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.”