It's a swirling, fluid retelling of the tale that packs an impressive cargo of laughs, thrills and wonders into a watertight 88 minutes.

This one's done right. Here's an intelligent movie with no special effects. You have to pay close attention, to listen hard to its cross-fires of dialogue.

Wise Blood, a virulently comic, grotesquely unforgettable adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's celebrated novel of customized redneck religion and redemption, is as strange and original a movie as Huston has ever made. [17 Mar 1980, p.101]

This wonderful, one-of-a-kind movie hops from Taiwan to France, from tragedy to deadpan comedy and, in its mysterious conclusion, from the worldly to the otherworldly.

Lehmann isn't in perfect control - the movie gets off to a flat-footed start, and the conclusion is chaotic - but when Heathers hits its stride, it reaches wild and original comic heights. [2 April 1989]

Splendid film...Just as the recent "Chariots of Fire" did, Robert Towne's Personal Best takes the world of track and field as a microcosm for the ecstasies and pains of self-striving. And it dares, with great delicacy and insight, to show a loving sexual relationship between two young women, not as a statement about homosexuality but as a paradigm of authentic human intimacy. [8 Feb 1982, p.60]

Zaillian tells it with warmth, humor and zest. The cast is first-rate. Laurence Fishburne plays the rather underdeveloped role of Vinnie, Josh's other teacher, a speed-chess hustler with a more instinctive approach to the game than Pandolfini. Joan Allen is Josh's protective mother, determined to see that his childhood isn't stolen by the monastic demands of the game. Best of all is young Pomeranc, a chess whiz with no previous acting experience. [30 Aug 1993, p.52]

The Terminator is a splendid meta-monster, Frankensteined for the computer age. And Cameron devises not one, not two but, well, let's call it X climaxes that will melt the hinges of your jaws. [19 Nov 1984, p.132]

Alan J. Pakula has succeeded brilliantly in converting that outworn myth into a brand-new myth that conforms to our time. Pakula drives moral and ideological meanings straight to your nervous system by the rhythms of his imagery and editing. But Pakula is subtler, less melodramatic. Redford and Hoffman really are ordinary guys doing an ordinary job. But film shows how their tenacity, their doggedness, become under pressure much more than mere professional virtues. [05 Apr 1976, p.85]

Schygulla's heartbreaking performance--like the movie itself--will stay with you long after the film's quietly devastating final frame.

Thanks to everyone involved, the movie radiates a hundred pleasures.

This is Depp's coming-of-age role, and he's terrific. Pacino, who's shown more flash than substance recently, reminds us how great he can be when he loses himself inside a character. The bond between these two makes the film sing.

Superb moviemaking-but not exactly a superb movie. It's probably as good a screen adaptation (written by David Hare) of Hart's swank tale of tragic obsession as is possible. On every technical level-editing, scoring, cinematography, production design and costumes-the work is impeccable. And it's brilliantly acted.

A Cry in the Dark is no mere courtroom drama. Schepisi turns this tabloid story into a kind of splintered epic, a scathing portrait of Australian provincialism and prejudice at its most virulent. [16 Nov 1988, p.86C]

Hilariously odd and prodigiously inventive.

Movie purists will tell you that a heavy reliance on voice-over is a sin (“show, don’t tell”), but when the words are this funny, to hell with purity.

Ferrell is a hoot. So is much of this witty holiday family entertainment, which, up until the end, when the “true spirit of Christmas” must be reaffirmed, happily favors slapstick over treacle.

Almost certainly Joplin's friends, associates and many of her old fans will accuse The Rose of distortion, sentimentality, vulgarization andother crimes. They will not be entirely wrong, and yet Mark Rydell's film has a certain coarse, splashy integrity. And it has a remarkable, going-all-the-way performance by Bette Midler in her first movie. [12 Nov 1979, p.107]

As breezy and charming an entertainment as any barnyard ever produced. [6 July 1981, p.75]

This unpretentious, affectionate biography of the horn-rimmed Texas boy who changed the course of rock 'n' roll is a real movie, with a firm grasp on its characters, an honest-to-god plot and an old-fashioned heart. [26 June 1978, p.79]

Fascinating but repetitious, Better Living Through Circuitry nevertheless does a good job describing the scene.

