The film is a bit long because Brest wants to give you time to believe Walsh and Mardukas' inevitable friendship. We do. And Run adds poignancy without detracting from the action. [20 July 1988]

Instead of ladling on the Scorsese sauce, Robert De Niro's Bronx accent is on semisweet nostalgia. He presents a domestic drama spiced with humor about a boy torn between his working-stiff dad (De Niro in fine regular-fella mode) and Chazz Palminteri's easy-money ways. De Niro doesn't let arty camera angles sub for good storytelling. And he draws memorable performances from two amazing young, new actors. [01 Oct 1993, p. 8D]

The movie grows on you, lingers in the mind and may pick up a cult. Take away Heat and Dust, Howards End and The Remains of the Day, and it's as satisfying as any movie the filmmaking team's ever made. [18 Sep 1998, Pg.03.E]

It could have been an unholy mess, but with directors Anthony and Joe Russo at the helm, Infinity War is instead a glorious, multilayered and clever comic-book adventure with loads of emotional stakes and a perfect foe for Earth’s mightiest heroes.

This is the definitive cinematic Cyrano; only the pickiest critics or peasants will dare or care to thumb their noses at it. [16 Nov 1990, p.4D]

Though the music is helping market the movie, it's really an omnipresent backdrop to the two intersecting stories. Audibly and visibly, Kansas City nearly equals Ed Wood for period verisimilitude. Yet it's also character-driven, in particular by the women stars. [16 Aug 1996, p.4D]

If it's challenges you're after, forget cracking "The Da Vinci Code." Wordplay captures the exhilaration that comes from navigating the ins and outs of complex puzzles.

Though Roger & Me's editing plays somewhat fast and loose with the juxtaposition of real-life events, it qualifies as an event itself. For once, have-nots get to lambaste haves in a documentary likely to be seen. [20 Dec 1989, p.5D]

Something this gleefully goofy and consistently funny would be welcome in any environment.

It's great to see an action-adventure family film with heart as well as humor, whimsy alongside wisdom, and a compelling narrative.

Depp deserves kudos for fashioning an original and outlandish if occasionally menacing character.

“Live by Night” aside, Affleck’s directorial record is pretty impressive and Air feels like his most inspired effort to date, an underdog story with the greatest basketball player of all time at its heart.

An easy movie to pick apart, but it lives, breathes and switches moods from humor to despair better than any American release this year.

It's a meandering film that prompts the viewer to anticipate characters' actions. Fortunately, they don't take predictable paths.

Epic battles, spectacular effects and multiple story lines make The Two Towers a most excellent middle chapter in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Small-town setting, big-time charm. Paul Newman is no fool for taking this perfect-fit role as a hard-luck construction worker who reunites with his son. [03 Feb 1995, p.4D]

A genuinely surprising film that plays with genre and throws out the now very tired superhero movie formula. It’s an action film, a romantic comedy and a coming-of-age story and a period piece and a war movie all in one. Above all, it’s a hopeful story about humanity.

A clever, likable comedy that sends up sexism, satirizes Hollywood, examines family ties and features a surprisingly tender romance at its core.

A compelling drama that establishes Ryan Gosling as one of the finest actors of his generation.

What makes the vivid film such an astounding effort – and one of the year's best movies – is that it’s edited seamlessly as one continuous real-time take, following a couple of Brits through rat-infested trenches, sniper-filled towns and even empty battlefields where the Grim Reaper’s been busy yet danger still looms.

The clash over the house quickly escalates into a modern-day tragedy. It is a fascinating film, handsomely adapted from the book and well directed.

An evocative film with a believable and subtly enthralling lead performance that gets deeply under your skin.

The picture is solidly crafted, performed to the hilt and full of humor.

Prisoners is infused with a poetic intensity that's rare in American thrillers. The closest cinematic comparisons would be "Zodiac," "In the Bedroom" and "Mystic River."

A revelation. One rarely sees American-made movies that are so unafraid to explore emotional cruelty and portray the consequences without positing easy answers or attaching happy endings.

So with its smart writing delivered by an in-synch quartet, savor Duplicity as the ideal spring gift.

Captivating and multifaceted.

Who would have thought a fire-breathing monster could be one of the most adorable on-screen critters since Babe?

