A popcorn film that aims to entertain -- nothing more, nothing less -- and it achieves that goal admirably.

The film is ridiculously overplotted, and very little of the plot serves any purpose other than to motivate what you can pretty well guess is going to happen from the outset.

When all is said and done, Pacino is the riveting presence that makes the movie work and it is difficult to imagine any other actor in the part. (Review of Original Release)

Harvey Milk embodied the concept that "all politics is personal," and by presenting the famed Mayor of Castro Street's personal and public lives with such clarity and empathy, Van Sant has made something very rare in Hollywood -- a genuinely powerful political film that works equally well as a story of personal triumph.

Akinshina and Bogucharskij are remarkable together, and Moodysson once again demonstrates a sophisticated visual skill matched only by his innate understanding of the adolescent heart.

Written with enough self-consciously campy humor to defuse the paranoid ideologies running rampant here, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is also acted with tongues held firmly in cheek.

Perhaps the movie's value, or lack of it, lies not in the input of the Beales, the Maysles, et al., but in the degree of seriousness audiences bring to the theater. Some viewers will be shocked, some will be touched, but, unfortunately, the spectators this sad story is most likely to attract, amuse, and vindicate are the sort whose obsession with the upper crust, especially its blue-blooded stratum, is fed by envy and spite--each an unhealthy attribute on its own, but poisonous in combination with the other.

Nobody shows much evidence of acting ability, and the script is full of holes. Nonstop action is what these films are about, and that's what you get here.

As in LATE SPRING (1949), Ozu eschews formula standards of dramatic convention by omitting the actual scene of the wedding ceremony, choosing instead to focus on its planning and consequences. The result is poignant and moving, and if EQUINOX FLOWER is not one of Ozu's greatest films, it's still a gentle and touching late work from this master.

The Naked Kiss is Fuller's most developed and unrelentingly bleak view of the dark underbelly of American society.

Babe could charm the pants off the most unregenerate cynic.

Tarantino maintains a flawless balance between flat-out action, quirky dialogue, stylish homages to the glistening shadows of film-noir thrillers, the sun-baked brutality of Westerns (American and Italian), the ritualistic rhythms of Shaw Brothers martial-arts pictures from the 1970s and quietly dramatic moments, shifting between them with quicksilver facility.

Staunton is phenomenal - she barely speaks throughout the entire last third of the film, but the power of her posture and distraught expressions are enough to break your heart.

Called everything from a feminist statement to a gay camp-classic to an anti-McCarthyism allegory. While it certainly is all of these--and more--it's about time it was acclaimed for it what it really is: a genuine western film classic.

Does find a spot closer to the middle than most.

The film is a harrowing, painfully honest, sometimes violent journey, astonishingly acted and rendered.

Animator/fabulist Hayao Miyazaki pays homage to Hollywood’s wartime adventure films in this masterwork built around the adventures of a high-flying pig.

Generations of healthy spirits were twisted and deformed by the good Sisters of Mercy, all in the name of salvation.

Poking fun at its American mythos, but never descending into camp comedy, this sequel makes for a wonderful time.

The story, a romance with an interesting detective twist, is combined with exquisite caricatures of both humans and dogs.

Straightforward, energetic, updated Bard. 28-year-old star-director-adapter Kenneth Branagh's spellbinding version of Shakespeare's Henry isn't superior to Olivier's 1944 version - it's different, and complementary to it.

Superb performances by all involved, restrained direction by Wise, and a magnificent and innovative score by Bernard Herrmann help keep this 35-year-old film just as relevant today as it was the day it was released.

Vastly overrated Crooks-R-Us--this time you wear the moustache, enhanced by fine period trappings and flavor. Ultimately empty stuff, but preferable to "Butch Cassidy."

An icily seductive parable about family, power, unconventional justice and the perils of answered prayers.

A mystical and exotic story of love and destruction, a film for which both star and director became legends.

An intoxicating dream of a film that speaks to the daydreamer in all of us.

Obviously filmed on a budget, production values leave much to be desired, but the power of the performances and the claustrophobic yet exciting atmosphere caught by the film more than make up for that.

Tim Burton's grand guignol fantasy transforms Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical-theater piece into a cheerfully gothic morality tale.

Charade is a finely crafted thriller that has a lot to offer beyond its clever plot. The radiant Hepburn's romance with the suave Grant is delightfully handled; the Oscar-nominated theme song by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer is superb; the location photography is exquisite and the rooftop fight scene between Grant and Kennedy is truly harrowing.

INTERVISTA play as an enjoyable, lightweight entertainment, filled with the usual Felliniesque characters, faces, and situations.

Played out against breathtaking landscapes that reflect the emotional turmoil of the main characters, Mann's film gives us one of Stewart's greatest performances, his manic intensity evoking both terror and pathos.

