Thirty-five years since its debut, The Conformist is still a stunning, challenging, transporting film.

Can a film so expertly capture the odious and bitter that it becomes deliciously, disgustingly beautiful? Yes, if that film is 1957's Sweet Smell of Success.

The protagonists have subsumed their identities to the collective, and they rise and fall in their hearts as the collective prospers or suffers. Their effort is absurd, but their intent is pure. Watching it evokes a combination of pity for their naive idealism and awe at Melville's uncanny brilliance.

There's so much to say, but let this suffice: See it; it's a sweet taste of the best of what cinema can do. [16 Mar 2007, p.28]

Del Toro presents one dazzling visual spectacle after another.

In many respects, it's Kurosawa's most sumptuous film, a feast of color, motion and sound: Considering that its brethren include "Kagemusha," "The Seven Samurai" and "Dersu Uzala," the achievement is extraordinary. [01 Dec 2000, p.26]

It's an exciting experience, dazzling and entertaining and thought-provoking. I saw it at Cinema 21 last week and immediately wanted to see it again. I couldn't, so I started researching and read everything I could about it. It's truly great.

But the human elements -- jealousy, anger, weakness, fortitude, loyalty, vengeance and honor, all acted out by a resolutely realistic cast -- make the movie extraordinary.

A grueling film in both technique and subject matter.

Is it a silly movie? At times, yes. Is it creaky and blatant and obvious? Quite often, absolutely. But should you miss it in this splendidly colorful restoration? Not on your life.

Miyazaki is a genius, and this film is a masterpiece; go see it.

Having heard tell of its wonders for decades, I found the actual movie less transporting than I'd been led to expect. It's clearly a brilliant debut.

The glory of "Breathless" lies less with its narrative, though, than with its style, a self-conscious blend of drawn-out conversational scenes and rapid-fire cuts of action. [14 Dec 2001]

Telling Northrup’s story, McQueen gives a grand tour of the institutionalized sadism and astonishing inhumanity ubiquitous in the slave economy.

Hilarious. And more proof that Pixar is in a class of its own.

Gravity isn’t as ambitious as “2001,” but then, what is? It is, however, absolutely a worthy successor, a masterpiece of hard science fiction, and the movie to beat at this point for next year’s cinematography and visual effects Oscars.

Beauty and the Beast is so funny, exciting and suspenseful that its obvious moral (appearance can mean nothing; it's what's inside that counts) is engaging rather than perfunctory. [22 Nov 1991, p.15]

Shot to shot, scene to scene, The Social Network nearly never puts a foot wrong or, really, does anything to make you feel less than compelled.

While what's on screen is unsparing and clinically presented, the underlying, almost invisible humanity and artistry of the film inspire rather than depress.

Episodic and, at times, overwrought. And occasionally its deliberate opacity becomes too cloudy. But the things that shine through are remarkable. War is indeed Hell, it tells us, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're filled with demons.

Viewers looking for a propagandistic take will be disappointed, but even those who doubt the overall framework and existence of the so-called War on Terror should appreciate this thrilling tale of the hunt for the world's most wanted man.

It happens to be splendidly acted and to be poised, as a narrative, on a knife's edge (the final shot, at a great moment of indecision, is utterly haunting). But, chiefly, it's a portrait of an essential and sympathetic human dilemma, and in that it's both real and timeless in ways that transcend borders, cultures and languages.

Films don't get more essential than this.

It's a justifiably G-rated film, but parents may have some 'splainin' to do.

The play is hilarious, and Hawks enlivened it with his famous staccato direction. He gives no breaks for viewers to laugh without missing the next line. The brilliant dialogue comes so thick and fast that you almost have to tape the film to get it all. So, do. [31 Mar 2000]

The experience of watching Carol is like being pulled into a different place, real and not real, like the best movies, like being in love.

A movie as bold and deep as a Turner landscape, as sharp as light on water.

A spell-binding, engaging and often breathtaking work in which exquisite sets, costumes, photography and music combine with top-notch acting and out-of-this-world fighting scenes.

Inside Out expands the possibilities of animation. It's also a hilarious ride that delights the eye, the mind and the heart.

Gets under your skin without you quite being able to say when or how. It has the tact to let you draw yourself in to it.

Director Billy Wilder's 1950 classic, after all, could serve as a capsule history of American movies: a flip book of the many styles and epochs of the medium as well as an anatomy of the vices, jealousies, vanities, egocentrisms and pettinesses that have long characterized our great national popular art and the people who make it. [02 Jun 2000]

It's a horrific tale, filled with fear, confusion, anger, disfigurement, and loss. Weissman and Weber don't milk the pathos and they don't have to. Their interview subjects are brilliantly chosen, not only for their specific vantage points on the events but for their eloquence and depth of feeling. Time and again, the spoken and visual record of what happened overwhelms you.

