Throw in the striking underwater photography and Michel Legrand's big score, and I don't understand why more critics don't dig Ice Station Zebra. Even director John Carpenter calls it a guilty pleasure. [14 Jan 2005, p.H22]

The seminal police thriller is a prime example of McQueen's rising above his material. [12 Jun 2005, p.K1]

Kobayashi's 1967 hit reflects the social tumult of its time by depicting a defiant swordsman amidst totalitarian excess. The film's escalation of tension is almost unbearable, and Mifune erupts with a ferocity that's as righteous as it is ultimately tragic, for Kobayashi refuses to soften the film's devastating imbalance of power. [16 Jun 2006, p.I22]

Today it has a classical feeling to it, with rich, on-target performances by Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons and Michael J. Pollard. [10 May 1991, p.65]

Arty examination of the nature of reality in Swinging London. [20 Feb 2004, p.H23]

The frenetic style suggests the influence of Richard Lester's British comedies, but the storyline and the use of rock music suggests that Coppola may have influenced Mike Nichols' "The Graduate," which was released one year later. [14 Jan 1999]

Cornel Wilde directed and stars in this nearly wordless 1966 story of a stripped white man hunted by African natives. It has several elements in common with Passion in the Desert. [09 Jul 1998, p.E3]

Moving 1965 love story with the late Elizabeth Hartman giving an excellent performance as a tormented blind girl who falls in love with the only person who treats her kindly (Sidney Poiter). It was Hartman's debut, and she and director Guy Green succeed in keeping it from becoming overly sentimental. [23 Aug 1990, p.F5]

No. 2 in the James Bond series, and the one with the most memorable villains (Robert Shaw, Lotte Lenya), the most exciting fights and chases, and Sean Connery in his prime. At this point in the series (1963), the gadgetry hadn't taken over, the budgets were still relatively modest, and the director, Terence Young, had to rely on his actors and his own filmmaking ingenuity to create excitement.[10 May 1991, p.65]

Loosely based on the experiences of Kazan's uncle, the script meanders and the inexperienced Giallelis isn't always up to the task of carrying the picture, but there are many moving moments. [07 Jul 1994, p.E3]

An enjoyable vehicle for the young Jane Fonda, who does a pretty fair Marilyn Monroe imitation as the sweet new wife of a very nervous Korean war veteran (Jim Hutton). [03 Dec 1992, p.E3]

Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Vladimir Nabokov classic isn't as racy as the new one by Adrian Lyne, which opens in theaters tomorrow. But it's a lot funnier, thanks in no small part to the casting of Peter Sellers as a mystery man of many accents and Shelley Winters as Lolita's silly mother. [01 Oct 1998]

A perfectly balanced adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, with Deborah Kerr in her greatest performance. [05 Dec 1997]

The most operatic of Hollywood epics, Anthony Mann's El Cid is dominated by a go-for-broke Miklos Rozsa score and Robert Krasker's gorgeous wide-screen photography, which takes full advantage of the movie's Spanish locations and its eye-filling sets and costumes. [27 Aug 1993, p.D13]

A classic European film noir with an irresistible score by Miles Davis, it builds tension from a series of seemingly minor mistakes that echo the political/military context of the postwar era.

Godard's technical innovations have become so commonplace that they no longer jolt. But the aura of urban fatalism remains compelling, and so does the acting by Jean-Paul Belmondo as a Bogart-worshipping fugitive and especially Jean Seberg as his amoral girlfriend. [02 Aug 1991, p.24]

The role is built for a tour-de-force performance, and Curtis delivers. [17 Sep 2000]

Based on the Leon Uris bestseller, the movie itself remains a leisurely, unevenly acted yet fascinating history lesson that helps put recent Middle East events in perspective. [01 Oct 1992, p.G3]

Some scenes hold up better than others, and there’s always a question about the film’s intentions: Is this voyeurism or is it satire taking off on the Playboy era? Condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency in 1960, Private Property is less dated than you might think.

Hawks drew from his entire career to enliven this amalgam of genre traditions, once favored by Quentin Tarantino as a litmus test for potential girlfriends. [26 Oct 2003]

Absorbing 1958 adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play about lonely people at a British seaside hotel. [20 Aug 1998]

A stark and still-stunning medieval allegory. [14 Sept 1991, p.25]

The characterizations now seem a tad thin, but Ives still impresses, and so does Charlton Heston as the most conflicted character, caught in the middle of this Cold War allegory about two feuding families and an outsider (Gregory Peck) with pacifist leanings. [29 Feb 1996, p.D3]

An all-star A-movie with large themes, brilliant technique, and a dark and daring performance by its star-writer-director that remains one of his two or three best. [Director's Cut; 18 Sept 1998, p.H1]

An ordinary house cat and a basement spider become ferocious adversaries of tiny Grant Williams in director Jack Arnold's vision of an upside-down world. [31 Oct 2010, p.H6]

George Stevens' mythic 1953 Western finally gets a video transfer that captures the crisp, bright beauty of its Oscar-winning cinematography. [17 Aug 2000, p.D3]

Watching “The Tales of Hoffmann... feels like walking through a Technicolor field of poppies; you’re happily immersed in it and often a bit lost within, eventually emerging a bit dazed and dazzled by the experience.

