Maybe the best shoot-'em-up ever made, the one that turned meanness into a haunting pictorial poetry and summed up the corruption of guilt, old age and death in the American fantasy of the Old West.

The movie is equal parts interesting, awful and lovely.

This 1968 William Friedkin comedy set in 1925 New York will be appreciated by those who enjoy the corny humor and bawdy broads of burlesque.

This is the world through the idiosyncratic eye of Cassavetes, which is both all-forgiving and inexhaustibly, passionately nosy. [28 Jun 1991, p.F8]

The movie's tone follows Yates' sensible credo of "less is more." McQueen, as the stylish, unflappable and virilely named Lt. Frank Bullitt, has little to say; he conveys most of his feelings with his piercing blue eyes. The gritty atmosphere of the location shots matches Bullitt's heavy brooding. [29 May 2005]

Barbarella is a pure goof -- Vadim called it a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future -- and Fonda seems to have reveled in every sexy, campy moment.

Hollywood warhorse Norman Taurog directed Elvis eight times and had a knack for dragging decent performances from the boy. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

Spider Baby has built up a reputation as an offbeat gore thriller, depicting two children who have inherited evil blood and are slasher-basher- gasher murderers. [25 Oct 1992, p.35]

Welles is lovely in the film, open and vulnerable, and Keith Baxter as Hal is quite good. [28 Sep 2016, p.Q39]

The film has aged gracefully.

Some things really are as good as the hype makes them out to be, and The Endless Summer is one of them. [28 Jun 2020, p.K14]

It's a film of tension and spectacle, with a singular point of view behind it. It grabs the viewer thoroughly, even as it invites audiences to watch it with a cold, careful eye.

This is a solid, three-star movie, but its premise is brilliant and unforgettable. [21 May 2017, p.Q45]

The essential mistake that's made about Lewis is assuming his movies were intended mainly to be funny. I suspect they were intended mainly to be really, really weird.

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

This is one of the wisest, slickest and most unorthodox feminist films one could ever hope to see.

Cool, chiseled and savagely funny, Kubrick's cautionary doomsday farce never ages but gets more relevant with time. [12 March 1999, p.D15]

Maybe the film works best as nostalgia for Baby Boomers who recall the picture from their childhood.

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]

It is possibly Kurosawa's most underrated masterpiece, rich in characterization and structure, yet lost in the shuffle among such classics as "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai." [14 Sep 2008, p.N31]

It's over pretty fast, just 75 minutes, but it has its grisly moments and a few underwater sequences that are pretty creepy.

The Great Escape is great entertainment. [06 Jun 2004]

Lust on the Grand Prix circuit. [30 Sep 2007, p.N34]

Blake Edwards' moody suspense thriller captures San Francisco from unexpected perspectives, starting with a dark drive with a perfect noirish Henry Mancini score across the Bay Bridge, and ending with then-new Candlestick Park. [08 Feb 2015, p.D6]

You can take it straight as an example of a bygone day of outsize filmmaking or enjoy it as kitsch, but it's exhilarating either way.

Each player in this love rhombus keeps the Martin Ritt-directed affair from scatting off into period nonsense. [01 Jul 2001]

As French crime thrillers go, this is about as good as it gets.

In this one masterpiece, Federico Fellini achieved the ideal balance -- between social observation and unconscious imagery, between artistic discipline and freedom, and between the neo-realism of 1950s Italian cinema and the orgiastic flights of his later work.

Bleak, dark and strangely arresting throughout, Blast of Silence is not quite a can't-miss proposition, but one comes away from it feeling as if one has seen a minor classic of some kind. Yes, minor - but still a classic. [04 May 2008, p.N36]

Stanley Donen's spouse-swapping comedy is not as naughty as it might have been, but it showcases Mitchum in a good comic role. [11 Jul 1997, p.D1]

Spartacus isn't the greatest epic ever made, but it's head and shoulders above most of the sword-and-sandal wheezers that came out in the '50s and '60s. And, given the prohibitive costs of shooting an epic today, it's the kind of movie we're not likely to see anymore -- except in well-deserved revivals like this one. [13 May 1991, p.E1]

He has very shrewdly interwoven crime, sex and suspense, blended the real and the unreal in fascinating proportions and punctuated his film with several quick, grisly and unnerving surprises.

Lemmon and MacLaine are magical together, and MacMurray more than holds his own as the third part of the triangle. He commands the office - and, not incidentally, the big screen - with a sexual energy he would scarcely have a chance to show again.

