The director keeps the pacing brisk, and if he doesn't make as emotional a picture as someone else might have, The Journey of Natty Gann has a quiet dignity.

The movie contains Jane Fonda's first big-screen appearance since On Golden Pond (1981); if she doesn't quite find a character in Martha, she is nonetheless riveting. Anne Bancroft, too, is impressive. Finally, though, it is Meg Tilly who makes the movie live. Her performance, which works on both realistic and symbolic levels, allows you to believe in the story.

Ever since Charles Durning played the governor of Texas in Best Little Whorehouse and danced around the rotunda in a tutu, I've thought he might be my kinda guy. Now he's proved it in Stand Alone, or "Death Wish for Grandpas," the best movie ever made about Medicare patients that decide to bayonet all the South American cocaine dealers in town.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome isn't a bad movie. It has entertaining sections, decent performances and more than a few provocative images. But it also has a major shortcoming: It's too darned sane.

This brilliant contraption of a film could become the hit of the summer. It's a cinematic Rube Goldberg machine whose parts connect in audacious, witty ways. [04 July 1985, p.E.1]

Hard as it is to justify Bond films on intellectual grounds, there's something invigorating -- and strangely reassuring -- about this sort of picture. It is comforting to feel that should a psychopath threaten the stability of the world, our hero will be ready to wipe the grin off his face and shove him into San Francisco Bay.

Gasp! And you thought Scream was predictable. [26 Dec 1997, p.11]

Screenwriter William Goldman's excellent craftsmanship made what could have been an insular political saga into a captivating detective story, earning him an Academy Award. And director Alan Pakula, relying on director Costa-Gavra's 1969 political thriller Z as his inspiration, created an absorbing study of the criminal arrogance that power can incite. [01 Dec 2002, p.9]

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]

Working from Blatty's own screenplay, director William Friedkin sets his own unhurried pace. That pace, at times, does seem a tad glacial, and that is the film's biggest failing. But unlike so many horror flicks that followed, this one really is about something. It's about several things, actually: coming of age and letting go, mainly, as well as getting sick and growing old. [2000 re-release]

Frenzy, which was Hitchcock's 54th and next-to-last film, displayed a macabre sense of humor, playful use of film techniques and edge-of-the-seat suspense. [27 Feb 2000, p.60]

It is certainly one of the best westerns ever made, and the best film of any kind to come out in 1969.

If it's explosions, gunplay and wartime treachery that you're looking for, then director Brian Hutton's Where Eagles Dare is right up your alley. [12 Mar 1995, p.51]

Tony Curtis does a remarkable portrayal of De Salvo, while Henry Fonda is outstanding as the principal criminal investigator, John S. Bottomley, who must work with few clues. [17 Feb 2002, p.9]

A film taut with cold-war tensions and cloak-and-dagger secrecy. [23 May 2004, p.8]

An uproarious piece of fluff about a turn-of-the-century New York-to-Paris automobile race complete with a noble hero, a snarling villain and a spirited suffragette. The Great Race, while not in a league with Some Like It Hot, is deftly directed by Blake Edwards. [02 Apr 1995, p.75]

Woman of Straw, which was by no means a sparkling production or masterful mystery-thriller, did verge on Hitchcock territory. [30 Nov 2003, p.9]

Poitier's performance and Nelson's low-key direction carried this delightful vehicle, adapted to the screen by James Poe from William E. Barrett's eloquent novel. [14 Jan 2001, p.17]

A mad compound of naturalism, surrealism, farce and philosophy. [07 Jul 1996, p.65]

Exodus, a marathon undertaking by producer/director Otto Preminger, is among film epics such as Quo Vadis, War and Peace, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia and Spartacus that were churned out during the 1950s and '60s. [05 Apr 1992, p.55]

A beautifully photographed, sentimental film about a family of itinerant Australian sheepherders who travel from job to job during the 1920s.

Considered to be producer-director Stanley Kramer's most powerful film, containing his strongest message, a stern examination of the last days of mankind. [21 Mar 2004, p.8]

A superb character study of the residents of an English seaside hotel. [17 Oct 1999, p.56]

The Big Country is a sprawling western that is handsomely photographed by Franz Planer and meticulously directed by William Wyler. [02 Oct 1994, p.51]

An intense drama of 12 harrowing hours in the life of a voracious Southern family in conflict. [10 June 1990, p.4]

The Fly...will send cold chills down the spines of the most hardened horror addict. It's a dilly. [29 Aug 1958, p.9D]

The real force of Vertigo, though, comes from Hitchcock's intimate depiction of perversity. Seldom has obsession stood so nakedly revealed. [Restored version; 15 Nov 1996, p.20]

A suspenseful, near-forgotten gem about a captured loyal Luftwaffe pilot, Franz Von Werra (Hardy Kruger), who is obsessed with escape. [05 Jun 1994, p.F1]