Morris is a storyteller of the highest order, and within seconds, he draws us into his subject, doling out details, making us wonder what will happen next and dropping bombs for maximum impact.

With more than a hint of the magazine’s trademark insouciance, the film gives us a close look at how the selection process works and introduces us a to a handful of younger artists, as well as such stalwarts as George Booth and Roz Chast.

Dunye's engaging personality quickly wins you over. She deserves to be a character in a movie; she's more interesting than most.

It’s impossible to resist a film that has such rich characters, and makes a complicated subject both enlightening and entertaining.

The documentary “Amy” left viewers feeling a little shame, as if the audience and society was an accessory in Winehouse’s death. Janis: Little Girl Blue is a more clinical treatment, with more complicated messages.

It is pure, retro-cinematic joy.

Romantic and even silly -- a combination that makes Divine Intervention an almost irresistible work of art.

It is an exceptional accomplishment.

Southside With You proves once and for all that a romantic film doesn’t rely on suspense. We know these people are getting together. What holds us to our seats is wondering how it will happen.

Riveting.

Despite its outlandish conceits, it is grounded in sisterhood. As bloody as it is, the pain the girls dish out to each other is nothing compared to the trauma they’ve experienced.

Wild has so many things in its favor that it’s tempting to leave out the fact that it’s a movie about a hike that sometimes feels like being on a hike, a long one, without many changes of scenery. But the movie’s achievement is that it overcomes this.

Powerfully documents the human cost of the Iraq war.

A potent social allegory told with humor and mystery.

Sure to be an instant animated classic as it expertly balances emotion, humor and social politics amid a backdrop of surreal, eye-popping visual beauty.

Humpday succeeds, often beautifully, by grounding its risque premise in the awkwardness and humor of real people trying their damnedest to communicate. A lot.

This affecting documentary focuses on their 2004 production, a play whose themes of forgiveness and redemption certainly ought to have some resonance for the inmates.

In the face of this relentless nihilism, it’s quite an achievement that the new documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste is so darned entertaining and hopeful, as well as informative.

In The Burial, every character gets a chance to shine, but not like in a “Star Trek” movie, where Sulu gets his moment and then Chekov. Rather, it all feels natural and organic. There’s something almost philosophical in a directorial point of view that understands that supporting and featured players are just as human as the main characters.

An artful look at religious hypocrisy, interfamily dynamics and the way people wrestle with personal history long after the original events are over.

The style is documentary-like, in that it feels like life and that anything might happen. There is also a nice sense of being in the midst of the action and right there in the room with the characters.

It's moving, romantic, dreamlike, flawlessly acted and so engaging as to make you forget about euthanasia before it jolts you back into recognition.

The Others is great as a collection of acknowledgments, but a ghost story made of a bunch of ghoulish thank-yous isn't that haunting.

People who have seen fellow painter Julian Schnabel's "Basquiat" - with its star-making portrayal by Jeffrey Wright - may reasonably trust its truth as a tribute over Davis' ostensibly more factual exercise.

Fake It So Real isn't just for wrestling fans. It will appeal to anyone compelled by the documentary medium's ability to tell stories.

For a movie that takes place mostly in the bowels of a sewer, Flushed Away has some surprisingly charming moments.

Awakenings is a troubling film, but it's also a courageous one that dares to tackle a difficult subject with sensitivity and honesty. [20 Dec 1990, p.E1]

The movie makes a point, but it doesn’t build on it. And so the movie becomes as dull and depressing for us as it must be for the central character.