A terrifying thriller with a surprisingly warm heart, John Krasinski's A Quiet Place is a monster-movie allegory for parenting in a world gone very, very wrong.

I got bogged down frequently in the familiarity and intentional messiness of the story that Veiel and producer Sandra Maischberger chose to tell, while at the same time wondering what sense a wholly unaware viewer would be able to make of this woman and the long shadow she still casts.

The doc's a delight for six-string gearheads and a reverie for those who still treasure what remains of pre-Bloomberg, pre-Giuliani New York.

Rather than a pileup of bad behavior, the screenplay offers shifting perspectives as to who’s being sensible and who isn’t, who means well but executes badly, with few characters falling unequivocally into the camp of “right” or “wrong.”

It is hard to imagine a better cast or production values so the film should find audiences among sophisticated urban adults.

The director mixes moods with a playfulness that is both brazen and carefree and yet precisely modulated, yielding results that amplify the specific content of the screenplay. This makes for a film that, however cheap it was to make, is incredibly rich to watch.

Socrates is a haunting slice of Brazilian neo-realism that marks its tyro director/co-screenwriter as a talent to watch.

It’s a wispy yet insightful and emotionally satisfying film.

Trite, grim and feebly provocative.

Though it's difficult to work out what's going on, it's never boring.

This deeply humanistic, profoundly touching work representing independent cinema at its finest should be seen by far wider audiences.

[A Hijacking] illuminatingly and sensitively dramatizes an easily-overlooked global crime phenomenon.

It’s in transporting viewers into the heart of this jungle, where the moths calibrate the ecosystem, that Nocturnes most its most compelling case for protecting these exquisite creatures and our planet.

A flawlessly executed character study.

It’s subtle but resonant, intimate but emotionally expansive and at every step crisply unsentimental.

Without becoming a screed for victims' rights, the riveting film shows how in the face of terrible events a grieving parent is galvanized into activism.

The project suffers badly from being largely improvised as the pair fall back on familiar impressions and old jokes. Lazy and indulgent, it smacks of being what the British call a "jolly," that is a freebie with no obligation to turn in work afterward.

A deeper, darker, visually arresting and more emotionally satisfying adaptation of the J.K. Rowling literary phenomenon, achieving the neat trick of remaining faithful to the spirit of the book while at the same time being true to its cinematic self.

The visual style and the natural, unaffected performances by a talented cast help create an atmosphere of verisimilitude that makes the story all the more powerful. [23 Oct. 1996]

As with the Bourne films, Gilroy has a knack for creating strong characters and situations that resonate with tension. It may be formula, but the guy is a solid chemist as he crafts excellent set-ups and payoffs.

Pray does not browbeat viewers into applauding the artist’s achievement. The filmmaker thoughtfully documents a phenomenon and allows the arguments to continue to rage after the lights come on.

One of the best war movies ever made, Downfall is a powerful and artistically masterful re-creation of the last days of the Third Reich.

A delicious throwback to the all-star whodunit, this juicy comedy thriller is a treat from start to finish.

Ordinary in some ways and extraordinary in others, The Spectacular Now benefits from an exceptional feel for its main characters on the parts of the director and lead actors.

What makes Tropics so riveting is the way Costa constantly shifts between the epic and the intimate, the macro and the micro.

At its best, which is often enough, the film does provide that sort of intimate and evocative insight into a culture too often vilified due to Western ignorance. At others, the gentle exquisiteness with which Longley approaches even the most unappealing sights and sounds feels like an evasion of something more troubling, and potentially more profound.

A moody adaptation of the Swedish best-seller about a fateful mortal-vampire romance, Let the Right One In is atypically literate and unexpectedly affecting suspense fare. Complex characters, ominous situations fraught with mortality and the recklessness of youthful ardor create a tense and subtly shaded narrative.

Hakonarson observes all this with the practiced eye of a good documentarian but, in the compositions, the rigorous timing of the editing and the performances of the two leads, he lifts the material beyond the observational to a modestly accomplished work that not only neatly observes an obscure lifestyle but brings to life a most peculiar sibling relationship.