Fortunately, Fish Tank feeds us more than crumbs and leaves us feeling like we've come up for air.

The Oscar-nominated No has the gritty feel of a foreign film from the 1970s. As such, it may take a few minutes for most moviegoers to adjust to its rhythms. Ironically for a film about advertising, there’s nothing slick about it — and therein lies much of its greatness.

Although it's sly and sardonic, Police, Adjective is as rigorous as a tea ceremony -- or a Stalinist re-education camp.

With a fearless director and his mighty pen freeing a talented cast to attack a vital theme, Django Unchained is damnation unleashed.

The Wedding Banquet is sweet and touching and, at times, very funny. [27 Aug 1993, p.3F]

The Big Short is the film that “The Wolf of Wall Street” wanted to be.

Directors Ron Clements and John Musker use the island setting to create an authentic, vibrant world. They also make earnest efforts to be culturally sensitive to Pacific Islanders’ heritage, incorporating Maui’s storytelling tattoos and his wayfaring skills

Sometimes the juxtaposition of moods is a bit jarring and the collection of varying characters almost too much. Mostly though, they work to create a weirdly fascinating film that unfolds leisurely, offering vivid intensity, some humor and strong performances along the way. [13 Nov 1998, p.E3]

Ultimately Skyfall is rooted in tradition - and in British soil. A pastoral drive to Bond's boyhood home (in a kind of car that will delight purists) opens the gates to some psychological background, and given the true-love subtext of "Casino Royale," it's not surprising that there's an emotional payoff here.

In our increasingly polarized time, A Fantastic Woman bridges the gap between ignorance and understanding through the transcendent power of art.

Like a newborn planet, Melancholia is magnetically beautiful, but it's also an unformed mass of hot air.

A fanciful French cousin to Allen's "Zelig" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo," yet the fulfilled wish for a better life is high-concept absurdity without high-anxiety guffaws.

The story unfolds not as contrived drama, but with all the surprise and inevitability of real life.

Until the sci-fi switcheroo, the versatile supporting cast puts Gary in such a ridiculous light that we can’t help laughing at him. Then suddenly this subversive movie challenges us to laugh at our own assumptions.

The reason District 9 reverberates so loudly is because its moral indignation is cranked to 11.

When films are good, actors and directors get a lot of the credit that should go to the screenwriters. In the case of Silver Linings Playbook, which is one of the best films of the year, there is a popcorn bowl of glory to go around.

Periodically deviating from its fly-on-the-wall aesthetic, the film does a noticeably better job than the Joan Rivers movie of incorporating old footage and photos to underscore its subject’s importance.

Waiting for Superman raises important questions while wearing a big red heart on its chest, but inconvenient facts are its kryptonite.

A gorgeous film that could inspire a whole new crop of astronauts.

Although it has some memorably disquieting scenes, this story of long-delayed justice is sustained by its melancholy more than its thrills.

Good Time is not so much a crime drama as it is a meditation on the genre’s virtues and limitations.

So many of today's children's movies are loud. Loud explosions, loud colors, loud soundtracks, loud humor. The animated The Secret World of Arrietty is the antidote to those films.

Although it's a guilty pleasure, The Queen of Versailles is artful enough that both the prosecution and the defense could invoke it when the peasants cry "Off with their heads!"

Canadian director Denis Villaneuve knows how to stoke a hot debate about the legacy of violence. But in this case, where there's smoke, there's not enough air.

Bursting with style and imagination, The Incredibles 2 sets a standard that few superhero flicks — animated or live-action — can match.

The Secret of Roan Inish glows with a misty, lyrical beauty, helped no little by the cinematography of Haskell Wexler. Once again, writer-director Sayles ("Passion Fish") succeeds in creating a mature, complex film that touches the heart without using any Hollywood tricks. [14 Apr 1995, p.3E]

Love & Mercy is artfully but unobtrusively directed by Bill Pohlad.

Barry Levinson's film, Bugsy, glamorizes the back side of the American dream, adjusting facts as necessary to keep the story dramatic and to paint Siegel in better colors. The result is a strong, fascinating film that features a number of impressive performances, especially from Warren Beatty as Siegel and Annette Bening as Virginia Hill, whose nickname became the name of Siegel's dream hotel and casino in Las Vegas, the Flamingo.

In an Arnold film, plot is pretty much beside the point. Instead, she focuses on the subtleties of character — and her insights can be both enlightening and terrifying.

True Grit is just a couple bloody gunfights removed from an old-fashioned Disney yarn. Yet it's still unmistakably a Coen brothers movie, from the stray weirdness of a bearskin-clad dentist to the bulls-eye delights of the dialogue.

Like a train, I Wish is slow to build momentum, then it carries us away in a wondrous rush.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is that it justifies the enormous hype. Working from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan, director J.J. Abrams (“Star Trek”) brings fresh energy to the franchise while adhering to the storytelling values that made it matter in the first place.