Brilliantly told and well-acted, Polanski's half tongue-in-cheek, lugubrious and sinister filmic style seemed quite refreshing at the time.

This rambling exercise in local color has been a pet project of Duvall's for more than a decade, and it's to his credit that he managed to get such a low-concept picture produced. It's also to his credit that he resists the temptation to take easy potshots at religion, particularly of the revivalist variety.

Surprise! An intelligent, well-written high school story.

Enthralling or infuriating.

The appealing Knightley goes in a promising young actress and comes out a star, but the faultless cast of veterans and fresh-faced newcomers imbues every character with flawed and immensely appealing humanity.

Ralph Bellamy is superb as Roosevelt, capturing every nuance of a man who was the most photographed and listened-to politician of his generation. Surpassing Bellamy, though, is Garson, who doesn't play Eleanor Roosevelt, she becomes her.

Leaving Las Vegas is special. A courageous plane wreck of character study.

Overbaked but enjoyable, and a banquet for the eyes, thanks to the visual wonder of the Minnelli-Beaton teaming.

Though O'Toole, whose ruined beauty Michell emphasizes in frequent and tight close-ups, and newcomer Whittaker have a striking rapport, the film's most haunting moments pair him with Vanessa Redgrave -- amazingly, this is their first movie together -- as his ex-wife. They evoke a lifetime of love, betrayal, regret and forgiveness in the space of a few lines, then move on without missing a beat.

Diner is an often hilarious, frequently touching film.

Fred Frith's lovely and subdued score is a perfect accompaniment.

A film such as this, which relies on mood, atmosphere, and ideas, rather than plot, depends on its acting to be effective, and the entire cast is extraordinary, with Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek both giving their finest performance ever.

Highly unlikely plot complications never once threaten to throw this remarkably amusing film off-track, thanks to the narrative intelligence of writer-director David O. Russell, the only member of the filmmaking bratpack who seems to understand how movies work and why they entertain.

It's simply one of the most beautiful films he's (Hou Hsiao Hsien) made to date.

Canet and Lefevre pruned subplots and fixed the novel's ending -- it's now merely preposterous rather than patently absurd – but it's the cast that makes the genre clichés feel vivid and even fresh.

It's a fascinating story teeming with pride, arrogance, greed and overweening hubris, and Gibney attempts to give it all an added dimension by finding the archetypes of Greek tragedy among the sleazy deals and Ponzi-scheme financing.

A crowd-pleasing story that has little to do with the messy complexities of reality.

A well-done remake of They Live By Night that's slightly long but unusually free of Altman's customary indulgences.

A sprawling, semi-biographical account of two real-life filmmakers who both found work during darkest days the German occupation.

Rather than trading le Carré's downbeat but agonizingly true-to-life ending for something more palatable, Meirelles has crafted a rare sort of thriller that refuses to resolve real-life issues for the sake of feel-good entertainment.

While Parenthood crosses the border into schmaltz a number of times, the movie runs the gamut of realistic emotions, and one scene or another is bound to hit home with the parents who see the film.

For all the bloodshed, it's fundamentally a cold, cold fable, the icy whisper that turns every happy thing to ash.

A darker, richer, and more elaborate film than the original; it suffers most from being just what it is: a middle chapter with no real ending. [Special Edition]

The vicious clamor the film occasioned in the U.K. is simply the measure of how volatile a subject the relationship between England and Ireland remains more than eight decades after the film's events, and the thinking viewer can hardly help but see parallels between the Irish insurgency and all subsequent guerrilla conflicts.

Cary Grant is at his most suave and Grace Kelly is stunningly beautiful in To Catch a Thief, a bubbly and effervescent Alfred Hitchcock romantic-suspenser that finds the Master in a relaxed and purely entertaining mood.

Clearly a great event, Forrest Gump is not, however, a great film. It has the form of an epic without real depth or resonance; the trappings of satire without a coherent attitude; and the semblance of historical revisionism without a critical sensibility.

Burton seems to waver between rooting for the scary guys and the cuddly ones, and his indecision makes it hard for us to respond on an emotional level. The result, though refreshingly different from mainstream animated fare, is ultimately more trick than treat.

An enthralling examination of the loaded cultural issues of sex, class and race as seen through the subculture of black and hispanic transvestites.

A trying, contrary mix of religion and carnality that teeters on the verge of preposterous self-indulgence.

Absolutely breathtaking documentary whose close-up shots of birds in flight are so freakishly intimate that the film is compelled to open with the statement they're not special effects.

The title refers to a diorama at New York City's American Museum of Natural History that depicts a whale and a giant squid locked in mortal combat.

The kids -- most of them first-timers cast for natural charisma and musical ability -- steal the show, and a talented supporting cast helps take the edge off Black's manic antics.

It fulfills its promise of rebooting the series while leaving us wanting more, and it does so with style and energy to spare. Now that's an origins tale that truly delivers.

