The Leopard is the greatest film of its kind made since World War II—its only rivals are Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" and Visconti's own "Senso."

Rich in detail, vivid in characterization, leisurely in exposition, this 207-minute epic is bravura filmmaking -- a brilliant yet facile synthesis of Hollywood pictorialism, Soviet montage, and Japanese theatricality that could be a B western transposed to Mars.

It's here that Melville fully achieved his notion of the sublime, applying "Le Samouraï's" "empty" compositions and near theatrical blocking, as well as its methodical suspense, cosmic fatalism, and sense of grim solitude, to a subject far closer to his heart, namely his own World War II experiences.

Casually racist and inordinately sexist, Pépé le Moko is best enjoyed for its offhand surrealism.

Literally and figuratively marvelous, a rich, daring mix of fantasy and politics.

The greatest of all pulp fantasies.

A vivid exercise in hokum that more or less invented the idea of French film noir...and not just for Americans.

Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu's brilliantly discomfiting second feature is one long premonition of disaster.

Revived (with vastly improved subtitles) some 14 years after it first stunned Hong Kong critics, Days of Being Wild is a sort of meta-reverie populated by a cast of beautiful young pop icons.

Remains Chaplin's most sustained burlesque of authority.

Corny as that is, the film's nadir comes when Zuckerberg's pretty young lawyer comforts him (or us) with the mealy-mouthed observation, "You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be one."

No previous rocksploitation film had ever done so splendid a job of selling its performers.

What's fascinating is how the various issues - religious or practical - are played out in these two quite different families, yet always come down to irreconcilable differences between rebellious women and their stiff-necked, controlling men.

A very nutty fruitcake, Spirited Away is characterized by wonderfully detailed animation, packed with incident and populated by all manner of comic creatures.

Killer of Sheep is an urban pastoral--an episodic series of scenes that are sweet, sardonic, deeply sad, and very funny.

Jack and Miles are male archetypes, as well as the two most fully realized comic creations in recent American movies.

Contemporary audiences may not see why, even in its toned-down simplification of the novel, From Here to Eternity was the most daring movie of 1953, but it remains an acting bonanza.

In short, this Krakatoa is at once exhausting and riveting. It's a technological marvel, and for those not with the program, a bit of a bore.

One of the best titles in movie history and a cast to match.

Although dense with incident and motif, the movie has an effortless flow.

Directed by anyone else, Masculine Feminine--one of three movies that Godard made in his peak year, 1966--would be a masterpiece. For the young JLG it's business as usual.

This is truly a work of symphonic aspirations and masterful execution.

Jackson's adaptation is certainly successful on its own terms.

A work of bravura filmmaking.

This has to be the most richly entertaining movie anyone has ever made on the subject of female genital mutilation.

So elemental in its means yet so cosmic in its drama, it could herald a rebirth of cinema.

A work of leisurely development and tragic inevitability.

The year's most ingenious and original animated feature.