Mike Leigh has come up with a profound yet simple drama of family life generously leavened with comedy. [14 Oct. 1991]

The film clearly wishes to explore the topic of children having children, but it only inspires a great desire to smack them both.

Powerful, stripped to its very essence and featuring a spectacular cast (of mostly non-professionals), Matteo Garrone's sixth feature film Gomorra goes beyond Tarrantino's gratuitous violence and even Scorsese's Hollywood sensibility in depicting the everyday reality of organized crime's foot soldiers.

The movie rolls merrily along with slapstick action and whimsical characters.

Ultimately, the ending is a bit of a cop-out, but that's a small criticism for a film with such decent perspectives.

Fateless is both haunting and poetic. It also is visually stunning.

Arguably the most conventional documentary made by Errol Morris and, perhaps equally surprising, it displays sympathy toward its subject.

Anne Proulx's 1997 short story in the New Yorker has been masterfully expanded by screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to provide director Lee with his best movie since "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995.

Kindness is evident in even the most hurt or exasperated moments of de France's lovely performance as Samantha. But then, kindness couched in unblinking social realism is an intrinsic part of how these supremely gifted filmmakers view the world.

Fully justifying the decision, once thought purely mercenary, of splitting J.K. Rowling's final book into two parts, this is an exciting and, to put it mildly, massively eventful finale that will grip and greatly please anyone who has been at all a fan of the series up to now.

The picture is fresh and frightening, a strong arthouse contender certain to leave audiences talking.

Layering soundtrack and visuals in an intricate collage of rich emotional texture, he (Jonathan Caouette) displays an exhilarating talent.

Informative and, especially in its last hour, surprisingly dramatic.

The movie does achieve something nearly impossible: Someone who doesn't even like the sport may care about Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland Athletics.

Tony Kushner's densely packed script has been directed by Spielberg in an efficient, unpretentious way that suggests Michael Curtiz at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, right down to the rogue's gallery of great character actors in a multitude of bewhiskered supporting roles backing up a first-rate leading performance by Daniel Day-Lewis.

Capably narrated by Josh Brolin, Amir Bar-Lev's penetrating and vital documentary goes beyond tracking the Tillman family's investigation into Pat's death to question the motives of commanding officers and higher-ups.

What's perhaps most fascinating about the film is Boyle's relentless focus on the realities of present-day India as a vehicle for his spectacle and laughs.

Under Eastwood's painstakingly stripped-down direction -- his filmmaking has become the cinematic equivalent of Hemingway's spare though precise prose -- the story emerges as that rarest of birds, an uplifting tragedy.

This love letter to gay-marriage supporters is respectably entertaining filmmaking, it's just not exceptional.

To call this movie fascinating is akin to calling the Grand Canyon large.

A slow-burning Cold War drama that will reward patient viewers with its ultimate emotional payoff.

There are eight individual decisions to be made here, yet Beauvois never humanizes any of his monks. The film instead consumes itself with songs, communal prayers and nightly meals.

A genuinely playful wander down memory-lane by one of France's most revered film-makers, it's sufficiently erudite and extract-packed to satisfy cinephiles but also accessible to those for whom her name rings only vague bells.

With an immediacy and intimacy that news reports can't provide, this deeply affecting documentary explores the pedophile crisis that has shaken the edifice of the Catholic Church.

Argo is a crackerjack political thriller told with intelligence, great period detail and a surprising amount of nutty humor for a serious look at the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81.

An eye-opener that handles its themes in a refreshingly nonexploitative manner.

Two things stand out: the extraordinary command of cinematic technique, which alone is nearly enough to keep a connoisseur on the edge of his seat the entire time, and the tremendous portrayals by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman of two entirely antithetical men

A ferociously entertaining film.