Thanks to Iseman and Kwiatkowski’s heartwarming chemistry, Collins’ sharp dialogue and Vuckovic’s pointed direction, you find yourself running in step with two young women who are smart, interesting, brave and brilliantly capable. And that makes confronting the realities of their mission a little less terrifying.

Perhaps Jia is trying to prove the point that the future has already arrived. Or perhaps he is suggesting that the truth is stranger than science fiction. This is today's China: Anything is possible.

It’s a movie in which you can feel the spirit of the material infusing the filmmaker both as an artist and as a human being, and what results is that thing that occurs when even the simplest of songs sends sparks to the soul.

The audience is invited to celebrate the purified wonder of youth and the dazzle of life’s invisible indispensables.

“I’m selective about my audience,” says the singer. “I don’t need everybody to like me.” With a dour, sophisticated film that won’t be to everyone’s taste, writer-director Nicchiarelli seems to have taken those words to heart.

Tense car chases, action scenes handled with crisp panache and Canadian actor Ryan Gosling channelling Steve McQueen as an existential wheel man add up to make Drive one of the best arty-action films since Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey."

As Lou, an almost prissily natty numbers runner certain that everything - even the ocean - has deteriorated, Burt Lancaster gives the performance of his life. [17 Apr 1981]

From its joyful and exuberant opening half to a late-game moment of deep and sombre introspection, Lee’s version of American Utopia is thoughtful pop performance art captured with the propulsive power of cinema.

The new film is the rare sequel that truly merits its existence, updating and expanding the themes of the 1982 original to bring them from the 20th century into the 21st. Yes, Blade Runner 2049 is one hard-working and deep-thinking replicant.

His characters are the brightest, slickest people you will ever meet, and whether you’re meant to love or loathe them, Sorkin has a genuine talent for ensuring his heroes and villains will forever stick in your head, wandering the recesses of your mind in an eternal walk-and-talk formation.

Moselle believes in the power of girls. The friendships through which Camille learns how to be loved become the anguish that breaks her heart and the forgiveness that humbly heals her. And resiliently they soar through the city, a harmony of wheels on pavement.

Part siege movie, part rural drama, part gore-soaked freak-out, Bacurau is the one instance where it’s the destination, not the journey, that matters.

It may well be the ultimate family picture of this or any year. [22 Nov 1996, p.D2]

A non-stop, shoestring trip with more adventures and a helluva lot more smarts than you'll find in most American movies...All in all, there's more plain fun to be had here in 10 minutes than in a whole hour on the road with that jerk Indiana Jones.

Nell is a good movie made great by the lambent presence of Jodie Foster. [23 Dec 1994]

Clifton Hill becomes just as thrilling and disturbing as its titular strip of haunted houses and fading-fast motels.

Campbell is tasked with carrying much of the film’s action and dialogue -- including two seemingly rambling but actually profound monologues delivered to unseen audiences in a nondescript bar -- and easily commands the screen.

A meditation on death that has you humming to the melody and laughing at the joke -- it's an elegiac picture that refuses to eulogize.

This story of personal redemption tacks drama by the nautical mile. "The ocean is always trying to kill you,” says Edwards, a woman like most who knows about facing high odds and salty conditions.

It's not only packed with high-toned classical and contemporary cultural allusions, but manages to wear its popcorn inspirations on its sleeve.

Clever and confident use of limited resources in an unfamiliar medium. Kenneth Branagh has made the right choice nine out of 10 times, and the tenth is easily forgiven because of the youthful ardor of that bright face and that bright talent. [10 Nov 1989]

A beautiful, probing art documentary.

It is only when Diggs and Casal near the end of the film − including a too-convenient-by-half encounter with a cop − that the effort’s ambition in creating a treatise on all of Western society’s ills begins to crack. But until then, Blindspotting possesses enough flair, passion and sweat to put up one hell of a fight.

