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)

The sheer size of the production dwarfs the human drama.

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

Colossally entertaining.

Godard's third feature film and his first in color, A Woman is a Woman is one of the most enjoyable of all the master's works.

This dazzling pop allegory is steeped in a dark, pulpy sensibility that transcends nostalgic pastiche and stands firmly on its own merits.

Despite mostly unprofessional acting, near nonexistent production values, homemade special effects, and cheap grainy black-and-white film stock, the film is a triumph.

Woody Allen's hilarious satire of classic Russian literature, might properly be described as Tolstoy meets the Marx Bros., as he and Diane Keaton get caught up in an uproariously funny plot to assassinate Napoleon in 1812.

Barak Goodman and Daniel Anker have done a tremendous job of sorting the facts from a tangle of fictions, and include perspectives from a wide variety of experts and testimonies from a surprising number of surviving eyewitnesses. Together, they do the whole, horrible episode justice, something awfully hard to come by in the state of Alabama in 1931.

No film in recent memory has tapped into primal, visceral fear as HENRY does, with its vision of a depraved world that seems at once too horrible to exist and too realistic to be denied.

Wholly entertaining and memorable, THEATRE OF BLOOD is ripe camp, an excellent film, and a lasting tribute to the career of one of the most important actors in the genre.

Aside from the women themselves, the most remarkable thing about Gabbert's unexpectedly entertaining film is how effortlessly it dispels misconceptions about the elderly.

Oddly enough, this uncharacteristic offering from a director whose name instantly evokes a very particular kind of film -- call it postmodern American gothic -- is also one of his best.

Thematic issues aside, The Crying Game pulls off a tremendously difficult technical feat; its screenplay contains not one, but two, wrenching twists, each of which could easily derail the narrative in the hands of a lesser storyteller.

Martel can barely contain her disgust, and like Bunuel before her, she knows just when to cut the laughs and go straight for the throat.

Campion's eye is extraordinary. She searches out the detail that makes the image, and the image that tells the story more eloquently than words ever could.

It's a shimmering, thorny, and consummately self-aware valentine to a paradise, however illusory, lost.

This is Leone's gangster film to end all gangster films, a work of tremendous intellectual depth and emotional range.

The film moves well and never loses its gripping tension, but the lighthearted tone of the beginning takes a dive into an abyss that shocks many viewers.

The complete absence of world leaders is a bewildering sign that the world still doesn't care much about small African countries with no exploitable resources to speak of, and a troubling indication that such atrocities can, and no doubt will, happen again.

Overall the film is a fascinating glimpse into an insular world that gives the lie to many clichés and showcases a group of dedicated artists.

A zany, hysterically funny, and sometimes brilliant if sometimes sophomoric send-up of every medieval movie ever made.

Director Imamura effectively portrays some of the more negative aspects of the forces that have shaped modern Japanese people. In this manner the picture resembles his chilling films of teenage wanderlust made in the 1950s.

Thrilling, heart-wrenching tale of the real-life incredible journey.

While it stands as a distinct film in its own right, this film is still very much of a piece with "Shoah," and the subject is presented in the same haunting manner.

This loud and exhilarating documentary from director Julien Temple brings it all back in a vitriolic spray of spite, spittle and raw rock and roll that still hits like a heart attack.

The movie's greatest strength lies in phenomenal performances that reach from the leads right down to the smallest supporting roles.

A deeply satisfying film, THE BEST INTENTIONS, honored with the prestigious Palm d'Or at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, uses its considerable length to examine the early relationship of Bergman's parents with uncompromising thoroughness.

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.

PLANET OF THE APES is a success on many levels, with a witty, intelligent script by Rod Serling and a suitably hot-tempered, athletic performance from Charlton Heston. Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter are highly effective as a sympathetic ape scientist and doctor, respectively, with John Chambers's superb latex makeup allowing them a full range of expressive facial gestures.

Scorsese's rich tapestry is both broader in scope and more detailed than a mere recounting of the events in the trio's life of crime.

The film serves as a potent reminder of what conditions were like in Afghanistan before the U.S. bombing campaign ended the Taliban's reign of terror, and, as such, its timing couldn't be any better.

A searing showcase for a remarkable ensemble cast.

Jane Campion has established a reputation for making slightly off-center films in which regular folks get glimpses of the darkness that lurks beneath the surfaces of their lives. An admirer of Frame's novels since she was a teenager, Campion builds her film around a heroine who defies Hollywood conventions; she's not beautiful or sexy or sophisticated, and her adventures are mostly intellectual.

