It is an important, thoroughly bewitching work of art.

It's impossible to conceive of this ruefully funny entertainment without Bill Murray, who is nothing less than brilliant.

At first, it seems stagy and slow and even to verge on the pretentious, but the film steadily accumulates dramatic power as its carefully sketched characters reveal their internal lives. By its end, After Life has developed into one of those haunting movies whose scenes can pop back into your consciousness hours or days after you have seen it. [12 May 1999, p.56]

Yet while Nemes criticized “Schindler’s List” as “conventional,” all that’s new here is the hyper-realistic technique: Saul’s quest is not very far from the girl in the red dress.

Jonze seems to be heading for a far quirkier ending than the one he actually delivers, but he does tap into the zeitgeist with his unlikely romantic fable.

This Little Women is two-odd hours of good cheer and lovely ensemble performances. It’s a warm fireplace hearth of a film, albeit one with a tendency to spit out fiery embers.

Chomet's wacky tale is so crammed full of eye-popping images, it's impossible to forget afterward.

The various witnesses tell contradictory tales that turn this into a real-life “Rashomon." The fact that two of the principals — Sarah and Michael, who delivers touching and eloquent on-camera narration that he wrote himself — are accomplished actors adds another level of confusion and interest that help make this compelling storytelling.

“Heron” is not as perfect as some of Miyazaki’s past movies. The trippy story is dizzying by the end as too many characters are introduced too late and we navigate a thicket of hastily explained narrative elements. But it nonetheless leaves a powerful emotional effect if you let it wash over you.

Often extremely funny, always thoughtful, the movie transcends its static nature to become a deeper picture of modern Iran than any news story could offer.

Both actresses are extraordinary, but Kulesza — bitter, sarcastic and tragic — carries the movie’s soul.

So minimalist in characterization and dialogue that the plot all but evaporates -- and so does any dramatic power.

Haunting is the best word for Waltz With Bashir, a striking animated documentary - not an oxy moron, despite how it sounds - from Israel.

Endlessly entertaining and frequently hysterical, “Anora” is one of the year’s best films and a formidable Oscar contender.

The performance everybody will be soon talking about is Olivia Colman’s royal turn in the entrancing new drama, The Favourite.

As hip, funny and truthful a sleeper as has ever flown under Tinseltown's radar.

Basically, Katharine Hepburn could do no wrong, and with Cary Grant, the ultimate screen actor, you've got an instant classic. Screwball comedy is one of the hardest to bring off, and director Howard Hawks realized that you have to play real to make it succeed. [12 July 1998, p.30]

The filmmaker doesn't speculate about why these men are talking, but he leaves you with an excellent guess.

To say I was never bored wouldn’t be quite right. Rather, I was always transfixed.

Chance encounters and fated love are the stuff of fairy tales, which is what makes the deliriously romantic sequel Before Sunset a small miracle.

A film of such cyclonic visual and emotional power, of such dazzling virtuosity and shattering humanity, that it is difficult to endure, yet alone describe. Savagely beautiful and savagely true, Saving Private Ryan is an excruciating masterpiece.

It was always going to be an emotional experience watching the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman make his acting debut. His father, an Oscar-winning genius, died in 2014...What we never could have imagined, though, is that Cooper’s freshman performance (he’s so green, his IMDB page doesn’t have a photo yet) would be one of the best of the year in what is easily the best film of 2021, Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant Licorice Pizza. This wonderful kid should be in the Oscar race, but we’re too predictably infatuated with big names. Let’s fix that.

This spectacularly great reboot is surprisingly owned not by Hardy, who is fine, but by Charlize Theron.

The main reason for Winter's Bone to exist is that it delivers a little voyeuristic thrill -- a bit of poverty porno -- for the critics who awarded it their highest honors at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

All hail the great Helen Mirren, who after her triumph in HBO's "Elizabeth," delivers the performance of a lifetime as that monarch's frumpy, 20th century namesake in Stephen Frear's witty, touching and engrossing The Queen.

As Viviane, Elkabetz is fascinating, wielding an incredible variety of contemptuous looks.

An astonishing re-creation of the Londonderry massacre of January 1972.

Mostly a routine love story elevated by one of the year’s most magnetic performances.