This is the legal movie that lawyers most often praise for its realism, in terms of not only story but also tone and atmosphere. It's full of great scenes. [08 Apr 2012, p.P19]

The greatest sexual suspense drama ever made has come to be regarded by many Hitchcock admirers as his most accomplished film. It is certainly his most forlorn, and easily his most mesmerizing. [Restored]

Touch of Evil is a savvy starter because Welles' astonishing cinematic invention and his persuasive presence as star are prime noir at tractions. The look, a deftly arranged climate of odd shadows and angles, neon lighting and flawlessly choreographed action scenes, keeps interest piqued through a contrived plot and mannered acting.

The level of sexual tension and general creepiness as Chahine's character becomes unhinged is more intense than one would expect from a movie made in the 1950s under a totalitarian regime. [04 May 2017, p.E7]

It's a bleak, fatalistic tale about rootlessness and the changing moral order in the machine age, but the wondrous details of the film trump any grand thematic concerns.

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]

Directed with a touch both delicate and muscular by the great Delmer Daves, it's truly a Western for those who don't like Westerns, and will be treasured by those that do. [02 Jun 2013, p.Q21]

This is one of the greatest films of the 1950s, a prophetic film about the dangerous power of modern media.

The film is filled with unintentional laughs and with other moments that are simply jaw-droppingly absurd, either for the histrionic acting, the dated style of writing, the pseudo-science or just the spectacle of evil in pigtails. One could easily make the case that the movie is simply awful. Yet everything dated and peculiar about it is fascinating and does not detract -- it may even enhance -- the fun of the central premise. [05 Sep 2004, p.28]

The crack in the pretty picture of America goes a lot deeper than we thought, thanks to Ray's brooding vision.

John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy directed this fine adaptation of the stage hit, a comedy-drama about a first officer on a cargo ship (Henry Fonda) who wants to be reassigned to combat duty. [05 Jul 1998]

Part fairy tale and part bogeyman thriller -- a juicy allegory of evil, greed and innocence, told with an eerie visual poetry.

They don't make 'em like Land of the Pharaohs anymore, but you wished they did.

Sixty-seven minutes in, I looked up and noticed the movie had 53 minutes left to go, even though every plot element had been resolved. And that's precisely where the movie went to hell. [23 Nov 2014, p.M21]

There's no shortage of well-staged oater action by director John Farrow (including some trick 3-D effects lost in this otherwise 2-D version) as Wayne and his buckskinned pal Buffalo Baker (Ward Bond) ride out to save a band of settlers from marauding Indians. [23 Oct 2005]

Although the mix of buffoonery and earnestness often doesn't work, it's priceless to see director Otto Preminger (who was Jewish) play a peevish Nazi commander who has his boots put on simply for a phone call to Berlin. [19 Mar 2006, p.32]

One of his better efforts, not up there in the Vertigo-North by Northwest-Psycho stratosphere, but a cut above his competent thrillers such as Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur and Lifeboat. [19 Dec 2004]

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

A wonderful parody of the birth of talkies that has great wit, an intelligent script, terrific music and dancing that can't be beat.

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

If there is no other reason to see An American in Paris than its fabled 18-minute ballet scene -- well then, that, during the last reel, is worth the price of admission. Choreographed by Kelly -- no doubt with a smile -- it is a stunning series of homages to French painters Toulouse-Lautrec, Dufy, Utrillo, Renoir and the like. It is a masterpiece of filmic creations -- nothing quite like it before or since. [11 Dec 1992, p.C11]

Brando's performance is so idiosyncratic -- the nasal delivery, the muffled diction and, of course, the screaming, ''Stel- lahh!'' -- that it's easy to forget its technical brilliance. But from Brando's first scene he exudes menace, even while talking calmly. His eyes always on the lookout for some slight, Stanley is ready to lash out every second he is on screen. He's impossible not to watch -- he's too odd, too dangerous. [Director's Cut; 11 Feb 1994, p.C3]

Structured like a 17th century comedy of manners, the picture is a social critique of the idle rich that's part comic and part tragic, that's light and airy and yet haunted with meaning. [08 Feb 2004]

As played by Douglas, he is a man with a free flow from his spirit through the instrument. It's instinctive. He becomes involved with two women, and this is where the movie could become hokey, but it doesn't. [12 Jun 2005]

An admirable film, not a great one -- yet. It drags a bit.[Restored version]

Force of Evil is a more thoughtful kind of film noir than we are used to but still employs the traditional black-and-white contrasts and shadows.

