Los Angeles Times' Scores

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For 6,444 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 60% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score:
Ponyo
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Half Baked
Critic Score 0
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,413 out of 6444
  2. Mixed: 2,270 out of 6444
  3. Negative: 761 out of 6444
6,444 movie reviews
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  1. An Education
    This is a performance, and a film, to cherish for this year and always.
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  2. The Damned United
    There's barely any on-field footage in The Damned United. What we get instead is fine acting and directing, splendid dialogue and a story too outrageous to be made up.
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  3. Trucker
    There are so many wonderfully unconventional things to like about this tiny independent film, Monaghan's earthy and uncompromising performance chief among them, its depth surprising you at every turn.
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  4. That Evening Sun
    It's hard to believe, but Hal Holbrook, one of the stage and screen's enduring talents, has never had the solo lead in a feature film. That has been duly rectified with the actor's achingly memorable star performance in the superb That Evening Sun.
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  5. Red Riding Trilogy
    The powerfully disturbing Red Riding trilogy will haunt you waking and sleeping, night and day. If you survive the watching of it, that is, which is no easy thing.
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  6. The Ghost Writer
    The Ghost Writer is the kind of impeccable adult entertainment, able to alternate edge-of-your-seat episodes with bleakly comic moments, that Hitchcock used to specialize in and that Polanski himself realized so successfully in "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby."
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  7. A Prophet
    To borrow a marketing phrase from another, very different film, A Prophet really is the movie that reminds you why you love the movies. Especially movies like this one.
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  8. Exit Through the Gift Shop
    Subversive, provocative and unexpected, Exit Through the Gift Shop delights in taking you by surprise, starting quietly but ending up in a hall of mirrors as unsettling as anything Lewis Carroll's Alice ever experienced.
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  9. Inception
    A tremendously exciting science-fiction thriller that's as disturbing as it sounds. This is a popular entertainment with a knockout punch so intense and unnerving it'll have you worrying if it's safe to close your eyes at night.
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  10. Mademoiselle Chambon
    People fall in love in every country, but nowhere is the experience put on film with the flawless style, empathy and emotion the French provide. Mademoiselle Chambon is the latest in that line of deeply moving romances, an exquisite chamber piece made with the kind of sensitivity and nuance that's become almost a lost art.
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  11. The Kids Are All Right
    Witty, urbane and thoroughly entertaining.
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  12. Animal Kingdom
    Faultlessly acted by top Australian talent, including Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom marries heightened emotionality with cool contemporary style.
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  13. Lebanon
    Lebanon is not just the name of an excellent new Israeli film, it signifies a continuing national obsession that shows no signs of going away.
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  14. The Social Network
    Smartly written by Aaron Sorkin, directed to within an inch of its life by David Fincher and anchored by a perfectly pitched performance by Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network is a barn-burner of a tale that unfolds at a splendid clip.
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  15. Carlos
    Hypnotic and sprawling five-hour-plus piece of cinematic genius.
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  16. Of Gods and Men
    A thrilling adventure of the spirit. Austere yet provocative, this is not only a film about faith, it also has faith that the power generated by complex moral decisions can be as unstoppable as any runaway locomotive.
  17. Rango
    Verbinski's greatest triumph is that he allowed the animation to free rather that confine him. There is indeed a new sheriff in town, with Rango destined to become a classic.
  18. The Four Times (Le Quattro Volte)
    In only his second feature, Frammartino has found a fresh and ravishingly poetic and beautiful way to explore the relationship between the spirit, man and nature.
  19. The Princess of Montpensier
    Epic and intimate, historical and contemporary, moving and thought-provoking, the impressive The Princess of Montpensier has something for all and sundry but especially for those who like to believe that films can be as boldly intelligent as they are entertaining.
  20. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
    It's a privilege and a pleasure to be present in a sacred space where the human and the mystical effortlessly intertwine, and we are in Werner Herzog's debt for that great gift.
  21. 13 Assassins
    Few filmmakers juxtapose cruelty and beauty as audaciously as Japan's Takashi Miike. A master director with great style and panache, Miike's latest, 13 Assassins, is a classic samurai movie, right up there among the finest in the genre.
  22. Poetry
    Daring in the ways only quiet, unhurried but finally haunting films have the courage to be. A character study of remarkable subtlety joined to a carefully worked-out plot that fearlessly explores big issues like beauty, truth and mortality, it marks the further emergence of Korean writer-director Lee Chang-dong.
