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.

Love and loneliness are presented, in almost equal parts, with subdued precision in the richly abundant Another Year.

Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic Blade Runner popularized the cyberpunk movement (a gritty mix of neo-noir and hardcore sci-fi) back in the day, but 2049 perfects it. Super-stylish and deeply human — even with androids and holograms around — the spectacular follow-up takes the detective story of the first film and turns it into a grand mythology of identity, memory, creation and revolution.

This definitive "life goes on" movie does what Altman does best: juggle 22 characters, deftly switch moods, and offer a comlex warts-and-all characters whose lives seem to extend beyond the screen. Few movies attempt this; Fewer succeed. [1 Oct 1993]

Like the first half of "Best in Show," the movie is so deadpan that sometimes you have to pinch yourself to realize how potently satirical it is.

What vaults the film above the standard sports movie is the stellar performance by Michael Sheen.

a painful though sadly humorous portrait of sisterhood deftly written by Leigh's mom, Barbara Turner, and directed with just-right spareness by Ulu Grosbard. [08 Dec 1995]

Not only is this a deftly crafted and superbly acted film, but Wadjda sheds a powerful light on what women face, starting in childhood, in an oppressive regime.

Arrival is such a beautiful and thought-provoking film that it almost singlehandedly makes up for every bad aliens-coming-to-Earth film you’ve ever seen. Yes, even Independence Day: Resurgence.

With its original performances that can't be reduced to simplistic labels, Juno is charming, honest and terrifically acted.

Though it sounds like a blueprint for either disaster or dynamite, the movie is a bit too controlled to be either.

Everything Everywhere is an action-packed club sandwich of weird, but also a splendidly human experience to cherish.

Gosling and Williams have the most palpable chemistry of any screen couple this year, never striking a false note in this achingly tender tale of a love that implodes before our eyes.

And novel insights notwithstanding, this is a plain old good movie, too.

The Secret of Kells is a magical adventure unlike anything we've seen on screen before.

The result is raunchy, energetic, sharp-eyed and a bit rambling.

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.

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

While not phenomenal, especially compared to the rest of the Spielberg oeuvre, Spies still hits the spot.

Here's an ''opened-up'' film of a fragile, sentimental play that doesn't overemphasize every dramatic point, and doesn't tromp on every minefield in the material. [13 Dec 1989, p.1D]

The movie, which ends on an unexpected note of wistful humor, also gleans gentle and non-derisive chuckles out of Fin's physical state.