What's Christmas Day without a good serial killer movie?

As British comedy sometimes will, A Long Way Down has an occasional attack of the cutes, but the actors' commitment keeps the movie on the plus side.

Slowly unfolding but liberating film, which is also a rare look inside a circumscribed community.

It wears its heart on its sleeve and is a bit too sentimental, but it is sweet and pleasing.

The violence and mayhem are constant, though the movie's style is refreshingly old-fashioned -- scream- and laughter-inducing, rather than coldly repulsive in the modern fashion.

A romantic drama, a rare kind of film these days, even though romantic dramas were once a dominant genre in America.

The movie's biggest weakness is in the presentation of Caine's grandparents.... The attempt, it seems, is to show a potentially positive influence in Caine's life. But the grandparents come across as canned characters, corny and concocted. [26 May 1993, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

A fascinating fact-based portrait of a gambling addict.

Hatching has the quality of a fable, and like the best fables, it has meanings that reverberate well beyond its story.

Jodie Foster stars, and it's a pleasure, for once, to see her in something entertaining and mindless.

An appealing Brazilian animated feature, and it’s conveyed in a handsome, expressive style that’s pleasing to watch.

A study in unexpressed emotion, but Mamet turns the flame so low that his film lacks the emotional payoff we expect.

Though a heartbreaking film, there are certainly moments of quirky humor.

The story is well-told, but what makes it interesting is that each character confronts his or her own crisis — even Tommie, the paramedic who rescued him. It also drives home the point that a seemingly small tragic event can affect an entire community.

The overall mood is out-and-out misty-eyed, a feeling emphasized by the movie’s piano score. Ramen Shop has some flaws — the movie jumps jarringly back and forth in time — but voluptuous closeups of delightful dishes like chilli crab make up for a lot.

DogMan won’t appeal to everybody, but there’s something to be said for a movie that makes you wonder if the filmmaker has gone crazy.

If you're looking for cinema verite, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a fun, fizzy sequel in a franchise left for dead 10 years ago, have at it.

A well-constructed and genuinely tense thriller.

This feast of fantasy is worth it.

What's surprising about Quick Change, particularly in light of his more recent mega-budget efforts, is its witty affability. [15 Jul 1990, p.34]

The Gladiator script by Lyle Kessler and Robert Mark Kamen has been thought out carefully, and only during the climactic fight does it seem contrived when it becomes a parable about corruption. Ultimately, the film was designed to stir up our juices, and it succeeds. [6 March 1992, p.D1]

This is a heartfelt piece, and while passion alone can't carry a movie, it sure helps. Ararat is uneven because Egoyan couldn't tell it smoothly.

Hitchcock isn't ambitious or complicated. It's simple, does what it sets out to do, and gets out before anyone even thinks about checking the time. More movies should be made in its image.

A courtroom drama with a compelling story and something peculiar about it, too: For most of its running time, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of a rooting interest. The audience isn't quite sure who it's for or against.

If you want to know what a culture thinks it thinks, watch drama. But if you want to know how it really thinks, watch comedy. Watch, for example, Blockers, which is exuberant in its crudeness and coarseness. It’s where comedy is now, and it’s very funny.

A new restoration takes a flawed bit of monster camp and turns it back into a strong, serious-minded and occasionally moving science-fiction film.

Summertime is the first movie ever like Summertime, and on that basis alone, we should appreciate it.

The Ornithologist has its pleasures. Perhaps one day Rodrigues will turn his considerable talent and unique approach to a portrait of the real-life St. Anthony, in the way that Roberto Rossellini paid tribute to his hero in “The Flowers of St. Francis.”

It’s a moving meditation about our unwavering need for creativity, and finding ways to express it.

It’s scattered and messy and startling and electric and fun.

The screenplay by Payne and Jim Taylor, based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, sees the lives of these suburban students and teachers through a prism of absurdity that refracts more truth than any straightforward telling.

A thoughtful, satisfying action thriller.

Told from a different angle than any other Holocaust film I've seen.

Deerskin is funny, weird and original; it features two charismatic stars, and it does everything it needs to do in only 77 minutes.

Whores' Glory, is as sad a film as you can possibly see. To experience it is to be haunted by the bleakness and ugliness of prostitution, the hopeless trap of it, and the defeat of love that it represents.