Everyone will be tickled pink by this sleek Mike Nichols remake.

Eating Raoul is only one of the many outrageous things that Paul and Mary Bland do in this outrageous black comedy that's almost certain to be the up-from-underground movie of the year. [11 Oct 1982, p.103]

The astonishing thing about Alex Cox's mesmerizing movie is that it makes no attempt to conceal how boringly self-destructive its punk lovers were, yet it still holds us fascinated to its preordinated conclusion. [27 Oct 1986, p.103]

Written with brio and staged rousingly by director Taylor Hackford, the film is good, kitschy fun -- after all, how can you hate a movie that casts litigators as the new legions of Lucifer?

The considerable virtues of THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN reflect the temperament of its author and star, Alan Alda. Decency, dependability, cozy sexuality: these are the qualities Alda projects as the star of TV's "M*A*S*H," and they are the underpinings of this intelligent, beautifully acted cautionary tale about the conflict between the siren call of success and the responsibilities of a private life. [27 Aug 1979, p.62]

If this gives the impression that The Star Chamber is a contemplative movie, forget it. It's a social tract in the classic Hollywood style -- viscera first. The issues are laid out in the most hyperbolic fashion and resolved by sheer melodrama -- a wild chase, a race against the clock, a shoot-out. On these gut-level terms, The Star Chamber is utterly gripping. Supported by an excellent cast and very stylish cinematography, Hyams sustains the tension from start to finish, no matter how preposterous the plotting becomes. [15 Aug 1983, p.64]

Directed by Tom Shadyac ("Ace Ventura"), it's nearly sociopathic in its quest for laughs, and busts a very big gut.

At times veering toward the portentous, the film nonetheless has the relentless rhythm of a juggernaut. The acting is first-rate American realism -- gutsy, funny and scary as the occasion demands. [09 June 1986, p.79]

Ron Howard, directing from a witty script by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and Bruce Jay Friedman, has fashioned an enchanting piece of fluff -- a romantic comedy that is truly romantic and truly comic, a deft blend of hip satire and fairy-tale charm. Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah have a lot to do with that charm. [12 Mar 1984, p.89]

Affleck directed, stars in, and co-wrote The Town, a suspenseful, fiercely paced movie about bank robbers that is also about love, brotherhood, and the desperate need to escape a crooked life. It proves that "Gone Baby Gone," his accomplished directing debut, was no fluke.

Screenwriters Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon have devised some lovely and hilarious variations on Rodgers’s irresistible premise.

Though there was little surprise by the end--how could there be?--Notorious,' a movie about the life and death of rapper Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. Biggie), still managed to stun, unsettle and move me.

Mingling reality and fantasy, Forster has given us a luminous, touching meditation on life and art.

It's these well-lived-with characters who make The Four Seasons a pleasure to watch, and the actors obviously relish their parts. [25 May 1981, p.74]

It's hands down the funniest of the year, both pushing the boundaries of bad taste and exploring how those boundaries keep shifting.

Joanou has an intricate, beautifully built script to work from (David Rabe did a lot of uncredited rewriting) and he unfolds his charged story of violence, fratricide, and betrayal with masterly assurance. [17 Sep 1990, p.54]

An absorbing, well-crafted, honorable movie that seems almost as ambitious as the original operation itself. [20 Jun 1977, p.65]

Central America has become a kind of hell on earth, and "Salvador" scorches us with this infernal truth. [17 March 1986, p.81]

The portraits are spare but right on target. And the film keeps you laughing even as you feel the pain of the characters.

Octopussy, the 13th of the Bond adventures and the sixth to star Roger Moore, isn't as exhilarating as "The Spy Who Loved Me". But it's the most enjoyable since then, in large part because it's not trying to be the ultimate anything. [13 June 1983, p.77]

That's the paradox that makes this parade of folly so much fun: it feels as if everyone involved is having a high old time, and their enthusiasm is contagious.