  23. Road to Nowhere
    In its masterful use of evocative imagery and music, Road to Nowhere is flawless.
  24. Rejoice and Shout
    Rejoice provides both a melodic education and a once-in-a-lifetime concert in one soul-stirring package.
  25. We Were Here
    An extraordinarily moving examination of how the AIDS epidemic both devastated and transformed San Francisco's gay community, this clear-eyed and soulful documentary brings us inside the contagion in a way that is so intimate, so personal, you feel like you're hearing about these catastrophic events for the first time.
  26. Silent Souls
    Silent Souls is a marvel. Fedorchenko's expressive powers and his visual prowess are astonishing, and though the film's conclusion is abrupt and confounding, it feels right.
  27. RA. One
    Anubhav Sinha's exhilarating fantasy Ra.One is Bollywood at its best. It has energy, spectacle and humor, song and dance, but razzle-dazzle special effects and action stunts never overwhelm its story of enduring love that unfolds amid an intricate and inspired sci-fi odyssey.
  28. Melancholia
    Firmly rooted in the filmmaker's esoteric, frustrating, provoking, demanding narrative style, the movie is also amazingly romantic - lush, ripe, rich, delicious.
  29. City of Life and Death
    Harrowing and unflinching, a savage nightmare so consuming and claustrophobic you will want to leave but fear to go, City of Life and Death is a cinematic experience unlike any you've had before. It's a film strong enough to change your life, if you can bear to watch it at all.
  30. We Need to Talk About Kevin
    It's a domestic horror story that literally gets to us where we live, a disturbing tale told with uncompromising emotionality and great skill by filmmaker Lynne Ramsay.
  31. A Separation
    A Separation is totally foreign and achingly familiar. It's a thrilling domestic drama that offers acute insights into human motivations and behavior as well as a compelling look at what goes on behind a particular curtain that almost never gets raised.
  32. The Secret World of Arrietty
    Set in an enchanting locale where the potential for magic is everywhere, this impeccable animated film puts its complete trust in the spirit of make-believe.
  33. The Deep Blue Sea
    Exceptionally well-made and completely fearless in its depiction of the widest range of romantic emotions, this is a film as fiercely committed to passion as its heroine, and that's saying a lot.
    • Metascore: 87
    • Critic Score 100
    Elena
    The script, by Oleg Negin and Zvyagintsev, uses spare dialogue to quietly devastating effect. Performances are superb across the board, framed in elegant widescreen compositions that simmer with violence.
  35. Oslo, August 31st
    Oslo is an example of strong, confident filmmaking in which nothing is miscalculated or out of place. Anchored by a devastating performance by Anders Danielsen Lie, this portrait of existential despair is beautifully made without being self-conscious about its art.
  36. Beasts of the Southern Wild
    Director Benh Zeitlin and his co-writer Lucy Alibar, a playwright whose "Juicy and Delicious" was the inspiration, have created characters that are wondrously indelible, distinctive of voice and set them inside a story that will unleash a devastating hurricane, and a flood of emotions, before it is done.
  37. The Dark Knight Rises
    Potent, persuasive and hypnotic, The Dark Knight Rises has us at its mercy. A disturbing experience we live through as much as a film we watch, this dazzling conclusion to director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard.
  38. The Master
    The Master takes some getting used to. This is a superbly crafted film that's at times intentionally opaque, as if its creator didn't want us to see all the way into its heart of darkness.
  39. Silver Linings Playbook
    Silver Linings Playbook is rich in life's complications. It will make you laugh, but don't expect it to fit in any snug genre pigeonhole. Dramatic, emotional, even heartbreaking, as well as wickedly funny, it has the gift of going its own way, a complete success from a singular talent.
  40. Life of Pi
    There are always moral crosscurrents in Lee's most provocative work, but so magical and mystical is this parable, it's as if the filmmaker has found the philosopher's stone.
  41. The Gatekeepers
    A documentary potent enough to alter how you see the world.
  42. Rust and Bone
    Romantic but pitiless, fearlessly emotional as well as edgy, Rust and Bone is a powerhouse.
  43. The Law in These Parts
    Directed by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz and winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, this is the second superb Israeli documentary (after "The Gatekeepers") to come to town in less than a month and deal fearlessly with an aspect of that country's legal and political system.