A hilarious mixture of Errol Flynn swashbuckler and Monty Python send-up...When it comes to pleasing both kids and adults, you can't do much better.

Far more than mere fish tale, Sauper's dark, devastating documentary profiles a socio-ecological nightmare with unimaginable consequences, and it's one of the best films about the ugly reality of the global marketplace.

Though there is obviously more polish and a lavish budget in this remake, the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much has no more or less impact than the first version.

A tightly woven tapestry of extraordinary breadth, and director Fernando Meirelles's control over the material is extraordinary.

Strong stuff, intensely watchable, but definitely not for children.

This film is a fairly well-balanced effort, and if you're in the mood for an evening of obvious sentiment, this boy-and-his-dog film works quite well.

Breaking Away is a very funny and touching story about love, growing up, bicycle racing, and class consciousness.

A fascinating allegory of life in Iranian Kurdistan, a remote borderland still deeply scarred by years of war with Iraq.

DeVito films this tale with a fiendish gusto, yet with psychological realism and meticulous attention to an inexorable logic in the plotting, even as the Roses' war moves from the outlandish to the surreal.

Fontaine's thoughtful character-driven screenplay is the perfect vehicle for Berling and Bouquet and both are superb. As father and son, they play off each another in fascinating ways as the film moves towards its perfectly modulated, intriguingly ambiguous final moment.

The shadowy photography, great editing, snappy dialogue, and a moody synthesizer score by Carpenter himself make this one of the most successful homages to the Hawks brand of filmmaking--and a very impressive film in its own right.

A rare adaptation that actually improves upon the original material: It's everything a good children's adventure tale should be, and a powerful fable for adults.

Director Brest does a great job with a sensitive subject, drawing fine performances from everyone.

The climax is a workmanlike rise of psychological terror, but the whole exercise looks self-consciously careful.

Innovative sounds and striking visuals combine to form an exquisite cinematic work.

Wildly entertaining and a visual delight.

Allen has infused it with wit, a superb cast and his usual "the best direction is the least direction" style.

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

It's as chilling as Algernon Blackwood's elegantly unnerving "The Willows," played absolutely, unsettlingly straight.

The second version of Graham Greene's sad and prescient 1955 novel about American involvement in Vietnam hews far closer to the book than the first, preserving the sophisticated ambiguity of his depiction of a tangled struggle for power played out on both personal and political fronts.

Sexy and soulful like the smoothest slow jam, writer-director Theodore Witcher's debut feature is a classy, surprisingly accomplished romantic comedy focusing on life and love among of a group of young African-American Chicagoans.

The onslaught of one-liners and sight gags in AIRPLANE! is so relentless that even the most dour viewer is ultimately won over--or exhausted.

Richly plotted, alternately inspiring and horrifying, Glory is an enlightening and entertaining tribute to heroes too long forgotten.

The picture's uneasy but perfectly calibrated mix of brutal violence and goofy humor is pure Kitano -- the scenes in which Murakawa and his henchmen play a variation on "Rock'em Sock'em Robots" with paper sumo wrestlers is just too bizarre -- and its convulsively nihilistic ending is unforgettable.

While it may not be Chandler, it is a moody and entertaining film.

Look carefully at that final scene; few happy endings have ever felt so downbeat.

The able cast brings these emotionally complex characters to life, while making Shawn Slovo's occasionally lyrical dialogue sound perfectly natural.

The result is an astonishingly complex, striking original portrait of an artist whose deeply personal art, intended for no one but God and himself, demands to be treated on its own terms.

Though the film is overlong, the story is movingly told, the production values are high, and Ernest Gold's Oscar-nominated score is considered a classic.

An intensely internalized portrait of external pandemonium, a slippery, insidiously haunting work of poetry rather than brilliantly realized pulp.

Lisa is no mindless run-of-the-mill ripoff. Closer to a true homage, it has a style and wit all its own in the hands of Sherman, who, after a decade of turning out such minor genre gems, continues his career as one of Hollywood's most underrated directors.

With consummate grace and exceptional style, Terence Davies transformed Edith Wharton's caustic tragedy of manners into a somber, languid dream.

Chaplin, as usual, is the whole show, superb in this swansong statement about his own career and the old-style entertainment he best represented.

An astonishing movie that keeps you off-balance from the first scene.

