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.