You can almost hear a Universal Studio executive coming up with the idea: "Let's take our two top comedians (Bud Abbott and Lou Costello) and throw in our top money-making creatures - Frankenstein's monster, the Wolf Man and Dracula. The fans'll love it!" They sure did.

Shot on the streets of New York and offering vistas of the city before all the glass and steel skyscrapers, The Naked City, which won Oscars for cinematography and editing, boasts an impressive pedigree. [04 Jan 2004]

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

It's a one-of-a-kind experience -- dark, bleak, twisted carnival noir.

De Sica has to be considered one of the great directors of children, and the film, which won the first Academy Award for best foreign film and has been championed by Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese, is as valuable for its location shooting as its storytelling. [03 Jul 2011, p.P22]

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

A solid WWII movie that's been lost among myriad others about the same war. [02 Jul 2006, p.28]

It’s an engaging product, typical of its era and elevated by Crosby’s non-singing breeziness and Astaire’s all-around brilliance, plus the appeal of Marjorie Reynolds, who has to pretend that she’s enthralled every time Crosby warbles something in her direction. Now that’s acting.

In many ways, the film is typical Hitchcock, with his camerawork check out the scenes with the umbrellas, the windmill, Big Ben, an airplane crash and others, thrilling plot lines, casting against type and employing attractive lead actors and actresses. But it's also very unusual because of the director's use of propaganda, unusual for him. [06 Apr 2014, p.R19]

The movie has the wisecracking quality of a Sturges screenplay, but it's warm and heartfelt, too. [13 Nov 2016, p.Q16]

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).

This screen version, directed by Lewis Milestone, is the one to see. Burgess Meredith is George and Lon Chaney Jr. is Lenny. Chaney never got to do much in movies, except rapidly grow hair as the Wolfman, but this movie proves that the younger Chaney inherited some of his father's genius. [24 Feb 2002]

This wonderful romp of a movie looks magical on the big screen: colors are a picnic for the eyes, details loom so clearly you can practically touch them and there's a sense of the larger-than-life with a film that's already larger than life.

Stagecoach both revived and elevated the Western.

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]

Not a great picture but an entirely entertaining one. [02 Nov 2008, p.N34]

This was Davis' return to the screen after her own legal battle with the studio to get meatier roles. She got one here, and she gives it her all. [09 Jul 2006, p.32]

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]

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.

The film is notable as the first English-language role of Peter Lorre, who is creepily appealing as the leader of the conspiracy. [03 Feb 2013, p.Q19]

Claude Rains' performance in the title role of The Invisible Man may be outtasight, but you can still see the hand of director James Whale.

Cagney, the film's best asset, is irrepressible. [07 May 2006, p.34]

The movie benefits from the frankness that filmmakers were allowed in these pre-censorship days. Dvorak, in her best showcase, is sympathetic as a woman bent on self-destruction, because we appreciate that she has desires she can’t contain.

The real reasons to see it are Barrymore, Barrymore and Crawford, the beating hearts of the picture. [21 Jun 2018, p.E5]

The 1931 version, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, is the standout, featuring two great performances, one by Fredric March (who won the Academy Award for the title role) and the other by Miriam Hopkins, as Ivy, the lovable trollop. [28 Dec 2003]

Gritty, bleak and sexy, the movie is also, between the lines, a strong feminist statement.

A sly comedy starring Henry Kendall and Joan Barry, about a newly rich couple who go a little crazy on an ocean liner. The witty script was co-written by Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife and lifelong collaborator. [18 Feb 2007, p.26]

If there's a revelation to be gleaned from these youthful entries, it's that much of what made Hitchcock great was there from the beginning. [18 Feb 2007, p.26]

Excited with the possibilities of the relatively young film medium, Russia's Dziga Vertov took to the streets of Moscow, Odessa and Kiev to give us a portrait of an ever-changing world that is more essay than documentary. It's a 1929 silent film that added its punctuation in the lab - jump cuts, dissolves, split screens, etc. - to create an indelible work in cinema history. [13 Apr 2017, p.E8]

It’s a great film, but it must be added that it’s also an entertaining film. That is, it’s not at all a chore to sit through. People not only appreciate the film, but also enjoy it — though it’s a sober kind of enjoyment, given the subject matter.

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.

It is described as about a guy who came back to life, and clearly one of Dumont's aims in The Life of Jesus is to express a spirit of charity for flawed humanity amid the rhythms of ordinary life.