It is both funny and sad, placid and provocative and, above all, hopeful and despairing.

No party-line screed, Gunda is a soul-stirring meditation on some of our most underappreciated fellow earthlings. For many viewers, it could well be life-changing too.

The film’s bracing ground-level truths, by turns hopeful and despairing, challenge Beltway anxieties about the “porousness” of the border and shake up preconceived notions about Americans’ relationships with their southern neighbors.

This is an exquisitely crafted film, its unhurried rhythms continually shifting as plangent notes of melancholy, solitude, torment, jealousy and resentment surface. Campion is in full control of her material, digging deep into the turbulent inner life of each of her characters with unerring subtlety.

One of the most effortlessly absorbing and deeply encouraging nonfiction films of recent memory.

Director Beth Harrington packs enough drama, music and history to fuel a miniseries in her thoroughly entertaining and comprehensive account of the Carter and Cash families and their enduring contributions to American music.

A soft-spoken and perceptive film set in the Modernist small-town marvel that is Columbus, Indiana, this is a specialized art house treat that announces the arrival of a new director who combines small-scale, Ozu-like humanism with an impressive command of the formalist possibilities of film.

Artist evinces unlimited love for the look and ethos of the 1920s as well for the style of the movies. The filmmakers clearly did their homework and took great pleasure in doing so, an enjoyment that is passed along in ample doses to any viewer game for their nifty little conceit.

For much of its running time, Zama is merely remote and enervating, too accurately reflecting its protagonist’s predicament.

Dead Souls is thoroughly focused and tightly structured. And it is an immensely perceptive piece about the history of China and its multitude of discontents.

Personal footage interacts intriguingly with reportage here, sometimes making it more than the greatest-hits montage it initially seems.

Dick Johnson Is Dead is a funny, touching and, to be sure, unique film, and the Johnsons are a very fortunate father and daughter

It contains some extraordinarily good acting by the late James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo (who is coming up fast and reveals himself to be a real trouper in this one). The direction by Nicholas Ray is outstanding...This is a superficial treatment of a vital problem that has been staged brilliantly.

This is a work of unfailing restraint, which makes its stealth emotional heft all the more remarkable.

Now Eastwood turns on a dime and tackles not just his first war movie but two war movies of considerable scope and complexity. If he doesn't nail everything perfectly, he nevertheless has created a vivid memorial to the courage on both sides of this battle and created an awareness in the public consciousness at a most opportune moment about how war feels to those lost in its fog.

This is a wonderfully odd consideration of those questions about love, pain, solitude and human connection we all ask; its emotional power creeps out from under the subtle humor and leaves a subcutaneous imprint that lingers long after the movie is over.

Bi’s film is ultimately akin to the early image we see of Wildcat’s body being wheeled on a mine cart and pushed gently into the abyss, taking us on a slow and steady rollercoaster ride through memory, melancholy and movie magic.

An eloquent meditation on loss, memory and how film can shape them.

A scrumptiously delightful moviegoing experience.

Nielsson somewhat frustratingly avoids giving us many cues to the passage of time, but nevertheless the film captures some of the drama generated by the public's impatience and Mugabe's maneuvering during the long drafting process

Spike Lee's first feature-length documentary is an uncharacteristically restrained effort by this major filmmaker, lacking the intense style and outlandishness of much of his earlier work. But it tells a powerful story simply and movingly and thus serves as an important cinematic document of one of the most heinous crimes of the civil rights era: the 1963 Birmingham, Ala., church bombing that resulted in the deaths of four young children. [11 July 1997]

Stephen Maing's documentary about the NYPD's illegal policing quotas and other discriminatory practices gets the blood boiling.

Every bit as perfectly tuned, cruelty-free funny and kind-hearted as its predecessor, maybe even more so.

At a time when America looks like it's tearing apart at the seams, there’s something altogether reassuring — even downright inspiring — about Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary.

The always surprising Coen brothers have finally made a very serious movie with A Serious Man. It's about God, man's place in the world and the meaning of life, so naturally it's one of their funnier movies.

Capote represents something unique in cinema.…Most eye-catching for critics and audiences in the weeks to come will be Philip Seymour Hoffman's brilliant metamorphosis into the persona of the late author.

Though not as stuffed with rapid-fire laughs as In the Loop...this makes a very fine sophomore outing.

Curiously contrasted characters and locales play their parts in the Hitchcock strategy, making for an enormously entertaining show.