A delicate pearl of a movie, Like Someone in Love is thus a meditative dance along the ambiguous borders of truth and illusion. What, Kiarostami seems to be asking, can we actually see? What can we definitively know? Far less than we think.

A combination of timing, access, a visual aesthetic that reflects ATCQ's Afrocentric "surface philosophy" (as the crew's look is described) and, most importantly, story-conscious editing elevates the doc above the norm.

The one thing Sid and Nancy could not be convicted of was compromise and Cox has created a film true to that part of their spirit, but he has created something much more, a send-up and critique of the kind of cautionary celebrity biography exemplified by Lady Sings the Blues. [31 Oct 1986, p.D1]

The brazenness of her actions and opacity of her emotions suggest a tragic heroine in the grand tradition – the novel is the basis for the Shostakovich opera of the same title – but the film lacks the propulsive drive to make her fate moving.

As the end credits are rolling: What happened? Suddenly, the film stalls, and everything that looked great -- the mechanics of the caper, the grafted-on wit and wisdom -- starts to feel repetitious and a tad gimmicky.

This sexy, pulpy, very grown-up film is not your usual best animated feature material.

An overdose of sympathy makes for a wispy picture, likeable certainly but lacking in crispness and clarity.

Essential to the film’s success is Murphy, clearly having his best time in a long time as Moore, who adopted a flashy pimp-esque persona that would eventually take the blaxploitation landscape by storm.

Too loud, too long and too busy but – here’s the good part – also wonderfully silly.

The portrait of the ailing artist is bittersweet, but when Helms sings or plays, the look on his face is pure joy.

While the film is tonally incongruous and confusing at points, Ivan and Gerardo’s powerful love story has such high stakes, you can’t help but swoon.

The comedy is warm and witty and wafer-thin, as easy on the palate as a raspberry sorbet on a summer afternoon.

In the end, is In America slight in its sentimentality and manipulative in its moral? Sure, but that's the job of any fable or myth.

It is tempting to compare her to Princess Diana, a narcissistic media manipulator on the one hand and a sensitive woman deeper than the icon she has created on the other. But Corsage is a work of fiction, and its main character is, thankfully, far more complicated and interesting than the real thing.

The major reason for Escape's success is Siegel's effortless expertise in re-creating the atmosphere of Alcatraz, an atmosphere in which, as the Warden says, good citizens were not made, but good prisoners were. As photographed by Bruce Surtees in rainy black and blue, the dogged, slow-motion swim through excelsior that constitutes prison existence is painfully and convincingly reproduced. For Eastwood, there is an extra bonus: if the milieu doesn't provide him with a reason for his stubbornly characteristic grimness, it does at least provide an excuse. [23 June 1979]

A remarkable documentary as important as it is compelling.

An entertaining oddity, an amiably black comedy whose bared teeth double as an engaging smile: It takes a satiric bite and leaves you laughing through the pain.

There is a sincerity here that sticks.

While the newer version's darker ending lends a more contemporary twist, overall 3:10 to Yuma is reverent to the original – a few more bullets and more spilled blood notwithstanding.

There are many good reasons why the world doesn't need yet another adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte classic. Yet they all pale before the one great reason why it does – the chance to marvel at Wasikowska's performance.

Dealing with such heavy matters as death, faith and forgiveness, the film wants to be a classic-in-the-making, but it just doesn’t hit the emotional and narrative cues necessary for such a weighty job.

Plays perfectly on two levels — it's a clever comedy, but disguised as a fun, dumb horror flick. A movie made to delight, and even accidentally enlighten, both the living and the dead.

Supporting turns by Bill Nighy, Rachael Stirling, Jack Lacy and Helen McCrory work to make Their Finest a testament to the familial nature that defined the film industry during the Second World War, as well as proof that it’s possible to breed joy in the midst of bleakness.

The script is taut, the actors perform their roles well and some neat visual and sound design elements add texture to this portrayal of rising India. Bahrani’s spin on the novel brings the story alive – even if the voiceover grates occasionally.

Reserved yet still suspenseful and hugely ambitious, Syriana sets out to prove what many have come to suspect -- that oil money is the root of all contemporary evil.

Stand By Me is not "a masterpiece," but it is an evocative and cheerily amusing movie about growing up male in 1959, a kind of pre-pubescent American Graffiti, the locker-room rejoinder to My American Cousin. [8 Aug 1986, p.D1]

The reach of this sprawling, ambitious epic often exceeds its grasp. It has something in common with its hero. [5 Dec 1981]

Dreamgirls is one of the best movie musicals in memory.