The formality of Moonrise Kingdom - the orderly structure and dreamlike perfection of it all - is as poetic as any film I've seen this year.

One of the great portraits of artists fighting, even with murderous rage, to reach the sublime.

For pure laughs, for the experience of just sitting in a chair and breaking up every minute or so, Superbad is 2007's most successful comedy.

On its own, Driveways would be a sweet, understated masterpiece, simply told, of human connection. But with the death of longtime distinguished stage and movie actor Brian Dennehy on April 15, director Andrew Ahn allows us to say a proper goodbye to the big fella, who gets the final six minutes of the movie all to himself.

Jay Kelly is Baumbach’s best film and, from an artistic standpoint, his first complete success.

It’s a masterpiece of a family popcorn movie, with eye-popping hand-crafted production design and outstanding creature design and puppetry work. This is the kind of movie that could have been made in the era of moon landings and space shuttles, when the general public found science trustworthy and wondrous.

American Fiction is not a perfect film. The book trails off at the finish, and though the movie comes up with something better, the end still doesn’t feel ideal. But none of that matters as much as it might, because Wright gives the perfect performance.

The most striking effect of the Technicolor process is its subtlety. The viewer is aware of the gradations of flesh tones in Leigh's face and can see the color rise in her cheeks. The exact color of her eyes is a source of fascination (they are gray-blue with flashes of green).

Remarkably fresh and inventive.

What a talent Waad is. For Sama is a film made with the instincts of a journalist, the passion of a revolutionary and the beating heart of a mother.

“Hobbs & Shaw” is witty and mischievous, full of surprise and invention, and a total blast.

Totally original yet filled with familiar human frailties, "Everyone" leaps off the screen to become one of those rare movie-going experiences.

It comes as a bonus that this romantic comedy is one of the rare pictures of its type that actually is about something -- the double-edged sword of celebrity.

Ages well in memory because it gradually seems to mean more. Its meaning can't be summed up in a sentence, but it has to do with a view of life as inexpressibly sad and yet always right.

As challenging as it must have been to pilot Joss Whedon's space opera from the TV junk pile to the big screen, the finished product is a triumph.

One of the best crime dramas to come along in years.

Resembles a Christopher Guest movie in that it follows obsessed, socially awkward folks on a seminal journey in their lives.

Romper Stomper is a fist in the face, spiked knuckles tearing flesh, a kick in the groin from hobnailed boots and a riot hose turned on the complacent. [03 Sep 1993, p.C3]

The submarine drama, which opens today, has everything you could want from an action thriller and a few other things you usually can't hope to expect: an excellent script, first-rate performances and a story that has more to do with individuals than explosions.

This is a transcendent cinematic vision you can dance to. By God, it’s inspired.

Seriously, if you dislike Liza, you might want to take a look at yourself and figure out what’s going on there. Or, better yet, just go see “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,” the new documentary about her life and career, and become a convert.

The result is an excellent film - entertaining and informative and sometimes stunning in its display of the personal demons shared by these two geniuses.

There's a seething moral core in Amores Perros that uses the canine savagery as an entre to human brutality.

This is the portrait of a marriage as full and enviable as the greatest unions in literature.

Internal Affairs gets inside of you so fast that it's hard to look for or notice its imperfections. There's no point in quibbling about a movie that's this good, this absorbing and merciless, this original and twisted. [12 Jan 1990, p.E1]

Usually, with movies, you can imagine how they were made — how the idea came, and the process of its creation. But Knight of Cups seems as if it arrived whole. If there’s a better film this year, get ready for a very good year.

The performances are sublime, of course, but it's how Altman masterminds the moral conflicts at the core of the story that makes Thieves so powerful. [03 Jun 2007, p.32]

The smartest thing director Steven Soderbergh did in the making of The Girlfriend Experience was to cast Sasha Grey.

So in-depth, so appealing, so easy to sit through and so anomalously grand scale that few who see it will ever forget it.

The Fugitive is the best movie of the summer and one of the best of the year. It's an action film that delivers everything a modern audience expects, and it's also a serious drama with strong characters and intense performances. [6 Aug 1993, p.C1]

Spike Lee is relevant again. He's necessary again.

