It’s sincere and intelligent — but it’s weak as a social statement and even weaker as drama.

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is a bladder-buster of a movie with no obvious bathroom break, no section where the story starts to sag. This makes it, almost by definition, a good and admirable piece of work. But Killers of the Flower Moon is also a lumbering mess, an ungainly and tonally odd film that, for all the strength of its parts, has little cumulative impact.

For art lovers, though, there is plenty to savor.

Delightful.

Frank, funny and true as "Ghost World."

What a talent Waad is. For Sama is a film made with the instincts of a journalist, the passion of a revolutionary and the beating heart of a mother.

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.

Verhoeven creates an elegant frame for his lead actress and lets her fill it, and what we end up with is Huppert’s best collaboration with a director since the death of Claude Chabrol.

The director has said that, though the story was inspired by the deaths of his parents, he hoped to make a film "brimming with life." He's succeeded.

As a film, "Levees" is a significant and exhaustive achievement. Although it can be argued that it might have been even more effective if it had been edited down a bit, the power of its human stories compensates for whatever minor flaws it has.

It's screamingly, hysterically, laugh-through-the-next-joke, laugh-for-the-next-week funny. It's so inventive…This is a film by an original and significant comic intelligence.

It is not just about the American dream; it is a search for America’s soul.

This is one of Kubrick's best, not gimmicky or arch, not somnambulant or mannered, just finely detailed, measured, richly photographed and, at every step of the way, entertaining and interesting.

The Farewell has a special feeling about it. It’s full of truth and emotion, and lacking in sentimentality. It has an eye for absurdity and for the telling detail, and it marks Lulu Wang as a director with the rare but essential ability to make you care about what she cares about. It will go down as one of the standout movies of 2019.

Marty Supreme is so fast-moving that its 2½-hour running time passes quickly. Even with a uniformly excellent and eclectic cast and some over-the-top situations, it’s hard to take your eyes off Chalamet.

The most coolheaded of the Iraq war documentaries, the most methodical and the least polemical. Yet it's the one that will leave audiences the most shattered, angry and astounded.

Not a stirring piece of drama, and it does not altogether work in the ways it was intended to. But in its own shambling, elliptical way it's an entertaining, memorable movie whose 2 1/2 hours go by without strain.

It’s a delicious, yet far-fetched setup that pushes the limits of believability, even when we consider how powerful denial can be. But director Christian Petzold never loses control of his taut film.

Almost frighteningly alive.

Farmers may wonder what the big deal is, but Gunda is quite a cinematic achievement whether you’re familiar with the livestock or not. Plus, the piglets, whom we see grow from birth to adolescence, alone are worth the price of admission.

The Power of the Dog is a beautifully composed work by a filmmaker at the height of her powers. It deserves our attention.

Feels like a streamlined improvement on the original.

The quietly stirring, exquisitely photographed Columbus is an art-house gem that beautifully illuminates not only the architecture of a small Indiana town, but also the characters that inhabit it.

In many ways - in all ways - The Artist is a profound achievement.

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]

All this makes Zama interesting and unique and something to be respected. But none of this translates into anything resembling a satisfying narrative or even entertainment as we know it. Still, as bleak experiments go, Zama is the real thing.

Magical and haunting, The Piano has the power and delicate mystery of a gothic fairy tale. [19 Nov 1993]

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]