The highest praise I can give a superhero movie is that it makes me forget about its 10-cent-comic-book soul.

A fulsomely, aggressively modest no-star picture, it’s a plotless, pointless two-hour hangout.

If The Past doesn’t equal the masterpiece that preceded it, it’s still an exceptional film from a man who is clearly one of the best working directors.

This wonderful party of a movie, as totally original as its hero, stamps on a smiley face that will linger for hours.

What might seem like showing off in another movie is dazzling storytelling here, packing in an hour's worth of human misery.

For all its flaws, The Tree of Life is a stunning exception to the rule that you can safely check your brain at the popcorn counter until after Labor Day. That's enough to place it among the year's best movies, or at least most-talked-about ones.

It’s gripping, visually mesmeric, boasts an exceptional, grounded script by Tony Kushner and is acted to the hilt.

A fantastical genre-buster.

A gut-wrenching, politically neutral documentary that spends more than a year with a platoon of American GIs in a valley that's been called the most dangerous spot on Earth.

In most respects, The Iron Giant is one of the better animated children's films in recent memory, which makes its strident political correctness all the more frustrating.

Basically canned musical theater, but this is one Tony-winning Broadway show that's well worth preserving and seeing.

A Western, but any similarities between it and, say, a Gene Autry or Hopalong Cassidy shoot-em-up are nonexistent.

The film, then, places a heavy hand on the scales of justice as it winds up with a fuzzy plea — an implied demand for a second, federal civil rights trial for the cop, who got a light sentence. But the shooting wasn’t a racist one.

As Kym, Hathaway runs an astonishing gamut of emotions, from anger to fragility and from hurt to regret - without ever seeming actress-y, like Nicole Kidman. Start clearing that mantelpiece, Anne.

A worthy addition to the growing canon of Holocaust documentaries.

This film is fighting the good fight, albeit in a rather heavy-handed way.

Extremely well-made (and evenhanded) film.

The best actress currently on New York screens is Esther Gorintin, a 90-year-old Pole who provides the emotional center for Julie Bertucelli's delicate, bittersweet comedy-drama, Since Otar Left, which is set in Paris and Tbilisi.

Four stars simply aren't enough for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, which just may be the most entertaining movie I've ever labeled a masterpiece in these pages.

Darkly hilarious, brilliantly acted.

It's a stirring reminder of a time when anything seemed possible - these American heroes boosted morale eroded by the Vietnam War, as well as bringing the whole world together to celebrate their success.

Director Lee Chang-dong could well have cut 30 minutes out of the story, but Jeon's performance is powerful enough to keep Secret Sunshine from drowning in an ocean of tears.

Director Alfonso Cuarón has a vision so mesmerizingly terrible that it alone - at least, for those who enjoy a gorgeous nightmare - is reason enough to see the film.

Beyond simply embodying the quirks and look of a historical figure, Kaluuya’s passion makes you believe the masses would actually follow him.

The coincidences might be too much for some, but viewers who can get past them will be treated to a suspenseful, well-acted, crisply photographed character study.

Frequently hilarious, if overlong.

Brilliantly idiosyncratic.

I think what Tarantino is going for is brazenly manipulating historical events to suit his style, and turning a well-worn genre on its head. But in so doing he’s made an everything bagel of a movie: Part satire, part bear hug, part fictional bromance.