Barry Jenkins’ beautiful Moonlight seems to have more in common with poetry than with a typical narrative film. It’s less a story than a collection of moments, which leaves its viewer feeling moved and changed, as if you’ve spent time in someone else’s dreams and woke up understanding who they are.

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]

You’ll watch knowing you’re in the hands of a master filmmaker; only wondering when it’s over how certain effects were achieved.

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]

Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is a wondrously pure example of one of the great gifts that cinema can give us: to drop us into a time, a place and a life; immersing us in the sounds and the sights and the emotions, large and small, experienced by someone we’re not.

Miyazaki's films never stop at their brilliant surfaces. Spirited Away is a fairy tale in the classic tradition, a growing-up fantasy riding the rapids of the subconscious.

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]

12 Years a Slave isn’t easy to watch, and it shouldn’t be; it’s one man’s tragedy, but it’s also the tragedy of countless thousands of souls beaten down, literally and metaphorically.

Every Manchester scene gives you a sense of the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, where it’s bitter cold but nobody makes too much of it, where the past stays with you whether you want it to or not. This is a movie that pays careful attention to details.

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]

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 movie is a model of clear, precise storytelling, of state-of-the-art technique used to advance a story rather than show off.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another — the most entertaining, exhilarating movie you’ll see all year — is an incision into a raw nerve. A thrilling, tense portrait of modern life, it’s Anderson’s most urgently relevant work yet.

“Do all lovers,” wonders Héloïse in a passionate moment, “feel as though they’re inventing something?” Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a bittersweet celebration of passion and art, feels like that; you’ve never seen another movie quite like this. In its quiet gaze, love becomes art — and vice versa.

It’s not a biopic, but I Am Not Your Negro leaves you wanting to know and read more of Baldwin, to experience the language that pours from this film like a fiery balm.

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]

In a severe, uncompromising manner that none of his previous films has approached, Spielberg has captured the terror of the Nazi reign as well as the determination and resourcefulness of those who resisted. He has created one of the most shocking movies yet made about the Holocaust (there were several walkouts at the screening I attended) and one of the most inspiring.

You leave the film’s soft-grained world reluctantly, as if taking off a warm coat when it’s still a little chilly inside.

Painstakingly reassembled by producer Alan Elliott (Pollack, who never gave up hope on the project, died in 2008), Amazing Grace shows us an artist at the peak of her powers.

Dunkirk succeeds spectacularly both emotionally and visually.

The Irishman is long, to be sure, but it’s never less than compelling — Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino and Pesci, all in their mid-to-late-70s, are each carrying a lifetime of work, with practiced ease.

Watching it leaves you lighter, happier, younger — dancing your way out of the theater to the Heads’ irresistible beats.

Inside Out movingly but casually plays with our emotions, like a baby walking her fingers across a parent’s face; it leaves you changed, entertained, nostalgic, dazzled.

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

It’s a film full of quiet magic; of the power of words not spoken, and the enduring strength of love.

Guadagnino has explored this territory before...and he’s a master at finding electricity in a glance, beauty in a beam of sunlight, an entire story in the whisper of one name.

Like the shadows dancing on their home, the film is overwhelmingly beautiful and agonizingly incomplete, a refraction of a refraction of a time that has now long since passed. It’s a work of rich layers that offers something new each time you watch.

Johansson and Driver are remarkably, heartbreakingly good in every scene; showing their characters’ journeys to an unflinching camera, letting the gap between them get wider yet unable, for their son’s sake, to completely walk away. It’s a drama playing out on two larger-than-life faces; a family torn apart, and yet enduring.

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.

Like a gift from the movie gods, here comes Damien Chazelle’s dreamy La La Land, right when a lot of us are in desperate need of some light. It’s a valentine to cinema, splashed with primary colors and velvety L.A. sunsets.

Lady Bird is a joy, from its start...to its finish, when that ever-so-slightly older young woman takes a breath and looks out — hopefully, nervously, excitedly — into a limitless future.

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]

Just as it lulls you, it also devastates.

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]

While it may have seemed revolutionary in its time, it now suffers from the disadvantage of looking like one more Asian movie about alienated youth. [18 Feb 2005, p.I20]

This tale of ambition and its cost — and its collateral damage — is Blanchett’s movie, and she delivers a tour de force in every scene.