  44. Amour
    A perfect storm of a motion picture, with an icy, immaculate director unexpectedly taking on deeply emotional subject matter.
  45. Zero Dark Thirty
    One reason Boal makes such a potent combination with Bigelow is that her directing style moves us right along. She is so good with both action and creating a convincing look and feel for the film that the time it takes to get up to speed with the complicated plot does not feel like a problem.
  46. Barbara
    It's one terrific film, as smart, thoughtful and emotionally involving as just about anything that's out there.
  47. Django Unchained
    In "Django," Tarantino is a man unchained, creating his most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet.
  48. The Evil Dead
    Unquestionalby it's an instant classic, probably the grisliest well-made movie ever. [26 May 1983]
    Posted Feb 8, 2013
  49. The Silence
    The Silence is an exemplary German-language thriller, a complex and disturbing examination of guilt, violence and psychological torment that chills us to the core not once but two times over.
  50. From Up on Poppy Hill
    From Up on Poppy Hill is frankly stunning, as beautiful a hand-drawn animated feature as you are likely to see. It's a time-machine dream of a not-so-distant past, a sweet and honestly sentimental story that also represents a collaboration between the greatest of Japanese animators and his up-and-coming son.
  51. Neighboring Sounds
    [Filho's] mastery of pacing, theme and stylistic eccentricity throughout Neighboring Sounds is so assured as to be breathtaking. Don't miss it.
  52. Upstream Color
    Part science fiction scare movie, part offbeat romance, part completely unclassifiable, "Color" is also one-man filmmaking of a remarkable sort.
  53. Le Petit Soldat (re-release)
    Beyond the timelessness of the story itself, the film is beautifully shot and though early in Godard’s career already showcased his ability to capture emotional intensity in the very way he frames the shots.
  54. Mud
    One of the most creatively rich and emotionally rewarding movies to come along this year.
  55. Stories We Tell
    An invigorating powerhouse of a personal documentary, adventurous and absolutely fascinating.
  56. Frances Ha
    Effortless and effervescent, Frances Ha is a small miracle of a movie, honest and funny with an aim that's true.
  57. Say Anything...
    A film of warmth, insight, humor and surprising originality… [It] isn't perfect, but when it's good, which is every moment John Cusack is on screen, it's a living joy. And when it's not-so-good--earthbound and not inventive enough--it s till almost single-handedly redeems the breed. [14 April 1989]
  58. Rain
    Moves way past the predictable into the shocking. Indeed, the film is so expertly structured and paced that its denouement knocks you off your feet.
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  59. Winter Sleepers
    Offers a riveting depiction of the classic collision of fate and character, with geography in this instance playing a crucial role.
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  60. Goyangileul butaghae
    There is a wonderful natural quality to Jeong's storytelling that is enhanced by cinematographer Young-hwan Choi's graceful camerawork and by a dynamic, contemporary score from M&F.
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  61. 24 Hour Party People
    Amazing, rich in authentic period atmosphere and detail, an ever-changing cyclorama of a movie.
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  62. Our Song
    This modest film has virtues that come out of nowhere. It takes familiar material and develops it with such tact and skill that we find ourselves moved and sort of amazed at the same time.
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  63. The Last Days of Disco
    Disco's exceptional acting ensemble is especially successful at capturing the brittle rituals of this specific group of genteel, well-spoken young people on the cusp of adulthood.
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  64. The Big Kahuna
    A drama of extraordinary power and insight with dazzling performances from not only Spacey but also Danny DeVito (who may well be at his best ever) and from newcomer Peter Facinelli.
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  65. Undisputed
    A compelling entertainment because of Hill and co-writer David Giler's adroit cinematic storytelling skills and the powerful presence of Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames, whose talent and intelligence are as impressive as their physiques.
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  66. The Minus Man
    Eerie, quietly compelling... a fresh and mesmerizing experience...such an unsettling experience you find yourself still taking it all in well after the lights have gone up.
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  67. Intimacy
    A triumph for all concerned, it is especially so for the multitalented Chereau.
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  68. Notorious C.H.O.
    Cho's weapons are a wildly imaginative sense of humor and the courage to be absolutely uninhibited.
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  69. Arlington Road
    Arlington Road belongs to that splendid Hollywood tradition of dealing with serious, timely issues in the form of a suspense thriller.