Beautifully acted, They Live By Night stands today as one of the most poignant and unforgettable noirs ever made.

A funny and touching adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri's novel about two generations of Bengali-Americans attempting to reconcile the world of their collective past with that of their individual futures.

You'll gladly surrender to the whole gorgeous muddle.

This tart but fluffy paean to good sense and clean linen is a bracing reminder that the reason the English think they're so clever is that they are -- some of them, at any rate.

Three solid and scary tales of terror from the undisputed master of Italian horror, Mario Bava.

Though it unfolds like a thriller, it's ultimately a tragedy.

MARTY, coming in the mid-1950s, in an era of epics and extravagant films designed to stifle upstart television, was all the more startling in that it was a movie expanded from an original television drama (with Rod Steiger in the lead), written brilliantly by Chayefsky, one of the leaders of what came to be known as "kitchen sink" or "clothesline" dramas.

Cuaron lets his enthusiasms show.

While Gilroy deploys the occasional exploding car, the film's climax is all words -- angry, carefully sharpened words -- with the stopping power of large-caliber bullets.

Indeed, Hirschbiegel himself seems reluctant to single out a protagonist, and finally settles on Junge.

One of the better, if not the best, of the famous screwball comedies of the era, Godfrey stands as an excellent example of witty scripting, direction, and editing.

Unlike Woo's successful but rather disappointing "Broken Arrow", this brutal, stunningly choreographed spectacle weaves together lyrical beauty, blasphemy, sadistic cruelty and grotesque sentimentality with breathtakingly smooth assurance.

Only those who find the subject matter utterly disinteresting will be turned off by Brown's devoted, almost fanatical, approach. Otherwise, the film has a low-budget charm that won it many admirers in and out of the surfing community.

This excellent contemporary noir features some of the best work of both director Arthur Penn and actor Gene Hackman.

A charming comedy shot in black and white that mixes several varieties of the New Yorkers that Allen loves so well.

What one interviewee calls a "fog of ambiguity" surrounding what was and wasn't officially authorized shielded superior officers and key members of the Department of Defense -- namely Donald Rumsfeld.

An unconventional but rewarding film.

One of the most original films of recent memory, with an edge of black humor and punk sensibility--wickedly funny, ceaselessly inventive, and never boring.

Sergio Leone's masterpiece. In Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone pulls together all the themes, characterizations, visuals, humor, and musical experiments of the three "Dollars" films and comes up with a true epic western. It is a stunning, operatic film of breadth, detail, and stature that deserves to be considered among the greatest westerns ever made. (Review of Original Release)

Stunningly beautiful scenery and the nearly unbelievable true story of a mountain-climbing expedition gone awry to chilling effect.

Jonathan Demme gets personal with this affectionate tribute to courageously outspoken radio broadcaster Jean Dominique, the pro-democracy advocate whose unflagging support for president Jean-Bertrand Aristide eventually cost him his life.

Big, funny, tender and humane all at the same time, The Sundowners is a true "family" film, without any of the cloying connotations of that term.

On the list of WWII stories criminally ignored by six decades of combat movies in the past 60 years, the heroics of French colonial soldiers ranks pretty high. But Rachid Bouchareb's powerful drama -- which won the 2006 Cannes Film Festival's best-actors award for its superb ensemble cast and was nominated for a best foreign-language-film Oscar, went a long way toward rectifying the situation, both on screen and in real life.

A bittersweet rite-of-passage story driven by the subtle performances of newcomers Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt.

Hailed as a clever exercise in neo-Hitchcockianism, this clever and very satisfying picture is more accurately Chabrolian.

Actor-turned-director Andrey Zvyagintsev's feature debut is haunted by an elusive past and suffused with dread about the future, and it's all suggestion without explanation.

Bindler's slice of the American pie is a slim one, but it's fascinating none the less.

Not just another charming film about growing up, but an expertly directed tale that takes a small, simple subject and colors it with invention and inspiration.

THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR is well told, with an intelligent script, excellent performances, and careful attention to scientific accuracy. Muni offers a fine characterization that shows the famed scientist as a man faced with extraordinary obstacles.

Strikingly authentic, socially conscious crime drama.

The film burdens itself with too many story lines and an overlong (though beautifully photographed) prologue, but things really get moving when Reeve takes the screen.

Gus Van Sant's direction here is supremely confident, fusing witty camerawork, neat editing, and a jazz-oriented score to make Drugstore Cowboy an exhilaratingly bumpy ride.

An engrossing study of imagery and one's perception of the image.

Visually, Tess is a masterpiece, capturing in amazing detail the scenery and atmosphere of the England of yore. The film's chief drawback, however, is its lack of vitality. Instead of Hardy's passionate tale of ruin and disenchantment, Tess is cautious and reserved.