Sicko will scare people, and it probably should.

Few thrillers create as much sheer joy and happiness as Charade, in which Cary Grant spoofs his Alfred Hitchcock persona, Audrey Hepburn exudes her usual magnetic charm, and Paris is as scenic as ever. [18 Jan 2018, p.E4]

This is warm and intuitive work, striking that elusive balance between inspiration and control.

Presented without preachiness or affectation, Kandahar is a short, matter-of-fact visit to hell.

But make no mistake, whether the movie is fair or horribly unfair - I know nothing of the actual facts and can't make that determination - its portrait of Zuckerberg is a hatchet job of epic and perhaps lasting proportions.

The picture could easily have slipped into pure melodrama, but the blend of comedy, sophistication and political intrigue, as well as excellent character development, puts it in a class by itself. [25 Nov 2007, p.N36]

One of the great satisfactions of Spectre is that, in addition to all the stirring action, and all the timely references to a secret organization out to steal everyone’s personal information, we get to believe in Bond as a person.

Fernanda Montenegro gives a landmark performance.

Part conscious and part unconscious, Watchmen tells us of a world without hope and then makes us wonder if we're already living in it.

The effect is like watching an opera without music. Or a musical drama in which no one sings. These departures from a realistic convention never feel like static set pieces - that's the great success of the film and of the poems themselves.

A different kind of Harry Potter movie, a better kind... It's where this fantasy series has wanted to go all along.

The alien attack, taking place in several cities at once, is breathtaking...All the same, Independence Day is consistently funny.

Nobody into lush melodramas dripping in sex should miss this pulsating Italian import.

For its look and its innovation, and for its ability to suggest shades of feeling with a minimum use of intertitles — and as a classic of the first order — Sunrise must be seen.

A tense, concise and elegantly shot film.

A stirring romance between an emotionally stifled sheep farmer and an irrepressible Romanian migrant worker, isn’t shy about paying homage to the classic “Brokeback Mountain,” but in many ways, this British film turns out better.

There are some heart-tugging scenes, but overall, this is the cinematic equivalent of a blissful weekend at the spa, a relaxing respite from the stressful news cycles of our times.

To director James Ivory's credit, however, he has recreated that period in pre-World War I England and endowed the platonic passion between two upper-class Englishmen with singular grace in Maurice. [25 Sep 1987]

Terminator 2 imagines things you wouldn't even be likely to dream and gets these visions onto the screen with a seamlessness that's mind-boggling. [3 July 1991, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Part of the appeal of Topsy-Turvy is its generosity about human folly and shortcomings. Its wistfulness is very touching.

Gorgeous and optimistic.

Fueled by exquisite performances from Tony winner Erivo (“The Color Purple”), as Elphaba, or the Wicked Witch of the West, and Grammy winner Grande as Glinda the Good Witch, “Wicked” is the best movie musical in years, representing a rare instance when performances, visuals and songs are of equally high quality.

More than one joke or one idea. It's a thoroughly satisfying comedy --and a respectable space adventure, as well.

Masterful documentary.

The pieces of the drama are put forth like the shapes of the five fingers of a hand, and finally they find a kind of awkward unity that was predictable from the start. And yet, the gesture of it all is utterly captivating, the way a dream would be if it ever really came true. [27 Feb 1987, Daily Datebook, p.74]

Among the many strengths of the sweetly touching Introducing the Dwights, a small gem from Australia unearthed at the Sundance Film Festival, is that Jean never becomes Godzilla.

Imaginative and immensely engrossing film.

An astonishing documentary.

Digs up both laughs and chills from timeworn material.

Coco is the best-looking Pixar movie since the tonally uneven “The Good Dinosaur.” The colorful afterlife is the centerpiece, but excellence is found in unexpected places.

A mini-masterpiece, with lean filmmaking and lots of surprises.

A beautiful film.

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

A great experience, precisely because it's so intimate and unguarded.

Delivers a sucker punch to the audience and then pulls the rug out from under it. It is sensational. It is also grimly funny.

Lek gives Love & Bananas humanity, but Bell’s personality and enthusiasm is contagious, inviting us into the film. We root right along with her.

A gorgeously shot, ambitious epic.

Midnight Run has thrills, excellent performances, touching moments, slick plotting, lively dialogue, plenty of laughs, beautiful locations and finely detailed direction. It's an across-the-board success, the best new movie I've seen in years. [20 July 1988]

Emily Watson is ravishingly good -- and brings an amazing focus and intensity to what could have been a disease-of-the-week picture.

It serves as a great introduction to an important artist who was ahead of his time.

Not only more crazy than “Reservoir Dogs,'' but it also feels more real. [1 Jan 1993, Daily Notebook, p.D1]

The bloodshed is somewhat less gory than in many slasher films -- with stress on the "somewhat." [26 Sep 2004]

My Neighbor Totoro is drawn in an expansive, naturalistic way that makes an atmosphere of trees, rice fields and hills unraveling in the distance a hypnotic shadow character. In some scenes this nature is so delicious it becomes a poetical presence. [08 May 1993, p.C3]

Most important, the relationship between P-Orridge and Lady Jaye comes off as heartfelt, and "Ballad" makes you feel something. Just like art.

If you want to fall in love with Catherine Deneuve, don’t start with her youth. Start with her here, in her 70s, and then work your way back.

Instantly captivating.

The experience of watching Daniel Day-Lewis in this role is nothing less than thrilling. This is Lincoln. No need for a time machine, there he is.

The evocative nature of Nelson's stillness is essential to the whole last movement of Fresh, an intricately plotted series of unexpected and related events. In a way, the audience has to read the meaning of the ending in Nelson's face. Fortunately Nelson has a face that can make you believe anything. [31 Aug 1994, p.E1]

A brilliant piece of construction, and talking too much about its specifics would only spoil the overall experience.