The magic of Brooklyn can’t be analyzed, but something in the richness of its relationships puts an essential truth before us — the brevity and immensity of life. We know all about that, of course, but that’s the beauty of great art: It takes what you already know and makes you feel it.

Days of Heaven is a visual poem. Slow and elegant, reverential in the way it celebrates the earth's contours and the play of light. [27 Oct. 1999, p.B3]

They ought to forgo the formalities and simply give Nick Nolte his Oscar right now for what is one of the great performances on screen, in this season or any other, in Prince of Tides, a sensitive, emotionally explosive jewel directed by Barbra Streisand, who also co-stars. The powerful, haunting drama opens today. [25 Dec 1991, p.E1]

A penetrating study of the subjectivity of truth and perception, changed cinema forever and inspired the phrase "the Rashomon effect."

I laughed so hard, my eyes watered. I laughed so loud, I lost track of whether anyone else was laughing. I laughed so much, I ached afterwards. [29 July 1988, Daily Notebook, p.E1]

Eichner is quick and funny, and Macfarlane is a strong leading man and a sensitive listener — with Eichner constantly deluging him with a torrent of words, Macfarlane would have to be. Audiences will become very fond of both long before the end of the picture.

Although it would take much more than a 95 minute documentary for true enlightenment, Letters to Baghdad also helps us understand the complex political situation stemming from the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Chef is the best thing he (Favreau) has ever done, as writer or director or actor. It's the sort of thing of beauty that filmmakers are ultimately remembered for.

A few times every year, Hollywood makes a mistake, violates formula and actually makes a great picture. Falling Down is one of the great mistakes of 1993, a film too good and too original to win any Oscars but one bound to be remembered in years to come as a true and ironic statement about life in our time. [26 Feb 1993, p.D1]

Simply the most relentlessly entertaining film of the last few months.

By far Elvis' best post-Army flick, and you can thank Ann-Margret for that distinction. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

A conspiracy tale of high-tech chicanery, Chain Reaction has better acting, better writing, more spectacular chase sequences and more genuine drama than all of this summer's blockbusters. It's also got Morgan Freeman, as good an actor as we have today, which easily qualifies it as the one action film you should see this summer if you see no other.

Craig leaves the series in a mammoth, 163-minute extravaganza that audiences will be enjoying for decades. It’s a lovely thing to see.

A heartbreaking, beautiful movie that gains strength from its deep characterizations.

It is far too sophisticated and operatic to be dismissed as simply a cheap-thrills, blast-'em blowout. [19 Aug 1994, p.C14]

This character study, which was nominated for two BAFTA Awards, including outstanding British film of the year, is Sharrock’s second full-length feature. That he could make a film so warm and wise early in his career bodes well for whatever comes next.

The best American film of 2008.

Has an odd mix of quickly grabbed handheld shots and scenes of striking beauty.

There are many great acting moments in this film, but you should especially savor the final shot, the long close-up of Haenel in profile. Put simply, it’s why we go to the movies.

A terrific documentary about forbidden love in the most heinous of places.

Bride is often cited as Whale's masterpiece, and one of the reasons surely is his intentional lacing of humor throughout that never completely undercuts the horror or pathos.

Bursts with action, ideas and interesting characters.

Swan Song, of course, belongs to Ali. He conveys Cameron’s vise grip of moral dilemma, fear of dying and concern for his family visually, often wordlessly, and it is a complex, layered performance. Let’s just say this is an unusual way to confront your inner demons.

It’s Zendaya’s movie. Her layered performance holds back then lets go as Emma’s full complexity is gradually revealed. If you can’t get onboard with Emma, then you’re the problem — which partly is Borgli’s intention.

A completely appealing, beautifully preserved memory piece - a grand, colorful coming-of-age story with a candy box color palette and a standout performance by Renée Zellweger. It's a great story and a great crowd-pleaser.

It not only evocatively captures the Russian spirit and the yearnings of a generation, but it also masterfully chronicles the historic collapse of the Soviet Union and its complex aftermath.

