With Before Night Falls, Schnabel has moved to an entirely new plane of cinematic achievement.

Temple's wonderfully entertaining film brings the era back in all its confused and tentatively revolutionary glory, and bracingly demonstrates that the Pistols still have the power to shock.

Well-crafted scenes that carry a bracingly grown-up tang: unhurried, played in a low key, with plenty of time to savor the details of character and place.

Wickedly funny, scathingly original new comedy.

Conveys not just a joy in music and The Beatles, but a joy in cinema.

Althea is a ferociously vibrant character, and Love goes all out to infuse her with a wildness seldom seen on screen. Love holds nothing back, and her energy and her heartache energize the movie.

You'll treasure this movie.

It's like a madly inventive hybrid of "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre."

Stoppard's luxuriant, richly comic language cascades and washes over you, and, for once, more than keeps pace with the sprightly pictures.

A lovely piece of work.

A movie with the power and quality of dreams, where reality merges into symbolism and oddly juxtaposed elements crystallize into a single, electrifying whole.

One of the most troubling views of the human race I've seen in years. Luckily for us, its depressing, almost pathologically ironic vision is redeemed by the sublimity of Solondz' filmmaking. I first saw the film at Cannes last May and it's haunted me, both for its nastiness and its brilliance, ever since.

Minghella shapes Ondaatje's sprawling story into something miraculously cohesive, and at the movie's center is one of the most compelling love stories in recent memory.

Keeps you engaged in this story of a memorable anti-hero for our times.

Achieves a kind of beauty through its overlaying enigmas, and Carrey.

Benigni, with great help from young Cantarini, has crafted a work of such complexity that you may find both your brain and your heart simply overloaded. Which, of course, is the rarely achieved goal of all art.

It's that very rare feeling that you're settling into a movie whose individual elements are so finely attuned they fuse into a singular construct of pure entertainment.

Quentin Tarantino's latest movie puts an epic spin on a favorite genre, taking it to time-tripping levels rarely tested by its forerunners.

For me, the experience was much like seeing Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" and George Lucas' "American Graffiti" before the hype machines kicked in.

Feels like the first truly honest attempt to deal with the horrors of combat - and the terrible responsibility shared by all survivors.

The other key part is Schindler's Jewish accountant, played with self-effacing brilliance by Ben Kingsley, who gives the movie just the touch of warmth and sanity it needs.

If we're allowed just a couple of truly singular discoveries in twelve months, it's a good year; when one of them is a film as exhilarating as Spike Jonze's feature debut, it's a banner year.

This is a waking dream of truly operatic dimensions.

Writer/director David Mamet, who's built a career in both theater and film by being a hyper-manly sort of writer, has crafted a film that is laugh out loud funny and dinner-conversation smart.

It always surprises, never bores. It's also just damn good, on every possible level -- so go see it. Now.

For all its occasional long-windedness and visual dazzle, Brazil may be the "Strangelove" of the 1980s.

One of the best films of the year. Queer in every sense of the word, it's poignant, laugh-out-loud funny and thoroughly provocative.

Van Sant and crew appear to have had a blast making this film, and I had a blast watching it. The subject matter is very dark and yet it is handled with a very light touch.

Lore is a rare, wonderful film that works not just as surface entertainment, but has deeper historical meaning, as well as an even grander, more universal statement.

There are many films that rail against the inherent injustices of any given power structure. Much rarer are the documentaries like The Gatekeepers which expose that the faithful stewards of a certain foreign policy no longer believe in said policy. This is an important film, showing the constant reaction and counter-reaction of each side.

That Nichols is able to orchestrate this entire journey with steady tension and lyrical imagery is a testament to his storytelling capabilities.

Before Midnight manages to be an emotionally astute and tremendously enjoyable conclusion to this rather improbable trilogy.

Zero Dark Thirty is precise, definitive filmmaking, yet Bigelow refuses to hand over easy answers. Some people call that evasion. I call it the ultimate despair.

The emotions the Shinoharas’ story inspire are all over the road. It is at times triumphant and warm, then sad and even enraging.

In a World… is pretty much a perfect movie, chock full of fun, endless laughter, realistic love and that all-important magical movie ingredient — originality.

It’s a character piece, and one of the best and most understated movies I’ve ever seen about the grieving process.

He’s taken what, on paper, boils down to an extra ridiculous episode of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” and passes it off as high cinematic art.

At 76 minutes, Caesar Must Die is more of an art piece than a thick steak of a feature film, but it maintains a fascinating hum from start to finish.

