A gutsy movie, in that Leigh says something about life that nobody really wants to believe, and he says it forcefully: There is such a thing as "too late."

Enemy is what might happen if someone let Terrence Malick make a "Twilight Zone" episode, with a quick rewrite by David Cronenberg.

At times, State of Grace, which was written by the late playwright Dennis McIntyre and rewritten by David Rabe, is a little too writerly, a little too calculated to impress. Still the dialogue is good; the momentum builds, and some of the simplest scenes, such as a few between Penn and Wright, have real power. [05 Oct 1990, p.E1]

A bit of a soap opera, but still compulsive watching. [22 Aug 1999]

The battle in Battle: Los Angeles is grab-the-armrest tense until the last seconds.

A heartwarming, inspirational tale.

The stuff of high romance, brought off with considerable wit, too. People are going to love it.

Rules Don’t Apply feels unbalanced in terms of story, and it has a big sag in the middle. But the good things in it are so good that they make it a fairly worthwhile experience.

20th Century Women is not especially dramatic. At times, it eschews drama. Every time the story is on a knife edge and can drop deeper into turmoil or recede back to the normal flows and ebbs of life, Mills chooses the latter. But this time, the strategy works. It feels real.

The Order, directed by Justin Kurzel, has less interest in sermonizing about the evergreen cycles of racism in this country than in tracking a series of explosive events as a well-crafted thriller.

Attempts something startlingly original by melding light opera with soap opera.

It’s the kind of observational humor that instills a knowing chuckle and nod of the head, as opposed to an all-out chortle.

For all the movie’s honesty, the reality of Alzheimer’s disease is a lot worse than what you see in Still Alice. Perhaps directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland made a calculation as to how much an audience can take. They were right.

For about 115 minutes, State of Play tells an alarming, tightly constructed story, with serious things to say about journalism and the state of the country. The movie appears to be all but over - and likely to stand as one of the best films of 2009. And then the filmmakers add one last embellishment, and they blow it.

This is a good movie for Hamm, and also for Pike who, in her recent films, has too often been either a madwoman or a victim of circumstance (and sometimes both). Here she gets to be active and think on her feet, and it makes a big difference.

Director Anthony Fabian lets the story sell itself, and it does so partly on the strength of the lead performance by Sophie Okonedo.

In The Suicide Squad, writer-director James Gunn has done the seemingly impossible: He has found the fun in the Suicide Squad. He has come up with a way to take what seemed like a dead concept and turn it into an action-packed joke machine.

Ernest & Celestine builds a delicate and charming animated world, but you wouldn't want to live there.

It’s punctuated by the landscape of the demon slayers’ past, through their memories. Idyllic lakes and streams; gently falling snow; a small village. “Infinity Castle,” then, is a place of potential redemption and reclamation, of souls and reputations and a sense of one’s inner self.

This warm, celebratory and very public film is punctuated by sudden and luminous private visualizations.

The Ground Beneath My Feet consistently serves as a powerful showcase for the talented Pachner, who manages a performance that is both distant and achingly vulnerable.

For the most part, though, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead spends its time celebrating an era in which the comedy frontier was distasteful, brutally honest, and innocent at the same time.

This movie can be recommended only to dyed-in-the-wool fans of the genre. Anyone who goes into one of Miike's films must be prepared to be put through the wringer.

Any Agnieszka Holland movie is worth seeing, even if Spoor isn’t up to the director’s best (“In Darkness,” “Europa, Europa”).

One of the most effective thrillers in years, Attraction did an excellent job of mixing its suspense with trendy issues of sexual paranoia and monogamy. [27 Dec 1987, p.19]

Kevin Costner's Robin Hood is big, sometimes exciting, funny in places and occasionally stupid, but it doesn't disappoint. [14 June 1991, p.E1]

In “My Name is Alfred Hitchcock,” Cousins gives us a new way of looking at Hitchcock, as a filmmaker with an evocative visual world, and a case could be made that it would be easier for viewers to appreciate that aspect of Hitchcock on a second or third viewing.

At 2 1/2 hours, Gladiator is a long ride, but it doesn't drag.

The Nun II has some interesting ideas and some thrilling sequences.

I Stand Alone ("Seul contre tous" in French) is a portrait of a pathetic soul, but it is also a cautionary tale. The butcher cannot be dismissed as a monster, nor is this a creep show. Something like the butcher's story can be found almost every day in newspaper crime reports.

Faithful but not slavishly faithful to the source, the movie retains most of the songs but streamlines the story, particularly in the second half.

A charming if unoriginal coming-of-age story.

This is a fascinating portrait of an artist.

