Released in 1962, it was pretty clearly the most intelligent spectacular within living memory. On its 40th anniversary, it's even better.

It's moving; but it's also endlessly engaging, uproariously funny at moments, informative, and eventually touching in ways one might not have expected.

An exciting, sharply realized melodramatic film noir, based on Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's novel "The Blank Wall."

The pacing is slow, but the film is entrancing and earns a permanent place in the viewer's mind.

This film made Dietrich a star, and it's easy to see why: Slightly more voluptuous than in her later films, Dietrich is the embodiment of the pleasures of the flesh.

Once the action kicks in -- starting with an extraordinary balletic fight in the rain featuring the two masters and a flying wooden beam -- you can't take your eyes off the screen.

It's an amazing story, but, in addition to its intrinsic interest, the Shackleton expedition has another remarkable draw: Crewman Frank Hurley had brought along not only still cameras, but a movie camera as well, providing us with an extraordinary record of the ship's voyage.

While Imamura films generally have their droll moments, this is the most blatantly comic work he's done since the '80s -- richly entertaining and suggestive of any number of metaphorical readings.

The film could be subtitled "Six Characters in Search of an Ending:" When they find that ending, it is gently, delightfully uplifting.

One of the compulsively watchable films this year, second only to "Memento." It's a must-see, except for those with a sensitivity to on-screen mayhem.

It's funny, heroic, exaggerated and, most of all, energetic; the film speeds along as though afraid to lose the audience's attention for even a moment.

Altman's technique also allows his huge cast to act up a storm, in the best sense. Gosford Park has roughly half the best actors in England in it.

Full of provocative concepts, but, like most films that attack such metaphysical concerns head-on, things have become a tad too jumbled by the end to be altogether satisfying. It's a problem built into the subject matter...This all said, Dark City is immensely entertaining, as well as visually dazzling.

Dench is wholly extraordinary in a characterization that is frequently muted, literally and necessarily.

Except for a few slow patches, the movie is compulsively watchable: You keep waiting to see just how sick things are going to get.

In the end, Code Unknown is a puzzle with no obvious solution.

Dramatically effective, thanks in large part to Montand's impassioned performance.

I still think the first is the best in the series, but I'm in the minority: Number two has a stronger following among the legions of Hong Kong movie buffs.

This is a dark, often funny walk through Ingmar Bergman turf.

Fans of convoluted narrative in the manner of Christopher Nolan and David Lynch are likely to be intrigued, although Medem has a far stronger streak of sentiment.

This nearly perfect confection never takes its action more seriously than its comedy.

From the start, a comprehensible, if necessarily simplified, sense of an extremely complicated moment in history.

The film is a masterpiece of nuance and characterization, marred only by an inexplicable, utterly distracting blunder at the very end.

On one level, Together is a countercultural soap opera, though played more as bittersweet comedy than as drama.

A warning is virtually mandated: No one who's even the least bit squeamish should even think about seeing Audition. But, if you have a taste for the disturbing, it's a trip that will stay with you for some time.

The plot may be nothing, but the film is something indeed.

Washington creates an indelibly charming and terrifying character whose volatile blend of dedication and horrible expediency keeps us off balance.

Office Space's pleasures don't really depend on plot. It's pretty much what a Dilbert feature should look like.

Wisely, Run Lola Run lasts something under 80 minutes; any longer, and it would have been as exhausting and boring as a half-hour Donna Summer track.

What Nolan does accomplish here that we haven't seen from him before is staging a few horrifyingly effective suspense set pieces -- one of which, in particular, is likely to stay with you for a long time.

Surprisingly manages never to grow boring -- which proves that Rohmer still has a sense of his audience.

Despite some savvy camera movement, the production values obviously can't match American action films made for a hundred times the budget. Still, Hatamikia has put together a gripping drama that balances visceral suspense and interesting ideas.

Varda, still pixieish in her early 70s, is having fun here.

The performance itself (which aired on PBS and is available on DVD) apparently went perfectly; given the potential pitfalls that Miller documents, it's some kind of miracle.

The repetitious structure begins to grow wearing about two-thirds through, but the conclusion has an emotional wallop that justifies the wait.

If the performances are the prime reason the film is as engaging as it is, it must also be said that Majidi's visual style seems far more sophisticated than in "Children of Heaven."

Shot in stylish black and white, with a memorably low-key performance from Duchesne, Bob le Flambeur is definitely worth checking out on the big screen in a fresh print.

Stylish, but definitely not for the squeamish

The movie is not always satisfying as a standard thriller, nor is it always clear; but it's never dull, either, and it displays a sensibility so weird as to be its own recommendation.

Were it not for the gravity of the setting, the movie could just as easily be a comedy -- with everybody play-acting and doors opening and shutting and the repercussions of lies multiplying geometrically -- as a drama.

It's an interesting, often worthwhile, film, but humor isn't its strongest attribute.

As the story plows toward its finale, the cultural dislocation problems become worse, until by the end they almost defeat the whole film.

Eureka is, quite extraordinarily, never dull.

For all its mystery and its stylistic finesse, there is something vaguely plodding about The Sweet Hereafter.

Solidly entertaining little film.

Headey, Skarsgård and Rampling flesh these people out marvelously, bringing them fully to life. It's almost a pity: The more real they become, the less pleasant is the time we spend with them.

This is not Tsui's best film by a substantial margin, but it's immense fun.

Dominik's stylistic choices are savvy, but what really makes the movie work is Bana's extraordinary performance as Chopper.

For most people, four hours pushes the outer comfort limits for theatrical viewing. My Voyage to Italy is well worth the time, but bringing along a thermos of espresso isn't a bad idea either.

While there's nothing original in Rush Hour, it runs through its well-worn paces with both wit and excitement.