Has its flaws, but at its best it’s a fleet, fun action movie -- and certainly one of the cooler blockbusters that Hollywood will cough up this godforsaken summer.

Troy is a fun, energizing piece of summer entertainment, even if it doesn't have the depth or the sustained intensity of "Gladiator."

Though it lacks "Wallace and Gromit"'s charm, its mile-a-minute inventiveness is impressive.

Over the Edge is a rabble-rouser--and a good, tough, darkly funny movie to boot. [28 Dec 1981, p.65]

Though some of the violence is nastier than it needs to be and the obligatory climactic melee, complete with choppers, skidding trucks and explosions, overstays its welcome, The Long Kiss Goodnight stays fun because it plays its heroine's split personality for laughs, not trauma.

A shameless crowd-pleaser.

The gift of this charming, low-key excursion is more intangible, yet you may find that its surprisingly complex moods linger with a bittersweet afterglow. [28 Feb 1983, p.79]

Unlike many dramas of middle-class family wreckage, which tilt toward soapoperatic revelations, The Ice Storm is told from an ironic, almost meditative distance that gives the movie its paradoxical power.

The script is an odd take on the Cinderella formula, but Barrymore makes it shine with her relentless charm.

The beauty and scale of Miyazaki's vision shines through.

The film is a class-act thriller, a fiendishly efficient example of emotional manipulation. But that's not all. With Jane Fonda heading the cast, it couldn't help but be a thriller with a very large social conscience, activated, of course, to warn against the dangers of nuclear power. As such, the movie is both ferociously effective and decidedly facile. Director James Bridge's suspense film is the most potent blend of tract and trash since the underrated "Three Days of the Condor." [19 March 1979, p.103]

It might, however, have been a greater film if its villain were as compelling as its flawed hero. Williams is effectively creepy, but next to Pacino’s rich, multileveled portrait he seems one-note, and one we’ve seen before.

Director Doug Liman has an impressive eye for detail and an even better ear for dialogue, producing a perceptive and delightfully funny take on the buddy movie.

A moving, complex and dreamlike tale.

Take the movie's first words to heart: watch closely. You'll be well rewarded.

The uncontestable triumph of Goblet of Fire, however, is Brendan Gleeson's Alastor (Mad-Eye) Moody, the grizzled new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

At its best it's a marvel: bold, exciting and full of visions.

Ferocious and sometimes creepily funny, Bully is a raunchy suburban "Crime and Punishment."

A Single Man's sleek surface may go against Isherwood's crisp, understated prose, yet the story's beating, wounded heart and its spiky intelligence still come through, personified in Firth's moving, eloquently internalized performance.

Lange gets deep into these numbers, the sound and spirit of Patsy seeming to stream through her face, body and hands with the musical equivalent of that hunger for living. Hominy Harmonies: Lange's energy, sensuality and intelligence pump iron into Getchell's script, which doesn't have the bite and color of his "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." [7 Oct 1985, p.88]

Cute, anthropomorphic animals, old-fashioned American rural locales and alternating doses of sentimentality and scares firmly place The Fox and the Hound in the classic Disney mold. [13 July 1981, p.81]

Luke has real movie-star power. He's enormously sympathetic, but this moving, well-crafted movie, written by Shawn Slovo, mercifully doesn't turn him into a plaster saint.

It’s too bad that at the very end L.I.E. settles for an easy, melodramatic resolution; it flies in the face of everything that makes this perceptive, original movie so special.

It has a surprising charm.

(There's) a half dozen other deftly sketched show-biz desperadoes who make this slight but tangy sleeper such an unpretentious delight.

Ultimately, one's reservations are overwhelmed by the story's urgency; it's impossible not to be shattered.

The cruelly funny Margot at the Wedding shares many of the virtues of "Squid"--it's psychologically astute, sociologically dead on, refreshingly unformulaic--but it's a considerably tougher, less ingratiating movie. People who insist on likable, "sympathetic" protagonists may find it a bitter pill to swallow.