Orson Welles brings Shakespeare’s Falstaff to life in this passionate, ramshackle adaptation that draws on five different plays for its dialogue. Plagued by a low budget and other production snafus, it was initially disregarded but now ranks as one of Welles’ finest achievements. [04 Mar 2016, p.R22]

From the acting to the special effects to the landscapes to the cinematography, editing and music, to the details of decor, wardrobe and armaments, we never once feel that we are in anything but the hands of an absolute master of the medium.

Malle, only 25 when the film was released, bounces confidently among several threads -- classic French policier, juvenile delinquent film, doomy tale of tragic love, clock-ticking thriller.

One of the most alluring and bizarre shapes that Godard's itchy search for truth and meaning took in those heady long-ago days. In comparison, most Hollywood movies are like tiddlywinks.

As flawless as any film this year and rock-solid confirmation that Joel and Ethan Coen are the greatest filmmakers working in America (and perhaps anywhere else) today.

Godard's 1964 dreamy yet cynical masterwork holds up as a both remarkably sad and thrilling comment on living life as if in a movie. [07 Dec 2001]

It's first-rank filmmaking, through and through, even if it struggles to find closure.

Paley's production shines with brilliance and great humor.

It's the usual Fellini magic: a long, challenging movie overflowing with creativity and verve. [16 Dec 2001]

This is still the one to see ...for Mifune's inimitable performance and Kurosawa's gorgeous black-and-white photography. [05 Jan 2001]

A snapshot of what happened at a particular time and place and doesn't try to glamorize its subjects or make any larger points about what it all means. By refusing to do so, by celebrating the process over the outcome and the work over the reward, it becomes a special experience, a movie that matters.

It’s considered the first of Ozu’s string of late-career masterpieces, which makes it a must-see for any fan of cinema. [10 Jun 2016]

Mathieu Amalric, best known as an arms dealer in "Munich." In a role that strips him entirely of vanity and denies him virtually every expressive tool, Amalric makes a genuinely touching impression.

There aren't many works of art out there that so rupture your sense of the familiar. It may play slowly, but it blazes its way into your head. [14 Jul 2000]

A modestly scaled, sharply observed film.

In the main this is a muscular, exact and thrillingly cool movie.

Sissako, whose previous film, 2006's "Bamako," also tackled political issues with aplomb and complexity, doesn't need to craft an overwrought denunciation of ignorant fanaticism. The humanism with which he approaches both the perpetrators and the victims of the violence inherent in this petty, small-minded tyranny makes the strongest argument possible against the Boko Harams of the world.

The Act of Killing is exemplary as a history lesson, a character study and a powerful argument for confronting the past.

It's a fascinating look into what Spielberg truly loves, but it's not so much a masterpiece as a nice milestone. [2002 re-release]

One of the great marvels of the medium, a film that you cannot miss if you hope to be literate in cinema -- or, indeed, if you seek acquaintance with the great works of modern times.

No matter how many times you've seen it, you marvel at how terrifying, gorgeous and surreal the jungle, the yellow napalm and, finally, the disturbed face of Martin Sheen lying under a swirling fan appear on the large screen. This is indeed, a dream.

Tobe Hooper's 1974 masterpiece took the slasher flick to a freakier, nastier place and even today has the ability to mess with one's mind. Artfully documentarylike and shot under conditions that produced genuinely traumatized performances, the original "Massacre" eschews cheap thrills and attacks the psyche.

In the year's least surprising news, Toy Story 3 continues Pixar's near-perfect streak.

Despite the fact that its pace turns somnolent at times, and some of its themes feel somewhat clichéd nearly a half-century on, this revival offers a fantastic entry-point opportunity to one of cinema's singular figures.

Brilliantly colored and passionately acted, Moolaade teems with incidents, personalities and drama and is never less than vivid.

A gorgeous, engrossing, utterly alien and fresh movie that has the human truth and impact of classic Greek myth and the overwhelming beauty and mastery of the greatest epic films.

It's a bento box of shifts, feints, hints and small, sharp insights, built around a surprisingly deep core of feeling. And it confirms Coppola as an artist to watch and relish.

After Life is a thoroughly original, wholly realized work that leaves a profound and nagging bug in your brain for days after you've seen it: What in your life is worth holding on to? What one thing would you wish never to forget? It's a question as relevant to the lives we live each day as it is to our final moments. [24 Sept 1999, p.26]

As the relationship between Theodore and Samantha evolves, it hews too closely to the expected arc of a romantic drama. In a desire to show how such a pairing could produce the same joys, sorrows, jealousies and insecurities as a human-to-human one, the movie edges close to parody, which it doesn't want to be.