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  70. Erin Brockovich
    Irresistible, hugely satisfying feminist fairy tale.
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  71. Kissing Jessica Stein
    For an American film it is a groundbreaker in exploring the realm of sexual fluidity, and it does so with wit, wisdom and in a completely entertaining fashion.
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  72. Enigma
    It is such a grand, romantic entertainment that it sweeps the viewer along in its swiftly escalating suspense.
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  73. Beautiful People
    Lives up to its ambitiousness in all its aspects.
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  74. Monster's Ball
    Hank is but the latest of Thornton's strikingly taciturn characters in a whole string of movies, but for Berry, Leticia represents a big-screen breakthrough.
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  75. 7 Days in September
    If ever there was a prime example of art bringing order out of chaos, it is Steven Rosenbaum's 7 Days in September. -- The result is a narrative at once personal, admirably coherent and, above all, heartening.
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  76. The Wood
    An across-the-board delight featuring a spot-on ensemble cast that treats the most awkward and embarrassing moments in the rites of passage with affectionate hilarity.
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  77. Lovely & Amazing
    Like the best of personal, independent cinema -- it is both marvelously observed and completely individual. There is no film like this film, and that is something you don't hear every day.
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  78. Shanghai Noon
    Jackie Chan's best American picture to date, breathes fresh life into the virtually dormant comedy-western.
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  79. Teaching Mrs. Tingle
    In his knockout directorial debut writer Kevin Williamson taps into such universal memories with his shrewd and energetic dark comedy.
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  80. Iris
    Intelligent, poignant film.
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  81. Scratch
    Highly entertaining and encouraging documentary.
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  82. Cleopatra's Second Husband
    A diabolically clever psychological suspense movie.
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  83. The War of the Roses
    Biting and vicious, a styptic pencil on the battered face of "civilized divorce." It's also thoughtful, laceratingly funny, and bravely true to its own black-and-blue comic vision. [8 Dec 1989]
  84. Lantana
    A remarkably thoughtful drama, Lantana makes it clear not only how hard to come by any emotional comfort is in this life, but more important, why we can't give up on the struggle.
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  85. Glamour
    An elegant, poetic fable of endurance.
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  86. In the Mood for Love
    The result is a kind of ultimate romantic film, joining an almost Jamesian sadness and discipline to that extraordinary visual sensibility. It's not the kind of thing you see every day.
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  87. The Taste of Others
    All of this romantic back and forth unfolds gradually and in charming ensemble style. As the characters think about seducing each other, as they inevitably complicate their lives without being able to help themselves, the film is simultaneously seducing us.
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  88. Last Resort
    This is the best class of poetic realism, the kind you can believe in without a trace of hesitation.
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  89. The Faculty
    A smart, lively and unpretentious exploitation picture...Consistently funny and clever.
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  90. Working Girl
    Working Girl is the sparkling success that it is because of the sheer irresistibility of Melanie Griffith. [21 Dec 1988, Calendar, p.6-1]
  91. Elling
    A witty and sophisticated sensibility brings individuality to the classic odd-couple comedy.
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  92. Waking the Dead
    It is a film of uncommon intelligence and rigor that illuminates a complex era, and the romance at its center is also one of exceptional passion and honesty.
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  93. The Last September
    A luminous, piercing film from the Elizabeth Bowen novel, richly evokes a world of privilege on the verge of disintegration.
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  94. Onegin
    A pleasure in all ways.
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  95. Jesus' Son
    In a sea of one-note symphonies, this touching feature is bleak and comic, heartbreaking and affirmative, romantic and tragic, gimlet-eyed and sympathetic, all at the same time.
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  96. Harry Is Here to Help
    Moll, in only his second feature, evokes a sense of foreboding, playing the routine against the unnerving, the humorous against the sinister, with a wit and deftness that might have impressed Hitchcock.
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  97. Theeviravaathi: The Terrorist
    A wonder several times over.
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  98. Vénus beauté (institut)
    There is a sophistication about affairs of the heart, about the wisdom and the risks of romantic involvement that is more than quintessentially French. It's irresistible as well.
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  99. La nouvelle Ève
    A beautiful film that flows with a luminous ease and assurance.
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  100. The Opportunists
    A small gem.