Perhaps more than ever, Marlon Brando's brutish Stanley seems the most attractive and honest character; he's also bewitchingly funny. He cuts through Blanche's lies and illusions, he satisfies Stella's sexual urges, and the fact that he does so with deliberate cruelty seems not to register. [Director's Cut; 4 Feb 1994, p.D21]

The genre's other great star-director team James Stewart and Anthony Mann began a string of five remarkable Westerns with this engrossing, genre-reviving chronicle of a stolen rifle and its fateful role in the lives of its possessors. [26 Oct 2003]

The Third Man has so many captivating elements that it's often thought of as a romantic movie. Maybe that's the result of Welles' involvement in a radio show in which his movie character, Harry Lime, became significantly more heroic, or the television series in which Michael Rennie took over the role. [30 July 1999, p.H1]

As an actor showcase it's a clash between the Duke's old school and Clift's new breed a volatile mix in a timeless classic. [26 Oct 2003]

An outstanding noir with young Burt Lancaster as an inmate plotting escape, and Hume Cronyn as the cruel, scheming bastard of a head guard. [15 Apr 2007, p.K4]

Christmas classic. [06 Nov 1997]

Raoul Walsh's lengthy, relatively gritty 1945 war movie stars Errol Flynn as the leader of a paratrooper group that goes after a key Japanese target. [02 Sep 1999]

A classy thriller with a notable period atmosphere and intelligent use of the macabre. [07 May 1992, p.3]

It may be overly sentimental, but in my opinion, it's a great capper to the Christmas season. [26 Nov 2013, p.B3]

Inspiring drama about an air strike against Japan that left several U.S. fliers stranded in China. [24 Jul 1998]

Today it seems remote and overblown, with Bergman, Young's score and Ray Rennahan's muted color photography the chief compensating factors. [03 Dec 1998]

Definitely not a documentary. Still, just try not to get a little choked up when Custer, leaving to his death, tells his wife, "Walking through life with you ma'am has been a very gracious thing." [19 Apr 2005, p.E1]

Writer-director Sturges' smoothest romantic comedy, starring Henry Fonda as a naive millionaire who gets fleeced by a pair of shipboard cardsharps. [05 Dec 1997]

The best of several film versions of Jack London's story about a Nazi-like sea captain (Edward G. Robinson in top form), this Warner Bros. production co-stars Ida Lupino and John Garfield and was directed by Michael Curtiz, shortly before he made "Casablanca." [26 Dec 1991, p.E1]

The House of Seven Gables probably has the strongest reputation as a film, thanks mostly to the casting of George Sanders and Vincent Price, Lester Cole's serviceable script, Milton Krasner's moody cinematography and Frank Skinner's Oscar-nominated score. [21 May 1988]

The first and best version of Leo McCarey's tale of a shipboard romance that turns serious. [20 Oct 1994, p.E3]

Completely ignored at the Oscars in 1939, "Midnight" seems more sophisticated and durable than several of that year's winners.

So the ship models look like something from your bathtub; it's magnificent for an 80-year-old movie. [19 Apr 2005, p.E1]

This George Cukor adaptation is nevertheless regarded as the definitive Hollywood treatment. Katharine Hepburn and Spring Byington are particularly well-cast. [15 Dec 1994, p.E3]

The Marx Brothers at their purest and funniest - no romantic subplot, no musical interludes with Harpo, no distractions from the fun of watching Groucho deflate Margaret Dumont as he becomes dictator of Fredonia and frivolously declares war. Cleverly directed by Leo McCarey, it was the team's least popular 1930s film, perhaps because the tone of non-stop anarchy proved too unsettling to Depression audiences. [10 May 1991, p.65]

The occasional creakiness of Milestone's passionate pacifist war film adds to the sense of authenticity. It's a lot closer to World War I than we are to it. [05 Dec 1997, p.G1]

Imported from Germany to lend class to Hollywood's new Fox studio, the great expressionist filmmaker, F.W. Murnau, did exactly that with this affecting, visually intoxicating 1927 masterpiece about a troubled young country couple (George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor) whose marital bonds are renewed during a day in the city. [12 Mar 1998]