From a distance The Spectacular Now is mere soap opera, but it is one of those films that grows more fascinating upon inspection.

Some provocative filmmakers seem intent on irritating or turning off the audience. With Haneke, I get the feeling that once you understand what he’s up to, he’s glad to have you in on the joke. He certainly goes about executing it in a masterful way.

It proves that the screen is the place where a memory can be reborn.

Sure, the territory is not exactly fresh...but the chemistry between the two leads is so explosive yet assured, and the comic timing so perfect, that the cliches are given new life.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld captures Hollywood in sunny tones, with fluid camera moves providing maximum comic effect.

It's irresistible.

Leigh and his solid cast make sure that inside jokes translate to a broad audience, and that their rendering of the back-stage drama is smart, engrossing and often very funny.

Though issues of politics and philosophy are touched upon, this is a film about the people inside the uniforms -- a story of human beings under pressure, forced by circumstance to make choices both impulsive and, on occasion, heroic. It's also the new year's single most satisfying movie experience thus far.

An offbeat delight.

It's a masterpiece, a sublime tone poem that shows what cinema is capable of when it tries to do more than just tell a story.

Director Gary Winick ("Sweet Nothing") ingeniously complements Draper's layered approach by modulating the film's energy in fascinating ways.

An unassuming little film that packs a huge emotional and artistic punch.

It's a superb example of the genre of the self-expressive documentary.

An especially compassionate look at human frailty that also never loses sight of the inherent ridiculousness of "the human condition." Jesus' Son is one of this summer's best movies.

The film has smarts, but what really makes it fascinating is its huge heart...and the film soars because of that.

A gorgeous dreamscape of a movie...one of the most exhilarating experiences of pure cinema that will be offered this year.

One of the best films of this year...unlike anything you've seen on the big screen.

It makes us realize, suddenly, and with immense regret, what the rest of contemporary cinema so sorely lacks.

Sweet and hilarious, a classic crowd-pleaser which elevates rather than eviscerates the homespun eccentrics who make up its cast of characters.

It simultaneously wows you with the stark beauty of its images, a beauty that leads to another, related kind of truth that is equally crucial. It's not to be missed.

A delight to the eye, ear, and mind

More than a family saga, this is a family meditation.

Don't miss it.

A multi-layered, experimental film, a film about storytelling, but the beauty of it is that it transcends the story at its center while still celebrating the virtues of a tale well-told.

This is a beautiful, surprisingly uplifting movie, made by someone who actually understands people.

L.A. Confidential is at the same time his (Hanson) most personal movie and Hollywood filmmaking at its best.

Everything clicks here.

Entertaining as it often is, Outside Providence feels as if it were a collection of installments from an unusually raunchy television series.

Levinson is at the top of his game with Liberty Heights, his instincts acutely cinematic, his purpose clear.

An exquisite trio.

One of the best films seen in many years about the mysterious workings of time and memory.

Will test your powers of attention. The effort is worth every minute.

A rich and challenging variation on the serial-killer genre.

Audiences willing to wade knee deep in the muck and mire of the human abyss are advised to seek out Humanité at the local arthouse.

Kat's English assignment, which provides the movie's title, is a sweet finish to an entertaining movie -- and makes 10 Things I Hate About You quite likable.

It's as wise and funny and revealing as anything ever created by Mike Nichols and Elaine May.

An unleashed Raimi may be a more exciting moviemaker, but there's something to be said for the virtues of a good story well told, which describes A Simple Plan down to its last shivery snowflake.

What's best about the film is not the hot romance, but the coldness that lies at its heart.

Certainly one of his (Scorsese's) most profound works.

The fact that this film, so sensitive to woman's plight, was made by a man is perhaps cause for a little hope.

A strange and lovely combination of cinematic nostalgia and offbeat (gay) love story.

We marvel at the almost perfect realization of a character whom we're not necessarily meant to like.

A terrific piece of neo-realistic filmmaking.

Little Voice is that rarity, a filmed adaptation of a stage play that actually works.

Firmly establishes Crowe as a standard-bearer of original thinking in the dispiritingly redundant state of American cinema. Don't miss this one.

Eye-popping, exhilarating and occasionally a bit stomach-churning.

In his finest, funniest, most poignant film to date, Tim Burton plays cinematic alchemist, turning drive-in schlock into movie gold.

What makes the film so special is that while tickling your postmodern funnybone, it never forgets to make you care for its characters, in a welcome, and almost traditional way.

Not a film for everyone. And though I deeply admire it, it's not a film that even I want to see again in the immediate future.

