One of the year's best movies and certainly its most delightful screen surprise.

Though Weaver is by all accounts (mine included) in the real-life “none-nicer'” class, I've always suspected she might be great as a shrew. She is. [21 Dec 1988, Life, p.1D]

Perhaps Nichols and May's greatest accomplishment is capturing perfectly on film the mysterious, complex, compromised relationship the public has with today's political leaders.

The most provocative miscarried-justice movie ever. [26 Aug 1988]

The chief delight is Kasdan. “Body Heat” was appropriately slick, but “The Big Chill” and “Silverado” too much so. Tourist is edgier - also the work of a genuine craftsman. Frankly, I didn't think Kasdan had it in him. [23 Dec 1988, Life, p.1D]

Half-factual, half-fanciful and all funny, this labor of love is also unexpectedly touching. [28 September 1994, Life, p.5D]

This is a fascinating movie experience. [30 June 1989, Life, p.1D]

These gun-crazy, lust-loopy kids on the run are irresistible in the best crime rush since “GoodFellas.” [10 Sept 1993]

This definitive "life goes on" movie does what Altman does best: juggle 22 characters, deftly switch moods, and offer a comlex warts-and-all characters whose lives seem to extend beyond the screen. Few movies attempt this; Fewer succeed. [1 Oct 1993]

This is entertainment worth thumping your chest over. [18 June 1999, Life, p.2E]

Produced by HBO but too good not to play theaters, this soon-to-be minor classic is the best movie about society's untrendiest since "Ghost World" exactly two years ago.

Campion's script is very well received, but the film finally makes it on cinematics: bleakly beautiful photography, haunting score, and good acting. [12 Nov 1993]

Black Hawk turns nightmare into great cinema.

More than any other example in recent memory, Chicago shows how much the element of surprise is missing from today's movies.

It's hard to recall the last movie that has left such an emotionally searing question dangling in the mind: "What if ... ?"

The most powerful of all recent wayward-youth sagas; indeed, it's tough to recall the last such drama that packed as much emotional clout.

Though his film is like no other baseball movie, it may remind you of Paul Newman's hockey comedy Slap Shot: a knowing look at sport's underbelly - punctuated by jelly-belly laughs. [15 June 1988]

After watching Pfeiffer and Day-Lewis submerge molten 19th-century sparks here, it is now conceivable that Scorsese could make compelling cinema out of “Three Blind Mice.” [17 Sept 1993, Life, p.1D]

If it isn't flawless, neither is "Fantasia"... Here's a live-action/animated marvel with no screen antecedent; “Chinatown” may actually come closest. [22 June 1988]

Blethyn is so astonishing that you forget you're seeing a performance.

Forman finesses the story's grimmer aspects as he did in "Cuckoo's Nest," and his ability to switch moods on a dime remains unsurpassed.

The film now seems both mellowed and --thanks in part to the most vibrant-looking prints in its 22-year history -- revitalized.

Sling Blade is about a society barely holding on by its fingernails, the home and hearth hardly a place of respite. Unlike "The Ice Storm" or "The Sweet Hereafter," Sling Blade is devoid of the creature comforts of middle-class life that at least allow people the degraded hobbies that keep them functioning. [May, 1998]

What's most amazing is the finely nuanced performances these bits and bytes deliver.

With its ceaseless music, large canvas, shrewd casting and flawless ensemble acting and the dexterity of its whiplashing mood switches, the movie recalls Robert Altman's "Nashville" more than any subsequent movie has.

Happily, there's nothing to misconstrue about the film: It's fabulous.

An instant classic, an Oscar-worthy showcase for Jeremy Irons, and a tightrope ballet over dicey screen material… A subtle movie - and thus a disturbing one. Like “Vertigo,” “The Night of the Hunter,” “Repulsion” and a few others, it finds beauty in morbidity - then nags you to come back for a second dose. [23 Sept 1988]

A movie with this kind of haunting power comes along only once every decade or so. [20 February 1991, Life, p.11D]