McNaughton directs well, and with power, but celebrating murder is a waste of his talents. [17 August 1990, p.3F]

You might expect a cartoon about a man and his dog to be strictly for kids, but My Dog Tulip, based on a memoir by J.R. Ackerley, has a psychological richness and anatomical explicitness that is very grown-up.

An art-history lesson and a spiritual exercise disguised as a movie.

Lean on Pete is not the sentimental boy-and-his-horse flick that audiences might expect, and it’s certainly not for children. It’s a contemplative art film of subtle beauty.

Although viewing this movie leaves you raw emotionally, it is a powerful testimony to one family's unwavering love and willpower, captured splendidly by Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte and director and co-writer George Miller. [27 Jan 1993, p.5G]

This isn't just another crime story, and it would be misleading to suggest that it has anything to do with stylish gunplay, exhilarating car chases or brutal fistfights.

Brilliant performances aside, Clouds of Sils Maria is overlong and much too self-indulgently an “art film.” It might have benefited from being just a bit more grounded.

Goodbye First Love is like a postcard from a lost Eden, a painfully pure oasis where we're not allowed to linger.

If you require a plot, look elsewhere.

Eat Drink Man Woman is a piquant delight. [02 Sep 1994, p.3H]

With such supercharged material under the hood, a magnetic man behind the wheel and a nimble director manning the pits, Senna is simply the greatest sports film I have ever seen.

It’s an enigmatic and austere film from a region where political, sexual and religious repression are as stifling as the sooty air.

Most biographical docs contain a montage of old footage, but this one is especially haunting. As Campbell watches home movies, he has to ask Kim to identify the people on screen, including his ex-wives, his children and his younger self.

Few mainstream movies, let alone disability dramas, are so frank about sexual mechanics, yet notwithstanding the nudity, The Sessions isn't voyeuristic or sleazy.

Portman is eminently watchable as Lena, who slowly realizes that she’s in way over her head. And “Ex Machina” star Isaac virtually redefines creepiness.

Like Elizabeth Olsen in "Martha Marcy May Marlene," Oduye brilliantly slips inside the skin of a sensitive young woman who's having trouble finding her place in the world.

A sexy, edgily funny suspense film set in a small Western town, could be a symbol of the plight and the tenacity of independent American film makers. [22 July 1994, p.3F]

One one level, Pride is as fake as a lip-sync revue, yet the emotions it arouses are real.

Rappeneau and Jean-Claude Carriere, who combined on the most recent adaptation and screenplay, have opened up Rostand's work far more than could be done on a stage - and it works brilliantly. [26 Dec 1990, p.3F]

The most provocative thing in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is the moment during the opening credits when we glimpse the comedy legend without makeup.

That action is bloody, but Fiennes' choices as director are unassailably apt and artful. Coriolanus is a triumph.

A far more interesting film than its title implies. And a film you’ve never seen before.

I Am Love is easy to savor but tough to swallow.

Ultimately what makes Gone Girl so watchable is the three-headed monster of Fincher, Pike and Affleck. The director bathes the B-movie scenario in the queasy-green hues of a morgue, while Affleck flashes his million-dollar smile like a dime-store Dracula and the beautifully inscrutable Pike absorbs the light like a wax mannequin. If it’s true that Nick and Amy were made for each other, they were made in a fiendish lab.

Although the characters don’t lapse into stereotypes, neither are they sufficiently funny or fierce to engage us in the issues they raise.

Far from being preachy, Loving is a beautiful film about daring to love, without fear or compromise.

This may not be Scorsese’s best film, but it’s unquestionably his most impassioned.

As Refn is riffing on thriller cliches, he gets solid support from the ensemble. Brooks, a comedic standout since the '70s, makes a sympathetic villain, and Gosling stokes the young-Brando comparisons - instead of settling for Richard Gere.

Director David O. Russell ("Three Kings") delivers a film of staggering impact.

With a mad captain at the helm, this documentary version of Jodorowsky’s “Dune” is probably more entertaining than what Hollywood would have done to it, with a clearer message: Our lives are like sands though an hourglass, so dream the impossible dream.

The world Nair shows us is, on the whole, an unpleasant one, but there is never any sense of false melodrama or of the camera selecting only shocking or hopeless images. And as a whole, the film documents how difficult it is to defeat the human spirit. [24 Mar 1989, p.3F]

An enthralling lament for an era in which beauty is in danger of becoming extinct.

It’s not only a fresh and funny spoof of the movie business, it represents a real-life triumph within it.

Oyelowo takes full advantage of his close physical resemblance to King, but he wisely avoids mere impersonation, delivering a performance that’s as sensitive as it is spellbinding.

Remarkable...For All Mankind is a lovely film. Brian Eno's soundtrack is majestic without being overly sentimental, and Reinert's choice of images ranges skillfully from the ironically ordinary - astronauts eating, listening to country music and teasing one another about personal quirks - to the awe inspiring. [2 Feb 1990, p.3F]

In one of the most wickedly funny scenes in sci-fi history, Koba uses monkeyshines to bamboozle some gun-toting yahoos and scuttle the peace treaty.

