A blazing, unlikely triumph about a man who is nobody's idea of a movie hero. Smart, funny, shamelessly entertaining and perfectly serious too.

The film's sleek moodiness and visual sophistication are so effective that there's even a scene here that makes Detroit look like the most romantic city in the world.

Turns out to be a smashing success, a juggernaut of an action-adventure saga that owes noithing to the past. To put it simply, thi is a home run. [6 August 1993, p. C1]

A supremely elegant and thoughtful parable. [14 September 1994, p. C11]

This is his sleekest and most engaging film thus far. If you like a good cat-and-mouse game with a keen ear for language, then go.

An irresistible black comedy and a wicked delight. [27 Sept 1995]

Shakespeare meets Sherlock, and makes for pure enchantment in the inspired conjecture behind Shakespeare in Love.

A stunning feat of literary adaptation as well as a purely cinematic triumph.

Gratifyingly complex and beautifully told, this tale explores a huge array of cultural, racial, economic and familial tensions. In the process, it also sustains strong characters, deep emotions and clear dramatic force.

Steven Spielberg's soberly magnificent new war film, the second such pinnacle in a career of magical versatility, has been made in the same spirit of urgent communication. It is the ultimate devastating letter home.

A devilishly entertaining crime story with a heroine who must be seen to be believed, is as satisfying an ensemble piece as “Red Rock West.” [26 October 1994, p. C13]

A film whose best moments are so novel, so deliriously funny, and so crazily unexpected that they truly must be seen to be believed. [22 June 1988]

A parent-tickling delight, is a work of incredible cleverness in the best two-tiered Disney tradition. [22 November 1995, p. C9]

It reimagines the buddy film with such freshness and vigor that the genre seems positively new.

A triumphant, cleverly disorienting journey through a demimonde that springs entirely from Mr. Tarantino's ripe imagination, a landscape of danger, shock, hilarity, and vibrant local color. Nothing is predictable or familiar within this irresistably bizarre world. You don't merely enter a theater to see Pulp Fiction; you go down a rabbit hole. [23 Sept 1994]

A huge, thrilling three-and-a-quarter-hour experience that unerringly lures viewers into the beauty and heartbreak of its lost world.

But the film Schindler's List, directed with fury and immediacy by a profoundly surprising Steven Spielberg, presents the subject as if discovering it anew. [15 Dec 1993]

As fascinating as it is freakish. It confirms Mr. Lynch's stature as an innovator, a superb technician, and someone best not encountered in a dak alley. [19 September 1986]

Mr. Howard has made Ransom in the same clean, swift, logical style that sent his "Apollo 13" into orbit, resulting in a spellbinding crime tale that delivers surprises right down to the wire.

A marvelous toy. It's funny, it's full of tricks and it manages to be royally entertaining, which is really all it aims for.

This modest, enormously likable film, about love and temptation and ties that bind, is about brotherhood most of all. [9 August 1995, p.C9]

The purity and breadth of this meticulous study are all the more gratifying in view of its unprepossessing style.

Kirk Jones, who wrote and directed this blithe comedy, has been a prize-winning director of television commercials. And he has the knack of finding rubbery, expressive faces and letting each villager's quirks emerge on cue.

Beautiful and heartfelt, an oasis of humanity in a season of furious hyperbole.

Ingenious fantasy.

Elegant, festive and very, very funny. [9 March 1994, p. C15]

What makes the performance(s) even better is that Mr. Irons invests these bizarre, potentially freakish characters with so much intelligence and so much real feeling. [23 Sept 1988, p.C10]

Humorously and fondly, with an entertaining supply of what he has called "prosaic license," Stillman again displays a pitch-perfect ear for both the cattiness and the camaraderie that bind his characters into collective friendship.