A Little Princess is the first of its progeny to blend brains with entertainment. This stylish sleeper easily outpaces the studio's starchy updates of "Black Beauty" and "The Secret Garden", and even betters Shirley Temple's 1939 take on Frances Hodgson Burnett's Princess perennial. [18 May 1995, 12D.]

Even at its best, Adaptation is one of the movie year's most esoteric outings -- more so than even Paul Thomas Anderson's far superior "Punch-drunk Love." Too smart to ignore but a little too smugly superior to like, this could be a movie that ends up slapping its target audience in the face by shooting itself in the foot.

A small jewel. [05 May 2006, p.4E]

It'll never be fast food, which is probably both its virtue and limitation. [26 June 2009, p.12D]

A movie that rudely flings feces at the breakfast table isn't for everyone.

Welcome to the Dollhouse does, with accessible dark comedy and chilling honesty, reminding us right off that school-cafeteria agonies only begin with the cuisine. [24 May 1996 Pg.04.D]

Jiro is a thoughtful engineer and a romantic, not a soldier. And The Wind Rises conveys the visual poetry of its titular reference.

It's an intriguing match of material and filmmaker. Dahl's distinctive, edgy storytelling seems to fit well with Anderson's idiosyncratic worldview and visuals.

Drawing upon "Wag the Dog," "Dr. Strangelove" and "This Is Spinal Tap," this sardonic tale is adapted from the critically acclaimed BBC series "The Thick of It."

Soul is a jazzy and profound riff on humanity and the hereafter, an entertaining, exuberant effort about our existence with comedic shenanigans, deep thoughts and wondrous imagination.

The gritty, Oscar-nominated "Traffic" is a limo ride compared with the bloodletting in this year's foreign-film nominee from Mexico.

A smooth mix of humanism and keen filmmaking instincts.

Shi crafts a heartwarming, empowering and fun narrative about female puberty and a changing mother/daughter relationship.

If it isn't flawless, neither is "Fantasia"... Here's a live-action/animated marvel with no screen antecedent; “Chinatown” may actually come closest. [22 June 1988]

I enjoyed everything about Moonstruck except for its meandering mid-section. On cassette, with vino accompaniment, it may seem perfect. In theaters, with a diet drink, it still rates as the holiday sleeper. [18 Dec 1987]

Landed exactly the right actors for a script that already gets points for respecting its teenage characters.

Features the season's most tragic heroine along with some of the liveliest dead people ever seen on film.

With special effects so convincing you don't even think about them, a head-case hero and a three-dimensional villain who is his equal, socko Spider-Man 2 has something for everyone.

Audiences meet the most memorable voices in the world of backup singers. They perform with world-famous musical acts, but theirs are not household names. Their stories, however, are inspiring, heartbreaking and enthralling.

The scenes in Pandora -- a planet with an Earth-like environment -- are so breathtaking that the narrative seems almost beside the point.

Overall, however, the manner in which the film blends the tale of an imperiled boy and the history of cinema makes for an ambitious and fanciful ride.

The all-Lego adventure is warm and witty, showing flashes of satire.

The film doesn't preach against the government in Rock's behalf, but does sympathize with her plight - a genuinely loving mother and former child-abuse victim who probably is unable to live up to her maternal aspirations. [09 Dec 1994, p.8D]

This is the kind of well-made movie you wish well but you don't particularly wish to see again.

Drag Me to Hell is unlike any scary thriller in a while: frightening, frenzied and fun.

Timeliness can be tricky to pull off convincingly in movies. It's tough to capture an era while it's still happening, yet Up in the Air does so brilliantly, with wit and humanity.

Penn's Oscar-caliber transformation is breathtaking, and the saga of one man's fight for human rights is engrossing.

In many ways delivers an experience that's even better than the real thing. It brings U2's dazzling rock spectacle to the multiplex with VIP comforts, all-access viewpoints and telescopic close-ups.

Babe, a live-action fable about a valiant pig who conquers prejudice like a barnyard Jackie Robinson, is in a league of its own when it comes to enchantment.

Bout No. 2 is among the best closed-quarters screen fights ever, as good as (and longer than) Frank Sinatra vs. Henry Silva in The Manchurian Candidate. And Hannah does more for an eyepatch than anyone since the late Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan.

This is the kind of people-driven story that the movies used to give us - before special effects took over.

Washington (son of Denzel) has an impressive Afro and winning charisma as the first black cop in town.

The combination of the adventurous Spielbergian lens and a dynamite John Williams score jazzes up the most mundane newspaper conventions, from a copy editor striking words with a red pen to trucks rolling out with first editions. If only the same heroic anthems accompanied the writing of a movie review.

