Julianne Moore shoots and scores – as well as laughs, cries, smokes, drinks, flies and sings – in the quirky Gloria Bell, which minds a fine line between in-depth character study and offbeat romantic comedy.

It's one of the year's finest, most complex portrayals, in one of Allen's best films in years.

A well-crafted, albeit entirely bleak exploration of paranoia and fear.

Highly imaginative and consistently amusing without pretensions.

Sometimes -- and far too rarely -- a film will hit all the right notes, with sharp, original dialogue, brilliant casting and an absorbing story. So caught up in its spell, you dread seeing the credits roll. Please Give is that movie.

As inspiring as the story wants to be, its real drama is mired around the edges, where we get a sense of what it is really like to be born into a brothel.

Welcome to the summer's first pleasant surprise. [20 July 1990, p.1D]

John Wick: Chapter 4 delivers on the ballet of bullets and fiesta of firearms you expect while also successfully showcasing the dynamic, reluctantly unretired title hitman as a real underdog.

Things will not be a big concession-stand movie because the floating heart is our introduction to a cottage industry we hope won't catch on. It is dirtier than pretty, yet Frears finds beauty in the telling.

Despite its title, Punch-Drunk Love is never heavy-handed. The jabs it employs are short, carefully placed and dead-center.

Crystal is such a panic - and normally uptight Patinkin is so attractively relaxed as a Spanish swordsman - that Bride's charms just can't be ignored. [25 Sept 1987]

Nothing works in this over-elaborate let's-kidnap-a-kid melodrama. [24 Aug 1990]

Of all the pop-psychiatry movies from the 1940s, Spellbound survives its kitschy elements -- wallows in them, even -- to remain as fascinating as expected from a collaboration that was contentious. [04 Oct 2002]

While it's the most ambitious of the three films, it's not as mesmerizing as 2008's "The Dark Knight." The plot is occasionally murky, its archvillain lacks charismatic menace, and the last hour is belabored.

It's a hoary Chinatown knock-off wrapped in a seductively novel black-culture veneer, with a dash of Laura added for bad measure. [29 Sept 1995, p.01.D]

If the Marvel superhero movies on the whole are your favorite band’s individual albums, Avengers: Endgame is the triple-disc greatest-hits package with the really awesome cover and a slew of familiar, comforting gems inside.

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.

Humphrey Bogart went out with one of the best swan songs a major star ever had in this anti-boxing screed, from a novel by On the Waterfront scripter Budd Schulberg. [12 Jul 2004]

Bernard Herrmann's great score punches up a brutal urban crime pic suddenly turned tender romance between a tough cop (Robert Ryan) and a blind woman (Ida Lupino). [21 Jul 2006, p.14D]

Alex Garland, the screenwriter of "28 Days Later" and "Sunshine," makes an auspicious directorial debut with this suspenseful mystery.

One of the series's best, with spectacular effects, nuanced performances and witty dialogue.

Its colorful residents make Zootopia a wondrous place to visit for two hours until you have to go back to real life, where Shakira isn’t a gazelle and law enforcement is a lot less furry.

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

We accept the sincerity and altruistic motives of the aging loner he (Philip Baker Hall) portrays in this consciously spare Nevada-set sleeper. [13 March 1997, p. 8D]

Crisp craftsmanship has fashioned a great day at the movies from the worst day of Ralph Kramden's life. [10 Jun 1994 Pg. 01.D]

Filmed during that great early period of his career when he played heels better than anyone ever had, Kirk Douglas is the morally tortured 21st Precinct New York cop who lets unbridled hatred for street scum poison his marriage. [28 Oct 2005]

Indeed, Eve's milieu is fresh and specific enough to make even Jackson subordinate to Kasi Lemmons, the writer (and sometimes actress) who dreamed up this story for her directorial debut. [07Nov1997 Pg08.D]