Both sides of the story -- the larger context and the intense and intimate drama -- are painted with an absolutely unswerving sense of truth. And, as we watch this movie, full of violence, injustice and compassion, there is barely a moment that seems calculated or contrived.

even in the notable ranks of Leigh's movie, TV and theater work-an oeuvre embracing high comedy, biting comment and shivering pathos-Naked is extraordinary. In the hands of Leigh and his magnificently gifted, gutsy cast, these days and nights on London's streets burn themselves on our minds.

It's a spree of a movie, one of the most impishly entertaining of Altman's career. Smart, sparkling, almost sinfully amusing.

Kansas City is a wonderful film, done with all Altman's offbeat virtuosity, maverick humor and creative daring -- plus the acid nip that runs through all his recent works.

Lovely, heart-stirring film.

A beautiful, almost defiant film on an unusual subject: love among the elderly.

A modern digitized lollapalooza concocted out of old-fashioned slam-bang space opera elements.

This century's Planet of the Apes is a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house.

Visually, even compared to Sayles' own best work, it's somewhat prosaic - and dramatically, it suffers from the fact that its two main characters are kept so far apart. But the screenwriting and the cast redeem this film.

The kind of movie some audiences are starved for, a comedy with a human face, warmth and spirit.

A picture about America with the blinders off, a film about heroism that makes you chuckle and feel sad - and a film about childhood that lets us reenter that lost world and see the grass, sky and sunlight the way they once looked, in the golden hours.

There's scarcely a scene in which the actors, action and sound track aren't cranked up to maximum intensity.

The Zellweger-Firth-Grant triangle works as irresistibly as Hepburn-Grant-Stewart in "The Philadelphia Story."

This is not an inspirational drama about finding yourself; it's a Hitchcockian comedy about adultery, murder and losing a corpse.

These are real characters, fully observed, gutsily written, beautifully acted by the two leads.

It's a summit meeting between three brilliant leading men from three generations with three striking on-screen personas.

A real gem: a deadpan fantasy that turns into one of the best pictures ever about the post-"Star Wars" studio moviemaking era.

A deliberately old-fashioned picture that succeeds in nearly everything it tries to do.

It has a jokey irreverence that keeps it from teetering over the edge to absurdity.

Scene after scene in Calle 54 just knocks you out.

The simplicity and idealism of The Color of Paradise are part of what makes it so attractive to near-jaded palates here. There are no evil characters in the film.

A fine French comedy-drama.

An incredibly ambitious film and one of the most highly accomplished of the year.

Showing us a world through a child's eyes, A Time for Drunken Horses speaks so truthfully and well that it breaks the heart and scars the conscience.

One of the best realistic dramas of the year.

(The film is) one of the most anguished, intense and weirdly brilliant of the year.

Wonderful spirit, humanity and humor.

A film that uses beautiful tableaux and convincingly raw actors to build to a climax of shatteringly understated poignancy and power.