The first third is brisk and witty, the middle third gloomy and the finale of Part 1 not so much a cliffhanger as a grim, inspiring tease, a masterly build-up to put "I can't wait for part 2" on every Muggles' lips.

The best faith-based film ever made, an uplifting, entertaining and wonderfully-acted account of surfer Bethany Hamilton's life before and after a shark bit her arm off in the waters off her favorite Hawaiian beach.

Saoirse Ronan shines in the title role, a wily, physically-fit and lethal girl.

If you're looking for a filmmaker to document, for all of humanity, "one of the greatest discoveries in the history of human culture," the great Werner Herzog is your guy.

With Win Win, McCarthy has found his emotional sweet spot, a sweet and complex story to set it in and the perfect title for it.

It is Carrey, turning his patented rubber-faced, rubber-voiced shtick loose on a role with heart, substance and entertainment value, who makes this romantic farce a movie too good to sit on any studio's shelf.

There are people, powerful people, who don't want old cases dug up. It's a tribute to the story's construction that the mystery only deepens, the more Benjamin digs.

Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Alex Vincent, the same kid from the first movie, for attacking Chucky with an electric carving knife; Christine Elise, as Andy's big foster sister, for pitching Chucky through a station-wagon windshield; Don Mancini, the writer, and John Lafia, the director, for having Chucky use a cellular phone and saying, "Now it's time to play Hide the soul." [30 Nov 1990, p.7]

That makes Sarah's Key that rare Holocaust tale that punches through the cobwebs of history and its dry, inhuman statistics, and brings that terrible past to life.

That message, this script and these actors make Rabbit Hole one of the best films of 2010.

Moneyball is a thinking person's baseball movie, and a baseball fan's thinking movie.

An exquisite character study in grief.

Davis and Spencer give faces and fully-fleshed out lives to women who must have been more than what they did for a living as The Help.

Tyson rose to the challenges of this demanding role with perceptive, luminous work. It remains the peak of her long, distinguished career. [22 Feb 2009, p.10]

Noel Coward's Cavalcade, a rich nostalgic look at a vanished way of life, vividly details the period through the travails of an upper and a lower class family between New Year's Eve 1899 and New Year's Eve 1932. [09 Mar 2003, p.9]

Thanks to Banderas and his Corinthian leather purr and writers who know how to use it, "Puss" is the best animated film of 2011.

The magic in the film is in the actors. Only somebody who has stripped himself emotionally bare for the camera could achieve the level of performance that Goldwyn gets from every single SAG member on this set.

There are so many terrific small moments to discover in The Commitments that there's no danger of ever growing bored. [14 Sep 1991, p.E1]

I Am Love is a cinematic orgy, a sensual Italian feast of food, sex, guilt and grief. An intimate, quiet and even slow movie, its subtle shadings veil turbulent emotions.

Fun-and-fin-filled feature-length Disney cartoon that revitalized the studio's animation department.

The sweet, the comic and the tragic blend together most agreeably in the winsome French romance The Hedgehog.

Comical, colorful, wonderfully cast and beautifully animated.

This latest Star Trek is a well-plotted, well-acted and consistently exciting addition to the popular movie series. [6 Dec. 1991, p.21]

Of all the gonzo-goofy comic book adaptations that embrace video gaming sensibilities, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the gonzo-goofiest.

This performance reminds us that Bridges is that rare actor who has never had to make that apology. Crazy Heart lets him be every bit as grand as we’d hope him to be.

Chemistry is king. It's one reason the rom-com has long seemed like the toughest code for Hollywood to crack. But never underestimate the power of snappy, rapid-fire banter, the paving stones of the Hollywood road to romance.

A chilling detective tale, a horrific sexual abuse drama and an overlong, emotional, tie-up-every-loose-end melodrama that is sure to be half an hour shorter when Hollywood remakes it without the Swedish dialogue and probably without the cool Swedish edge.

It's an unblinking look into the lives of soldiers doing the most thankless job of all.