Anderson has taken pains to re-create the '50s with superb production design and gorgeous cinematography. But he seems less concerned with whether the audience is along for the ride. The story can leave viewers at sea, floundering to give meaning to what they are watching.

Joins company with "Sullivan's Travels" and "Sunset Boulevard" as the quintessential Hollywood peek-a-boos...[and] Tim Robbins' modulated performance rates rhapsodic praise. [10 Apr 1992]

The film's score and editing brilliantly heighten the film's energy, keeping the audience somewhat off-kilter and unsure where things are headed.

Miyazaki creates fascinating, fluid and whimsical scenarios.

A singular accomplishment so specifically keyed to Spacey's talents that it mandates going out on a limb to say it contains the performance that will ultimately be regarded as "the one."

It's unlikely there will be a film as visually stunning or poetic this year - or perhaps any year - to rival Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Plays like a labor of love.

The best action thriller of the year.

The best drama you've seen about Anytown, USA, since "American Beauty."

With this 2002 Cannes Film Festival best-picture winner, Polanski skips the quirky flourishes and simply brings history to life.

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.

While the film is heart-wrenchingly sad, it also is mordantly funny, uncomfortably prickly and above all, unflinching in its depiction of a believable sibling relationship.

What makes the movie so winning are its endearing and relatable characters who spout believable dialogue and amusing banter, steeped in clever pop-culture references and sharp observations of human nature.

Through stellar performances, clever writing and exquisite cinematography, the story is fresh and thoroughly captivating.

The film employs a largely British cast that is perhaps the most impressive ensemble of any movie this year.

A compelling drama that establishes Ryan Gosling as one of the finest actors of his generation.

Lean, mean and mordant black comedy.

Nicholson has at least three magnificent moments in Hour 2. The best is a wedding toast that comes after another that will painfully remind you of every banal wedding toast you've ever heard.

The mesmerizing, heart-tugging concert film Heart of Gold confirms Neil Young's stature as a national treasure.

Fury, I Am a Fugitive, Wild Boys of the Road and Emperor of the North come immediately to mind as definitive Depression movies. This little gem, which may get overlooked, deserves to be on the same list. [20 August 1993, p.5D]

Wildly witty, but also inventive, audacious and poignant.

We are happy to report there is intelligent life in feature animation beyond planet Disney and the gaseous ball of foul language known as South Park.

The movie version feels like a stately, but watered down, episode of "Masterpiece Theatre" fused with "The English Patient."

This Korean-made film takes the well-worn creature-feature genre and spins it on its head thrillingly.

A stylistically fastidious, exasperatingly affected package that will put most people in the mood for slumber.

The low-key approach probably gets closer to the soul of Leonard, but it lacks zip. As a result, Out of Sight sometimes runs out of gas.

A shape-shifting film, it resembles a poem. At other moments, it is closer to a symphony. Most often, it approximates a fervent prayer.

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]

If feuds, drunken outbursts and thoughtless bed-hopping sound like fun, then A Christmas Tale is a hoot. Some wry humor runs through the course of the overly long saga. But there's not enough dark wit to mitigate the tedium and pretentiousness.

One small documentary for a filmmaker and one giant leap in inspiration for audiences.

An exhilarating sci-fi action thriller with a powerful social and political message.

This thorough original is a wall-to-wall exercise in gallows humor, a movie whose full funny/sad effect doesn't hit until you reflect upon the subject and the cast of characters.

Literate, melancholy and magical, Moonrise Kingdom is quintessential Wes Anderson, infused with his brand of daffy wit.

The result is almost enough to make an audience levitate.

News is right, completely right, until it slips just a bit at the end.By that time it hardly matters because you've seen the best of the holiday films, as well as the most all-around entertaining movie of 1987 - a bittersweet media comedy-drama that surpasses its potential. [16 Dec 1987, p.1D]

Penn's Oscar-caliber transformation is breathtaking, and the saga of one man's fight for human rights is engrossing.

Land has a lot of funny moments, which are no less serious for being so, especially when the script turns politically prickly.

Glossy or not, the movie is unflinchingly tough-minded, down to its Hollywood-weepy ending, which, if you think about it, may be the year's gloomiest.

River ranks with the best movies Eastwood has directed: "The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Unforgiven" and "The Bridges of Madison County." But this time, the work is strong without his own on-screen presence -- a significant achievement.

Each character is decent and likable, as well as complex. The four main portrayals are outstanding -- so natural and believable that you are drawn into their story immediately.

When so much of what Hollywood churns out is almost instantly forgettable, it says a lot about a film when viewers want to take time to argue, ponder and puzzle over it.

A riotous and wee bit PG-racy computer-animated family fable, is the most thoroughly enjoyable cartoon feature since "Toy Story" burst out of its box.

But the film's emotional core is father-son reconciliation, and Pete Postlethwaite is very sympathetic as Dad. [29 Dec 1993 Pg. 01.D]

With this, possibly his most subdued film, Almodo´var reinforces his status as one of the most distinctive and talented filmmakers working today.

At its best, hard-hitting grown-up cinema (rare these days) and a movie blessed with a villain (Big Tobacco) for which all gloves can be removed and heaved into the next county.

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

It's a precarious balance, but Payne blends wit and poignancy so artfully it feels like an exquisitely choreographed dance.

One bad idea can unravel and ruin lives in unimaginably horrific ways.That's the concept underlying the riveting Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a sharply acted and highly entertaining morality play.

It is that rare film that is equal parts entertaining, life-affirming and thought-provoking.

Besides being filled with Chappelle's hilarious sense of humor, the movie features life-affirming messages and great music by serious rap artists with political, socio-cultural and spiritual themes.

This is intelligent grown-up entertainment on both a political and a humanistic level.

