The exhilarating film pays tribute to Buster Keaton's "The Balloonatic" by way of its slapstick, and to Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" by way of its watercolor palette and traveling domicile.

The most amazing thing about 1936's After the Thin Man is not that it remains a sparkling, engaging entertainment almost 70 years after its release, but that it is nearly as good as 1934's The Thin Man, the first movie based on Dashiell Hammett's husband-and-wife detective team of Nick and Nora Charles. [06 Aug 2005, p.D07]

It’s a true American masterpiece and one of the best films of the decade.

A riveting sci-fi investigation into humankind's experiments with A.I. (with pages from Spike Jonze's Her and Stanley Kubrick's 2001), Ex Machina marks the extremely able directing debut of British writer Alex Garland, of the novels "The Beach" and "The Tesseract," and of the screenplays for Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" . . . and "Sunshine."

It's great to see an American filmmaker - and a successful one at that - willing to simply train his cameras on the actors and let them, and their characters, come to life.

A dazzling costume epic, a spectacle for the eyes and for the soul.

Most of all, it is the improbably entertaining story of how new media are altering the very nature of courtship and friendship.

Amour arrives with plaudits and praise. But this is not hype, it is all deserved. This is a masterpiece.

Werner Herzog's magnificent tragedy, Grizzly Man, a Shakespearean character study that packs the sheer terror of "The Blair Witch Project."

Smart, suspenseful, satisfyingly unpredictable.

Girl on the Bridge, with its doomed art-house romanticism and echoes of Fellini, may not be the deepest piece of filmmaking out there now, but it is easily the most intoxicating. Take the leap.

Clooney has never been better, subtler, more deeply rooted in a performance than he is in The Descendants. And he's funny, too.

The humor of the script constantly confounds expectations, and yet Shrek still manages to say all the right things to children.

Ryan may not be admirable, but Clooney makes him relatable. It's his deepest and nakedest performance.

A quiet, loopy gem, Duck Season is a goofball celebration of old friends, new beginnings, adolescent freedom, and baked goods laced with a little something extra.

It's an occasion for welcoming a restoration that transforms a flawed movie, one that was touched by greatness, into a masterpiece. [10 Aug 2001, p.W3]

Although Mistress America is very much a New York movie, full of references to couture, pop culture, boutique hotels (to Antigone and Faulkner, too), its comic centerpiece is a brazen assault on a country compound.

Taste of Cherry takes its title from an anecdote that celebrates the things in life - such as the savoring of a delectable fresh fruit - that we take for granted. Kiarostami's film won the top prize at Cannes last year, an honor that has infamously gone to some overrated movies over the years. In this case, the award was less than a superb picture deserved. [12 June 1998, p.04]

Brilliant, blistering account of the many ways fame deforms a star, his family and his fans.

A road trip at once tragic, hopeful, and unforgettable.

However moved or indifferent one may be to the joys and heartaches of the very British Marryots, Bridges, their butler, and Ellen, his wife: Cavalcade is a necessary addition to one's cinematic education as an example of screen technique at its best. [15 Apr 1933, p.22]

A beautiful, appropriately loping little gem about growing older, daring to take risks and follow your heart. That probably sounds corny, and The Straight Story is.

Mara and Blanchett are each extraordinary, working in the most organic and soul-stirring ways.

It's Greengrass' way of asking a question that looms large in these post-9/11 days: Are we all praying to the same God, or is one man's God better than another, and one man's God vastly more terrifying?

This psycho-thriller, a Golden Globe winner and presumptive favorite for the foreign-film Oscar, itself is revelatory.

A movie with the sweet soul of "Toy Story" and the boisterous spirit of "Spy Kids."

At the film's intimate best, it gives a guitar's perspective of the troubadour. He plucks his instrument as he plays our heartstrings. It's movie and music bliss.

Profound, passionate and overflowing with incomparable beauty, Water, like the prior two films in director Deepa Mehta's "Elements" trilogy, celebrates the lives of women who resist marginalization by Indian society.