Irresistible entertainment.

Michael Tolkin's THE NEW AGE is something new, a comedy of horrors that's brittle, hypnotically hip, and so cool it almost freezes the audience out.

While maintaining the appearance of clinical objectivity, this sad, occasionally horrifying but often inspiring film is among Wiseman's warmest.

All in all a fascinating film with an outstanding musical score consisting of jukebox hits from the period.

Ranks among the best films ever made about the acting profession.

From a technical perspective, it's undoubtedly the most impressive and authentic concert film ever made.

Whether or not The Magician rises to the level of its cinematic predecessors may be up for debate, but thanks to a smart, cleverly constructed screenplay and a compelling lead performance, Ryan’s film displays a flair for storytelling that’s notably lacking in many first-time features. It’s a great addition to the Blue Tongue catalogue, and it’ll be interesting to see where Ryan turns up next.

It never fails to come as a shock to find how profoundly moving it all is when these gentle films draw to their graceful conclusions.

Perhaps the only time Elizabeth Taylor's costar matched her visual scene stealing. He's a horse, albeit a gelding. One of MGM's most beloved films, NATIONAL VELVET was the picture that made a star out of Taylor.

Barney has been criticized as willfully esoteric, but if traditional meaning is once again elusive in this film, it remains an enthralling aesthetic experience, one that's steeped in mystery and a ravishing, baroque beauty.

Talented Englishman Schlesinger had an unerring eye for capturing the grimy reality of New York, even if his directorial style is more jittery than is really necessary.

From its explosive intro to its surprisingly giddy finale (think WHITE HEAT), this glossy adaptation is arch, nasty fun.

The film’s only flaw is a minor one: Some of the stylistic devices, such as the rapid-fire montages of vile and depraved images, have aged poorly. But that in no way detracts from the visceral power of the backslide into the abyss that we experience along with the central character.

From the outrageously frightening opening--in which a beautiful young woman skinny-dipping in the moonlight is devoured by the unseen shark--to the claustrophobic climax aboard Quint's fishing boat, Spielberg has us in his grip and rarely lets go.

Not much happens in this gentle-hearted, black-and-white film from Argentina, but it's what doesn't happen that makes it such an unusually satisfying experience.

Martin is a shocking, thoughtful reworking of the vampire myth set in a dying American steel town. Well worth a look for anyone with even a passing interest in horror, and essential viewing for serious fright fans.

Maguire and Douglas are extraordinary (though Douglas feels a little old for his role, which seems to have been written for a man in his early 40s); even Downey Jr. delivers a sharp, understated performance.

A blood-curdling picture directed by Georges Franju at an even, distant pace that builds tension to an almost unbearable level.

Most of the music is as fine and fierce as you could want.

HOUSESITTER starts out slowly and never stops being implausible or predictable. Neither Steve Martin nor Goldie Hawn do anything we haven't seen them do before, and neither of them play especially likeable characters. The strange thing is that, despite these failings, the movie is obstinately, sometimes painfully funny.

The horror of the images is unforgettable, but what lingers are the small particulars of the survivor's stories, recalled as if it all happened yesterday.

Seven Days in May smacks of realism, from its skillfully realized sets to its wholly believable supporting performances by O'Brien, Balsam, and John Houseman. Sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.

This tightly structured, often exciting film is among the boldest in a series of increasingly explicit movies.

On a miniscule budget, Ghobadi conveys the terror of war, while the beautifully edited sequence in which Iranian villagers make bricks resembles nothing so much as a choreographed dance number.

Black comedy of the deepest, richest darkness laid over an aching meditation on the atrophy of dreams.

This ode to the peculiar strength and flexibility of love, romantic and platonic, is simultaneously perverse, overwrought, deeply creepy and truly moving, a high-wire act that finds humor in the grotesque and hope in emotional malformation.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE features some of the finest ensemble acting ever offered on the screen, speaking some Williams's most vivid dialogue. Kazan's direction, however, sometimes verges on the pedestrian, as though he's struggling to recreate his Broadway staging in a much more visually demanding medium.

The simplicity of the seemingly impromptu story, set largely in Allen's beloved New York City, is part of Annie Hall's undeniable charm, along with Allen's flashbacks to childhood (with side-splitting Jonathan Munk as a young Woody) and constant asides to the camera, a device that sometimes has to carry the laughs.

Simply stated, it is difficult not to be swept up by this charming picture.

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