Ms. Garofalo, in a lovely, winning performance, gives Abby lots of heart while also making defensive snappishness a big part of her charm.

In the process of drawing audiences into the twists and turns of a knotty detective tale, Mr. Franklin and his cinematographer, Tak Fujimoto, open up an enticing and languorous lost world.

Undeniably, there's an element of corniness to this. But that doesn't keep An Officer and a Gentleman from being a first-rate movie - a beautifully acted, thoroughly involving romance.

Mr. Demme has captured both the look and the spirit of this live performance with a daring and precision that match the group's own.

A richly detailed tale of passion, perfidy and revenge adapted from a typically tricky Ruth Rendell novel.

Mr. Ivory and Ismail Merchant have long since learned to breathe life into their material without excessive reverence, in a manner that is as decorous as it is dramatic. As might be expected, the costumes, settings and cinematography are once again ravishing.

The ending of Jacob's Ladder, when it finally arrives, is, like much of the film, both quaint and devastating.

Diner isn't lavish or long, but it's the sort of small, honest, entertaining movie that should never go out of style, even in an age of sequels and extravaganzas.

Thanks in large part to Miss Streep's bravura performance, it's a film that casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell.

This film aspires to be a meditation on (among other things) art, trust, loyalty, politics and popular culture. With utter simplicity, and with unexpectedly intense storytelling, it achieves all that and more.

Ms. Armstrong instantly demonstrates that she has caught the essence of this book's sweetness and cast her film uncannily well, finding sparkling young actresses who are exactly right for their famous roles.

Mr. Zemeckis is able both to keep the story moving and to keep it from going too far. He handles Back to the Future with the kind of inventiveness that indicates he will be spinning funny, whimsical tall tales for a long time to come.

With warmth, wit and none of the usual overlay of nostalgia, King of the Hill presents the scary yet liberating precariousness of life on the edge.

The second Star Trek movie is swift, droll and adventurous, not to mention appealingly gadget-happy. It's everything the first one should have been and wasn't.

The film turns into a preposterous but engrossing spectacle, fueled by a resource more enduring than steam or its successors: big ideas.

Mr. Eggleston proves the polished granddaddy who, early on, recognized beauty in a garish wasteland. In this accomplished look at a storied career, he instructs - without words - how to see all that is hauntingly familiar.

It has a light touch, a disarming cast, a well-developed sense of humor and a lot of charm. [27 Feb 1987, p.C17]

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle has its flaws, but it also has a heartfelt grasp of what set Dorothy Parker apart from her fellow revelers and makes her so emblematic a figure even today.

Shaking off the solemnity that smothers many a well-meaning, high-minded family film, this one revels in an exuberant sense of play, drawing its audience into the wittily heightened reality of a fairy tale. The material, like the title, is a tad precious, but the finished film is much too spirited and pretty for that to matter.

A warm, surprising, gently incandescent film that discreetly describes a family tragedy.

This film's reflective, even stately style elevates it from the ranks of ordinary stake-through-the-heart vampire dramaturgy, turning it into something much more exotic.

Against All Odds is so lively and enjoyable on its own terms that its genre problems, while real, are easily overlooked. Mr. Hackford's brand of glossy, romantic escapism doesn't have to work as an homage. It has a vitality of its own.

Mr. Gray's feature-length monologue brings people, places and things so vibrantly to life that they're very nearly visible on the screen.

The moral ambiguity of James's novel has been skillfully captured in the film, as has its remarkable modernity.

Meticulously detailed and never less than fascinating, The Shining may be the first movie that ever made its audience jump with a title that simply says "Tuesday."

A well-acted drama more eerie than terrifying, more rooted in the occult than in sheer horror.

Silverado is sufficiently modern to make its landscapes bigger, its people smaller and its moral polarities less powerfully distinct than those of simpler, more starkly beautiful westerns gone by.

Mr. Weir's work has a delicacy, gentleness, even wispiness that would seem not well suited to the subject. And yet his film has an uncommon beauty, warmth and immediacy, and a touch of the mysterious, too.