As enchanting as it is ambitious.

With its mix of true-blood romance and full-moon madness, Let Me In should hasten the twilight of the twerpy pretenders.

Fences is perhaps best appreciated as a showcase for the brilliant acting of Washington and Davis.

The performances are first-rate, with Lindhardt particularly moving as a guy who's in deep denial about just how much he can expect from a relationship with an addict.

It starts as a bittersweet parable about the cruelty of commerce, but the wonder of Searching for Sugar Man will not soon slip away.

Black Swan is ridiculously over the top, but in a way that makes it fascinating to watch.

It is one of those movies that seem to be meandering to no real purpose, and yet, very slowly, take hold of your emotions. By the end, you find yourself rather astonished at how much you care about what happens to the characters. [9 Oct 1992, p.3G]

Using a screenplay by Allan Scott, Roeg directs with care, blending fantasy and whimsy with a chilling touch of evil. It works and it works well. [21 Feb 1991, p.4E]

This is a sad and gallant chapter, and a first-rate movie. [12 Jan 1990, p.3F]

THE WAR ROOM would have been a great motion picture if either James Carville or George Stephanopoulos had been elected president - or if there were more involvement of Bill Clinton. Although none of those occurred, the documentary on the 1992 campaign, from the Democratic side, is interesting, sometimes amusing and always has a sense of immediacy.[14 Jan 1994, p.7F]

Although Precious is based on a novel, it's an act of truth-telling on behalf of a character in hellish enslavement.

As the wife to a wolf of Wall Street, Blanchett shows us a lost sheep both before and after the slaughter. It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s twitching with life.

Sophisticated comedies have gone out of fashion, largely because Hollywood finds it easier and more profitable to simply gross out moviegoers. But Please Give has real class -- and for that it deserves our gratitude.

The Freshman is not the kind of movie where one wonders about plot twists or logic. One enjoys Brando and Broderick, and chuckles at a considerable amount of comedy. [27 July 1990, p.8F]

Foley's direction approaches perfection, almost always avoiding thriller cliches and showy distractions in favor of a crisp yet imaginative visual style. After Dark, My Sweet delivers the goods as a crime movie, but it is a fascinating character study as well. [14 Sep 1990, p.3F]

The conclusion of Christopher Nolan's superhero trilogy is a hugely ambitious mix of eye candy and brain food. If it doesn't have the haunting aftertaste of the previous serving, that's only because Nolan couldn't clone Heath Ledger. But beefy substitute Tom Hardy is a hell of a villain.

If you long for a film in the tradition of such grown-up entertainments as “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The English Patient,” this is one to get lost in.

Like its neo-noir kin across the pond, The Guard is violent, profane and funny. But McDonagh is interested in more than mockery.

With a stellar cast and seductive look, Ex Machina is a sleek contraption for capturing our imagination.

WITH Jungle Fever, a shattering movie that focuses on interracial love andracial hatred but that also confronts a dozen other incendiary topics, Spike Lee confirms his position as the leading American director of his generation. [7 June 1991, p.3F]

Zootopia is visually rich, with a fully realized cityscape and an action-filled train station during commuter rush that would take several viewings to fully appreciate. It’s emotionally rich, too, a film that promises to have staying power far beyond spring break.

Most important, Taraporevala and Nair have created a seamless story that entertains, informs -- and maybe even teaches. [28 Feb 1992, p.75]

Whether on stage or the screen, Much Ado About Nothing is a pleasure that passes like a midsummer night’s dream.

Enchanted April, from von Arnim's novel, may be the most charming film I've seen all year. Not only is it charming, but also witty, literate and bitingly funny. Then, without losing those qualities, it becomes a warm and wonderful love story, about dreams coming true, and finding what was thought lost, both in oneself and in someone else. [28 Aug 1992]

Cregger slowly builds bone-chilling and suspenseful sequences up to screechingly operatic moments of face-melting horror, and then swiftly cuts to a different chapter, making a hard left into a completely different mode, taking us all on the roller-coaster ride. His facility with comedy also aids in these jarring tone switches, and Barbarian is as funny as it is terrifying.

Superbly acted, and a return to form for Tavernier, who guided jazz legend Dexter Gordon to an Oscar nomination for "'Round Midnight" (1986).

While we await the definitive documentary about the glut of garbage, Waste Land reduces this global catastrophe to touchingly human scale.

Fargeat delivers a macabre, funny, tragic, absurd and grotesque Grand Guignol of butts and guts; a bonkers and brutal “beauty horror” that elevates the genre to a hysterically unprecedented heights.

Of all the films to come out the conflict, Afghan Star is the most provocative, because its message that people are essentially the same is a dubious, double-edge sword.

Tatum is terrific as a sort of anti-Clooney, and Driver complements him perfectly.