Intelligence and beauty -- and teasing romance -- shape Mansfield Park into a gorgeous, enchanting experience.

Breaks the formula for teen romances. Martin Short, as the vain and zany drama teacher, does not disappoint.

Rich with physical and psychological texture, and boosted by Thomas Newman's muted score, Unstrung Heroes is that rare mainstream film that doesn't shout in our ear to make its points. It draws us in, subtly and gracefully, and casts a lingering charm.

An unforgettable examination of a host of dark impulses.

Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse, the latest installment of the venerable PBS “American Masters” series, does a thorough job of laying out and appreciating all of the cartoonist’s significant, consistently subversive works, as well as the psychological factors that informed them.

Every now and then, a film comes along that both defies and compels description. District 9 is one such movie: a science-fiction action vehicle so brilliantly and fully imagined that real life, when it resumes after the credits, arrives with a new sense of dread.

Both a memoir and a history lesson, the film looks back on their late father - a crusading civil rights lawyer who later defended a host of unsavory characters - with a combination of love, admiration and bafflement for the man he was and the career he forged.

In a way, Misery is a ghoul comedy. But it's more than that, because it's genuinely, consistently scary. With his enthusiastic direction -- the cutting, the odd angles, the unexpected timing -- Rob Reiner takes what might have been a static set-up, a couple of people talking in a room, and makes it harrowing. [30 Nov 1990, p.E1]

A one-of-a-kind cinematic experience. This musician may not be a genius along the lines of Brain Wilson, as Feuerzeig claims, but Johnston has a knack for revealing innermost thoughts in an offhand way that is eerie and uncanny.

It’s as realized a thriller as you are likely to find, not only in the precision of its performances, but in its evocative use of location (Rome, London), its period detail (especially Williams’ clothing) and the tension of the younger Getty’s months-long captivity.

All things considered, The Long Day Closes is a remarkable film -- tender and intelligent, long on mood and short on ''action,'' a cinematic poem that stands head and shoulders above the summer harvest of bonehead action thrillers. [23 July 1993, p.C9]

There's no shortage of well-staged oater action by director John Farrow (including some trick 3-D effects lost in this otherwise 2-D version) as Wayne and his buckskinned pal Buffalo Baker (Ward Bond) ride out to save a band of settlers from marauding Indians. [23 Oct 2005]

As French crime thrillers go, this is about as good as it gets.

The language is brilliant, and the laugh lines come so quickly that you'd probably have to watch the movie twice to get them all.

A rare, sumptuous movie treat.

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]

Sparrows is a kind of cinematic fable. At times funny, sad, poignant and suspenseful, Sparrows is a showcase for Majidi's masterful storytelling - and Naji's superb acting.

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

The late film critic Roger Ebert called movies an “empathy machine,” and “Io Capitano” stands as Garrone’s plea for empathy in a debate that sorely lacks it.

It must be fun to make a film about a con artist when the con artist is a full and willing participant, literally going to the ends of the Earth to prove she is the real deal.

It's hard not to come away in awe of a director in complete control of every frame.

This one is dazzling.

This wacky buddy road film... has a brilliant glow of intelligence behind the stupidness. It's easily the funniest movie of the year.

The film is a damning look at a key Bush operative.

Movie magic.

A superb documentary.

Inspiring and largely unsentimental, this is as much a love story as a tale of courage.

First, this movie should be enjoyed. Later, marveled at. And then, once the excitement has faded, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days really should be studied, because director Cristian Mungiu creates scenes unlike any ever filmed.