A one-joke documentary stretched, with surprising success, to full length.

The film is never dull. And director Yony Leyser has come up with an ending that will take your breath away. Burroughs would probably be proud.

Rush is amazing throughout this absorbing, provocative film.

A tense, intelligent and sober film.

The film is ultimately as much an indictment of liberal apathy as of conservative dirty dealing, and a canonization of McKinney for her continued refusal to follow any party's party line.

You can see the outcome from a distance, but Michael Lehmann ("Heathers") directs with such snap, and the actors play their concert of comic duets and trios with such skill and charm, that The Truth About Cats & Dogs emerges a surprising, first-rate romantic comedy.

Wright is perfect, and Edee is an interesting character for her to play, but it’s fair to say that when Bichir first appears he livens up the film considerably. They work well together, and there is an economy of words between the characters that tests both actors’ ability to communicate visually.

The constant shifting between today and years ago is, in and of itself, powerful.

Paul Thomas Anderson is getting there. He is a great director of scenes, not of movies, but in Phantom Thread he has devised a film that hangs in from start to finish, his first since “Boogie Nights.”

Actually, Mom is the essential difference between Wahlberg and Caan. Caan has the glow of mother love on him. Wahlberg plays Jim as having made the adjustment to a lack of love, but in a twisted way. He's gambling now to see if the universe loves him.

The funniest movie so far this year.

A bit of fluff expertly made and a hoot to watch.

Vast, beautiful and meticulously detailed.

A love story that gets the single male culture down so honestly and unapologetically that it can't help but push the boundaries of political correctness.

An old formula made fresh.

Deliriously original.

A movie that eliminates Hollywood gloss and pop cliches -- and in their place offers an honest look at young love and its pitfalls.

Director John McNaughton does not shy away from depicting Henry's acts of violence, but he also has not designed it to titillate the bloodthirsty who may get their kicks from ''slasher'' movies. [13 April 1990, p.E3]

The first feature by Rose Glass, Saint Maud delivers shocks with confidence.

It’s a fantasia on a short period in the life of the esteemed Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda — while based on fact, it’s made with a sense of freedom suggestive of poetry.

As you enjoy the movie’s gleeful outrageousness, take a moment to appreciate the strategic sophistication of some of these bits. These scenes were well planned.

Nattiv, working from a sharp script from Nicholas Martin, expertly mixes in documentary footage to convey a sense of the times and the war.

Adults may have more fun watching this engaging film, which cleverly paints Hollywood as a treacherously duplicitous place even though it turns out some of the most joyous entertainments on earth.

Never soars, but it never flags. It remains brisk, engaging and pleasant throughout, and face it: If a movie this well made had Spanish or French subtitles, we'd all be talking about it as a searing examination of sexual politics.

Waste Land is a film about recycling, but it's far more intriguing than the average eco-documentary.

By avoiding the usual animation cliches, by keeping the story moving, the pictures pretty and the characters consistently amusing, director and co- writer Rob Letterman cobbles together an entertaining 90 minutes.

It's really just old- fashioned melodrama, dressed up with lustrous cinematography and a few nods to history.

Viewers need only a willingness to have fun and not mind when they realize the movie was never intended to be profound. Full Frontal is merely human, funny and unusual -- and that's enough.

The kind of little film you can get cozy with, laugh at in odd places even when nobody else is laughing - and yet people will not turn around to glower at you because they understand. [12 July 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Sounds great and if nothing else should help diminish the stereotype, blasted by the film's subjects, of Gypsies as little more than pickpockets whom travelers need to be wary of.

A touching, sophisticated film that almost seems like a documentary in the way it captures an Italian immigrant family on the brink of major changes.

At its simplest, "Fire" tells of Mikael's efforts to exonerate Lisbeth. At its most baroque, it explores a vast web of sex trafficking and deep-rooted conspiracy that goes back decades and touches on Lisbeth's inflammatory background.

Eastwood and screenwriter Jason Hall have made as good a film as could be made from the substance of Kyle’s life and career. But greatness was never a possibility, not with a protagonist not all that interesting and with the surrounding circumstances making it impossible to go deeper and risk the movie’s critique of Kyle’s becoming overt.

Most of the time, the movie is appropriately gritty and plenty engaging.

The story, based on a real incident, may be simplistic, but that's the nature of fables.

Isn't about rock music or even the people who make it; it's about people, period, and the myriad ways they mangle themselves and each other.

Director Corneliu Porumboiu ("12:08 East to Bucharest"), with his deadpan style and probing intelligence, is someone to keep an eye on. Using a minimalist style, and possessing the courage to risk alienating his viewers, he has created a movie full of resonance.