A thrilling juxtaposition of bravura filmmaking and knee-jerk propaganda, this 1964 Soviet-Cuban coproduction is a rare successful combination of the aesthetic and the political. [19 Jan 1996, p.22]

It is a pure, streamlined delight, the advent of a talent with no exact equal in modern film.

Sheer bliss for Monty Python freaks who either have never seen the anarchistic, absurdist and hilarious trials and tribulations of King Arthur and his knights depicted on the big screen or haven't for more than 20 years. From the Knights who say "Ni!" to the killer bunny, the picture stands the test of time. [17 Aug 2001]

When a film like Stories We Tell comes along, you're reminded how powerful and universal even the most intimate and individual lives can be when captured with intelligence and perspective.

What's most endearing about "Taxi," as well as Panahi's earlier films made under repression, is the lack of righteous anger.

Just as austere and demanding as you'd expect a black-and-white film about a Polish nun to be. Don't let that scare you, though.

It easily is the most beautiful picture released in America so far this year, perhaps one of the most beautiful films ever made.

The film ends on an absolutely sick-making note, with live-action footage of the massacre and its aftermath.

For a film that consists largely of a series of talking-head interviews, The Gatekeepers is a riveting a documentary.

Hawke is not a brilliant actor, but here he rises to the occasion: Every inch of him registers the weight of this moment.

One of the best films ever made in this country, filled with our proudest national virtues, cognizant of our deeply rooted human weaknesses and frighteningly able to evoke emotions.

Mad Max: Fury Road sets new standards in old-school stunt work and car chases and does it in service of an idea-driven story with a beating heart and an action star for our troubled times in Charlize Theron.

With a level-gazed approach to its milieu, empathetic but clear-eyed, Winter's Bone practically makes up for 40 years of "Deliverance"-style hillbilly cartoons.

The Queen is all-together remarkable not only for what it is but for what it isn't.

An unrelenting and important exposé of a system that, as depicted here, has no place in the modern world.

It's raw, visceral stuff that precious few movies are capable of equaling.

Exarchopoulos and Seydoux give their characters dimension and spark. Kechiche touches on issues of not only gender, age and sexuality, but also socioeconomic class. And if the movie doesn't quite seem to know when to end, it's because the director can't bear to say goodbye to these fascinating, fully-formed characters.

Thoroughly unique work of art.

A masterful treasure trove of hilarious gags and inventive moments. It's so good that a single viewing it might awaken you to the charm of snails, frogs legs and -- heaven help us -- Jerry Lewis. [14 Jul 1995, p.E01]

Here is another legendary case of actors following their characters' lead. [14 Feb 1997, p.36]

It's as full a movie as you can imagine -- exhausting and exhilarating and continually fascinating.

It's hilarious, thrilling and filled with "life-truth" -- but it also conceals its effort under a layer of great writing and subtle craftsmanship.

Long and sometimes grueling, but it never feels indulgent or excessive. In order to be subtle about the horrifying transformation he records, Audiard needs to let it unfold slowly, so that only when we reach the end can we see Malik as a new man who has come unimaginably -- and terribly -- far.

One lucky guy, on a roll with rock.

High and Low is more than a crime melodrama; it's a philosophical drama as well. [23 Nov 1988, p.D06]

Music aside, what finally puts Once over and makes it a film you can watch more than once is its slight but thoroughly credible realism.

Franju conjures images -- sometimes gory, sometimes poetic, sometimes fantastical -- that genuinely haunt: the essence of the cinema distilled.

I am here to tell you that Greengrass has fashioned one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, and that watching it makes you value your loved ones and your privileges more, perhaps, than you ever have. He has made a film that makes you feel, makes you think and makes you want to connect. And that, finally, might be the greatest thing that art can do.

More than just a good crime story about the guilt or innocence of Arnold and Jesse Friedman. It's also a fascinating portrait of a seemingly normal middle-class family crumbling before our eyes.

There’s plenty of fun to be had, but in the long term, American Hustle may be remembered more for its superficial pleasures than the depth of its impact. Kind of like the 1970s.

It's refreshing that something once considered terribly new and modern can still feel contemporary three decades later.

You can learn about the grand shifts of history from Persepolis, but you learn about a handful of lives as well.

Adventuresome, melancholy and exhilarating.

In exchange for a small piece of your life, you receive an infinity.

Because Whiplash is two characters in search of a plot, it ramps up the happenstance and improbability as it stumbles toward a final showdown between teacher and student that would be emotionally satisfying if it had the ring of truth.

It’s one of those wonderfully depressing 1970s films that perfectly captures the era’s malaise. [29 Apr 2016, p.R19]

It's so full-blooded, smart, sexy, tense and absorbing, so cleverly written and shot and cut, so filled with superb acting and music, so perfect in its closing moment, that it surely ranks with the most impressive debuts in world cinema.