This expands an already long movie to more than three hours, but this time there's no getting enough of a good thing. [2002 Director's Cut]

With Milk, a great San Francisco story becomes a great American story.

The movie is a wonderful surprise, cleverly written and executed brick by brick with a visual panache.

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

It’s a bit crazy, wild yet precise, a mix of comedy and drama that feints in the direction of anachronism, even as it provides a grand showcase for Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and Olivia Colman, who are extraordinary.

Kristin Scott Thomas' performance in I've Loved You So Long is one of a small handful of highlights by which people will remember this year in movies. This is acting at its most exalted.

[Lange's] allure is staggering. If you've never seen her in this film - if you've never seen the young Jessica Lange, except in "Tootsie" - prepare to pick your jaw up off the floor.

This is spellbinding, transporting, damn near indescribable and the latest indication that Christopher Nolan might be the slyest narrative tactician making movies today.

So original, so funny, so alive with drama, intrigue, mystery and colors that you want to see it again and again.

Assessing the merits of a political film is a tricky business. Obviously, its quality is partly a function of its power to persuade, but its persuasiveness is in the eye of the beholder.

Director Brendan Toller uses archive footage and droll animation that keep the stories revelatory and entertaining.

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.

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

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]

Shows how a documentary can be as moving and suspenseful as the best narrative feature.

One of the year's sweetest surprises. It sneaks up on you, disarming you with its modesty and tenderness, its remarkable lack of self-infatuation.

A buoyant, picaresque farce that hums with goofy energy and mines enough ideas, jokes and setups for three movies of this description.

Lone Scherfig, the writer-director, has made a film so unabashedly hopeful that it actually makes the heart soar. Yes, soar.

RoboCop is no canned remake of the 1987 action film. It's a reimagining that responds to everything that has changed in American life over the past 27 years, addressing new threats and exploiting new anxieties.

Its deeply anarchic sensibility has kept Taxi Driver fresh all these years. [20th Anniversary Release]

Pelosi in the House is a one-of-a-kind document of one of the most important women in American history.

Cruise and McQuarrie have made the best film in the franchise’s history and the most enjoyable and exciting action movie in several years.

The kind of picture to whip out the clichés for: Surprisingly original. Delightful. Brilliant. Funny as all heck. When 1989 is through, sex, lies, and videotape may well be remembered as the best film of the year. [11 Aug 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

The comic contrast between the genteel snobbery of von Bulow, a Danish aristocrat, and Dershowitz's dry contempt for his well-tailored client is treated with understated but stinging wit in Nicholas Kazan's brilliant script. [9 Nov 1990]

It will be the most talked-about comedy of summer.

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.

The experiences of this family from Fairfield will resonate with moviegoers around the country.

Among the great American crime movies, 1973's Badlands stands alone. [13 Feb. 1998]

Marks a cinematic milestone.

Documentary filmmakers pray for something to happen to their subjects when the cameras are rolling, and two-time Academy Award-winning documentarian Kopple struck gold when Maines told a crowd on the opening night of the band's first European tour that she was "ashamed" that President Bush was from Texas.

Notes on a Scandal won't be everyone's cup of tea. But if you like your films strong, this one is not to be missed.

I don't claim to have seen every entry from around the world, but it's hard to imagine five better than this deliciously offbeat comedy, as wildly inventive as anything Billy Wilder ever conceived.

Superb new documentary.

Why such a structurally scattered movie should hang together at all is a mystery. That it does more than that, that it works brilliantly, is a miracle, or at the very least the product of unquantifiable causes.

Flows in a way that seems effortless, following its own path, arriving at its own place. Only after the movie is over are the outlines of its story apparent. I found it impossible to outguess it. [12 July 1991]

The movie feels more like a thriller and a mystery than a documentary. Perhaps someday, someone will be inspired to dramatize this astonishing story.

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 worthwhile.

Lily Tomlin has been one of our best comedic actresses for the past 50 years, and she’s at the height of her powers in the beautifully observed dramedy Grandma. Her performance is funny, acerbic, touching — and ultimately, exhilarating.

That's why American Movie cuts so deep: It's about the American dream, about not giving up, about being true to yourself.

Must-see cinema for any serious rock fan.