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  101. Place Vendôme
    This complex, sophisticated and increasingly suspenseful tale of love and betrayal, intrigue and redemption, is as elegant as its star and its settings.
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  102. Marcel Proust's Time Regained
    A mesmerizing, shimmering and amazingly successful adaptation of Time Regained.
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  103. Santitos
    Has the same kind of humor, charm and sensuality that made "Like Water for Chocolate" the most popular foreign-language film until "Life Is Beautiful" came along.
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  104. What's Cooking?
    For so brisk and entertaining a film, sharp in its observations but light in its touch, Cooking has unexpected substance and is a formidable accomplishment in that it brings dimension to its nearly 40 principal characters.
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  105. Cotton Mary
    Not only is it Merchant's best directorial effort to date but also is among the finest films the Merchant Ivory company has ever made.
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  106. Made
    Favreau, who wrote "Swingers," has now directed and written the hilarious Made, which re-teams him with Vaughn. The two play off each other so well that they recall fond memories of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
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  107. Malèna
    Malena the film is as beautiful and seductive as its heroine, with its ravishing Lajos Koltai cinematography and sweepingly romantic Ennio Morricone score.
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  108. Trolösa
    Complex, challenging and richly rewarding, it glows with the kind of wrenchingly selfless portrayals that are the hallmark of the Bergman classics.
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  109. Happy, Texas
    A hoot, a hilarious comedy that's smart and caring, yet sexy and ingenious enough that it just might stir up some of that elusive "Full Monty"-style box-office appeal.
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  110. Yi yi: A One and a Two...
    Wonderfully humanistic film. Yi Yi investigates the entire melody of life.
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  111. Kippur
    A classic war film, at once elegiac and immediate, that takes you smack into the chaos of combat yet is marked by a detached perspective.
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  112. Chunhyangdyun
    Im Kwon Taek's exquisite Chunhyang brings to the screen one of Korea's most cherished folk tales, a timeless romance in which the lovers are challenged by differences in class.
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  113. Buena Vista Social Club
    Being able to hear this kind of playing is a special moment in time, one we don't want to end and one that we're privileged to experience.
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  114. Can't Hardly Wait
    For all its nonstop energy and high spirits, Can't Hardly Wait allows its characters to emerge as fully dimensional individuals; they've been written with care and perception and played with equal aplomb by a roster of talented young actors.
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  115. Down from the Mountain
    For fans of this kind of roots music, it was an event you would have given anything to attend. Down From the Mountain lets you do that and gives you terrific seats in the bargain.
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  116. How to Draw a Bunny
    A seamless model of form and content. (My only quibble is the poor quality of the digital video, which doesn't do justice to Johnson's work.)
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  117. Burnt Money
    It is a bravura work that attests to Pineyro's command of a style rich in texture and nuance and also of multilayered material.
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  118. The Golden Bowl
    Yet another Merchant Ivory triumph.
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  119. I'm the One That I Want
    Identifying herself with other minorities (whose members she mimics outrageously), Cho shatters racial and sexual stereotypes with merciless wit.
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  120. Outside Providence
    Corrente's gift for evoking the lives of blue-collar men that made his debut film, "Federal Hill," so appealing blends perfectly with the antic sensibility of the Farrellys.
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  121. Bay of Angels
    Because Bay of Angels reveals rather than moralizes, because its concerns are character and psychology, it's a potent showcase for Moreau's gifts.
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    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 90
    Better Living Through Circuitry
    Circuitry plugs into the underground world of raves. The scene, complete with drugs and its own culture, is blissfully examined in a documentary that speaks the language of its youthful generation.
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  123. Liberty Heights
    A mature, accomplished piece of work, both funny and deeply felt, personal cinema of the best kind...Levinson has made the memory film we always hoped he would.
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  124. Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys
    Haneke illuminates beautifully the lives of his people with an eye for the revealing nuance and detail.
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  125. The House of Mirth
    Above all else expresses the timeless impact of Lily Bart's plight.
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  126. La grande strada azzurra
    Besides Montand's splendid performance, The Wide Blue Road's other treat is seeing a film that's both old-fashioned enough to believe that social concerns can lead to satisfying drama and well-made enough to deliver on that belief. A film infused with that kind of passion never goes out of style.
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  127. Maelstrom
    A splendid instance of a surrealist vision that serves to heighten the impact of genuine emotions experienced by believably real people.