It is an unsettling tale told simply and chillingly by director Peter Mullan, with stand-out performances, an evocative soundtrack and spare, haunting visuals.

Henry V emerges a first-class epic film, so entertaining that it needs no apologies for being based on a 400-year-old play. [10 Nov 1989]

Eastern Promises has a compelling story and strong performances to back up what may seem excessive or sensationalistic.

Express is 80 tight minutes of railroad intrigue, an Oscar winner for cinematography (there's none better) and the film with the enduring line: "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." [22 Oct 1993, p.3D]

Mesmerizing and highly entertaining.

The three principals re-screen the Fellini masterpiece at Ekberg's country villa, and it's the kind of privileged moment only the movies can supply. You can bet Scorsese couldn't resist it, and I can't either. [20 Nov 1992, p.4D]

Jaded samurai Toshiro Mifune shows younger warriors the ropes, just as John Wayne used to toughen up tenderfoots on the range. [21 Apr 1995, p.3D]

A good little movie dominated by a great central performance that's likely to endure. [30 Jan 1998, p.D2]

When it comes to eloquently telling it like it is, Election puts the nation's political pundits to shame.

Has the unanticipated craft and artfully ambiguous appeal of last year's "Croupier," a movie whose art-house word-of-mouth success could be duplicated here.

Equally powerful and feel-good, Creed is an entertaining reminder that this franchise isn’t down for the count yet.

This Pride & Prejudice is a stellar adaptation, bewitching the viewer completely and incandescently with an exquisite blend of emotion and wit.

Deliberately downbeat, it's best as a two-person character study, stumbling a bit whenever it extends its parameters.

Minnelli's other Oscar-winning perennial. [19 Sep 2008, p.4D]

Peter O'Toole's tour-de-force performance makes Venus a movie not to be missed.

The entire film offers a front-row seat to the grandeur. The staging is so massive that even the best seats in a stadium – and the King Kong-sized video screens – could provide only so much detail. But on the big screen, the close-ups are glorious.

Only a truly visionary filmmaker could take a story largely set in a cramped canyon and give it a sense of openness and hope.

The film's most climactic moments involve the chilling audiotapes of avaricious Enron traders as they toy with California's energy crisis, wringing millions in profits from the misfortune of an entire state.

Kudos go to the great Thomas Newman, whose score contributes as much as either lead to what is finally a two-character movie, though one well-performed by all. [23 Sept 1994]

The satisfying and heart-wrenching climax is a last reminder that Caesar’s new adventure is one of this summer’s best.

This is precisely the kind of film that parents clamor for and rarely get: a substantive, stirring, Huck Finn-style saga that doesn't insult anyone's intelligence or mindlessly entertain with crass humor.

A masterwork of suspense, romance and political intrigue.

Well-written, terrifically acted and compelling. It deftly avoids sentimentality and offers a window into the lives of believable, multilayered characters.

The borderline Parenthood is either an iffy comedy with lots of compensations, or a good comedy with more irritating flaws than most movies manage to survive. Whichever, the "feel good'' infantry of summer-film escapists will probably love it. [2 Aug 1989, p.5D]

Violence is in the spirit of the hardest-hitting film noir offerings from the '50s, but far more explicit. It's also in the spirit of the Western.

Sugar is that sweetest of films: A sensitive and memorable story that surprises at every turn.

Conceived as froth with an edge and a smash on both counts. [11 May 2007, p.4D]

Doesn't sound like a very prepossessing title, but prepare to be taken aback by "what's in a name." [6 July 1994, Life, p.1D]

Mostly, this movie is what Burton does best, though some of composer Danny Elfman's ballads make even 75 minutes seem padded. Yet the zingier numbers (the opener especially) are terrific - befitting a movie with a literally wormy villain Oogie Boogie, a ghostly pet, Zero, and a mayor who's literally two-faced. So forget Monster Mash, this is a monster bas. [13 Oct 1993, p.1D]

It's so exhilarating (and already such a hit) that even the fogies who choose which documentaries are nominated for Oscars may have to acknowledge its existence. [15 Aug 1991, p.5D]

The longer the movie drones on, the queasier it gets. [6 June 1997, Life, p.3D]

The young actors' performances are particularly haunting.

It plays even more like a bent version of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" for the new millennium. Slinging a line of bull but displaying genuine affection for the youngsters he's bamboozling.

When it comes to sheer spectacle, Star Trek, as re-imagined by J.J. Abrams, delivers.