Inspired and inspiring, this documentary about 7- and 8-year-olds competing for the U.S. Kids Golf World Championship is too fawning to be consistently gifted, but it manages to be occasionally, perhaps accidentally, profound.

Last time, director Garry Marshall gave us the fairy tale with Pretty Woman. This time, he gets the story right. [11 Oct 1991, p.1D]

An intimate portrait of the Bringing It All Back Home Bob Dylan during his final acoustic tour through England, it hits with escalating emotional force as the decades go by, capturing a fleeting musical period as brilliantly as any movie ever has. [07 Jan 2000]

Rollicking and heartbreaking in equal measure, the period musical drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom plays all the right notes, from Viola Davis mightily singing the blues to a brilliant, shattering final performance from the late Chadwick Boseman.

It may be the most disturbing film you'll see in a long time.

Writer-director Andre Techine, who's been on a recent roll with Wild Reeds and Ma Saison Preferee (also with Deneuve and Auteuil), is in even better form here. [23 Dec 1996]

Even for non-fans, Revenge of the Sith is engrossing, and fans of the series will likely be over the moon -- and into another galaxy -- with this film.

Breakdown exploits so many traditional thriller situations that any suspense fan vet can easily devote a hand to counting off the predecessors it plunders. [02May1997 Pg 12.D]

Sci- fi classic. [20 Dec 1991, p.3D]

Dealing tangentially with Las Vegas gambling's formative years (lots of matte work here of mountains in the desert), this crackling melodrama was inspired by Bugsy Siegel's relationship with Virginia Hill. [17 Jul 2005]

With its almost stream-of-consciousness style, Reprise offers a fresh and compelling look at the vagaries of friendship and creativity.

Donen (previously Hepburn's director in Funny Face and Charade) gets everything out of a brainstorm romantic teaming that didn't - and doesn't - spring automatically to mind. [05 Nov 1993, p.3D]

Joyeux Noël is gritty and disturbing with its extended scenes of war and destruction. It also is emotional, even a touch sentimental.

It's a clever, multitiered affair built around the title rituals, frosted with delicious characterizations and tasty repartee. [11 March 1994, Life, p.4D]

Though events unravel predictably, the film is profoundly affecting, thanks to a well-written story, rich characters and superlative acting.

A searingly intense and artful tale that grabs hold of the viewer from its jarring and wordless opening scenes and doesn't let go.

Pierce Brosnan is the anti-Bond in The Matador. And though he's anything but suave, sophisticated or debonair, he's a joy to behold.

Occasionally very funny, the picture tends to coast on its cosmetics. A first-rate script might have made it a twisted masterpiece.

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.

The best fictional movie about skiing. [27 Nov 2009, p.13D]

Serves up an irresistible helping of delicious fun with writing that is tart and sharp and a story infused with sweetness.

The movie features pervasive positivity, one really cool canine and a bright comic-book aesthetic. And while this fresh superhero landscape is extremely busy and a little bit familiar, it also feels lived-in and electric.

Every movie year has one, and now it's Britain's Mike Leigh who's conjured up the professional reviewer's worst nightmare: the picture so original, well-acted and witty that it must be given its ample due - despite being heavy on components guaranteed to bum out all but the most frequent moviegoers. [23 Dec. 1993, p.5D]

What remains is a great Vangelis score, astonishing production design, Hauer's career role -- and a movie that deserves its cult reputation despite an unloving heart. [11 Sept 1992]

As exhilarating, captivating and enjoyable as a summer romance in an exotic city.

It's a provocative sci-fi action film with dynamite special effects, a powerful humanistic theme with echoes of real-life social conflicts, and a truly wondrous performance by Serkis.

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]

In a possible breakthrough role, Law would seem to be the big winner.

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

Les Misérables is sweeping, as would be expected given the scope of the hugely popular stage musical from which it is adapted. But it's also wonderfully intimate, thanks to Tom Hooper's deft direction.

With Sinners, an inimitable auteur makes the most of every surrealist detail and crafts a fright fest that’s musical and meaningful, mesmerizing and memorable.

This giggle does for dog shows what Rob Reiner's "This Is Spinal Tap" (in which Guest plays Nigel Tufnel) did for heavy metal.

Thompson has had the good sense and sensitivity to get Austen right, while letting Winslet steal the show.