An intense new film that pivots on a tremendous, teeth-gnashing performance from Law as a 1980s father whose aspirations of upward mobility threaten to destroy his life.

Without “spoiling” it, it’s a film that at least opens up a possibility for change, instead of providing another rote reshuffling of power from the Black Hats back to the White Hats.

Yes, The King's Speech is a lively burst of populist rhetoric, superbly performed and guaranteed to please even discriminating crowds.

Turtletaub has some difficulty ending the film, which resolves itself with one too many closeups of Macdonald gazing out at the world, whether from a lakeshore or a train window, as both the script and its director struggle to figure out what happens next.

It is a love story, as beautiful as it is devastating.

Once you overlook the laborious contrivance of Jerry's background, Down and Out in Beverly Hills is a sharp, sweet comedy of affluent manners. [31 Jan 1986]

From beginning to brutal end, this is Fargeat’s uncompromising creation, but Lutz is at the centre of the terror, and acquits herself well as a person never to be dismissed, or crossed, again.

The character of Rosalyn – a mash-up of Carole Lombard, Lady Macbeth and maybe even Regan from The Exorcist – is by far the most hair-raising phenomenon in a movie bristling with high hair.

Paul Feig’s female-led reboot of the long-dormant franchise is thrilling, hilarious, lovingly crafted and the wild, colourful, giddy blockbuster this otherwise staid summer movie season so desperately needs.

Much of what happens in Silent Light can feel painstakingly mundane: milking cows, harvesting wheat, a long drive at night in and out of shadows. Yet throughout, there's a sense of something ominous impending, and while it remains gentle, the ending is genuinely startling.

The deployment of the hardware may be extraordinary, but it doesn't overshadow the human dimension of this summer sequel. [4 July 1990]

One of those rare films that manages to be both terrifically entertaining and consistently thoughtful, it turns an apparently tame deception into a very rich metaphor.

The wide swerve of Anderson’s associations, their “hypnotic splattered mist,” don’t make for an easy film. But it is a very good one and only the hardest heart will leave the theatre unmoved.

It might seem, from 2002's "Gerry" to his ersatz Kurt Cobain biopic, "Last Days," that Gus Van Sant has been making the same movie: an enigmatic and poetic paean to (teenaged) male beauty, disaffection and inscrutability.

The entire production entertainingly coalesces into part concert doc, part cultural artifact, part “gotcha!” stunt, and part meditation on the fickle, fleeting nature of creativity.

So delightful it should come with a parental advisory: "Jaded adults, beware. Viewing this may pierce your shell of cynicism and spark a renewed belief in the magic of movie-making."

Photographed in stark black and white by Robby Muller with music by both Waits and Lurie, Down By Law (a slang expression meaning in control), more conventional and livelier than Stranger Than Paradise, and a lot less strange, is as up to date as tomorrow and as familiar as yesterday. [19 Sep 1986]

It could be a cautionary fable about the predatory hypocrisy of any patriarchy, of any community predominantly defined by social conservatism.

It’s a sort of bad-luck situation most documentarians secretly dream of, but to their credit, For Ahkeem’s co-directors don’t exploit the situation, merely letting their cameras continue to capture Daje’s ever-dire situation.

It’s a working-class story, albeit one that doesn’t involve officially recognized "work,” which raises questions about police corruption and racially slanted drug policies. Speaking of questions, why is a white character being held up as a shining symbol of the black man’s plight? Something to consider. Otherwise, White Boy Rick has much to say yes to.

Goldstein...is excellent in the role, rendering Edith’s monstrous ambition with relatable (and frequently terrifying) conviction.

Like a Chinese Balzac, Jia expertly balances the micro and the macro, the onrush of the new and the tug of tradition here, blanketing the proceedings with a pall of melancholy as palpable as the smog over Beijing.

Do you need to see this film? No. But if you want to see it, you’re in for a treat.

It is also extremely well-written in the fearless way of a smarty pants on a roll in the university cafeteria.

