This brutal, violently realistic drama, set against the sordid background of the New York waterfront, packs a terrific wallop that results in topflight entertainment.

With "instant classic" written all over it, Toy Story, the first full-length feature entirely composed of computer-generated animation, is a visually astounding, wildly inventive winner.

Lucas combines excellent comedy and drama and progresses it with exciting action on tremendously effective space battles. Likeable heroes on noble missions and despicable villains capable of the most dastardly deeds are all wrapped up in some of the most spectacular special effects ever to illuminate a motion picture screen. The result is spellbinding and totally captivating on all levels.

This Batman is a stunning achievement, especially through the incredible and unique visualization of director Tim Burton. The film may be disappointing to those expecting a campy cartoon, however, although the more dramatic stylization of this version is its strongest asset.

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino is one lethal storyteller. Reservoir Dogs, even for those of us with weak stomachs, is a masterful story setup, aided and abetted by all those colorful guys in on the thing.

Perhaps the most perfectly constructed horror story in our time.

Narratively, Titanic is a masterwork of big-canvas storytelling, broad enough to entrance and entertain yet precise and delicate enough to educate and illuminate.

A scrumptiously delightful moviegoing experience.

Anderson and Owen Wilson’s concise screenplay deftly avoids sentimentality but somehow manages to be touching anyway. The former’s astute direction displays an excellent knack for visual as well as verbal gags, and Robert Yeoman’s widescreen lensing is unusually beautiful and textured for a comedy.

Like a shooter whose skill allows him to take careful aim with a rifle rather than going for the easy splatter of a buckshot, director Eastwood's big picture is suredly calibrated: He points your eye to the tiniest specs, the most telling and powerful parts of this moral panorama.

Under Jonathan Demme's masterful cinematic surgery, we get into Lecter's twisted skull and, through this outrageous descent, we come to see this sinister in the everyday.

De Niro, however, is brilliant and his performance should be a leading contender in this year's Oscar competition.

A deliriously fractured film, ambitiously packed with bowling, bimbos and other great inspirations of latter-day thought. Closest in style and temperament to Raising Arizona, this Gramercy release should roll box office strikes with select-siters and score some winning spares with mainstream viewers.

An exhilarating fish story in the perfectly cast comic adventure.

This is one of the most wildly romantic movies in ages.

Not only (Kaufman's) most accessible and romantic screenplay, it's his most complete. The third act works like a charm and pulls all his themes, characters and conflicts together beautifully.

Baleful and brilliant, Dr. Strangelove; Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, will outrage a predictable percentage of the population and enthrall an even greater percentage.

Pixar again hitches top-notch storytelling to the very best in CG animation.

One of the year's most satisfying films.

A story that soars with breakneck pace but slows in all the tender moments. Visually, this train ride is both majestic and edge-of-your-seat.

Director Francis Ford Coppola, with a strong assist from cameraman Gordon Willis, has done an extraordinary job of capturing period and place.

What strikes one more than anything in Towers is the material's dreamlike quality.

Gene Hackman, as the older brother who literally takes the back seat to Beatty, is just about perfect, while Estelle [Parsons] creates a richly detailed characterization as his petty wife, a preacher’s daughter.

With Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn turning in superb performances, Roman Holiday is 118 minutes of sheer entertainment.

A brutally funny look at contemporary youth, encrusted with status symbols and guilt for gilt rejecting the weights of privilege to rail against the tides of society they would rather reject than succumb to, rather question than attend to. Both tuned and attuned to its subject and on target for most of its course, this second film from director Nichols will benefit from enthusiastic word of mouth, winning a large audience and corresponding profits from both sides of the 30 year demarcation line.

It is a great film and will be an exceptionally popular and profitable one.

The simplest of stories can be elevated by first-rate acting and directing. Consider Stephane Brize's Mademoiselle Chambon, a French film that achieves a subtle but devastating impact.

Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday is a superb and devastating piece of cinema that with justification can be compared favorably to Gillo Pontocorvo's classic "The Battle of Algiers" in its dispassionate yet sweeping journalistic inquiry into cataclysmic social and political events.