A haunting, beautiful labyrinth that gets inside your bones and stays there.

Among the great American crime movies, 1973's Badlands stands alone. [13 Feb. 1998]

The movie is long, and here and there it seems to meander. But when it arrives at its anguished last scene, there's no doubt that Eustache knew where he was heading all along.

Enter the Dragon goes far beyond the philosophical, of course. Its best sequences, and the only real reason for seeing it again, involve Lee's phenomenal physical and emotional presence.

It is stark, realistic and resolutely downbeat. Yates' work is lean, and he has a nice way with action sequences. [17 May 2009, p.R28]

Playtime is sharp and colorful, and visually makes quite an impression.

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.

Le Samourai is beautifully assured and has a strong consistency of visual style and tone, but I can't say I had a great time watching it.

This Alfred Hitchcock film on his familiar theme of the wrongly accused man is outstanding in every respect. [19 Sep 1999, p.52]

In scene after scene -- the long wedding sequence, John Marley's bloody discovery in his bed, Pacino nervously smoothing down his hair before a restaurant massacre, the godfather's collapse in a garden -- Coppola crafted an enduring, undisputed masterpiece. [21 Mar 1997, Daily Datebook, p.C3]

The jokes in What’s Up, Doc? will scratch a nostalgic itch, but what’s most refreshing about the film is that it shows a lighthearted side of San Francisco, without any superhero spectacle, looming natural disaster or hard-boiled noir themes. It’s a sunny and silly side of the city that rarely gets captured on film anymore, a view of San Francisco that’s worth revisiting.

This simple premise -- a killer truck stalks a driver -- becomes the basis for an exceptionally fraught and well- made suspense film.

A strange, vivid tale of two British schoolchildren stranded in the deserts of the outback.

Director Robert Mulligan exhibits the same sensitivity about young people and their foibles as he did in "To Kill a Mockingbird." In 1962. You never sense that he's making fun of Hermie or his pals. [08 Jul 2007, p.16]

A nice gift for science fiction fans.

Character consistency is fleeting, to say the least, but who cares? So many of these guys are gone now, just watching the cast having such a great time is half the considerable fun of the film. [28 Jan 2007, p.30]

It remains as unsettling as ever.

It’s fascinating to return to this movie after many years. [2024 Restored Version]

What's amazing is the raw honesty of it all -- the performances, the interviews, the spontaneous occurrences. There is little artifice. The 70mm print is must-view material for rock fans and sociologists of any age or generation. [1994 version]

In one sense it's aged surprisingly little -- the language and physical gestures of camp are largely the same -- but in the attitudes of its characters, and their self-lacerating vision of themselves, it belongs to another time. And that's a good thing.

Maybe the best shoot-'em-up ever made, the one that turned meanness into a haunting pictorial poetry and summed up the corruption of guilt, old age and death in the American fantasy of the Old West.

The movie is equal parts interesting, awful and lovely.

This 1968 William Friedkin comedy set in 1925 New York will be appreciated by those who enjoy the corny humor and bawdy broads of burlesque.

This is the world through the idiosyncratic eye of Cassavetes, which is both all-forgiving and inexhaustibly, passionately nosy. [28 Jun 1991, p.F8]

The movie's tone follows Yates' sensible credo of "less is more." McQueen, as the stylish, unflappable and virilely named Lt. Frank Bullitt, has little to say; he conveys most of his feelings with his piercing blue eyes. The gritty atmosphere of the location shots matches Bullitt's heavy brooding. [29 May 2005]

Barbarella is a pure goof -- Vadim called it a kind of sexual Alice in Wonderland of the future -- and Fonda seems to have reveled in every sexy, campy moment.

Hollywood warhorse Norman Taurog directed Elvis eight times and had a knack for dragging decent performances from the boy. [03 Aug 1997, p.34]

Spider Baby has built up a reputation as an offbeat gore thriller, depicting two children who have inherited evil blood and are slasher-basher- gasher murderers. [25 Oct 1992, p.35]