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  128. The Monkey's Mask
    In directing The Monkey's Mask from Annie Kennedy's adaptation of Dorothy Porter's novel-in-poetry, Samantha Lang displays considerable style and assurance, with Porter and McGillis giving beautifully nuanced portrayals.
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    • Metascore: 79
    • Critic Score 90
    Praise
    A lovely piece of movie making: precisely controlled but with a lived-in scruffiness.
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  130. The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack
    A warm and feisty documentary that is as much inquiry as it is tribute.
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  131. The Devil's Backbone
    With the ambitious and ominous The Devil's Backbone, Del Toro rises to a new level of accomplishment, adding history and politics to his distinctive blend.
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  132. Così ridevano
    The sweeping, confounding conclusion therefore unfolds with a beauty and an ease that seem truly organic. The Way We Laughed has that feeling of being a work of art.
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  133. Swiri
    In recent years, South Korean cinema has fully flowered, producing both uncompromising highly personal films and crisp, intelligent genre movies, with Shiri the most spectacular example of the latter to date.
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  134. The End of the Affair
    Has everything a period romance should have, including a score by Michael Nyman and passionate performances by stars Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.
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  135. The Day I Became a Woman
    Breathtaking reverie worthy of Fellini.
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  136. Juliet of the Spirits (re-release)
    Remains a timeless, major work of a master.
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  137. Signs & Wonders
    Abounds in psychological suspense and plays like a mystery film, even though the mystery at hand may be purely one of the human heart.
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  138. The Swamp
    Martel's sharp observations of the foibles of human nature are expressed perfectly in the telling images of cinematographer Hugo Colace and tight editing of Santiago Ricci.
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  139. The Luzhin Defence
    Carefully made, involving and old-fashioned, the superior work it's inspired gives it an impact that lingers even when the endgame is over.
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  140. Our Lady of the Assassins
    As the film, with its haunting score and inspired use of popular music, builds flawlessly to its resounding conclusion, it is accompanied by a pitch-dark humor that grows out of the sheer absurdity of the city's daily body count.
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  141. A Matter of Taste
    An elegant study of devious mind games and emotional perversion, it makes the strangest of psychological dynamics plausible and involving.
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  142. Speaking in Strings
    An extraordinarily intimate, deeply affecting and revelatory documentary on how pain and passion can come together in a creative artist.
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  143. Kikujirô no natsu
    A heart-tugger made totally irresistible because of the combination of Kitano's wry, sly sense of humor and his rigorous detachment.
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  144. Lucie Aubrac
    Lucie Aubrac has it all: a tender romance, acute suspense, terrific acting, and a camera style and and score that are beautiful yet understated...a major work, possessing breadth, depth and passion.
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  145. A Map of the World
    An accomplished film that continually takes us beyond our first impressions of people and situations.
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  146. Humanité
    A film of stunning impact.
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  147. La Ciudad (The City)
    A most-affecting experience, an impressive accomplishment in all its aspects.
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  148. Divided We Fall
    Not only is the film that good, it's also that wonderfully, inescapably Czech.
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  149. Autumn Tale
    Droll and delicious.
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  150. Primary Colors
    Such a smart and savvy piece of work it encourages us to feel we're eavesdropping on history.
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  151. Ulee's Gold
    Ulee's Gold stands out for its sureness, its quiet emotional force and writer-director Victor Nunez's ability to find and nurture the mystery and power in the events of an ordinary life.
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  152. Joy Ride
    Terrific escapist fare, stylish, outrageous and compelling.
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  153. Wonder Boys
    A handsomely mounted, graceful production that is well-played across the board.
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  154. Alias Betty
    A confidently adroit thriller that captures a comprehensive sense of life in an edgy, multicultural and economically diverse Paris. The large cast couldn't be better, but the film belongs to Kiberlain.
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    • Metascore: 57
    • Critic Score 90
    The Red Violin
    While it's possible to view this movie like a short-story collection, putting check marks beside the selections one likes best, to do so would deny the pleasure of experiencing this beautifully crafted, intricately designed story the way it was intended, as an organic whole. [11 June 1999, Calendar, p.F-8]
  156. eXistenZ
    The Cronenberg trademarks are here in full force, including an outrageous sexual suggestiveness in his bizarre special effects.
