The most gripping based-on-fact film so far this year.

This year’s foreign language Oscar scandal – there is always at least one – is the snub of director Cristian Mungiu’s disturbing, masterful realist drama following two college roommates as they carry out plans for one’s black market abortion in Communist Romania.

The movie is set in a gloriously creepy and crumbling Venice. It's the off-season, and every deserted canal and alleyway reeks of bad vibes. Roeg plays masterfully with this menacing atmosphere, jangling the nerves with quick cuts and quixotic possibilities. [16 Oct 1998, p.72]

If you've had a hole in your heart since "Everybody Loves Raymond" ended, Tom Caltabiano's low-key documentary about star Ray Romano ought to fill the gap nicely.

In the year of the animated movie, this one soars above them all.

If you don’t love monkeys already — and really, we all should — then Monkey Kingdom will swing you in the right direction.

Spielberg's direction and Melissa Mathison's script never lose sight of the realistic, low center of gravity world of childhood, in which such marvelous adventures happen every day that an alien knocking around the garage is not really such an unusual occurrence. [2002 re-release]

A great big sloppy kiss of entertainment for audiences weary of explosions, CGI effects and sequels, sequels, sequels.

While the vocal performances of Hanks, Allen and company make up a perfect ensemble, and its visual leaps astound, TS3's real power sneaks up on you.

Director Werner Herzog's latest cinematic mind trip blows you away with its beauty.

The suspense of the story is magnificently sustained throughout the film, which didn't surprise us, as maintaining suspense in a story has always been Director Hitchcock's forte

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

Handsome, passionate and fun. It's everything we go to the movies for.

The result is a stunningly nervy sequel that vaporizes any worries that Abrams’ terrific 2009 reboot was a fluke.

The film slowly, slowly blossoms into an emotional wildflower by the end, leaving us with a scene that is kind of spontaneous road baptism, an unsure note of spiritual birth.

Though Borat has been likened to "Jackass," there's a huge difference. The "Jackass" movies are about extreme stunts. Borat is about interaction and gullibility, and its success is unique to both Cohen and to this one-time-only movie.

Remains funnier than almost any comedy made in this generation. And since we are, once again, embarked in global warfare, it's as timely as it has ever been. [24 Apr 2004, p.67]

Perfectly delightful screen entertainment. The film is as charming as it is novel in conception and execution and it is so bound to appeal as strongly to grown-ups as to youngsters.

Every moment feels human and true, from the naive optimism of the trip's sendoff to its unsparingly realistic conclusion, which trades reckless hope for quiet honor.

Borderline brilliant. Tackles the war on drugs from a kaleidoscope of perspectives.

In this picture, the screen’s greatest dancer contributes some of his art of choreography for the special pleasure of movie audiences.

Outstanding performances are turned in by Karl Malden in the role of a priest who makes the waterfront characters his particular charge, by Lee J. Cobb, as the big bully who bosses the boys, by Rod Steiger, John Hamilton and a couple of well-known pugilists, Tony Galento and Tami Mauriello.

Inside Out is the year’s best film so far. After you see it, you’ll say that’s a no-brainer.

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.

One of the most original and ultimately confounding mind games to reach the screen since "The Usual Suspects."

It's action-packed, darker, more epic and thankfully schmaltz-free. And it's the best "Harry Potter" film yet.

Most impressive of all, The Avengers makes superhero movies new again - a colossal task indeed.

Mary's search drives The Tillman Story, and throughout this taut, true epic, we see a smart, sometimes angry, always loving family find their destiny: to speak truth to power, to call wartime myths what they are and to show how the American character is not about blind obedience.

Among the ties with the past, the opening portion introduces a comic orgy that is deliberate parallel cantina scene in “Star Wars” and among the new thrills there is an airborne vehicle chase through a forest, projected at a speed to leave audiences dizzy.

Brilliant. [24 December 1997, p. 24]

Welles displays touches of genius in the handling of his story. His cast, made up of players from his Mercury Theatre group, respond like sensitive musicians to the movements of the conductor’s baton.

Director Matt Reeves (who also made the much rawer "Cloverfield") so deeply understands the nature of childhood terror that Let Me In burns with a white-hot clarity.

The battle it documents is both a cornerstone of the past and a reflection of ongoing struggles. DuVernay infuses Selma with that dichotomy, never forgetting how Selma, the place, was a pledge to march ahead.

