There's so much higher intelligence in Project Nim that simply digesting it feels like evolutionary progress.

A well-crafted drama about the comforts and insecurities of family life.

The film’s true scene-stealer is Bennett, who brilliantly portrays Sir James as a case study in cluelessness.

A slight step down from the first two, but still very good. [02 Aug 2005, p.E1]

It's true that the movie is both emotionally violent and sexually explicit. Yet these scenes from a marriage are crafted with such attention to detail and overarching honesty that Blue Valentine touches the heart.

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.

With exquisitely simple images and minimal dialogue, Seraphine is both haunting and humane.

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]

Might be mistaken for a mere soap opera. But it's actually an emotional symphony.

If you’re looking for a film that’s guaranteed to have you gripping your seat, this is It.

It would be a disservice to describe "Perfect Blue" as a well-made cartoon. It is simply one of the richest and most suspenseful films of the year. [03 Aug 2001, p.E2]

A distinctly European exercise in observational nuance and tonal restraint in which Coppola stretches static images to the breaking point.

There’s less a sense of hitting plot points than of capturing life on the fly, and Mendelsohn and Reynolds ride that vibe brilliantly.

Until a devastatingly effective finale, Monsieur Lazhar is an exercise in delicacy, carried by Fallag's gentle performance and a fine cast of kid actors.

To keep serious cinema from going extinct, this could be sold as "The Hunger Games" cross-bred with "The Lorax," but it's better and more mature than either of those hit movies.

Far from being just another crime story, Sicario is cinema at its most ambitious.

Vincere, which translates as the battle cry "Win!" is like invisible ink on the ledger of war, a secret record of love and loss.

Reitman's movie is triumphant and actually deserves being mentioned in the same breath with those great comedies of 50 years ago. [07 May 1993, p.3G]

Even as it looks to the heavens, Gravity is bound to earth, where the beauty is in the details.

Rogue One spins “Star Wars” into a whole new orbit.

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

The King's Speech is the epitome of prestige cinema, an impeccably crafted and emotionally compelling drama that deserves the many laurels it surely will receive.

Liman and Cruise previously worked together on the brilliant but overlooked science-fiction flick “Edge of Tomorrow.” Their latest collaboration, which boasts one of Cruise’s best and most charismatic performances, deserves to be a hit.

The first five minutes of this law-enforcement spoof (subtitled ''The Smell of Fear'') are hilarious, as police Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) brings havoc to a White House dinner that features George and Barbara Bush. Although the movie slows down somewhat after that, there are enough giggles and bellylaughs along the way to make this summer comedy hard to resist. [28 June 1991, p.3F]

In his best performance since “The Social Network,” Eisenberg is perfectly cast as the neurotic Bobby. But the film truly belongs to Stewart, who brings to Vonnie a haunting luminousness.

The performance is both an eerie imitation and a touching revelation. Oscar voters who overlooked Williams for her camouflage roles in "Brokeback Mountain," "Wendy and Lucy" and "Blue Valentine" should now throw diamonds at her feet.

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.

This is epic cinema that begs to be compared to "2001: A Space Odyssey." But unlike Stanley Kubrick's psychedelic joyride, this journey is powered by a human heart.