On par with the most compelling courtroom dramas, Brother's Keeper is all the more fascinating because it presents a reality as complex as any fictional plot could ever be. [20 Nov 1992, p.20]

Twenty-five years in the making, this warmhearted, generous film is a quiet masterpiece — the very specific story of one family, but one in which many of us can find our own.

"There's nothing about this place worth filming," insists one character, but Kiarostami always comes up with something: a Tati-like scene in which a canister rolls down a street, all but waiting to be kicked, and several exotic glimpses of urban life, including a turkey salesman who carries a couple of unplucked birds through the Tehran streets. [26 Feb 1999]

The beauty of The Florida Project is how Baker uses a cast of mostly inexperienced actors to tell a story that feels completely, utterly real: You feel as if you’ve slipped inside of Moonee’s enchanted world, while at the same time seeing the harsh reality of Halley’s.

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]

Yes, the film does strum the heartstrings a bit too emphatically toward the end, by cranking up Williams' music and giving us perhaps one tear too many, but that's a minor quibble. When Elliott and his friends soar on their bicycles, like flying Peter Pans who must soon grow up, it's as touching and note-perfect a moment as any in the movies. [2002 re-release]

Whether the new scenes make "Apocalypse" a better movie is debatable; for me, they were fascinating but not essential.

As charted by a brilliantly incisive script by former lawyer and Washington Post film critic Paul Attanasio, the ethical crises of "Quiz Show" radiate from that anguished moment when Van Doren takes the bait. [16 Sept 1994, p.C3]

The Souvenir reveals itself slowly, calmly, with great deliberation.

The interweaving of animation and nonanimated footage gives the picture a kind of surreal quality that befits the sense of the survivors of how unreal the event seemed to them.

Röhrig’s performance is an extraordinary feat of minimalism. His expressions convey a deadened spirit. Yet behind his eyes and at the corners of his mouth are signs of a spirit that won’t be crushed.

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

This Little Women purist was moved to tears by this movie, and didn’t want it to end. Beautifully intimate, gentle and wise, it made me — and all of us — part of the March family. And what better Christmas gift could we wish for than that?

Sergei Urusevsky's amazingly mobile cinematography is so expressive, and Kalatozov's heightened sense of drama so contagious, that this becomes one of those rare movies that makes you look at the world differently. [23 Jun 1995, p.H26]

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]

It’s a lovely, inspiring picture of a crucial institution; one which, as an employee describes, serves as “a warm, welcoming place that’s committed to education and committed to nurturing everyone’s passions and curiosities.”

Nickel Boys is a life, made up of pieces; some of them lovely, some devastating. It’s a mesmerizing, uniquely told story — of memory, of injustice, of friendship, of survival.

It’s a scalpel of a film that cuts into how stacked the deck is and how solidarity — or the lack of it — can determine whether you survive unscathed.

The real fun here is in the three central performances, each of which threatens to steal the film (giving “The Favourite,” appropriately, its own balance-of-power issues).

Steven Spielberg's magnificent new film, Saving Private Ryan, redefines the World War II movie.

It is another sumptuous visual feast from the studio, full of endless images finely detailed and often lavish.

“Fury’s” pace is delirious, the stunts are incredible — such crashes, such explosions, such a lot of flying bodies — Hardy’s performance is a marvel of subdued conviction and Theron brings an impressive gravity to her work as Furiosa. Put it all together, and you’ve got a rousing crowd-pleaser that hits on all fast-revving cylinders.

Elegantly photographed by the legendary Henri Decae, who emphasizes smoky blue and darkest blacks, "Le Samourai" has film-noir style to burn. [25 Apr 1997]

Through it all, Scott gives one of the year’s best performances, creating life in small moments.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread casts a remarkable spell; it wraps around you, like a delicately scented cashmere shawl woven from music and color and astonishing faces.

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]

Oppenheimer is hard to watch, just as that life was surely hard to live; it’s a careful, deliberate stepping toward something unspeakable.

Cold War seduces its viewer, in its brief running time. You might find, in the quiet of its poignant ending, that it has left its mark on your heart.

This is a dynamic, delightful film and the introduction of an exciting, uncompromising new voice.

Driver’s performance as an uncertain man getting through the day-to-day prosaic, quietly buoyed by passion and artistic commitment, is exquisite.

The finished film is graceful, gripping and more accessible than several of Scorsese's contemporary New York movies. Scorsese has created a model adaptation that manages to be both remarkably faithful to its source and more audience-friendly than the Merchant/Ivory movies to which it will be compared. [17 Sept 1993, p.D3]

There is a touching universality to these life stories, which at this point have a lulling near-sameness: grown children, long careers, lasting passions and friendships (Paul’s and Symon’s is particularly touching), a looming shadow of illness, the nearness of twilight.