This is a fascinating, informative, and reflective swan song that gives Varda the final word, and some of the due she’s been owed her entire career, as one of the most influential feminist filmmakers.

Mandy is, if it’s not clear yet, not for everyone. But for those who think nothing of staying up past midnight to devour the strange and fantastic, it hits the sweetest of spots.

As down-to-earth as a ghost story gets.

With no cutaways, the film’s story and the momentum of the unlikely robbers seems as unstoppable as the camera. The characters are confused, adrenalinized and breathless, as are you. Because the deal feels real.

Amir Bar-Lev’s excellent, definitive film on the Haight-Ashbury acid-testers is long – four fly-by hours – but there are very few wasted moments.

Despite a few wrong turns early on, the movie gathers graceful momentum and heads straight to the warm heart of the book - that fond spot located just on the safe side of sentimentality, a feel- good place that doesn't leave any feel-stupid fallout.

Toes will tap, a tear or two might be shed – a complex story about a deceivingly complex musical is adoringly told and ultimately simplified. “As long as humankind continues to have struggles,” asserts one talking head, “Fiddler on the Roof will be there.” File under: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There may be almost nothing about this comedy that is new; but there is almost nothing about this comedy that is not funny...Victoria/Victoria is marvellous vaudeville. [19 March 1982]

Bizarre, indeed.

Director Maria Sodahl tracks the couple’s story over the course of only one Christmas break, but the film is more a chronicle of one family’s entire existence. Skarsgard, by the way, is typically excellent – it’s just that he mostly, and graciously, cedes the screen to Hovig, who is given much more to do and handles it with aplomb.

Partly a scintillating performance documentary, partly a comic romp through a rough-and-tumble culture, The Commitments has the charismatic energy of the music it salutes - this is blues that cheers you up, soul with a whole lot of heart. [16 Aug 1991]

It thrills because Constantine, a noted British photographer, shows instead of tells.

The thrill Soderbergh and his co-conspirators are enjoying is contagious.

Modestly clever, this is definitely a little thing. Enjoy.

Skip work to see it at the first opportunity.

This Spanish-language satire of the film industry, from the Argentinian duo Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat, is one big and delightful inside joke for the art-house aficionado.

Working "lobbed" and "scimitar" into that same sentence hovers near the empyrean of genius.

May not have the most sophisticated narrative, but it is one of the most spectacular and masterly demonstrations of animation in screen history.

This is the funniest teen movie I've seen in eons.

A little like speeding through the digestive tract of some voracious beast. There's bite, acid, digestive churning and an expulsive conclusion. If the metaphor seems unsavoury, well, wait until you see the film.

Visually evokes Coppola’s "Godfather Part II" and Leone’s "Once Upon a Time in America," but in its utterly irony-free melodramatic sincerity also suggests a silent-era woman’s picture à la D.W. Griffith, King Vidor or G.W. Pabst.

The movie isn't just about Schmidt as a personality, it's a portrait of his world, and Payne and co-writer Taylor show a rare compassion for the superficially comfortable.

In the end, like any satire worth the name, In the Company of Men spins around to fire its biggest salvo at its ultimate target -- the audience.

It’s an interesting twist on the usual addiction drama – it’s not the downfall, it’s will he stay clean? – and it works. If you’re not invested, you’re not watching.

Though the Disney logo is on this movie, there is -- possibly excepting little Nemo himself -- not a single cloying, sentimental Disneyesque creature in it. There is, instead, wit and flair in concept and writing, the trademark of the Pixar people who drove the project.

The first 20 minutes of the South Korean film The Host represents one of the most entertaining movie openings in memory. It's the same kind of pop-culture thrill provided by Steven Spielberg's "Jaws," with the same sense of astonishment, fear and pleasure at something genuinely new.

Crosby, as we learn in the fascinating documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, is no easy rider. He’s no easy anything. What he is is stunningly self-aware, relentlessly candid and highly interested in the subject at hand, which is himself.