The animation is rich and densely detailed, the characters well defined.

MaXXXine, clearly boasting a higher budget, stands as a bloody valentine to Hollywood. It’s a cesspool, all right, but it’s our cesspool, he seems to say, and guess what? Every once in a while true art comes out of it.

Though its sentiment may be lost on the very young, the movie is strictly two-hanky fare.

Gains depth from subtle dark humor and a few genuinely emotional moments

The movie has a saving grace in that it breaks formula. Its concerns are not the usual movie concerns, and it takes what might have been a standard plot in some unexpected directions.

Strange, moody film.

While the film adopts a sometimes jaunty tone, the fact is that gerrymandering is bad news, assuming you believe that elections should mean something.

This much is certain: The cover-up was grotesque.

Beyond question, the results are overstated, outrageous and wildly juvenile. But they're also a hoot to watch.

Perhaps the idea of watching Jeff Bridges as a drunken, broken-down, down-on-his luck country music singer in Crazy Heart doesn't automatically sound appealing. But think this: "The Wrestler." With good songs.

A whole lot of plot ensues - an entertaining mix of buddy movie, road trip, "Clash of the Titans," archetypal quest and a coming-of-age tale about misfits making their way despite, or because of, absent parents.

Even filmgoers who aren't into dance will find this story captivating because, as much as anything, Sokvannara wants to please his audience, whether in the concert hall or the movie theater. The kid is a natural.

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers represents the first time the author has ever written a story directly for the screen. The result is a nicely paced picture that unfolds gradually, with shocks and surprises throughout. [11 Apr 1992, p. C3]

Funny and disturbing in the best way, the comedy-drama Austin Found captures something beyond its story of a woman’s obsession with making her little daughter a beauty pageant winner.

Written and directed by Riley Stearns, The Art of Self-Defense brings out a particularly skillful performance from Eisenberg, whose job is to harmonize the film’s odd shifts in tone and make something real and heartfelt of the central character’s journey.

Might be said to have pleasant echoes of "Garden State" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" -- except that they aren't echoes; this 1999 indie film was made long before those other two hits, and frankly, is just about as good.

The style is documentary-like, in that it feels like life and that anything might happen. There is also a nice sense of being in the midst of the action and right there in the room with the characters.

Somehow, it all works -- even if Miller relies on a plot that meanders a bit and loses some of its luster.

A weird and near-perfect polyglot of indie art film and noir mystery.

The tone of The Killing of a Sacred Deer is the best thing about it and the hardest to describe. You might call it skewed, except that what often is called skewed is extreme and outlandish, while this movie is quiet and precise.

The Neon Bible is a lovely, rewarding film, but it requires some work and some faith on the part of the viewer. Davies' rhythms and camera moves are as slow and stately as ever -- the antithesis of most Hollywood films -- and the moments of crystallized emotion he achieves are sometimes separated by dull patches and self-conscious artiness.

Taken 2 is like a textbook on how to make beautiful, successful and highly satisfying junk-food cinema. When it's just a plot point, the information gets tossed out as fast and as forcefully as possible. Time is lavished only on the things that matter.

Against all odds, Morbius is an intelligent, human story.

An enjoyable farce, with lots of laughs and a strong cast. At 80 minutes long, it's that rare case of a short film that should have been longer.

This is a very little film with a very large heart.

Thanks to the three strong performances at its heart — especially that of a wisecracking Samuel L. Jackson (who’s also one of the producers) — The Banker often is as entertaining as it is enlightening. It’s “Hidden Figures” with redlining instead of rocket fuel.

Dunston Checks In is a fast- moving, well-done farce that both kids and adults will enjoy.

The film is a touching, detailed portrait of an important and often overlooked band. Filmmaker David C. Thomas has done a wonderful job of stitching his filmed interviews together with the extensive vintage footage he scrounged.

A lively experience.

The ultimate Julia Roberts movie.

A consistently absorbing, often gripping, sometimes muddled whydidhedoit (because we already know whodunit), The Third Murder moves along Kore-eda’s customary careful, incisive pace, yet manages to be, for the most part, a riveting legal thriller.