It's hard not to warm to a film that features William Shatner (playing himself) looking at De Niro's character and complaining about what a lousy actor he is.

The film still delivers the goods, in part because of Eastwood's iconic presence and in part because of Daniels' scene-stealing work in what could have been a hokey role.

It is a moving and solidly entertaining comedy/drama that should bolster director and co-writer Juan José Campanella's reputation in the United States.

It manages to be sentimental without seeming trashy.

Those with an interest in new or singular sorts of film experiences will find What Time Is It There? well worth the time.

At 75, Aranda can still make his actors sizzle on the screen as well as he did 10 years ago in "Lovers." The explicitly hot bits here may be few and far between, but what there is of them is choice.

While it's crucial to preserve and make available every bit of available footage of such an earth-shattering event, it must be said that Rosenbaum's film manages to become slack and uninvolving after a while.

Festival in Cannes is an amused indictment of Jaglom's own profession; he doesn't seem to be making excuses for anybody's compromised (or even downright immoral) behavior here.

Nowhere near as bad as distributor New Line seems to think.

The texture is reminiscent of last year's "Suzhou River," but the basic material isn't as rich.

Will probably please hard-core action fans who have become inured to plot idiocies, but it remains a terrible waste of talent.

Star Jeremy Renner seems shorter than Dahmer, but is otherwise a look-alike and gives a convincingly intense and weird performance. Bruce Davison (as Papa Dahmer) and the rest of the cast also do nice work.

While the movie tries to make the connection between the rough but sensitive lad we see on screen and the notorious carouser of later years, there's little here to suggest whatever torment led Behan to drunkenness and an absurdly early death at 41.

Filled with sharp observations and interesting, often subtle, bits of visual trickery, much of it evoking the technique of Douglas Sirk's American domestic melodramas. Still, the very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost arbitrary.

Hu has crafted a charming and modest movie.

Silva is a polished and sophisticated director who brings a surprisingly light touch to much of this apparently fact-based story.

This is mostly well-constructed fluff, which is all it seems intended to be.

What Ichaso does do is take us on a dizzying, constantly moving ride through an exciting decade in the blossoming of "Nuyorican" culture with its most flamboyant figure as our focus.

Les Destinées has a leisurely, contemplative pace without ever growing boring. Still, at the end, we are left somehow empty. For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.

Toback has taken a distinctly '60s-ish personal experience and done his best to transplant it into the current, vastly different, cultural milieu. Harvard Man is a semi-throwback, a reminiscence without nostalgia or sentimentality.

Schnitzler's film has a great hook, some clever bits and well-drawn, if standard issue, characters, but is still only partly satisfying. The problem may very well be one of cultural translation.

It's refreshing and unusual to see clever strategy trumping ritual honor in a film of this genre, even if one of the tricks seems gratuitously brutal.

The film is often moving and explores the discomfort inherent in the contacts between the American "hosts" and their "guests," but its effect is diluted by slow pacing and lengthiness.

While Brother may be the perfect introduction for Kitano newcomers, longtime fans may find it superfluous and even a step down from the likes of Hana-Bi (1997) and Sonatine (1993).

The over-the-top sincerity that is so rewarding in "Face/Off" (1998), Woo's best American film, feels too clichéd in this more conventional context.

After a few very funny early sequences, tricked up with grotesque, surreal editing and camerawork, the movie gets bogged down a bit during the first third.

Enjoyable, if utterly stupid, upscale entry in the old Amityville Horror genre -- that is, a horror film allegedly based on spooky and inexplicable real-life events.

An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.

Just barely diverting, even at under 80 minutes -- a TV episode inflated past its natural length.

May display an energetic and promising talent, but it is also uncomfortably close to being a 105-minute music video, with all the problems that suggests.

The cold distance that LaBute brings to the material keeps the viewer at arms' length.

At best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement.

It just doesn¹t get very good until halfway through, in large part because the usually excellent Walston is miscast.

While the humor is recognizably Plympton, he has actually bothered to construct a real story this time, and the joke sequences are shorter and better integrated. The visual style is also richer and "better drawn" than before.

It's always risky to characterize a new film as "unique," but Tuvalu, the debut feature from German director Veit Helmer, has as good a shot as any at claiming that label.

This use of narrative irony is in fact not just the central joke; it's the only joke. And as a result, the movie slightly overstays its welcome.

The underlying theme constantly changes shape, not in a way that seems rich in ambiguity, but in a way that seems poorly worked out.

Thankfully, the final, long action set piece, which owes a debt to "The Manchurian Candidate" among others, is free of such problems. Shiri manages to go out on its most exciting sequence. There are worse ways to go.

With no aspects of the personalities represented outside of their music, Grateful Dawg ends up feeling dry and incomplete; its two subjects are stripped of all other characteristics and come across as not very interesting.

Has an awkwardness that defeats whatever emotional involvement it tries to achieve.

The redeeming features of All Over the Guy are the consistently engaging performances and some genuinely funny dialogue.

Fact is, there is nothing feloniously awful about the whole thing, but the laughs are tepid and too infrequent.

Sad to say, the story is simply too slight to sustain the film.

The plot can be really tough to follow, in part because Banderas' accent, rarely a problem in recent years, is surprisingly hard to understand at crucial moments, and partly because it's tough to keep track of just who's working for whom...and why...and even where.

The film is reasonably entertaining, though it begins to drag two-thirds through, when the melodramatic aspects start to overtake the comedy.

The muddiness of the basic concept and the thinness of its execution eventually defeat even Witherspoon's talents.

Goes by relatively swiftly and painlessly, despite the completely ragtag nature of its construction, but there is not an inspired moment in it.

Despite the generally likable characters and the abundance of clever ideas, Lustig mucks it all up with her "trick" editing.