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.