Del Toro never coddles the audience. He means us to leave Pan's Labyrinth shaken to our souls. He succeeds.

You just don't expect Hollywood to produce a masterwork so early in the new year. And it hasn't. This slice of celluloid dynamite comes from Romania, and what you see will floor you.

What makes Ratatouille such a hilarious and heartfelt wonder is the way Bird contrives to let it sneak up on you.

Keep your eyes on Garfield - he's shatteringly good, the soul of a film that might otherwise be without one. The Social Network is the movie of the year. But Fincher and Sorkin triumph by taking it further. Lacing their scathing wit with an aching sadness, they define the dark irony of the past decade.

You wanna feel all right? This is the holiday movie that will do it.

Hang on tight. The knockout punch of the movie season is being delivered by Zero Dark Thirty.

A Separation is a landmark film. No way will you be able to get it out of your head.

Miyazaki is the Pied Piper -- see Spirited Away and you'll follow him anywhere.

When E.T. debuts on DVD, you can choose between the new version, which better matches E.T.'s words to his lips, and the sweetly clunky, digitally deprived version redolent of penis breath. I don't need to phone home to know which one I'm buying.

The new King Kong of crime movies...Ferocious fun without a trace of caution, complacency or political correctness to inhibit its 154 deliciously lurid minutes.

Here's the Iraq War movie for those who don't like Iraq War movies.

You leave WALL-E with a feeling of the rarest kind: that you've just enjoyed a close encounter with an enduring classic.

Pure movie bliss.

This is a film in which ideas resonate as well as action. Gandalf’s words to Pippin about death have a muscular poetry.

The movie crawls hypnotically into the skin of this global assassin and astonishes you with its brazenly violent and sexual audacity.

These two glam stars of French cinema – Riva in 1959's "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and Trintignant in 1966's "A Man and a Woman" – give performances of breathtaking power and beauty. Prepare for an emotional wipeout.

What makes it such a mesmerizing, wickedly witty entertainment is the revealing portrait it paints of an era in which everyone is presumed guilty where greed is concerned... It's an often chilly movie, but the chill cuts to the bone.

Ang Lee, a world-class director working at the top of his elegant form, has done something thrilling. For all the leaping action, it's the film's spirit that soars.

Schindler's List, despite blatant compromises, is a rending historical document. But the film's near-certain victory is based less on merit than on the marketing of its ambitious intentions. The academy doesn't judge movies, it weighs them by subject matter. On that basis, Spielberg's epic tips the scales.

The result, with its flashing perspectives and stealthy wit, is unique and unforgettable.

A marvel of delicacy and humor.

The movie will wipe you out. Schnabel's previous two films (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) also focused on artists. But this is his best film yet, a high-wire act of visual daring and unquenchable spirit.

Fierce, funny and moving, The Class graduates with honors. It's unmissable.

A fiercely poetic study of violence. Stunningly shot in black-and-white. [14 Dec 1989, p.23]

In terms of excitement, imagination and rule-busting experimentation, it's a gusher.

Fellowship is the real deal, a movie epic that pops your eyes out, piles on thrills and fun, and yet stays intimately attuned to character.

A joy to behold.

It's comic, touching and a visual knockout.