An intensely imaginative piece of conceptual filmmaking that also delivers the goods as a dread-drenched horror movie.

An acid portrait of contemporary Austria (and by extension, the whole middle class) as unspeakably dull, violent and stupid. The film itself, miraculously, is just the opposite: vibrantly inventive, aesthetically rigorous, sardonic and occasionally quite brilliant.

The endlessly resourceful Nicolas Cage, as a celestial angel, and a terrifically engaging Meg Ryan, as a pragmatic surgeon, create such blissful chemistry that they elevate the drama to a poetic level seldom reached in a mainstream movie.

This full-bodied adaptation of Dennis Lehane's involved and involving 2001 bestselling crime novel about old friends in Boston's working-class Irish neighborhood finds Clint Eastwood near the top of his directorial game with a cast of first-rate actors.

Scorsese's heartfelt love letter to Italian movies up to 1961.

A 10-course treat for the eyes and ears.

Joltingly violent, wickedly funny and rivetingly erotic, David Lynch's Wild at Heart [based on the novel by Barry Gifford] is a rollercoaster ride to redemption through an American gothic heart of darkness.

Bears all the earmarks of a magnum opus for Martin Scorsese: Fascinating and fresh material about his beloved New York City, an epic reach, an equally epic gestation period, a dynamic criminal element, combustible socio-political-religious elements, outstanding actors and sophisticated allusions to cinema history that inform and enrich the experience.

A fresh, disarmingly bright and at times explosively funny comedy well worth a trip to the mall, even if it eventually runs out of gas.

Lightning strikes twice, but not as brilliantly as before, in Shrek 2. The welcome sequel to the monster 2001 Oscar winner about an ogre's unlikely romance with a beautiful princess successfully recycles many of the qualities that made the first one an instant animated classic and worldwide smash.

A luxuriously old-fashioned star vehicle custom-fit to its topliner's strengths, which come across to sensational effect.

Scene after scene is filled with a ferocious strength and humor. Michael Lerner's performance as a Mayer-like studio overlord is sensational.

A flat-out hilarious mainstream comedy.

Sings whenever Williams is onscreen.

A thoughtful, melancholy story of love, loss, pain, betrayal and the lingering after-effects of tragedy, The Door in the Floor is an intelligent, impeccably acted, unsentimental drama.

The most satisfying epicurean feast since "Big Night."

If films about coping with memory loss and/or reverse-order storytelling now constitute a mini-genre, then Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is arguably the best of the lot.

George C. Scott as the fiery Pentagon general who seizes on the crisis as a means to argue for total annihilation of Russia offers a top performance, one of the best in the film. Odd as it may seem in this backdrop, he displays a fine comedy touch.

A feature debut that packs a knockout punch.

The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.

Rendered deeply moving by the director's peerless capacity to combine humor and compassion with honesty and despair.

Told with a blend of visual mastery and emotional intimacy, ambitious venture sustains a special melding of romance and pragmatism that should engage discerning audiences.

The rough power, as well as the humor and sensitivity, of pop phenom Eminem is delivered intact in 8 Mile.

Superbly orchestrated, visually impressive.

Manages the difficult feat of being an intimate, even delicate tale played with an appealingly light touch against an epic backdrop.

Looks to please the book's legions of fans with its imaginatively scrupulous rendering of the tome's characters and worlds on the screen, as well as the uninitiated with its uninterrupted flow of incident and spectacle.

Has a sharper narrative focus and a livelier sense of forward movement than did the more episodic "Fellowship."

Structurally and thematically similar to John Frankenheimer's original but entirely different in style, feel and nuance, this political thriller about a brainwashed soldier being positioned for the White House provides a delectable network of dramatic tripwires that teases the mind and quickens the pulse. This is brainy popcorn fare.

Exploding Raymond Carver's spare stories and minimally drawn characters onto the screen with startling imagination, Robert Altman has made his most complex and full-bodied human comedy since "Nashville."

Performed with matchless aplomb and made with plush professionalism, pic serves up pure pleasure from beginning to end.

Colorful characters, richly evoked settings, epic story of friendship, crime and punishment, and a strong dose of good old-fashioned star power.

An exemplary and dynamic work that goes about as far as a narrative film can in both analyzing a complex personality and portraying a cultural scene.

Tightly made and populated by a uniformly larger-than-life cast of characters , pic is a total delight for every second of its running time.

With its strong premise, a couple of fine performances and highly polished tooling, The Jackal scores as an involving high-tech thriller that occasionally hits peaks of pulsating excitement.

Followers of Alan Rudolph's career will rejoice at his latest effort, Afterglow, an incredibly and incurably romantic comedy-drama that most perceptively dissects the delicate imbalances of two very modern but very different marriages.

