One of the charms of The Red Turtle is a chance to savor the joys of clean and simple animation suggestive of the old hand-drawn school, which is part of what makes the film, a quiet, humanistic fable, one of the best of its kind in memory.

When it's over, this documentary lingers as a testament to extraordinary human bravery. It stands as one of the most heartbreaking and suspenseful sagas of the year.

This is a film that’s likely to stick with you because of its exceptional intensity. You may find yourself wondering, long after the credits roll, what on Earth is in store for Boris’ unborn child?

The movie is about a sculptor, played by Michelle Williams, in the days leading up to a gallery show. That’s all it’s about, and yet it’s enough. The pleasure of Showing Up is in being dropped into this woman’s life and, more profoundly, into her consciousness.

A lot of actors are labeled "brave" for taking on difficult scripts like this, but Spacek is the real thing: an artist first, without vanity, and a movie star almost by default.

The movie examines the possibility of maintaining one's humanity in a truly oppressive society.

This is a beautiful film, full of gray-and white-haired men who grow in stature before our eyes.

The murder plot is a cheap turn that says nothing about the nature of Suzanne's ambition. Without Suzanne's media-obsession as its focus, To Die For becomes just another fairly good black comedy.

Nobody's Fool functions mostly as a character study, but it's also Benton's elegy to America's endangered small towns. It's a gem.

Its virtues are velocity, energy, innovative storytelling - and something that seems even more the province of young directors: a certain heartlessness and ironic distance in the tone.

A lively experience.

The suburban world Owen and Maddy feel so out of sync with, seen mostly at night, flickers with blue, magenta and sickly green light. It’s unnerving, yet mesmerizing, like a small-screen nightmare that won’t let your psyche go.

The spellbinding power of this almost certain Oscar nominee for best documentary comes from its chilling subject matter.

May December is light and amusing, but also profound and serious. See it once — and then think about it for a long time.

More than the standard, cranked-out genre piece. Its characters linger in your mind, and the quality of its actors lift the movie into another league. [14 April 1989]

I'll go ahead and call Drug War the best Hong Kong action movie since "Infernal Affairs" (the 2002 film that Martin Scorsese remade as "The Departed"), even though technically it's a Chinese film.

Still, no matter how flat “The Lost Daughter” can sometimes seem, there’s always something to hold our attention. The movie is never great, but it’s never exactly dull. There’s always a reason to stick around for the next scene.

Nanjiani is engaging throughout, though the scenes of his standup routine are a little confusing. He’s not funny, not even slightly. Is he supposed to be? That’s not clear.

The main source of astonishment is the precision exhibited everywhere, from the slyly vintage look of Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography to the gradual, cinching tension in Chris Terrio's careful screenplay.

Audiences watch Summer Hours and then, a week later, remember it as though they've lived it.

Explosive entertainment, with the tension and volatility of its subject matter.

[Frears] has not only captured the bleak qualities of the old film noir melodramas but supplied an undercurrent that is as sly as it is unsettling. [25 Jan 1991]

This is Almodovar's stab at serious drama, and the result is bizarre and affecting but also unsettling in ways that the filmmaker may not have intended.

If it were just a middling effort, The Master would be a lot less frustrating. But the latest from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has greatness in it - two extraordinary performances, intuitive and revealing photography and scene setting, and a distinct directorial sensibility that hovers between sobriety and satire. Yet all those virtues are undermined by a narrative that goes all but dead for the last hour.

There may not be a better- acted film this year.

Beautiful, romantic and frantically funny. In its brief, often frenetic 85-minute running time it manages to be a riot of entertainment, embracing the best of old-fashioned merriment as well as savvy, up-to-the-minute contemporary humor, thanks in large part to an extraordinary performance by Robin Williams. [25 Nov 1992, p.E1]

Ambitious and brilliant.

The script and direction are virtually flawless.

This is formidable filmmaking, and Heineman has become one of our most daring, and interesting, documentarians.

Only a director who truly knows repression could have made a movie so subtle and so understanding.

