A long movie that almost wears out its 21/4-hour welcome, yet it's full of surprises.

Its premise is so promising that you long for more than Arteta's low-key approach can deliver.

The genius of Scorsese's film, which is being shown in IMAX in 93 theaters, is that it reveals the Stones' mortality while celebrating all that makes them more than mere mortals.

Thanks in part to McQueen, you can almost mention this in the same breath with director Don Siegel's best. [30 Mar 1990, p.3D]

A decent Korean War/collaborator court-martial drama, directed by Karl Malden (his only directing effort), and starring Richard Widmark. [15 May 2009, p.3D]

Heat is in the cop-movie pantheon with Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low," and that's as "right" as the genre gets.

The concert footage is mesmerizing; the planning leading up to the show is pedestrian.

Oscar-nominated Angela Bassett suffers and flaunts the dresses in this smashingly performed Tina Turner bio - a rock-feminist manifesto that also earned Laurence Fishburne a nomination for humanizing Ike Turner, the Svengali-husband and Menace II Tina with a wandering Ikette eye. Brian Gibson, who directed HBO's as-good The Josephine Baker Story, rarely exceeds the parameters of a competent TV movie; numbers get truncated, and there's minimal period detail over a 1958-83 time span. Yet in a movie inevitably made or broken by its leads, the nominations were justified. [25 Mar 1994, p.3D]

Oftentimes, the original book is better than its movie version. And while King’s tweetstorm is an infamous Homeric odyssey in the world of 280 characters, Zola is a solid spin, vividly capturing a stripper saga that would have been harrowing to live through, but is fun to sit back and witness.

If E.T. was human, wore swim goggles and read Superman comics by flashlight, he’d be the 8-year-old boy at the center of the heartfelt, lo-fi sci-fi spectacular Midnight Special.

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

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.

Much like Annie Hall did for a previous generation, (500) Days of Summer may be the movie that best captures a contemporary romantic sensibility.

There are some notable oddballs in the filmmaking debut of performance artist Miranda July, whose lead performance in this Sundance winner for "originality" is the most appealing thing about it.

It’s a ghost story but also an underdog’s story, a fighter’s story, a mother’s story and, thanks to an Oscar-ready Stewart at the absolute top of her game, one of the very best movies you’ll see this year.

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

The Revenant is the most intense thing you’ll enjoy over the holidays this side of family dinners.

House Party has enough youthful exuberance to shake the rafters. Too bad it has enough plot to fill only a closet. [8 Mar 1990, p.4D]

With Todd Haynes' direction suggesting a Twilight Zone full court press, this uncommonly rigid movie is either bloodlessly objective or so subtly droll that the joke is beyond comprehension. But given that Haynes previously utilized a cast of Barbie dolls in the brazenly daring Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, it's tempting to give him the benefit of the doubt. [21 June 1995, p.7D]

Bottom-line funny, often convulsively so. [2 Dec 1988]

The problem is the movie's comedians, who are, to the last, unfunny.

Despite the sad denouement, it's still the love story of the year.

This thought-provoking documentary addresses the origins of Vermeer's photo-realistic art with all the suspense of a thriller.

Cult director Don Siegel bookended Dirty Harry with this esteemed toughie. [08 Mar 1996]

Nil is harrowing and soul-sapping, a look into the heart of darkness of London's underclass.

Smith brings passion and stubbornness to Richard, a controversial figure in some corners and a devoted dad in others. The movie itself is a rousing if familiar sports drama that takes care of the surface-level narrative but doesn’t delve deeply enough into the meatier stuff, at times seeming to have the wrong focal point.

Impressive in its ambition, mother! doesn’t quite reach the heights of Aronofsky’s Black Swan in terms of bizarre masterpieces, yet endless conversations about what the heck you just saw will surely be born and raised.

Look out for everything, and listen, too, because Suspects is one of the most densely plotted mysteries in memory.