In his bigscreen feature debut, director and co-writer Jonathan Mostow displays real flair for visceral cinema while adroitly sidestepping many of the usual tripwires of this sort of film, particularly silly coincidences, stupid decisions on the part of characters with whom you're supposed to identify, and superheroics performed by ordinary people.

Anchored by a strong cast, including Samuel L. Jackson (also credited as a producer), Lynn Whitfield and Diahann Carroll, this talented debut by a black female writer-director is a well-made, if also old-fashioned, multi-generational drama.

Armstrong and Jones smoothly navigate the magical tale through numerous shocking twists and turns until they bring it to a most logical, emotionally satisfying conclusion.

Although the story is built around the automatically emotional situation of an imperiled kid, scripters Richard Price (who appears briefly as an uncomfortably handcuffed victim of Sinise in the early going) and Alexander Ignon and director Ron Howard largely steer clear of milking the easy melodrama.

As originated by Grisham and adapted by Akiva Goldsman, this is a story of elemental emotional and legal issues splashed across a large canvas, and director Joel Schumacher has done a solid job of keeping the many components in focus and balance.

The Disney artists have created a vivid palette for the picture.

Having earned his stripes by directing a few TV episodes, Frakes makes an auspicious debut as a feature filmmaker, sustaining excitement and maintaining clarity as he dashes through a two-track storyline.

Though lacking the sensationalistic elements of a movie like "Kids", Dollhouse offers unflinching realism, meticulous attention to detail and deliciously wicked humor as it explores the growing pains of a misfit.

But where most rugged he-man films feature a few action sequences scattered throughout, director Renny Harlin keeps the adventure stuff in this reputed $ 65 million production coming at an astonishing pace.

Rebounding from his biggest career flopflop with "Havana," Sydney Pollack has done an ultra-pro job in giving spit and polish to this star-driven, sure-fire commercial project.

Director Chris Columbus shrewdly brings together many of the same selling points as in his "Home Alone" movies, mixing broad comedic strokes with heavy-handed messages about the magical power of family.

This is a hip, likable spin on the seasonal icon told with a deft mixture of comedy and sentimentality.

Yet even with those slightly different chords, Ross manages to pluck the right heartstrings, in the process delivering a grade-A tear-jerker.

Lee takes a conventional, talking-heads-and-archival-clips approach to the material, but rewardingly establishes an intimate connection with his subjects by devoting considerable time to the personalities and families of the four victims.

As vivid and suspenseful as Roman Polanski has made this claustrophobic tale of a torture victim turning the tables on her putative tormentor, one is still left with a film in which each character represents a mouthpiece for an ideology.

An astonishing work of studio artifice, A Little Princess is that rarest of creations, a children's film that plays equally well to kids and adults.

A "GoodFellas" with heart, A Bronx Tale represents a wonderfully vivid snapshot of a colorful place and time, as well as a very satisfying directorial debut by Robert De Niro. Overflowing with behavioral riches and the flavor of a deep-dyed New York Italian neighborhood, the film also trades intelligently in pertinent moral and social issues that raise it above the level of nostalgia or the mere memoir.

A frank, intimate look at a phenomenal popular artist and his extraordinarily dysfunctional family, Crumb is an excellent countercultural documentary.

An Officer and a Gentleman deserves a 21-gun salute, maybe 42. Rarely does a film come along with so many finely-drawn characters to care about.

Fresh, colorful and inventive, Married to the Mob is another offbeat entertainment from director Jonathan Demme.

Robocop is as tightly worked as a film can be, not a moment or line wasted.

Most of all, the satisfyingly cinematic screen adaptation puts motion and energy into a story that was mostly internalized from Victor's perspective in Rendell's book.

Maverick director Wong Kar-wai manages to pour old wine into new jars with Happy Together, a fizzy chamber yarn about two gay Hong Kongers in Argentina that's as slim as a bamboo flute but is his most linear and mature work for some time.

A major artistic asset to the film - besides script, direction and the top performances - is supervising editor Walter Murch's sound collage and re-recording.

Stretching himself with each new work, David Cronenberg has come up with a fascinating, demanding, mordantly funny picture.

No previous drug-themed film has the honesty or originality of Gus Van Sant's drama Drugstore Cowboy.

The screws are tightened expertly in this suspenseful meller about a flipped-out femme who makes life hell for the married man who scorns her.

Kramer vs. Kramer is a perceptive, touching, intelligent film about one of the raw sores of contemporary America, the dissolution of the family unit.

Performed to maximum effect by a host of top-flight actors, Ulu Grosbard's strong character study is knit together by a tense subtext that underlies even the calmest moments.

A film of challenging ideas, and not salacious provocations, The Last Temptation of Christ is a powerful and very modern reinterpretation of Jesus as a man wracked with anguish and doubt concerning his appointed role in life.

The pic is a quality item earmarked for serious auds by its nonexploitative handling of potent material, the strong work of debuting helmer Anjelica Huston and striking perfs from young newcomer Jena Malone, Jennifer Jason Leigh and others.