A Quiet Place is essentially "Alien" on a farm: Even though there are cornfields and land for days, there's a constant state of panic and claustrophobia for a family stalked by monsters who attack anything that makes noise.

An engaging and moving film with a universal story about the bonds of family as told through two generations of a Bengali family.

Clever and often enchanting.

Who, though, would assume rambunctious humor would be served up as well? Dickens meets the Beverly Hillbillies, and the movie is handsome, too. [10 May 1996, p.4D]

Back when anthology TV shows such as The Twilight Zone and Thriller were in their heyday, the movies, too, entertained a spate of horror/supernatural multistory features that fans still regard with affection. Director Mario Bava, whose earlier single-story satanic yarn Black Sunday picked up a wide following, turned Sabbath into one of the best. [11 Aug 2000, 8E]

Neil Young once said: It's better to burn out than it is to rust. But moviegoers are lucky Anvil didn't take Young's advice. Who knew heavy metal could seem like fine art when it rusts?

Who would think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban could be an art film? Thanks to director Alfonso Cuaron, a dazzling storyteller with a keen eye for whimsical detail, the third film in the Potter franchise is a visual delight.

It's a rare film that can challenge our minds and rattle our nerves so profoundly. This is unequivocally a thriller for adults. A deftly written, tautly suspenseful and intellectually demanding morality tale.

Powerfully disturbing.

Wickedly hilarious.

A marvel of well-rounded characters, strong performances and disarming chemistry, this deeply felt film is like a loving elegy to the end of childhood. It's easily one of summer's best films.

It could be argued that this movie's callousness toward human life is nihilistic and nasty. But Woo takes everything so absurdly far that audiences laugh at what horrified them moments before. [27Jun1997 Pg01.D]

Screenwriter Alan Sharp's dialogue, as edgy as his name, combines with Penn's incisive direction to create memorable characters played by Hackman, Ward, Jennifer Warren and a young James Woods as an auto mechanic you don't want messing with your points and plugs. [22 July 2005, p.6E]

While “Challengers” falls nebulously somewhere between a coming-of-age flick, dysfunctional relationship drama and snazzy sports extravaganza, Guadagnino nevertheless holds serve with yet another engaging, hot-blooded tale of flawed humans figuring out their feelings.

Sorkin's script is clever and knowing — at one point late in the proceedings, Jobs wonders aloud why “everybody gets drunk” and takes him to task five minutes before every event. It's a small moment that breaks the fourth wall in the slightest and smartest of ways.

Sprinkled with riffs, concert footage and home videos, the family-authorized documentary does what the artist usually did: When in doubt, return to the beat.

While Holdovers is plenty funny, Payne’s film – as with his “Sideways” – skillfully balances the humor with headier themes of personal loss, family strife and mental health.

Mitchum's celebrated skill with dialects has never been more evident. [02 Feb 2007, p.10D]

The best of Lee’s joints straddle the history that’s happened and the history being written now, and Da 5 Bloods successfully follows suit with themes of modern civil unrest and activism existing alongside images of Vietnam hero Milton L. Olive III and activist Angela Davis.

Alas, if you're someone who enjoys movies as, say, a two-hour escape, you may find this documentary on the death of film at digital's hands a bit too inside baseball.

Not only a stirring history lesson and an action-packed war film, Glory is also a ferocious statement about enduring discrimination that resounds today.

An intriguing, if meandering, escape from the summer blockbusters.

A deep and adventurous exploration of canines as man's (and one particular kid's) best friend.

A Sundance hit that is both absorbing and bleak, Frozen River is anchored by powerful performances, believable scenarios and excellent writing.

A daring movie in today's current climate - one likely to be remembered at year's end. [18 Oct 1989]

Michelangelo Antonioni's famed mod mystery (complete with a funny scene with The Yardbirds) examines the nature of reality-or-not as captured by photography -- throwing in sexual titillation and brilliant use of sound on the side. [20 Feb 2004, p.13D]

Comprehensive and blisteringly paced.

The "Age of Innocence" oozes anthropological dazzle, but Dazed and Confused may some day rate its own Smithsonian showings for clinically re-creating the High School Experience 1976. [20 Sept 1993]

The climactic rescue by Navy SEALs is riveting. But it's Phillips' devastating after-the-fact shock that leaves the most haunting impression in this ambitious, taut and captivating thriller.

Visual pyrotechnics and dark humor aside, Three Kings rules because it dares to dig for such truths, whether banal or significant.

Irritates in the early going when many of the current-day interviews are so intentionally underlighted that we can't see what the group members look like.