“Killers” is a master class in filmmaking, taught by that one professor we all had in college whose every word we hung on, and whose classes always felt too short. It’s that thing we always look for but so rarely find: a great story, beautifully told.

There are several ways you can watch Elle, only one of which is mildly enjoyable.

Over its quiet two hours, beautifully punctuated by long shots of sunlit green fields and fireflies flitting at twilight, Minari lets us become part of the Yi family.

"The Farewell" is so unexpectedly and deliciously funny that watching it feels like a tonic — an immersion in love and art.

Josh is flying solo this time, but Marty Supreme shows he’s capable of achieving a greatness that’s all his own. While brief plot elements weigh the film down, Safide defies gravity even as Marty cannot.

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

Historians now believe George III's bizarre symptoms (which came and went, until his 1820 death) arose from porphyria, a metabolic imbalance. Whatever their origin, they've inspired a marvelous film. [27 Jan 1995, p.H22]

It’s a unique ride of a movie, beautiful and disturbing and haunting — in other words, it’s a Jane Campion film.

The most startling thing watching Alien again is its pacing. For the first 45 minutes, little happens. It's all slow, exquisite build-up, which makes the second half seem all the more horrific. [2003 re-release]

Eustache's screenplay is specifically set against the backdrop of the failed student revolts of the late 1960s, and occasionally the sight of Leaud in bellbottoms makes it look like a time capsule. Yet the moods, the emotions, the debates seem profoundly contemporary.

Thewlis voices Michael with weariness and despair until the character encounters Lisa. Leigh mixes eagerness...and an abashed vocal quality that emphasizes her character’s vulnerability.

An ingenious mixture of themes from narrative sources as ancient and varied as Hamlet, the Old Testament and The Odyssey. [24 June 1994, p.D3]

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

Christmas classic. [06 Nov 1997]

All of the performances are vivid (Webber’s ability to convey heartbreak in a silent gaze is uncanny), but Jean-Baptiste, reuniting with Leigh for the first time since 1996’s “Secrets & Lies,” holds on to this movie the way Pansy holds on to a grudge.

McDormand, carrying the movie on blue-denimed shoulders, is a wonder. Every now and then, she lets us see the tiniest crack in Mildred’s anger, through which something flickering shines through.

What Bradley Cooper’s beguiling A Star Is Born is very, very good at is showing us how a song can transform a person, or a moment, and how that transformation just might make us fall in love with the person singing it, for a moment or for longer.

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

Quiet and meticulously constructed, Leave No Trace offers a powerful, affecting look at people pushed to the fringes and hanging on by the slimmest of margins. Harrowing and enthralling in equal measures, it’s a challenging and rewarding experience.

Almodóvar fills the movie with eloquent touches — scenes softly fading to black, music twisting like vines, an old house whose stories whisper in every corner, a baby’s watchful eyes, a past that informs a future. Generations pass, this wise movie tells us; family endures.

In this bleak West Texas landscape where everyone seems to be struggling, you find yourself rooting, inexplicably, for all of them against a clear villain: the faceless, predatory bank.

Often beautiful, never pretty, occasionally creepy and perpetually surprising, Poor Things lives in Stone’s fiery eyes; her performance is, to borrow Bella’s words, a changeable feast.

At 2½ hours, Aquarius is about a half-hour too long for the story it tells, yet it feels like a privilege to be in the presence of such a powerful character and such a quietly commanding performance.

Coogler is a young filmmaker — this is just his third feature, following “Fruitvale Station” and “Creed” (two fine and very different films) — but he marshals this world with confidence and flair. The action sequences are insanely fun.

What the film does have going for it is a ghostly atmosphere that leads to a few surprising developments, including some color effects and a charmingly off-the-wall musical number.

This is history brought to life, something absolutely unprecedented in the annals of humankind.

If Beale Street Could Talk is a film about injustice, about patience and anger, beauty and despair — but, ultimately, it’s about love.

Restless Creature isn’t a mere celebration of a great artist; it’s a moving portrait of what happens when that artist confronts the possibility of not being able to make that art any more.

Watching Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s multilayered “Birdman” is like unfolding a piece of intricate origami; it keeps opening in unexpected directions.

The movie lets Israel have the last laugh, deliciously so.