Foxx's complex performance and the filmmaker's willingness to look at the dark side place Ray safely out of the realm of typical Hollywood hagiography.

It's the grittiest, most plausible movie depiction of the poverty-level black urban experience since Boyz N' the Hood. John Singleton showed a surer hand in directing Boyz, but Anderson displays promise and generates real emotion. [17 Oct 1992, p.C3]

There are more enigmas than answers in Jauja, an artsy South American Western directed by Lisandro Alonso, an Argentine filmmaker who delights in undermining movie conventions.

Vacation is consistently funny from beginning to end, a piling on of dumb but inventive jokes and excruciating, awkward situations.

Although "Riding" is a small-scale movie as opposed to a big-scale epic, it is just as ambitious.

For the vast majority of its 113-minute running time, Wonder stays genuine and true.

This day-after-tomorrow fantasy, made before anybody had even heard of COVID-19, is touchingly romantic and emotionally credible. It’s an escape that resembles our current locked-down lives, with feelings as relatable as they are fictionally heightened.

Marks Chan's full arrival as an actor. Take away the violence - - and there's plenty of it for those who crave Chan's physical pyrotechnics -- and he's still an immense pleasure to watch onscreen.

There's a certain formulaic and familiar quality about Sweet Home Alabama, but it doesn't matter.

The character isn't just shtick, though. As Billy, Talen has staged many protests in Times Square and anti-shopping "interventions" at retailers, where the managers, to say nothing of the New York police, often have failed to see the humor - he's been arrested dozens of times.

On Deadly Ground is in every way the equal of Seagal's Under Siege, his first mainstream hit from 1992, and in terms of scale it's even bigger. Everything blows up. Everybody blows up. [19 Feb 1994, p.E1]

The film’s overall aesthetic is a pleasing blend of naturalistic drawings, cartoonier designs and Heavy Metal magazine futurism.

At its heart, it’s a darkly comic drama about a man trained to be a killing machine who must rediscover his own humanity before his daughter loses hers. Along the way, a family of quirky characters is formed.

Romeo Is Bleeding -- not the best title -- takes chances, and although not all of them work, the film manages the difficult trick of swinging wild while holding together. Part of the credit has to go to the consistently well-pitched acting, by Oldman and Olin and also by the actors in smaller roles, including Annabella Sciorra's quiet but edgy turn as Jack's hard-to-read wife. [4 Feb 1994, p.C3]

The treatment of the subject isn't maudlin, thanks to a witty script and an enormously likable lead character, Remy (Remy Girard), who remains bullheaded and lusty to the finish.

Strel is one strange duck, and you can only wonder that Werner Herzog, with his fondness for captivating weirdos, didn't get to him first.

Stunning, odd, glorious, calm and sensationally absorbing.

It's an observant and heartfelt film, with turns of dialogue that show that writer-director Josh Radnor really can write.

The movie is nonetheless strongly written, with a game cast. Wu is especially a revelation, with a layered and often moving performance that shows off dramatic chops not seen by many of her fans.

It's no masterpiece, but it's real.

A slow start keeps Moana from reaching “Frozen” or “Beauty and the Beast” levels of excellence. But the comic self-awareness, engaging songs and a fulfilling finish are enough to merit a strong recommendation.

Produced by "Lost" and "Alias" mastermind J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield has been one of the more interesting experiments in large-scale guerrilla filmmaking.

Suffice it to say that this is good family fare with plenty of decent gags (visual and otherwise), and it’s nicely acted by all the principals. In addition, Julie Walters, Peter Capaldi and Jim Broadbent turn up in smaller but still lively roles.

Given the juiciest plotline, Tamblyn goes for it, turning in a hard-boiled performance that's a needed contrast to her co-stars' tendency to go for sweet.

A good action movie, whose title expresses what is, more or less, a recurring motif. It also gives a sense of the film's general attitude toward life. It's a film with no ambition but to get viewers' pulses moving. It does that, and with a fair degree of wit and style.

If you know the world of “The Many Saints of Newark” — maybe you’re Italian American from the East Coast, and have at least a dim memory of the late 1960s — this prequel to “The Sopranos” TV series is both accurate and oddly hilarious.

What makes Chemical Hearts so good is it’s unafraid of its feelings. It tackles complicated emotional issues such as depression, suicide, sex and love with a straightforward honesty. For once, a film about young people is completely free of snark and irony.

To put it into a larger perspective, if Creed III were a “Rocky” movie, it would be up there — nowhere near the original “Rocky” and a little worse than “Rocky II,” but certainly better than the rest of them.