Perhaps the most remarkable documentary project ever undertaken, and certainly the longest, is Michael Apted's Up series, which he began shooting for the BBC in 1962.

One of the best pictures I've seen all year. Funny, touching, even inspiring at times.

The titillating sense of out-of-controlness provoked by the camera is echoed in the film's narrative situations, and you simply, and deliciously, haven't a clue as to what he's going to throw at you next.

Irrespective of whether Pollock, as a movie, is any good -- and it is very, very good -- it's clear that Ed Harris was born to play the lead role.

The best thing about the new Exorcist is the spiffed-up soundtrack.

By creating characters from emotional wellsprings rather than concepts, Leigh thrills us with the possibilities that emerge when people are merely in the same room.

The lure of Sling Blade is both elemental and hauntingly familiar, and I would not be surprised if Thornton's breakthrough film is one day considered a classic in its own right.

All but guarantees that you'll want to see Chicken Run more than once.

Subtle, strange, off-putting, fascinating.

Could be called the "Red Badge of Courage" of World War II movies.

Doesn't have the purity, the sense of discovery, of the first Toy Story, but it's still an utter delight. Its images and gags keep replaying themselves in the mind well after the film is over.

Though a little long, the film takes us right inside both the creative impulse and the margins of American life. Its triumph is to show those two things as being deeply, wonderfully connected.

Harron's adaptation of Ellis's novel is brilliant, probably better than the book itself.

He (Anderson) simply doesn't allow for dull moments, and his gifts for irony and showmanship are clearly appreciated by a collection of actors who have rarely been better.

Their (Sarandon, Penn) performances and Robbins' drive to ask questions without offering easy answers make Dead Man Walking a thought-provoking drama not to be missed or dismissed.

Clear-eyed and open-hearted, The Straight Story (which is based on reality) tells a simple tale, and it does so with a rare, blessed simplicity.

Show Me Love has the pulse of teen life down-pat, shaming its many sleek and glossy American counterparts at every turn.

Funny and wise, lively and contemplative, intriguingly postmodern and powerfully moving, all at the same time. It's not to be missed.

Perhaps the primary reason A Room With a View is so involving is that Ivory has cast the film perfectly, and given each of the actors ample room to breathe. Even the characters you're not supposed to like are allowed their moments of vulnerable humanity.

Sure to become a classic; it taps into the fury of being a drone with a deeply knowing precision.

There's a shrewd satiric method to LaBute's madness, and a payoff in comedic gold.

One of the best films of the year, a polished, contained piece of provocation.

MTV, comic books and gangster flicks are all in Lola's cinematic family tree; it's a heady, breathless ride.

This is vintage Allen, his powers intact after a string of increasingly cranky, creaky films in the last few years.

Man, I just can't recommend this enough.

The extent to which Black and Louiso help make this film terribly witty and caustic and worth every minute of its almost two-hour running time is immeasurable.

An appalling masterpiece.

There's a sense of ease and contentment to it that has never been so prominent in Allen's work before.

A film of elegant small moments and complex, bittersweet motivations.

A dark film that raises more questions than it answers -- and it's meant to.

Furiously uncompromising, and therefore absolutely alive.

One of the things that makes Traffic so very good is the wry humor that's laced throughout the film. It's a funny movie.

What leaves you breathless, though, is the knockout acting by the cast.

Hilarious, slightly sick, and super-edgy ...the acting of its two principals, Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey, is so sublime that it's worth seeing on that grounds alone.

This is an ambitious movie that attempts too much rather than too little.

We've seen the clash of cultures and generations before,--- but never quite so humorously. This time, the focus is on the Pakistanis living in England, and it's quite amazingly done, perky and inventive to the core.

[Roos's] dialogue (including an on-and-off voiceover by Ricci's pregnant, runaway sociopath) has a ringing clarity, his satire is low-key but quite real, and his actors mesh so perfectly you'd swear they rehearsed for months before shooting.

Funny, expansive, and a delight to spend company with.

Fruitvale is outstanding, a telling portrait and testament to the life of one man and the complicated relationships to race and class that still exist within America today.

I spent the bulk of Paradise Love mimicking Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a disturbing film.

The film is so engaging because it's so damn funny.

Post Tenebras Lux works so well because – even at its most random – it always feels like more of a single portrait of a man in crisis than it does an impish bouquet of provocative incidents.

It is a shaggy dog road movie, and a drug-hazy one at that, but beneath the silliness and character-based gags, Crystal Fairy is, I feel, an unusually insightful look at self-imposed false identities and group dynamics.