The score (a nifty collection of vintage but never clichéd period tunes) complements the mood perfectly, and the ensemble cast members hit their own notes to perfection.

That the director is able to continue producing such creative and daring work while ostensibly under the thumb of the state is a true feat.

Even if you’d rather die than be trapped in a broken elevator with endless Kenny G music, Lane’s excellent accomplishment is making 97 minutes about the musician so much smart fun.

Always perceptive and curiously light in tone if not in content -- such a remarkably delicate look at an absolutely devastating subject.

Pure cinematic intoxication, a wildly inventive mixture of comedy and melodrama, tastelessness and swooning elegance, bodies with the texture of fresh peaches, and angular faces Picasso would have loved.

The Beguiled is Coppola’s bloodiest, most visceral movie to date, and it is also one of her best.

The gamble of casting Misses Tomlin and Fonda in what would seem to be the wrong roles (Violet is the strong, efficient, hard-edged secretary; Judy the frilly, "feminine," inexperienced employee) pays off handsomely, especially with Miss Tomlin. When she is handed a memo by a senior secretary and smilingly snarls, "Thanks, Roz, I know just where to stick it," her line reading is worth the price of admission. The pneumatic Miss Parton sings the theme song with greater confidence than she brings to her acting: she is a sweet little thing, but she's no thespian. [20 Dec 1980]

Levack has done a remarkable job with her feature-film debut, playing with tropes that have time-honoured traditions but are always in need of a refresh.

What it comes down to is the difference between spectacle and craftsmanship. The Winter Soldier has plenty of the former – every dollar of its estimated $170-million (U.S.) budget is onscreen – but it’s also got an intricate dramatic and thematic structure holding everything in place.

Here’s a layered, nuanced film whose only goal is to tell a story of real people and real heartache, not to act as a crass marketing plank for a series of hopeful sequels and spinoffs (hi and bye, Baywatch and CHIPS).

Atomic Blonde is bold, brazen and frequently bonkers. But it’s also killer.

The result is a rarity on any screen: intelligent fun.

Koreeda takes his usual languid pace to allow the story to breathe, and along the way comes across a quiet number of delicate epiphanies, each more satisfying than the last, and all aided by a strong Abe performance.

A rare example of a truly independent film, Thai or otherwise, the fascinatingly aesthetic Blissfully Yours.... has a simple narrative and an adoration of nature that lists the film toward the experimental. [10 Sept 2002, p.R4]

This film moves from black satire to a horror-thriller so smoothly you don’t even realize it’s happening – like the proverbial slow-boiling frog. Grim stuff, gloriously so.

Rosen has not so much adapted Watership Down as he has intelligently condensed it, and compensated for the simplifications with pleasures books can't provide. [20 Jan 1979]

Director Andersen’s pacing is dynamic, allowing white-knuckled viewers to catch their breaths before he takes it away again. This isn’t a sequel, it’s an after-shock – and a doozy at that.

Take Topper. Add a pinch of Pee-Wee Herman and a dollop of the Addams Family. Mix in Nightmare on Elm Street (any part will do), The Money Pit, and the lighter side of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The result will be unlike any movie ever made, and it won't begin to come close to Beetlejuice . [Apr 1, 1998]

If you see Dionne Warwick as the greatest-ever interpreter of the music of lyricist Hal David and composer Burt Bacharach, you wouldn’t be wrong. There’s more to her story, however, as shown by this lively, contextual bio-doc.

A case study in blunt-force media trauma.

Yes, hallelujahs are in order.

This happy daydream contains Coppola's most assured work since "Apocalypse Now;" save for its modesty, it is in no way inferior to his masterpiece, "The Godfather" Saga. [12 Aug 1988]

If the kids give the movie its momentum, its fascination comes from a more static source -- the father.

From the first stylized shot to the final comic resolution, Moonstruck is completely sui generis - hard to describe but easy to love.