The best comedy of 2004. In fact, it's so far the best movie of the year.

With its agile, clever script and winning characters, Toy Story 2 is that rare thing -- an excellent children's movie with no upper age limit.

It took the German restorers four years to ready this print using dupe negatives and old prints found in archives around the world. Their work speaks for itself. Each frame of this classic is drop-dead stunning, the more so now that the movie no longer hiccups its way across the screen.

Levinson is so skillful at developing personalities, even among the story's would-be villains, that by the halfway point of the movie, every gesture and expression has unexpected depth and texture. The performances are across-the-board superb.

Chandor (“All is Lost”) has made a movie that quietly but ferociously immerses us in a time and place, with atmosphere done in minimal yet evocative strokes.

A thrill ride with a brain.

All About Eve is not only a brilliant and clever portrait of an actress, it is a downright funny film, from its opening scene to the final fadeout.

Director Thomas Vinterberg’s romantic rollercoaster honors Hardy’s rustic vibe. Remarkably, too, he’s made a thoroughly modern film anyone can relate to — it’s like a “what a woman wants” discussion set in Victorian times. It’s also an instant classic.

It's an uplifting movie about the rewards of perseverance and community.

Winter Sleep won’t appeal to action lovers, but if you like endless verbal warfare, this is a joy.

A gripping thriller whose terror -- unfortunately -- comes from real life.

The fear, desperation and hope of Time Out of Mind is painfully, hauntingly human.

The obvious thing to say is that Hitch has done it again; that the suspense of his picture builds up slowly but surely to an almost unbearable pitch of excitement. Psycho is a murder mystery. It isn’t Hitchcock’s usual terrifier, a shocker of the nervous system; it’s a mind-teaser.

Chariots of Fire reasserts the importance of the so-called old-fashioned virtues of moral courage and personal integrity and, as such, it is a movie that, with the help of Vangelis Papathanassiou’s wonderfully stirring music, lifts the spirits to a new high. The actors seem to have been born to play their roles.

An adorable, infectious work of true sophistication.

Walt Disney has waved his magic wand over Collodi's world-famous fairy story, Pinocchio, and presto! he has changed it into the most enchanting film ever brought to the screen.

The biggest little movie of the year - and one of the best ever about the news media.

A movie-movie of the first rank.

The best part is that unlike “Lost,” “Battlestar Galactica” and “The Sopranos,” you won't be left scratching your head about the thrilling, completely satisfying ending.

This audience-pleaser is smart and acerbic. Jaoui has an uncanny ear - as director, co-writer and part of the inspired ensemble cast - for human foibles, self-deception, celebrity worship and female body issues.

McQueen has made a film comparable to “Schindler’s List” — art that may be hard to watch, but which is an essential look at man’s inhumanity to man. It is wrenching, but 12 Years a Slave earns its tears in a way few films ever do.

A work deeper than its nickname, "The Facebook Movie," hints at - coils around your brain. Weeks after seeing it, moments from it will haunt you.

What you'll remember most will be Renner's remarkably complex commander. By the time we finally figure him out, it's become clear we've witnessed a star-making performance, in a movie that deserves to stand as one of the defining films of the decade.

A generation-spanning journey that feels both comfortingly familiar and excitingly original.

This stunning work by Iran's leading film maker, Abbas Kiarostami, won the grand prize at last year's Cannes festival. Open and simple in its visual style, the film takes place largely in real time, giving it a firmly anchored sense of reality to set against its abstract philosophical concerns. The atmosphere is calm, yet the film is mysteriously, powerfully affirmative. [20 March 1998, p.60]

It leaves the port of enterprise and arrives on the far shore of art.

It has comedy, drama, thrills, melodrama, tragedy and great heart. [11 Jan 1952, p.54]

One of the most skillful, mesmerizing, tense and satisfying time-warp thrillers ever made.

The incredibly moving post-9/11 drama Reign Over Me proves that behind the funny guy facades of former standup comedians Mike Binder and Adam Sandler are a pair of very serious talents.

May be the best movie of the year.

It is a picture that will charm the young and tickle adults, since the old fairy tale has been transferred to the screen by a Disney who kept his tongue in his cheek throughout the film's animation. It is a beautiful and amusing cartoon.

