A masterpiece.

A heartbreaking, powerful drama.

A beautiful work that could easily have turned into a four-hour-long affair but, at just a tad over two, is enticingly rich and shines with humanity. [8 Sept 1993, p.D1]

A minimalist masterpiece.

To watch Ozu's films is to watch elegant simplicity, although they are meticulously complex. It's even a relaxing experience - you can almost feel your heart rate lowering - yet there is much human drama on the screen, and much wisdom.

Under Fontaine's direction, family dysfunction is an intense experience with unexpectedly positive repercussions, even if the steps between are painful and potentially deadly.

You leave Cinema Paradiso with that feeling that's kind of like getting kicked in the stomach, but nice. It's one of those breathless, swept-away-by-a-movie experiences that you might have once a year, if you're lucky. [16 February 1990, Daily Notebook, p.E-1]

In the end, though, “Kneecap” is a dramatically well-structured tale of cultural and personal reclamation – done in the cheekiest, craic-talking way imaginable. It’s as if “The Commitments” had a bastard child with “The Crying Game,” and it mutated into its own, magnificently defiant thing.

“Meat’s meat and a man’s gotta eat” is the kind of line that makes this an offbeat horror treat. Some moments are satirical of other horror films, yet they carry a horrific impact, so you may not have much time to laugh before fright sets in.

As Whelan slowly comes to terms with the loss of her identity, she begins to forge a new one as a contemporary dancer, going on to produce her own performances on a national tour titled “Restless Creature.”

El Cid goes for the big scenes as well as any Hollywood epic, but sometimes the smaller, more intimate ones work better, partly because the architecture is stunning. [17 Sep 1993, p.C3]

Absorbing and exquisite.

It's extremely funny, one of the funniest films of 2012, with a particularly winning style - far-fetched, extreme and nonstop.

I like to think that sometimes when a film maker takes no shortcuts but does everything truthfully and sincerely, with an interest in nothing but the creation of something wonderful, he can be visited by a muse or a spirit that comes out of nowhere and, as a kind of reward, infuses his film with that extra element that can't be earned or whipped up from a recipe: magic. Much Ado About Nothing is a wonderful, beautiful film. It's not a perfect film -- it has Keanu Reeves in it. But it has that kind of magic. Very early on, from the first scene, really, it lifts up off the ground; and there it stays till the last shot, when the camera itself lifts off, and we in the audience look down on lots of happy people dancing in an elaborate Italian garden. [13 May 1993, p.E1]

Master director Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose work won the Palm d’Or at Cannes this year, doesn’t pour on the emotion. He doesn’t need to – his film, even as it enchants, is quietly devastating.

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]

Hurry Up Tomorrow, is a risk-taking experience, a David “Lynchian” fever dream of a movie that’s as visually marvelous as it is head-scratching. It’s a “Purple Rain” for the “Euphoria” generation, and you can’t take your eyes off it.

Beautiful and utterly entrancing documentary.

The genius of “Skincare” is how it uses Los Angeles and its image- and celebrity-driven culture as a metaphor for empty lives.

This is the kind of pure entertainment that, in its fullness and generosity, feels almost classic.

12 Years a Slave has some of the awkwardness and inauthenticity of a foreign-made film about the United States. The dialogue of the Washington, D.C., slave traders sounds as if it were written for "Lord of the Rings." White plantation workers speak in standard redneck cliches. And yet the ways in which this film is true are much more important than the ways it's false.

An important new documentary that cites countless examples of self-censorship, under-reporting of serious issues, and -- worse than this -- deliberate neglect and outright conflicts of interest.

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]

My Penguin Friend is what you’d expect from an animal picture, except that it’s better — lifted by a smart script, sensitive direction and a truly beautiful performance by Jean Reno.

Deliciously witty and entertaining… A first-rate thriller, one that's likely to generate as much word-of-mouth as “Alien,'' “Carrie'' and “Psycho'' did in their time. [23 Aug 1991, Daily Notebook, p.F1]

Perhaps the best teen date movie ever set in the year 1914, "Tuck" represents a brave leap against the tide. No sex, no car crashes and minimal violence. It just might be a hit.

I loved the picture, without being blind to its faults. But you don't judge a movie with a scorecard but by what it gives you, and this one gives more than anything I've seen in months. [04 Oct 1991, p.D1]

I think what I like best about Light Sleeper -- more than Dafoe's peculiar magic or Schrader's wise, sympathetic writing -- is the fact that it gives you so much to chew on. So many contemporary films seem to evaporate as soon as you walk out of the theater. Light Sleeper resonates. [04 Sep 1992, p.C1]