It has extravagant, bloody thrills plus something else -- something that comes close to genuine emotion.

A precise and elegant piece. [8 Apr 1988, p.D1]

Viewers will leave Amandla! moved by the music, impressed by the musicians and dubious about the possibility of political and social healing.

One of the year's best films.

The outlandish story and exaggerated colors ... swirl together to create an ethereal, sometimes sinister dreamscape.

Genuine, amusing and, best of all, humanly scaled and humanely oriented.

Despite its fragmentary, seat-of-the-pants plot, Chungking Express abounds with staccato style and frenetic charm. It's the cinematic equivalent of popcorn on a hot stove. There are "jump-cut" shots, freeze frames, stirring (and often beautiful) images and a general sense of boundless energy, all of which capture perfectly the Zeitgeist of Hong Kong society. [15 Mar 1996, p.N43]

Depending on your patience for oddball mood pieces, you will either sleep through O' Horten or be oddly captivated. Either way, it'll be like dreaming.

A percolating comedy. The laughs may not tear your belly up, but they're constant and they dovetail with the story.

As Nur, Kanboura delivers a performance that is the most varied and effective of the movie’s three stars, growing from the shy newcomer to become the story’s moral center and heart.

"Peace is a process, not an event," one unnamed activist says toward the end. Amen, sister.

A big, fat, gorgeous, mesmerizing mess.

Trouble in Mind is something of a jumble, but never less than an intriguing one. It's an off-center romance, as unnerving as a half-remembered nightmare. [25 Apr 1986, p.D1]

Dern's dirtball performance gives After Dark, My Sweet a desperately needed quality of slugged-out authenticity -- he gives the movie its edge. If anything, though, Foley makes Thompson's killing universe too inviting, too sunny and comfortable. He's missed the essence of Thompson, but all in all, there are worse ways of failing.

The usual complement of classy Brits and a host of Indian extras add the final touches to this vastly enjoyable, sprawling entertainment. Lean truly catches the sunset over the British Empire. [18 Jan 1985, p.25]

I, Daniel Blake is about human value: disposable and abstract in one context; eternal, inviolable and sacred in another. They might underline the point a bit too thickly, but Loach and Laverty count on their audience to discern the difference, and to act accordingly.

Though swiftly paced, The Counterfeiters convincingly examines the complex nature of humanity under inhuman conditions

Wedding has enough coincidences, screamfests, drunken rants and shock revelations to fill a season of "Desperate Housewives," but it comes across as finely textured drama, thanks to the performers, who make their characters so persuasive and three-dimensional, we're too mesmerized to care about the story's more overwrought or histrionic passages.

Most important, does The Dark Knight Rises achieve the impossible, which is to bring a cherished cinematic chapter to a close, yet manage to leave fans feeling not desolate but cheered? To that all-important question, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

In an effort to make Fawcett a logical, upstanding guy, the story never fully convinces us of his obsession with returning to find the lost city.

Few films are more assured in their storytelling or build more forcefully, irrevocably toward their resolution.

If “Infinity War” was about failure, “Endgame” is, ironically, all about acceptance and moving on. After 11 long years, the Infinity Saga is finally, fulfillingly over. There is no post-credit scene. But oh, what a going-away party these old friends have thrown for themselves.

Slow going, but it provides an absorbing glimpse of a rarely seen side of Chinese life.

Hip, lurid and improbably lovable, The Guard is easily the best guy-love comedy of the summer, with Cheadle and Gleeson's riffs and repartee tumbling back and forth as if they've been trading lies over Guinness forever.

Shot on Ramsey Island and other locations along the coast of Wales, the movie is gorgeous to look at, and it’s endearing enough to warm one’s hands and heart on a cold entertainment evening.

Both a tough-love letter to the commodified IP it satirizes and a scathing takedown of mainstream comedy institutions, this defiantly personal low-budget marvel is also a genuinely affecting queer coming-of-age tale that packs a more poignant punch than most entries in the superpowered canon.

With Ex Machina, Garland makes an impressive debut as a director, spinning an unsettling futuristic thriller with the expertise and exquisite taste of a seasoned veteran.

Its magnificence is that it takes itself dead serious. It's not entertainment, but it's sure a piece of toughness.