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  157. A Walk on the Moon
    A film of exceptional emotional honesty.
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  158. How I Killed My Father
    Truly, there can be nothing as complex as the simplest human relationships, and nothing as satisfying as a film that understands that as this one does.
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  159. The Circle
    Restrained yet powerful, devastating in its emotional effects.
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  160. Affliction
    Rarely have a novelist and filmmaker been better matched.
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  161. Alice et Martin
    Boldly structured, intensely focused and briskly paced, Alice and Martin has a tremendous emotional density that places the utmost demands upon its actors--and asks a lot of audiences, too.
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  162. The Original Kings of Comedy
    A dynamite concert film.
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  163. Ça commence aujourd'hui
    Although there is real pain and suffering in It All Starts Today, it is too impassioned, too brisk and too embracing of life and human foibles to be depressing.
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  164. Last Orders
    Gathering its forces slowly, this careful, thoughtful film, quietly but deeply moving, is dramatic without seeming to be.
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  165. The Ignorant Fairies
    This graceful and wise film moves to its denouement with subtlety and, at its end, strikes a note that seems just right for all that has gone before.
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  166. Grosse Pointe Blank
    A wild at heart, anarchic comedy that believes in living dangerously.
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  167. Jerry Maguire
    A wholly unexpected film, as heady and surprising in its humor as in its emotional texture.
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  168. The Brothers McMullen
    While other films struggle for their effects, Brothers simply lives and breathes, thoroughly likable from beginning to end.
    Read full review
    • Metascore: 67
    • Critic Score 90
    Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
    It's a nearly pitch-perfect melding of genres, influences and modes of expression--it's the first Mafia movie for the hip-hop age.
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  170. Taboo
    It takes a director with exceptional talent, skill and experience to explore ambiguity in all aspects of human nature and behavior, and Oshima has created a film of resilient, downright tensile strength that ends on a satisfyingly ironic note.
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  171. The Town Is Quiet
    Intimate and human yet deeply ambitious, a powerhouse of a film made with a disturbing vision.
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  172. 42: Forty Two Up
    Time is truly on Apted's side because the passing of time not surprisingly brings a richer, deeper perspective with each new segment.
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  173. Spring Forward
    Spring Forward is so fully realized and so moving that you wish you could get away with merely saying: "Go see it for yourself."
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  174. Dead Again
    Branagh has mastered the tricky high-wire act of simultaneously kidding the conventions he is being absolutely faithful to, allowing us to squeal with both fright and knowing laughter. His is a film lover's film [23 Aug 1991, Calendar, p.F1]
  175. Eureka
    To watch this film, in short, can be a transforming experience.
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  176. The Sweet Hereafter
    Egoyan understands how potent a deliberate pace can be, how effective it is in making already powerful material strong enough to tear at your heart.
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  177. Amores Perros
    It's a film of high energy, punctuated by rock music and a dark wit, yet it is capable of profound reflection and tragic irony.
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  178. Behind the Sun
    Carvalho's superb cinematography, Antonio Pinto's score and a dedicated cast and crew admirably sustain this poetic and uncompromising film.
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  179. Clerks.
    Though the politically incorrect language is tough enough to have earned Clerks an initial NC-17 rating (re-rated R on appeal), its exuberance gives it an alive and kicking feeling that is welcome and rare. [19 Oct 1994]
  180. Chelsea Walls
    Ethan Hawke, in his feature directorial debut, has brought Nicolette Burdette's play to the screen with fluid grace and a perfect blend of dreaminess and grit, expressed in camerawork that seems to float and in Jeff Tweedy's shimmering, gently insistent score.
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  181. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    The look and feel of the film is entirely beguiling. It is deliberately not a period piece, heavy with dated styles and fads, but instead evokes a sense of timelessness.
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  182. Tarzan
    We may have seen it all before, but when it's done up like this, experiencing it all over again is a pleasure. [16 June 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]
  183. Time Out
    Not just an especially subtle and thoughtful psychological drama, it's a provocative, even an unnerving one as well.
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  184. Il Postino: The Postman
    Made under unique and wrenching circumstances, it gained poignancy and a kind of purity from its troubles, and an already affecting film ended up suffused with emotion.
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  185. The Cherry Orchard
    An exquisite performance by Charlotte Rampling, whose work as Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya, the matriarch of the great estate the cherry orchard sits on, is the film's dazzling centerpiece.
