An extraordinary entertainment that personalizes the world of insects and other invertebrates and leaves audiences with an itching conviction of the poetry of nature.

If you're the type who doesn't go to art-house films , Murderball should be your exception. It's hard to imagine anyone could walk away from this movie disappointed.

It's fascinating stuff, but secondary to Ebert's genuine passion for the movies, which, if anything, grew toward the end of his life. He saw film as a great civilizing force, "a machine that generates empathy," as he says in the film. If that idea appeals to you, see Life Itself.

The Shape of Water is brilliant, but sick — or maybe it’s sick, but brilliant. In any case, it’s something to see.

In the important things, in all the ways that really count, Caché is a handsome fraud.

No one else makes movies like this Spanish director.

Naysayers have been claiming for years that the "Moneyball" book wouldn't work as a movie. But ultimately, it's the cinematic touches that keep this film version from becoming something exceptional.

With its dry, throwaway humor and constant stream of chuckles, it creates its own category of stealth comedy.

This is highly skilled filmmaking, but the movie is not for everybody — the relationship involves dominance and submission, sexual games played at a high pitch. This material falls short of pornographic, but still packs plenty of erotic punch.

Film is often too subtle and languorous for its own purposes: At times, it's close to soporific.

Be warned: This is not a movie for a first date. Or a second date. Or perhaps any date.

With Diane, as in life, it feels like nothing’s going on, but everything’s going on.

A minimalist film, Ten looks and feels like a documentary. At the end, there is no big denouement, but a profound realization that the people we see on camera are all aching for answers -- and struggling to come to terms with their lives.

This is sublime filmmaking, a textbook example of how indies can tell groundbreaking stories in a way that Hollywood simply can’t match.

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]

By the way, The Tillman Story has an R rating because of language. Think about that one, too: Lies are rated G and can be heard around the clock on television, but try saying the truth with the proper force and you end up with a restricted audience.

In the end, the film shakes down as a kind of eat-your-spinach exercise, a movie that’s worthy and perhaps good for you, but is labored and only enjoyable intermittently.

The film's tone is extraordinarily flexible, holding within the same reality elements of the absurd, the ridiculous and the comic while sustaining a sense of tension and dread throughout. This is, of course, one of the classic Pacino roles - he's so appealing - but don't overlook the late John Cazale as his accomplice, who gives us a character who's stupid and scared, troubled and dangerous, and disturbingly inscrutable.

A mesmerizing film that is the most stunning, tempestuous love story in a decade or two of movie making.

An authentic piece of Americana. There's no lying or condescending from this director. Nebraska feels pure.

Though much of Like Water For Chocolate simmers with humor and the stumbling plight of human life, the movie takes its soul from deeper strains -- unfulfilled longing, the tyranny of social customs in a macho-dominated world, and the final outrage that love and death are inseparable, often indistinguishable companions. [26 Mar 1993, p.C1]

This is Rampling's film, and she's never less than surprising, never less than a revelation.

Even more so than the original, the gravity-defying Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is as close to a moving comic book as one can get.

Jackson has called "Creatures" a "murder story about love, a murder story with no villains." His generous approach makes it an unforgettable experience.

A good rule of thumb for Richard III is that if it's not fun, somebody's doing something wrong. Nothing's wrong here. Some of the unexpected visual touches are brilliant, others simply entertaining. But the picture never stops coming at you.

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

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.

This is an amazing record of a group of lives -- and probably more resonant than anyone could have imagined when the project began.