[Brie Larson's] performance is something of a quiet revelation, and in turn, the same could be said of the film itself.

Dark Skies is about the fragility of family, a muted meditation on how precious it is...it does affirm that genre filmmakers who work with their eyes, their hearts and their brains still walk among us.

No is anything but a somber political tract; it’s a little bit of a thriller, and more than a little bit of a comedy.

This is a story told in shards; Wong is so obsessed with visual details – faces refracted as if in a broken mirror, or fragile arcs of blood being traced out on the pavement by the feet of two feuding kung fu masters – that the story he’s trying to tell is partly obscured by them.

The kids’ performances are effective and strong, with little touches that bring them to life as recognizable types of smart young people.

Levine – whose last picture was the intriguing, if only partly effective, cancer comedy “50/50” — is going for something more here, exploring what makes us human by contrasting it with a character who has lost all the basics and is desperate to get them back.

As willfully oblique as his first film was densely foreboding, a rumination on the perils and pleasures of interpersonal connection that would seem to refuse any easy connection with even the most curious of audiences.

Park allows this macabre coming-of-age tale to be defined by mood and style above all else.

LUV is partly a story about drugs, guns and street crime, the legacies we pass on to our children despite our efforts to do otherwise. But it’s also about the things we pass on to our children with love: How to tie a necktie, hold a steering wheel, shake another person’s hand. And it’s about the hope that those things will win out in the end.

If Broken City – the first film to be directed solo by Allen Hughes, one-half of the Hughes Brothers directing team – is a little flawed and cracked itself, it still squeaks by as a reasonably thoughtful piece of big-screen entertainment.

It does a marvelous job at giving us an impressionistic taste of horrific circumstances without using them to beat us into submission.

A Place at the Table is a fairly no-frills effort, but the ideas behind it are sound.

The point of this film is the spell it weaves and, by and large, it is successful. It’s the music, it’s the cinematography, it’s the score, it’s Casey Affleck’s hollow speaking voice — they all add up to something that resembles a fever dream facsimile of an eventful movie.

With a jaunty musical score by Alexandre Desplat and a pleasant visual style aided by Marco Onorato’s colorful cinematography, Garrone delivers a story that’s part fairy tale, part religious allegory and part scathing indictment.

A true New York City movie, alive every minute. There’s some Woody Allen in its veins, but it’s driven more by the free-for-all spirit you find in pictures like Peter Sollett’s 2002 “Raising Victor Vargas” and Spike Lee’s 1986 “She’s Gotta Have It.”

Downey, Jr. remains a rightfully cherished smartass figure, having as much a ball with Black’s one-liners as he had in “KKBB,” and he sells Tony’s newfound post-traumatic vulnerability more credibly than the film does.

Puts the Bond film series (this one makes number 19)-- back on track by stressing the fundamentals and applying a bit of authentic drama for a change.

All of it is vital and involving, and some of it is hilarious...I've rarely seen a group of people in a darkened theater react as viscerally as they do to Reservoir Dogs.

Don't let Croupier go by without a look.

The most faithful cinematic depiction of adolescence in recent memory.

A tiny slice of bleak, black near-perfection.

Lots of laughs, lots of fisticuffs, lots of cool toys, lots of stuff getting blown up: Who could ask for anything more from a summer movie?

Ferociously inventive.

It plays lots of cool mind games with the audience -- if in an occasionally incoherent way -- and ends up providing a surprising amount of fun.

Horror presented without restraint or apology, as a full-bore, blood-soaked load of nomad nastiness caught in constant forward motion.

Held together by strong writing, insightful direction, and a stunning turn by newcomer Rodriguez, who is not only a gorgeous young woman but a fiercely charismatic screen presence.

The most exuberantly funny and smartest teen movie this summer, which is something to cheer about.

Carrey is an actor possessed. He's brilliant.

A sleeper that's well worth hunting down. Its rewards sneak up on you, but then linger long afterwards.

Lets Jackie Chan have some fun, ride a horse and frolic in the American West. And when Jackie's having fun, at least some of it trickles down to us.

Has a charm that keeps you involved throughout.

It's adult and humane, genuinely sexy, laugh-out-loud funny.

It's a testimony to Tammy Faye's own integrity and enormous charisma that the film holds our attention as tightly as it does, and doesn't become an insufferable exercise in weak filmmaking.

The Taste of Others takes regular (but not ordinary) people and knocks them out of their usual zones of activity. The resulting collisions leave behind a very pleasing flavor.