Solondz ("Fear, Anxiety and Depression") is almost unrelenting in his quirky fixation with the adolescent outsider and he pursues visions of everyday human injury nearly to the point of caricature. But he stops just short, and this amusingly twisted film mixes humor and heart-tugging sadness with a disturbing vitality.

At heart, all documentaries aim to be important films. Few actually pull it off. Minor flaws and all, Jesus Camp is among the year's most important films, if only because it forces us to learn about an America we seldom see and seldom want to see.

A culture-clash comedy that, in addition to being very funny, captures some of the discomfort and embarrassment of being a bumbling American in Europe.

The joy is in the details - from the animated credits to the perky pop score to the pre-"Mad Man" hair, clothes and general sensibility.

Fundamentalists might take umbrage, but The Ten is not so much blasphemous as it is very silly, and it lives up to the one unbendable commandment of comedy: It's funny.

Teixeira elicits extraordinary performances from his entire cast.

The action sequences are novel, the performances are slightly askew, and the camera work is vigorous and mostly effective.

Efficiently directed by Marc Webb (the Andrew Garfield “Spider-Man” movies) with an excellent production design by Kave Quinn, “Snow White” is everything you need it to be and nothing more.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes has an overwrought title, but it’s the best movie of the film franchise.

Fans of this film will some day wear out their DVDs and Blu-rays playing that fantastic battle scene again and again.

What we have here is a small, delicate mini-masterpiece, and bright new talent behind the camera.

It's a movie for audiences who think exuberance in movies is more important than sense or logic and who can laugh at a movie and like it at the same time.

Leonard & Marianne suggests that these were two immensely intelligent and talented people who never found happiness. The total love each person sought over the decades may have been right there all along. Or at least, it was there, in decades past, on Hydra.

But to be fair, Stone doesn't seem even to think he's offering the last word here. Rather, he's trying to offer the first word, or at least a first opportunity to hear the other side, unfiltered by television media.

There is much to think about in Far From the Tree, a worthy and at times tender film.

Roofman hooks viewers with its compelling depiction of a person too smart for his own good. It’s funny and moving, however close to or far from the real events it may be.

A canny piece of filmmaking, sure to absorb both audiences familiar with Kushner's plays and those who know little or nothing about him.

An amusing melodrama.

Although the filmmakers apparently wanted to focus on the Beatles, the movie's strongest moments are about Freda herself.

The picture is crammed with shameless satire, engaging moments of pure silliness and jokes that border on the outrageous. It combines relentless energy with an aura of good nature for a formula that works.

A romantic drama that also offers smart commentary on class and economic differences.

A dynamic story, sprinkled with some interesting ideas about the preciousness of culture and how societies might rebuild themselves.

Audiences will walk out with that good chiropractor feeling, the one that says, “Yes, I have been manipulated. I have been nothing but manipulated and pounded on for the past 90 minutes. And it was a very satisfying thing.”

Though directed by someone who has been making movies for four years, “Drive-Away Dolls” feels like a young person’s movie, which is a good thing. It also seems like a movie directed by someone who grew up watching Tarantino movies, not Coen Brothers movies, which is unexpected but welcome, too.

Sgt. Bilko's attempts at loose-cannon nuttiness sometimes go astray, but under Jonathan Lynn's direction, the film manages to keep a lively balance between the dumbed-down antics of Bilko's platoon of young motor- pool hustlers, to whom he is mentor, and the more nuanced satire of dimwit military brass.

BPM has vitality and directness, a sense of witnessing life in the moment.

Even with the conflict overkill, most of the small moments ring true. Dolphin Tale has more in common with "The Swiss Family Robinson" than most modern live-action family movies, where slapstick and cheap laughs feed short attention spans.

The Optimist could be described as a Holocaust drama, but it approaches that history in an unexpected way.

Jonah Hill has directed and co-written an impressive little movie with “Outcome.” It could be called a Hollywood satire, but what’s striking about it — and audacious and unexpected — is that it’s dramatic and heartfelt. Here and there, it even comes close to being sentimental.

An example of good, clean, incredibly brutal fun. [09 Oct 1990, p.E1]

Flawless is a fictional tale, but something in director Michael Radford's conscientious, methodical presentation gives it the feeling of true history.

What's unforeseen in Unforeseen, a superior documentary by Laura Dunn, are the consequences of a certain mind-set about mankind's relationship to the world and, finally, to itself.