Heavenly Creatures, which remains Jackson's best movie, his most serious and his most daring, is 99 minutes long and doesn't waste a single one. It manages to be both shocking and intoxicating, a portrait of giddy teenage escapism which yanks itself free from reality in disturbing, and finally deadly, ways. Jackson has an obvious flair for fantasy - an obsession with it, one might say - but this is a film about its dangers, not just its temptations. [17 Nov 2012]

Cool Runnings is a charming tale of determined underdogs, with plenty of laughs, moments of real tension, and five engaging performances.

What makes the film so special is that Ford and Tommy Lee Jones (as his chief pursuer, US Marshal Samuel Gerard) are such beautifully matched adversaries.

Tense but formulaic. [16 Oct 2010, p.31]

The Muppet Christmas Carol's warmth, wit and obvious affection for Dickens make it one of the greatest Christmas films – and literary adaptations – of all time.

For Lynch himself, “the big news was that I’d finally completely killed Twin Peaks with this picture”. But in fact, this exceptional, widely misunderstood film restores it to writhing, screaming life...Far from cheating viewers, this fresh perspective offered them a new way to decode the entire Twin Peaks mythos, with Sheryl Lee’s extraordinary, soul-tearing performance shaking the franchise out of its cherry-pie-munching reverie...Time has passed, and its brilliance is gradually coming into focus, just as Lynch hoped it would.

Unforgiven is dedicated to "Don" (Siegel) and "Sergio" (Leone) and it is a sombre, insightful, genre-reinventing western, directed by a filmmaker acutely aware of the western’s history, its limitations and the dubious truths of its legends.

De Mornay is oddly compelling as Mott. There’s a gleeful joy in watching her slow, insidious progress, and it’s hard not to secretly root for her character.

The role fits Farrow like a silk slip, but its kooky premise doesn’t quite shake up the by-now familiar narrative concerns.

Tornatore may have hit a sticky wicket with his subsequent work, but he knew what he was doing here: warning us about the irrational lure of the filmed past, which is to say cinema itself, then ushering us grandly to our seats.

Miracle Mile is unforgettable and quietly devastating. [29 Jan 2007]

Cinematogapher Dean Semler gets amazing colours as the sun sets, and there’s a bravely avant-garde debut score from Kiwi composer Graeme Revell, pumping up the pulse with sinister breathing sounds. The plot even thrives on a tacit cultural tension between the Australian stars and the arrogant interloper.

The whole climax is a delight

With its deft blend of hilarity and humanity, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is Hughes' most satisfying work.

It's part sex comedy and part critique of the social divisions of Thatcher's Britain and despite its politically incorrect nature, the film is keenly observed and funny. [09 Apr 2011, p.34]

Grant's delivery of mordant mutterings is superb. The lines, from Bruce Robinson's semi-autobiographical script, are an oddball joy and mostly involve drink and the inevitable hangover.

It's painfully slow at times, but the performances are decent, especially Hanks who teases the talent yet to properly shine. [08 Feb 2022, p.27]

Round Midnight is too long and too slow. [25 Jun 1987]

Alternately downbeat, witty, bleak and optimistic. Down by Law is a delight, right down to the unexpected last scene.

Stand By Me is one of those films that stands up to the test of time. It may never top any critic’s “films of the century” list, like Citizen Kane, or Raging Bull, but it has a charm and depth that seems to resonate with each generation.

It’s an interesting achievement in many ways.

There’s a coldness in Schrader’s calculations, and disturbingly he seems to swallow the entire myth of Mishima, an extreme right-wing nutjob who wanted to return Japan to samurai values. Philip Glass’s score, however, still takes the breath away.

Small-town America is portrayed with gentle, affectionate humour.

The shock of seeing tough guy De Niro as suburban dad Frank, falling in love with suburban mum Meryl Streep after a chance encounter, was insurmountable for some film goers. But time and distance lend this modern Brief Encounter (with added adultery) a certain glow and De Niro and Streep repeat the chemistry they first showed in the Deer Hunter. They were born to act together.

Body Double isn’t trash, misogynistic or otherwise. It’s unrepentantly trashy – not the kind of film you watch while your parents or kids are in the house, or with your curtains open. But it’s also a complex, provocative suspense thriller that bears comparison with the three immaculate Hitchcock classics – Vertigo, Psycho and Rear Window – it gleefully drags through the sludge.

A welcome reissue of the 1984 creature feature in which a Capra-esque idyll is besieged by ravening beasties.

The much-lauded director of Westerns, Sergio Leone, gives us an epic saga of gangland America. Charting the lives of New York mobsters Noodles (Robert De Niro) and Max (James Woods) over four decades, the narrative is compelling and De Niro's controlled performance makes this a classic. [04 Jan 2019]

A classic adventure story that brilliantly transcends its fairly average formula (buttoned-up city gal is softened by devil-may-care chancer while outwitting baddies in foreign lands) through a mixture of perfect casting, lashings of chemistry between the stars and a clever script.