In the end this is Hoffman's movie, and it's refreshing, finally, to see him not as an oddball or eccentric but as a decent, capable guy who is ultimately a lot more intense than most people.

Beauty and the Beast creates an air of enchantment from its first moments, one that lingers and builds and takes on qualities of warmth and generosity as it goes along.

Much of that appeal comes from compelling performances by the two main actors.

Disarms with its sincerity and frankness.

A triumph that goes well beyond Hoffman's tour de force performance.

Fascinating in its depiction of presidential leadership in action.

I’m not sure if there’s room in the new Chinese film world, which like American cinemas is now dominated by big-budget special effects films, for another series of Gong-Zhang films. But they should forge ahead. They’ve recaptured the magic.

What makes Ben Is Back different is that, even if this kind of pain is completely outside your own experience, you’ll feel some of it watching this movie.

It brings together several popular strains of contemporary moviemaking and combines them into one big, shameless, audacious, compulsively watchable, irresistibly likable piece of pure entertainment.

This laugh-out-loud comedy is set in the world of daytime television and is reminiscent of the sex farces that were popular in the early and mid-'60s -- except that Soapdish, unhampered by a desire to be perceived as sophisticated, is actually more sophisticated and much funnier than the movies that were around then. [31 May 1991, p.E1]

French director Claude Berri's exquisite, methodical Lucie Aubrac is a romantic thriller so tightly drawn it almost leaves one breathless.

Impossibly thin, porcelain-skinned Joanne Woodward exuded the perfect blend of vulnerability and confusion -- and sassiness and sex appeal -- in her demanding lead role (make that roles) in Nunnally Johnson's The Three Faces of Eve. [24 Oct 2004]

I don’t want to give too much away, but Amoo’s direction is strong, and his film moves in unexpected directions. Stil Williams’ cinematography is divine. Adewunmi and Ikumelo are excellent, and kudos to Pinnock, Tai Golding as young Femi, Denise Black as the foster mom, Demmy Ladipo as a gang leader and Ruthxjiah Bellenea as a potential love interest who shares Femi’s love for the Cure.

Compelling.

A flick so terrifying and brilliant that it makes the two other Chainsaw sequels seem like After-School Specials. [20 May 1995, p.E6]

It's a humane and witty treatment of an average life that, incidentally, speaks to the worth and inherent drama of average lives.

An absolute delight, combining the cheap thrills of a biopic with the gentler, but more lasting, pleasures of a brilliant character study.

Exceptional.

In "Fatal Attraction" [Close] was a woman out of control. Here she's in control of her emotions, too much in control. When Merteuil finally lets loose and gives way to complete animal despair, Close is horrifying. [13 Jan 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

Beautifully filmed.

It's a pumped-up, intricate and fast-moving yarn that never flags and continues to play out in unexpected ways as it unravels.

You have never seen anything like this.

Almost too much to bear. But brace yourself and see it anyway. It’s worth it.

Clearly, great fun.

The Little Prince is heartbreaking, beautiful and irresistible.

A joyous, hilarious send-up of rock star pretensions and an enchanting celebration of "girl power" in pop culture.

An indelible statement on loneliness and spiritual thirst.

Coming on the heels of Ma Saison Preferee, Thieves suggests that Techine is filling the void left by the deaths of Truffaut and Louis Malle, and ought to be considered his country's finest humanist filmmaker.

Disenchanted, a delightful follow-up to the beloved fairy tale Enchanted, delivers everything you could ask for in a sequel. It not only continues the original film’s magical mix of music, animation, live action and humor, but also takes the story in a new and interesting direction.

I’ve been fascinated by McCartney for decades, and “Man on the Run” made me feel like I was getting closer to understanding the real guy.

A documentary that is as thoughtful and inspiring as the music it celebrates.

Mel Brooks has made a movie that's completely free and spontaneous, which at the same time is not in any way lazy or sloppy. [28 July 1993, p.E1]

Clark Gable was at his most virile and Charles Laughton at almost his most vicious and sneering in director Frank Lloyd's vigorous adaptation, the first and best screen version of the Bounty story. [22 March 1998, p.52]

Few who see it will be sorry. Sometimes being humane means not being squeamish.

The result is a sprightly, entertaining film, but one in which the satire is neutralized for laughs.

"Searching" has emotional valleys and zeniths, and gasp-inducing turns, as old friends, fans and Rodriguez's grown daughters are interviewed.

The magic here is all in the telling: in the graceful, laconic direction of Jacques Becker.

Jarecki takes a highly original approach to create a compelling, thought-provoking look at a highly relevant and controversial topic.

[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]

It works. "Lizzie" is wholesome, smart and sweet.

One of the most innovative and best made films of the past year. Every now and then, even Dick Cheney gets to like a great movie.

The Zookeeper’s Wife achieves its grandeur, not through the depiction of grand movements, but through its attentiveness to the shifts and flickers of the soul.

There may be better examples of cinematic art in 2013, but for a good time at the movies, it's hard to imagine anything beating this action extravaganza, from director Roland Emmerich, about a very Obama-like president.

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

The finest American Westerns have a characteristic that 3:10 to Yuma shares. In a way that's almost mystical, they suggest a truth beyond the specifics of the tale.

For a film that depends so heavily on talking heads, it has both a dramatic arc and a sense of character development.

On its own terms, Escape From Mogadishu makes for an engrossing, nail-biting Korean history lesson.

It is ensemble work of the highest quality, but it is Depardieu's graceful and illuminating performance that is unforgettable. [19 Dec 1990, p.E1]

A forgotten masterpiece.