explores the pain of a shattered country by homing in on a few tiny shards.

The white-knuckle center of the movie is Sean Penn, who gives an utterly raw performance as Jimmy, father of the dead girl. It's one of the few times that a parent's grief has felt real on the screen through all its ugly permutations.

The new movie truly passes the torch by making the next generation of Resistance heroes — Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac) and new addition, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) — every bit as compelling as the old guard. Even more surprising, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) evolves from the whiny brat in “The Force Awakens” to a three-dimensional menace.

Andrew Bujalski's considerable gifts begin with his deep appreciation of the miserable, hilarious awkwardness of real life.

Funny gem.

Wiseman films it all without comment, letting the rhythm of the place tell the story.

Gyllenhaal is charming and makes unexpected choices in her performance, but this is Bridges' show, and he's as Best Actor-worthy as he's ever been.

A droll gem that celebrates movie love with feeling and deadpan humor.

Director William Friedkin, with his scrupulous attention to detail, his determination to convey a sense of realism, achieves such startling effects that one comes away almost completely convinced of the possibility of demonic possession. His movie rushes headlong towards a blood-curling climax (the actual rite of exorcism), a series of scenes so powerful it leaves the audience limp and exhausted.

Bar-Lev has created a film remarkable in its ability to capture both the worst and best of human nature.

Although Voyages is mapped with anguish and fear, director Emmanuel Finkiel's characters are survivors, and he never lets us forget it.

Streep is perfect, as per usual, but the showy orchid role goes to Cage in an Oscar-worthy tour de force. He pours his body into Charlie's slumped frame of mind and creates a character churning with endearing contradictions -- the unforgettable nebbish.

Kelly is superb as dancer and comedian, but a little less than that as a singer of Gershwin songs. Leslie Caron, who dances like an angel, is no beauty, according to Hollywood standards, but she is endowed with great grace and personal charm. She is an exquisite dancer. An American in Paris, in short, is definitely a picture to see.

Kechiche takes his time, allowing us to know the characters as if we live next door. But be warned: for those who come to feel like a member of the family, the unexpected end may seem strikingly unfair.

The Graduate, the erratic, jet-age film at the Coronet and Lincoln Art, has two standout performances - one from a young actor, who looks as if the worries of the world rested on his sawed-off body, and another from a director, still new to movies, whose spit and polish technique at times borders on genius.

The movie’s spell is solid, even if it doesn’t soar to the heights it could.

The result is a visual treasure that successfully blends deadpan quirkiness with a wry realism rarely seen in any film, let alone one for children.

It is to Padilha's enormous credit that he steadfastly kicks aside our own culturally imposed frames of reference, insisting that we see the truth, and the humanity, within this very real story.

One of the sharpest satires in years.

Strong stuff, compelling drama.

Rough around the edges, but effectively presents the quandary of women during the repressive religious regime.

Ale's community is like a band of pirates - collegial, bickering, larcenous and supportive - and his life within it is both heartening and heartbreaking.

There's something uniquely gratifying about watching nonprofessionals deliver totally natural performances.

An extraordinary, must-see examination of what humans do to killer whales so that these amazing creatures can become one more entertainment.

The story itself is a smooth little gem.

If only this were a media-fueled tall tale and not one poor creature's lifelong nightmare.

If he has overlooked your favorites, have faith: There’s plenty left in the trunk for that promised encore.

A perfect blend of summer action, a big movie with a deeply personal story.

Avatar clears the hurdle in terms of being optical candy. Its story, though, is pure cheese.

Kind of like all the other characters Annette Bening plays, year after year - never to nearly enough applause.

The film is best suited for dance buffs excited by an unexpected congregation of artistic pioneers.

Most crime stories are content to simply exist, wallowing in their own base violence. But David Michôd's fierce debut takes the genre apart, finding a reason for the madness that propels it.

All the actors are wonderful, including Sacha Baron Cohen as a villainous Inspector.

Using telephoto lenses to bring us close to the characters, Techine directs Wild Reeds with an impeccable sense of tempo, unhurried by narrative pressures. The actors seem to find exactly the right, internal rhythm for each scene the leisurely rhythm of people discovering each other and discovering themselves. This is certainly one of the year's best films. [30 June 1995, p.54]

As full-length toy advertisements go, you really couldn’t ask for more.

A cat's cradle of creepy childhood memory oozing unreliably from the mind of an aging, desiccated, paranoid schizophrenic, played quite amazingly by a mumbling, stooped, shifty-eyed Ralph Fiennes.

Heartbreaking and hilarious.

Drag Me to Hell is an eyeball-gouging lesson in how to make a genre flick and live to tell about it.

Both leading actors are teenagers who’ve never acted before — and they are both phenomenal.

Intimate and intellectual, the film — with a title taken from J.D. Salinger — focuses on the type of person you pass on the street, see in a coffee shop or sit next to on the subway who makes you wonder what life he’s led. One full of melody and muse, it turns out.

Not since Cary Grant offered Joan Fontaine a gleaming glass of milk has a bedtime toddy looked as suspicious as it does in Claude Chabrol's wittily enigmatic Merci pour le chocolat.

It shows that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. And how, in case we forget, every age can predict the next.

Plenty of films owe a debt to "The Godfather," but it's rare to see inspiration used as successfully as it is here.

Perhaps it's no surprise that Reitman has come out with a lovely Hollywood romance that floats buoyantly along on a sea of sadness.

The final result somehow undersells a man whose life and death were watershed moments in the gay rights movement.