From its opening shots, Butterfly Kiss exudes a confidence and distinctive feel that promises something rather special. Unlike its characters, the pic knows where it's going.

Aided greatly by an expert film adaptation by its playwright, Willy Russell, Gilbert has come up with an irresistible story about a lively, lower-class British woman hungering for an education and the rather, staid, degenerating English professor who reluctantly provides her with one.

[William Wyler] times the chuckles with a never-flagging pace, puts heart into the laughs, endows the footage with some boff bits of business and points up some tender, poignant scenes in using the smart script and the cast to the utmost advantage.

Out of the elusive, but curiously intoxicating Truman Capote fiction, scenarist George Axelrod has developed a surprisingly moving film, touched up into a stunningly visual motion picture.

Beautifully textured, cleverly scripted and eerily shot (often with a wideangle lens making characters look even weirder), Delicatessan is a zany little film that's a startling and clever debut for co-helmers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.

The Graduate is a delightful, satirical comedy-drama about a young man's seduction by an older woman, and the measure of maturity which he attains from the experience.

Fonda himself has given this a fine production dress, with associate Bert Schneider, and the brilliant lensing, excellent music background ballads, especially Bob Dylan's "Easy Rider," are fine counterpoints to this poetic trip along Southwest America.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a wonderfully crafted, absolutely charming remake of the 1964 film "Bedtime Story." In this classy version, Steve Martin and Michael Caine play the competing French Riviera conmen trying to outscheme each other in consistently amusing and surprising setups. Martin takes the crass American role played by Marlon Brando, and Caine plays homage to David Niven by sporting a thin mustache, slicked-back hair and double-breasted blue blazer in a sort of 1930s British yachtsman look.

This handsomely produced period piece is easily the most emotionally effective bigscreen melodrama since "The Joy Luck Club," as well as the most intelligent.

Enormously entertaining, Broadcast News is an inside look at the personal and professional lives of three TV journlists.

Shallow Grave, a tar-black comedy that zings along on a wave of visual and scripting inventiveness.

Absolutely charming, unabashedly offbeat Blue Juice is a quirky comedy billed as Britain's first surf pic.

Wolfgang Petersen's The NeverEnding Story is a marvelously realized flight of pure fantasy.

Grease has got it, from the outstanding animated titles of John Wilson all the way through the rousing finale as John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John ride off into teenage happiness.

A skilled, careful adaptation of a much-admired story, A River Runs Through It is a convincing trip back in time to a virtually vanished American West, as well as a nicely observed family study.

Tom Burlinson is very effective as the shy stable-boy who becomes devoted to the courageous horse. Martin Vaughan is impressive as the grimly determined trainer who leases the horse in the first place, as is Celia de Burgh, luminous as his loyal but neglected wife. Ron Leibman practically walks away with the picture as Davis, the smooth American horseowner, and Judy Morris is quietly effective as his naive, talkative wife.

It is literate, bawdy, sophisticated, sensual, cynical, heart-warming, and disturbingly thought-provoking.

A charming, witty, passionate romantic drama about a love transcending space and time, Somewhere In Time is an old-fashioned film in the best sense of that term. Which means it's carefully crafted, civilized in its sensibilities, and interested more in characterization than in shock effects.

Less of a comedy than a hilarious tragedy, I Love You Phillip Morris stars Jim Carrey in his most complicated comedic role since "The Cable Guy."

Equal parts audacious dark comedy, wish-fulfillment fantasy and over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek action-adventure.

There is no denying Danny Hoch's talent. A monologist in the tradition of Eric Bogosian, Hoch assembles a cast of urban types and explores their dysfunctions and angst with a winning combination of sympathy, ironic point and dead-on mimicry.

In the post-Columbine era, Koury's film has its finger on something particularly potent.

A powerful and creative film.

It's hard to walk away unaffected from this heartfelt, well-researched, feature-length documentary.

A triumph of indie casting of unknowns, Good Housekeeping is knee-deep in delicious thesping.

A superior example of fearless filmmakers in exactly the right place at the right time.

Los Angeles may be the most photographed city in the world, but it has never have been captured with such complex layers of meaning and fascination as in Thom Andersen's remarkable Los Angeles Plays Itself.

Does a superb job of condensing an overwhelming mass of documentation, archival imagery and artistic representation into a concise yet passionate history lesson whose relevance could not be timelier.

Observing locally and thinking globally, Laura Dunn's astonishing debut doc feature The Unforeseen is the kind of transformative viewing experience that has made the current period a golden age for nonfiction film.

Recent history once again intrudes on the present-day lives of working Czechs in the masterful multicharacter drama Beauty in Trouble.

How many thrillers could put the outcome in the title and still provide as many white-knuckle moments as Harvard Beats Yale 29-29?

This is upscale French entertainment at its best.