Remarkable also for the uniform excellence of its cast, and for the pleasure [Altman's] actors take in the wide berth he allows them. [24 Apr 1992]

Shrewd, highly controlled little film from Belgium that builds to an unexpected emotional climax.

Martin Compston, the young man-child of Sweet Sixteen, had never acted before, but his combination of sweetness and rage -- part puppy, part pit bull -- gives Sweet Sixteen a shot of reality and a big, aching heart.

One of Miyazaki's most kid-accessible movies, but still an unnerving film.

An intense and chilling documentary.

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

Late in the extraordinary new Netflix documentary American Factory, Cao DeWang, the Chinese CEO of the Fuyao Group, wonders aloud, “I don’t know if I’m a contributor or a sinner.”

First Reformed has a confidence about it, the presence of filmmaking consciousness that can’t do wrong, because this time he knows exactly what he wants to say, not only in a general sense, but second by second and shot by shot.

Having hooked us with style, Wright knows he has to deliver on the story, and he does. His plotting is tight and fluid, wild and ultimately satisfying. It’s the ultimate cliche to compare a movie to a thrill ride, but sometimes the cliche applies.

One of the most incisive and perceptive Hollywood films about Hollywood.

The interplay between Starling and Lector as they share an indefinable, dark understanding gives the film its unforgettable and unsettling power. [14 February 1991, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

The film is its own beast, and it's a rare one.

Whatever you may feel about each side, it's hard to watch as city officials order explosives to be dropped on the MOVE house (which has a bunker on top) - and then sit idly by as the resulting fire burns the entire neighborhood. You'll keep asking yourself: How did it come to this? And hauntingly, no one has any answers.

Fan has visual panache - Last Train Home has some gorgeously composed shots - but he also has something that can't be taught: The patience and understanding to allow a family to tell their heartbreaking story in their own way.

Though One Fine Morning is low-key and flows easily from one scene to the next, it’s truly innovative and original. Writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve has cracked a code. She figured out how to make a kind of movie that other filmmakers would love to make but don’t know how.

Varda's subject matter is surprisingly rich, but it's her own energetic, curious nature that gives the film its snap.

Directed with playful wit and energy, with steamy sex scenes played as much for laughs as anything else.

With “A Real Pain,” Jesse Eisenberg has invented a new genre we can call “the Kieran Culkin movie.”

A strange, vivid tale of two British schoolchildren stranded in the deserts of the outback.

It's an horrific and tragic story, but somehow made beautiful through the care and attention of Schnabel's direction and Bardem's tender, unforgettable performance.

Given its many twists, Atlantics is best experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible. Suffice it to say, it’s a fascinating window into a culture that doesn’t get nearly enough focus through the camera lens, and it takes full advantage of the cinematic form to envelop the audience in feelings of unease and uplift that are equally effective and affecting.

Leaves an impression, while its specifics fade almost immediately.

The Green Knight is a strange film — so out of step with current trends, so original in its conception, so willing to take its time and follow its own course — that it must be counted among the better films of 2021.

A thoughtful, satisfying action thriller.

The epic and impassioned close that the saga deserves, a sweeping Wagnerian finish that's taut with suspense and wet with emotion.

All the women are good company, but in some ways Dench is the star of the show. She laughs often as she kibitzes with the others and seems not at all in awe of herself.

Athlete A gives us the story behind the story. It’s a terrific journalism movie, but it’s also a story of young women who persevered and found justice against the odds.

Take Shelter has a problem, the simplest of all problems but no less serious for its being simple. It's a film without suspense and with a slow-moving story that unfolds without surprise or embellishment.

It's simply a quiet and heartbreaking look at the dynamics of one family. That's the beauty of it.

One of the great Holocaust films.

Get Out reveals an underlying unease. It diffuses tension, even as it points to its source. It may be somewhat rough and unrefined and even ill-considered in some of its particulars. Yet it may stand as a kind of pop culture document of this historical moment, a moment that’s not nearly as funny as this movie.