Blue Ruin is the rare film that is nearly consistently tense, the suspense only temporarily subsiding about an hour into the story. It's a welcome respite.

The result is almost enough to make an audience levitate.

Robert Altman's first movie after M*A*S*H introduced Shelley Duvall and was among the director's personal favorites. All kinds of icons are satirically skewered, from Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz to Steve McQueen's sweater-clad Bullitt character. [04 Jan 2008, p.11D]

Some of the movie's best scenes -- knockouts, in fact -- involve musical interludes.

Set in mid-1944 France, it's a contest of wills between a Resistance railway inspector and a smooth Nazi general (Quiz Show's Paul Scofield) over purloined French art treasures. Filmed on location, often in inhumanly cold weather, the film eschewed the use of railcar models - running real trains into each other and off the track when the script frequently calls for it. [30 Sep 1994, p.3D]

This low-key and engrossing Belfast-based drama is as much a well-acted character study as it is a thriller about the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Lumet (who also wrote the script) seems to feed on lousy cop-precinct furniture, political showboating and confrontations between street-savvy adversaries played by synergic actors. [16May1997 Pg.01.D]

Ghost World draws super, natural performances.

A hilarious, heartbreaking, touching and rather wonderful close to an enjoyable trilogy.

Eddie Albert's Oscar-nominated slow burn as the loathing father in The Heartbreak Kid is the funniest portrayal of Midwestern WASP-ism in movie history. [08 Feb 2002]

Profound and superbly acted, with a moving script superbly adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer-winning play.

The original "True Grit" might have been eclipsed by John Wayne's larger-than-life persona, but the Coen brothers' remake is an ensemble piece that feels freshly their own.

Too lingeringly creepy to ignore. [23 Oct 1992]

Unfaithful doesn't push the melodrama the way "Attraction" did, but it lingers in the mind as much.

A movie that is easily likable.

Easy A not only makes the grade, but it comes in close to 100%.

It’s breezy and hilarious yet offers enough heartfelt gravitas to give the feel-good date movie needed emotional heft.

The supporting cast is an embarrassment of riches for Scott, and Chastain is particularly strong as the concerned commander of the mission. Yet this is most definitely Damon’s movie and a throwback to the unabashed idealism of Hollywood past.

With punk-rock flair and no four-letter word left behind, the exuberantly rebellious I, Tonya takes a club to the biopic genre.

Wildly witty, but also inventive, audacious and poignant.

This is pretty much Burton doing an "X-Men" movie, with a plucky yesteryear vibe and evil Samuel L. Jackson thrown in for extra fun.

Coco is one of Pixar’s most gorgeously animated outings in some time.

Every second Helen Mirren is on-screen in The Last Station is a study in peerless talent.

This is the rare screwball comedy that is superbly paced, cleverly plotted and hilarious from start to finish.

The plan in A Simple Plan grows exponentially complex once the first dollar is purloined, an act that makes this unpretentious parable one of the season's better 'what's-going-to-happen-next?' movies.

Like most anthologies, some segments are better than others but they all highlight different inspirations Anderson’s woven together for a delightful cinematic sampler.

Hard Candy, a highly original psychological thriller/revenge fantasy, can be bitterly hard to take and uncomfortably intense, but it's well worth consuming.

On one hand, the core conceit – about elderly people suffering thanks to crooks and legal loopholes – is upsetting and infuriating on the surface. But Blakeson puts such a colorful, over-the-top sheen on it, plus lets Pike and Dinklage loose on each other, that you can’t help but be entertained by the criminal carnage and extreme shenanigans.

The year's most riveting documentary.

Visionary director David O. Russell so deftly weaves the family's story that we, too, are initially seduced by Dicky.

A gut-busting blast of tasteless tomfoolery.

It's also as good as "Out of Africa."

Good Hair is cause for hope that Rock continues to make documentaries. His style is lively, smooth and up-to-date, like the most coveted 'do.

A brilliantly acted and achingly bleak coming-of-age story.

Inside Deep Throat, an NC-17 documentary that deftly chronicles the fallout -- with about 15 seconds of hard-core footage -- has some surprise credits.

An excellent adaptation of a wonderful work of fiction (The Age of Grief).

The acting performances are stellar across the board, though the biggest joy of Little Women is Gerwig’s magnificent screenplay.