Flirts throughout with cliches, and some of the more melodramatic plot devices creak at the joints. Still, the potency of this pop romantic can't be denied. [24 Aug 1987]

(Katja von Garnier's) talent makes this original film exciting and moving, a raucous ride.

This is first-rate, visceral filmmaking, no question: taut, watchful, free of false histrionics, as observant of the fear in the young terrorists' eyes as the hysteria in the passenger cabin, and smart enough to know this material doesn't need to be sensationalized or sentimentalized.

Here's a surprise: of the four actors in Closer, Clive Owen is the least famous, but he delivers the most memorable performance.

The Lover's rarefied sensibility takes getting used to; once its spell is cast, you won't want to blink.

The screenplay (by Bill Bryden, Steven Phillip Smith, Stacy and James Keach) is basically an assemblage of bits and pieces that doesn't build toward any real emotional payoff. Yet The Long Riders is still the best Western in many years -- it has the laconic elegance of a ritual. [02 Jun 1980, p.87]

Red Dragon is certainly an improvement on “Hannibal.” It has something the Ridley Scott movie didn’t -- a good story -- and it will no doubt keep the franchise rolling in dough.

Day-Lewis, who imbues Jack with a ravaged, Keith Richards charisma, is once again extraordinary.

In one of his most impudently engaging movies, Lee's heroine has a lot of sex—on the telephone.

Dick Tracy is a class act: simple, stylish, sophisticated, sweet.

The Freshman has a preposterous plot even the writer's mother couldn't believe, and it strains and creaks down the runway, but when this baby gets off the ground, we're talking seriously funny.

Cooley High is a less artfully arranged film than American Graffiti. But it has the same cultural exactness - without the smug assumption of shared nostalgia. It is a smart, very affecting movie. [21 July 1975, p.64]

This vintage movie is just another reminder that when it comes to movie romance, there's nothing more satisfying than a broken heart. [20 Jun 2002]

Malick's magnificent, frustrating epic mixes fact and legend to conjure up a reverie about Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher), her love for Capt. John Smith (Colin Farrell) and her crossing from one culture to another.

Powerful images hook you immediately.

Despite pitfalls of bathos and silliness, Knightriders has a startling sweetness, warmth and humor. [13 April 1981, p.82]

A touching thriller, a movie that's particularly hard to resist if there are things you never said to your own dad because you didn't have the chance, the inclination or the right ham radio.

His smart, raunchy movie offers no answers (how could it?), but it poses its questions with painfully hilarious honesty.

A fine, well-groomed entertainment, but the road it takes has already been well paved.

This is a fleet, funny family entertainment that should tickle parents as well as tykes.

When this historical adventure kicks in, it's thrilling in the way old-fashioned epics used to be, but its romanticism has a fierce, violent physicality that gives it a distinctively modern stamp.

Armageddon is as irresistible as it's indefensible.

Quest for Fire is diverting and well made, and kids should love it. Chong is delightful as the first feminist heroine. And as bloody and brutish as the fights are, the film is resoundingly sweet-natured at heart. [15 Feb 1982, p.61]

Saturated with a passion for jazz, "Round Midnight" plays upon the heart as dextrously as Gordon's huge, eloquent hands coax music from the instrument he calls Lady Sweets. [20 Oct 1986, p.78]

A one-of- a-kind horror movie: hilarious, a little scary and strangely poignant. Campbell’s cranky, valiant, sad-sack King is a soulfully funny creation.

The first-time writer-director, Englishman Richard Kwietniowski, has adapted Gilbert Adair's novel with wit, economy and a delicate understanding that the funniest comedies are played with dead seriousness.

The women in this smart, highly entertaining comedy don't pack guns, but relations between the sexes are such that a well-placed knee in the groin can come in handy.

Miller's strength, and his weakness, has always been his tendency to see things in black and white, which is what makes "The Crucible" moving, and also suspect. I recommend Hytner's movie highly, but a part of me resists a work that makes the audience feel as noble in our moral certainty as the characters it invites us to deplore. Some part of its power seems borrowed from the thing it hates.

With honesty, charm and an uncanny sympathy for all its characters, the film takes us deep inside the awkward and exhilarating experience of first love.