City of Life and Death, a stunning re-creation of the Japanese army's annihilation of Nanking in 1937, will make you flinch, even as you admire its brilliant black-and-white cinematography, breathtaking art design and unerring direction.

The big news about Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is that it’s a magnificent movie, even by Spielberg standards and even by “West Side Story” standards.

With its unique concerns, unerring sense of calm balance, and haunting Celtic-referencing score, “Song” is a worthy entry into the Oscar conversation.

The short, sad life of Amy Winehouse is compellingly told in a new documentary that sidesteps sensationalism and dime-store psychologizing and lets archival footage do much of the work.

The experience of seeing this film is cumulative, sober and profound.

The right mix of humor and horror and with not even a shred of sentimentality.

The movie’s failure to engage is illustrated by directors Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s approach to the climactic scene. They shoot it almost entirely in long shot, as if inviting the audience not to care — or worse, as if admitting there was nothing to care about, after all.

It remains as unsettling as ever.

Hornby's humane and humorous screenplay is true to the film's title: In short order, young Jenny finds out important truths about identity, glamour and how adults really think and live.

As good as the film is in conveying the feeling of the walls closing in, it has to be said that the script won't win any prizes for subtlety - the director seems to relish ham-fisted ironies.

An exceptionally fine movie that plays out on a large and leisurely scale.

A remarkable documentary about an almost unfathomable ordeal.

The movie is a rendering of the internal landscape of a contemporary cowboy, with the complexities and ambiguities left intact. It’s a kind of parable, delivered in a manner that has nothing to do with preaching.

Out of the Past is cinematic perfection, a Hollywood classic that's as great and as enjoyable as its reputation has promised.

One of the more thoughtful and valiant feature film directorial debuts in recent memory.

A fascinating and entertaining glimpse into the world of high-level and socially conscious graffiti artists?

Though overly long and difficult to digest, it's a feast you won't want to miss.

A story that's startling, soulful and absolutely unforgettable.

Although its message is deadly serious, is is filled with wit and winning characters.

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.”

Knocked Up has some rough edges, but it's a noteworthy film by a significant and blossoming talent.

Sad yet offering glimpses of hope.

There's no attempt at greatness here, just a fabulously successful attempt at a good crime movie. The Oscar-bait self-consciousness of "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator" is gone. In its place is a buoyancy, an impish delight in telling a harsh urban story in the most effective terms possible.

Must-see cinema for any serious rock fan.

A masterful portrait of the seasons of a life.

If you needed that explanation, April and the Extraordinary World might not be for you. If you’re a steampunk fan, by all means go. Just don’t expect a classic.

Screenwriters Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan have clarified a few things that needed clarifying, camouflaged a few things that needed camouflaging - and gently tugged some passive flashbacks into the active present. It's a cagey adaptation.

Sanders likes to mention Monet’s colorful influence, but the realistic, primeval wilderness of “The Wild Robot” is what stirs the soul.

This is a clever comedy about working-class women, and a sly, entertaining commentary on the insidious effects of gender inequality.

You never catch Gosling doing anything out of character. It's the first Oscar-caliber performance I've seen so far this year.

What this uncaring man is doing to her (Ida), he's about to do to a nation of 50 million people. And all of them will hate themselves in the morning.

All over this movie there are cliches that are just plain embarrassing, and unsettling moments in which it's obvious Kloves is writing about stuff he doesn't know a thing about. [13 Oct 1989, p.E1]

Pacino and Crowe are at their best, but the supporting cast also shines.

A seriously good movie, a challenge to viewers, a rebuke of the way many Americans live their lives.

Not as profound as it is pretty, Hero nevertheless gives us something to ponder beyond Zhang's feat in mounting such a magnificent production.

Ross doesn’t gloss over the challenges facing the rural black county, but he finds a strong spirit there, even as the storm clouds hover.

If you have to watch someone cooking or eating, Juliette Binoche is as good a choice as any, but even she can’t make scintillating entertainment out of chewing, stirring a pot and putting on oven mitts.