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  186. The Magdalene Sisters
    Graced with performers who bring a purity of emotion to their work, the film is always dramatically convincing. There is a fundamental air of truth about it, a sense that, horrific though things seem, this is how it must have been.
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  187. And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen...
    The perfect summer tonic for mature audiences looking for sophisticated escape. It's filled with beautiful people in gorgeous, exotic locales.
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  188. The Secret Lives of Dentists
    A stylish work from an accomplished, sophisticated filmmaker that bristles with intelligence and gleams with Scott's and Davis' multifaceted, astutely judged portrayals.
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  189. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary
    It's sexy, brainy and slightly nuts.
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  190. The Piano
    It takes exceptional acting to enable a story like this to take hold, and Campion has gotten it here. [19 Nov 1993]
  191. At the Height of Summer
    A wholly enveloping experience. Gentle, ravishingly beautiful and awash in everyday sensuality, it so intoxicates you with the elegance and refinement of its filmmaking that even noticing, let alone caring, whether it has a plot starts to seem beside the point.
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  192. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
    An excellent example of its genre, with Pennebaker capturing the excitement of what was a very special, emotion-charged occasion.
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  193. Je rentre à la maison
    By far the most approachable of the director's recent films, with an emotional depth that's true to life and a streamlined narrative that for long stretches barely contains a word.
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  194. Lawless Heart
    Charming, disarming and in some ways humbling film.
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  195. Raising Victor Vargas
    His film may be something of a beautiful lie, but what's true about Sollett's characters is that their dreams, their grace and their struggles are as real as it gets.
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  196. Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator
    It's a classic rags-to-riches-to-rage tale about the fatal nexus of celebrity and market forces, a story that is unexpectedly poignant even though it's told to an insistent punk rock beat.
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  197. Cet amour-là
    A crisp, elegantly resonant film.
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  198. Lumumba
    Lumumba is potent stuff. Complex, powerful, intensely dramatic.
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  199. The Piano Player
    The Piano Teacher will surely be too strong for some audiences and is best left to those who like films that take big risks and get away with them.
    Read full review
  200. Evil Dead II
    Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn never lets up, continually introducing new characters and adding new thrills and chills right up to the last frame… A terrific trip, although admittedly not one that everybody would enjoy taking. [13 Mar 1987, Calendar, p.6-14]
  201. Lost in La Mancha
    Records an accident while it's happening, revealing a situation that makes you laugh again and again while weeping, metaphorically at least, for the sheer frustration of it all.
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  202. Bull Durham
    It's just that when a movie is this close, with so much of the sports flavor (co-producer Thom Mount is co-owner of the real Durham Bulls), you like to see it perfect. [15 June 1988]
  203. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
    A provocative political thriller that is as troubling today as when it came out in 1970. Maybe more so.
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  204. Tuck Everlasting
    A sweeping romantic fable about love and mortality, targets an audience of girls in their early teens, but has been made with such skill and sensitivity that its appeal spans generations.
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  205. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
    Demands the utmost concentration, for to look away from the screen for even a brief moment is to risk losing a plot line or a crucial bit of information, but its cumulative, transporting impact makes it worth the effort. Above all, it has an overwhelming sense of reality atypical of the American cinema.
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  206. Femme Fatale
    Here, the message is the moviemaking and the unparalleled joy you get from a film that can carry you off so completely, making you forget about everything save for the beautiful lies in front of you.
    Read full review
  207. Merci pour le chocolat
    Once again Chabrol's son Mathieu has composed a crucially evocative score, and Renato Berta's cinematography is gleaming. Merci Pour le Chocolat crackles with wit and elegance, humor and pathos.
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  208. Vatel
    Boldly distinctive in its depiction of individuals caught up in a veritable infernal machine designed solely to give pleasure to a monarch, Vatel is a timeless tale of love and sacrifice in a world as opulent as it is cruel.
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  209. Cuban Rafters
    The creators of the magnificent Balseros stayed involved with its subject, a group of Cuban boat people who made it to the United States, for a full seven years. If you put in that kind of time, you witness life happening in front of you in all its compelling, confounding drama. What could be better than that?
    Read full review
  210. The Pianist
    Never before has a fiction film so clearly and to such devastating effect laid out the calculation of the Nazi machinery of death and its irrationality.
    Read full review
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