The Godfather PART II is the most ambitious American movie in terms of size and scope in recent memory. It goes much deeper than “The Godfather” in analyzing the twisted mentalities of these men who pervert the capitalist system for their own gain. The film is richer in texture and gives more evidence of social awareness.

Film makers Barak Goodman and Daniel Anker dig deep into the story and its ramifications, exposing how the twin evils of racism and anti-Semitism combined to foment institutional injustice, and led — if a silver lining could be found — to the triumphs of the civil-rights movement two and three decades later.

In the end, it's a sweeping, important film that overturns everything you learned in school about the birth of this nation.

King Kong, as spectacular a bolt of celluloid as has thrilled audiences in a couple of sophisticated seasons, is the product of a number of vivid imaginations...We've got to admit that there's a certain tenseness about King Kong which defies you to glance away from the screen before the entire tale is told. It fascinates, to be sure.

The most emotionally satisfying because, in addition to having both more intimate drama and more spectacular battles, it resolves all of the issues raised before.

It is a stunningly effective thriller, as cleverly engineered by director Steven Spielberg (with considerable assist from film editor, Verna Fields) as the mechanical sharks that everyone knows by now play the great white shark.

It's phenomenal! A rare case in film history that a series projecting the same character, with the same star, improves as it goes along. The James Bond movies do. The first, "Dr. No," was good; the second, "From Russia With Love," was better; the best and the wildest is Goldfinger, a fun galore thriller that is one of the brightest lights of the holiday offerings on screens of De Mille and Coronet Theatres.

A gloriously, heart-rendingly beautiful, stirring picture of a generation in British family life.

Garbus spent three years patiently mining for beauty in the ugliest of environments. The remarkable result stands as a challenge to anyone who would have seen only the worst and walked right by.

As the story unreels, one can feel the warmth of the writers' and director's hearts for their subject and inspired playing of the cast.

America's favorite superhero reappears in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, and all we can say is, "Man, oh Man of Steel, it's good to have you back."

A daring, teeth-grinding experience that doesn't let the viewer rest easy.

Almodovar is adept at weaving together strands you'd never guess would match.

For sheer bravura film making, for creating a cartoon world with real air, flesh, blood and the exhilarating cycle of fear and escape, Dinosaur is tops.

An insanely delicious animated feature.

Steven Spielberg's best war film -- and one of the two or three best movies the director has made.

It's really a movie about love at first sight, about the dizzying early days of a relationship, about a passion so strong it can't be described, or denied. And that's something everyone can identify with. If they're lucky.

What a movie! This is how the medium seduced us originally.

Halfway into Blue Valentine, a work so beautifully acted and emotionally honest it is my choice for best movie of the year, there's an amazing flashback scene you hope never ends.

Unforgiven is a high-caliber movie, a gripping and haunting work of art that should finally establish Eastwood as one of America’s best directors.

Zipper captures the erasing of one of New York’s most unique stamps by cartoon businesspeople with dollar signs for eyeballs.

The film moves at a leisurely pace at first, but it accelerates as it moves towards its exciting climax.

Peter Pan has been done in the style for which Disney is noted. It is one of his best productions and, I believe, is closer to the author's idea than any other presentation of the story, as the Disney medium is ideally adapted to the fantasy.

No wonder the vodka bottle beckons in this wrenchingly acted, remorseless modern masterpiece.

The stop-the-presses news from The House of Mirth is the number of fine performances from people you never knew had it in them.

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

When you get through it, though, you can’t help but feel uplifted by this tough-skinned movie that can stand with the best muscular wartime dramas in the American movie canon.

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

The irony is that Ebert famously lost his actual voice. Yet as the extraordinary documentary Life Itself shows, that couldn’t quiet one of America’s most beloved critics and cultural commentators.

This summer's best popcorn flick.

Washington can bank on an Oscar nomination for the most forceful work of his career.

Despite being about a royal family at a critical moment in history, The King's Speech doesn't shout about its many strengths. Rather, it urges you to lean in close, where its intelligence and heart come through loud and clear.

Each and every performer in the screened Grand Hotel does a remarkable piece of work. To us, Garbo is the supreme of magnificence.

There are moments when it seems Allen’s comic muse has temporarily deserted him - but it has been replaced by something much greater. Annie Hall touches the heart.