A movie just good enough to keep nurturing rooting interest as you watch it.

Thompson has had the good sense and sensitivity to get Austen right, while letting Winslet steal the show.

Crazy Heart, based on a 1987 novel by Thomas Cobb, also has great music. Even if you're not a country music fan, the songs, by T Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton, are infectious.

A Little Princess is the first of its progeny to blend brains with entertainment. This stylish sleeper easily outpaces the studio's starchy updates of "Black Beauty" and "The Secret Garden", and even betters Shirley Temple's 1939 take on Frances Hodgson Burnett's Princess perennial. [18 May 1995, 12D.]

Even at its best, Adaptation is one of the movie year's most esoteric outings -- more so than even Paul Thomas Anderson's far superior "Punch-drunk Love." Too smart to ignore but a little too smugly superior to like, this could be a movie that ends up slapping its target audience in the face by shooting itself in the foot.

The scenes in Pandora -- a planet with an Earth-like environment -- are so breathtaking that the narrative seems almost beside the point.

Welcome to the Dollhouse does, with accessible dark comedy and chilling honesty, reminding us right off that school-cafeteria agonies only begin with the cuisine. [24 May 1996 Pg.04.D]

Drawing upon "Wag the Dog," "Dr. Strangelove" and "This Is Spinal Tap," this sardonic tale is adapted from the critically acclaimed BBC series "The Thick of It."

It's an intriguing match of material and filmmaker. Dahl's distinctive, edgy storytelling seems to fit well with Anderson's idiosyncratic worldview and visuals.

The gritty, Oscar-nominated "Traffic" is a limo ride compared with the bloodletting in this year's foreign-film nominee from Mexico.

A smooth mix of humanism and keen filmmaking instincts.

When it comes to sheer spectacle, Star Trek, as re-imagined by J.J. Abrams, delivers.

Landed exactly the right actors for a script that already gets points for respecting its teenage characters.

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]

Features the season's most tragic heroine along with some of the liveliest dead people ever seen on film.

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]

With special effects so convincing you don't even think about them, a head-case hero and a three-dimensional villain who is his equal, socko Spider-Man 2 has something for everyone.

Overall, however, the manner in which the film blends the tale of an imperiled boy and the history of cinema makes for an ambitious and fanciful ride.

I enjoyed everything about Moonstruck except for its meandering mid-section. On cassette, with vino accompaniment, it may seem perfect. In theaters, with a diet drink, it still rates as the holiday sleeper. [18 Dec 1987]

This is the kind of well-made movie you wish well but you don't particularly wish to see again.

Drag Me to Hell is unlike any scary thriller in a while: frightening, frenzied and fun.

Timeliness can be tricky to pull off convincingly in movies. It's tough to capture an era while it's still happening, yet Up in the Air does so brilliantly, with wit and humanity.

In many ways delivers an experience that's even better than the real thing. It brings U2's dazzling rock spectacle to the multiplex with VIP comforts, all-access viewpoints and telescopic close-ups.

Babe, a live-action fable about a valiant pig who conquers prejudice like a barnyard Jackie Robinson, is in a league of its own when it comes to enchantment.

A good little movie dominated by a great central performance that's likely to endure. [30 Jan 1998, p.D2]

Bout No. 2 is among the best closed-quarters screen fights ever, as good as (and longer than) Frank Sinatra vs. Henry Silva in The Manchurian Candidate. And Hannah does more for an eyepatch than anyone since the late Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan.

This is the kind of people-driven story that the movies used to give us - before special effects took over.

Caché is unsettling and tense, even shocking. And its story of enduring tensions between an Algerian immigrant and a well-off French family is particularly timely.

It is an unsettling tale told simply and chillingly by director Peter Mullan, with stand-out performances, an evocative soundtrack and spare, haunting visuals.

Henry V emerges a first-class epic film, so entertaining that it needs no apologies for being based on a 400-year-old play. [10 Nov 1989]

Mesmerizing and highly entertaining.

A movie that rudely flings feces at the breakfast table isn't for everyone.

When it comes to eloquently telling it like it is, Election puts the nation's political pundits to shame.

Alas, if you're someone who enjoys movies as, say, a two-hour escape, you may find this documentary on the death of film at digital's hands a bit too inside baseball.

Peter O'Toole's tour-de-force performance makes Venus a movie not to be missed.

It's the actor/director's best movie - and the best Western by anybody in over 20 years. [7 Aug 1992]

Only a truly visionary filmmaker could take a story largely set in a cramped canyon and give it a sense of openness and hope.

The film's most climactic moments involve the chilling audiotapes of avaricious Enron traders as they toy with California's energy crisis, wringing millions in profits from the misfortune of an entire state.

Deliberately downbeat, it's best as a two-person character study, stumbling a bit whenever it extends its parameters.

This is precisely the kind of film that parents clamor for and rarely get: a substantive, stirring, Huck Finn-style saga that doesn't insult anyone's intelligence or mindlessly entertain with crass humor.

A masterwork of suspense, romance and political intrigue.

The borderline Parenthood is either an iffy comedy with lots of compensations, or a good comedy with more irritating flaws than most movies manage to survive. Whichever, the "feel good'' infantry of summer-film escapists will probably love it. [2 Aug 1989, p.5D]

Sugar is that sweetest of films: A sensitive and memorable story that surprises at every turn.

It could be argued that this movie's callousness toward human life is nihilistic and nasty. But Woo takes everything so absurdly far that audiences laugh at what horrified them moments before. [27Jun1997 Pg01.D]

This Pride & Prejudice is a stellar adaptation, bewitching the viewer completely and incandescently with an exquisite blend of emotion and wit.

Retains the power to turn heads -- and stomachs.

The young actors' performances are particularly haunting.