Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 91%
| There Will Be Blood (2007) | "
Paul Thomas Anderson's loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil! finds the director exhibiting newfound maturity and restraint without sacrificing any measure of artistry." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 13, 2007 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 91%
| Neil Young - Heart of Gold (2006) | "
Vividly captures Young's greatness by simply letting him do his thing." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Apr 6, 2006 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 86%
| Three Times (2006) | "
An act of auteurist self-reflexivity in keeping with the director's belief in the powerful influence of history on the here and now." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 4, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 86%
| L'Enfant (2006) | "
A rigorously austere masterpiece infused with intense humanism." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Sep 26, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 61%
| The New World (2005) | "
An unqualified masterwork...[that] feels less like a manipulative man-made construction than like a piece of organically produced art." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 16, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Rotten 53%
| Wolf Creek (2005) | "
An austere descent into inexplicable, unbridled mayhem." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Dec 6, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 94%
| The White Diamond (2005) | "
A superb portrait of the dangers as well as euphoria that can come from chasing one's most treasured dreams." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 29, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 88%
| House of Flying Daggers (2004) | "
Wonderfully conveys how the act of loving another can be a game, a sacrifice, a ruse, a weapon, a betrayal, and, most of all, a political act." — Lessons of Darkness Posted May 4, 2005 |
Fresh 4/4
| Rotten 42%
| I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2004) | "
Hodges, working from a bleak Trevor Preston script, is fascinated by the aspirations, desires, and base compulsions that propel society’s murderous fringe population." — Slant Magazine Posted Jun 16, 2004 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 94%
| Millennium Actress (2003) | "
The finest anime film I’ve ever seen." — Lessons of Darkness Posted May 4, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 93%
| Little Dieter Needs To Fly (1997) | "
A stunning tale of survival." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Oct 21, 2005 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 100%
| The Puppetmaster (1993) | "
Hou Hsiao-hsien remains a master at conveying movement, progression, and a sense of the inexorable rotations of the wheel of time." — Slant Magazine Posted Sep 19, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 75%
| Bad Lieutenant (1992) | "
[Ferrara's] crowning achievement." — Lessons of Darkness Posted May 5, 2006 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 96%
| Unforgiven (1992) | "
Conveys the power of the Western genre’s myths ... as well as the ugly, unromantic realities that lurk behind them." — Lessons of Darkness Posted May 4, 2005 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 91%
| The Big Red One (1980) | "
The film's overriding mission is to expose both the inherent absurdity and tragedy of war." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 6, 2004 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 100%
| Stalker (1979) | "
A tangled knot of memories, fears, fantasies, nightmares, paradoxical impulses, and a yearning for something that's simultaneously beyond our reach and yet intrinsic to every one of us." — Slant Magazine Posted Apr 25, 2006 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 91%
| Days of Heaven (1978) | "
To hell with equivocation or beating around the bush: Terrence Malick's 1978 Days of Heaven is the greatest film ever made." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 22, 2007 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 97%
| Killer of Sheep (1977) | "
A tale so smoothly and effortlessly constructed that the boundaries between the staged and the authentic seemingly cease to exist." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Apr 12, 2007 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 90%
| The Passenger (1975) | "
A fatalistic tale of identity, destiny, coincidence, existential malaise, and the boundaries between the real and the imagined." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 5, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 69%
| It's Alive (1974) | "
A deeply terrifying portrait of child-parent relationships and intolerant fears of "otherness" defined as much by its sociological sharpness as its gore." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Jan 26, 2006 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 97%
| Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1973) | "
A saga of adventurers driven headlong into annihilation by their own hubris and desire for immortality." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 3, 2006 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 96%
| The Long Goodbye (1973) | "
Droll, cunning and magnificently woozy." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Jun 30, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 83%
| Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) | "
Speaks volumes about the intrinsic human desire for empathetic communion." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Feb 12, 2006 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 93%
| Straw Dogs (1971) | "
Straw Dogs serves as the director’s blistering treatise on man’s inherent animalistic impulses." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 28, 2003 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 97%
| Army of Shadows (1969) | "
Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows finally emerges from anonymity this April to assume its rightful canonical place alongside the French master's peerless Parisian noirs." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 13, 2006 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 98%
| Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) | "
Sergio Leone made a fistful of great films, but none better than 1968's ode to the fading American frontier, Once Upon a Time in the West." — Slant Magazine Posted Dec 2, 2003 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 100%
| Le Samourai (1967) | "
Achieves an atmosphere of mesmerizing, otherworldly beauty and grace." — Slant Magazine Posted Oct 24, 2005 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 100%
| On Dangerous Ground (1951) | "
One of noir's most soulful and poetic expressions of hope and redemption." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Aug 16, 2006 |
Fresh A
| Fresh 94%
| Los Olvidados (1950) | "
Starkly beautiful [and] diligently economical." — Lessons of Darkness Posted May 4, 2005 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 75%
| Night and the City (1950) | "
The archetypal film noir." — Slant Magazine Posted Feb 15, 2005 |
Fresh 4/4
| Fresh 100%
| Laura (1944) | "
A masterfully complex -- and frequently campy -- portrait of all-consuming romantic self-delusion." — Slant Magazine Posted Mar 17, 2005 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 94%
| 35 Shots of Rum (2009) | "
Depicts everyday details and conveys overarching emotional upheavals with a compassion and gentleness that's quietly devastating." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Sep 13, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 88%
| Inglourious Basterds (2009) | "
Something close to an ideal Tarantino flick, an impertinent and often tasteless epic that rewrites WII history as a fairy tale for gonzo genre kicks." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Aug 20, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 95%
| In the Loop (2009) | "
A razor-sharp farce that imparts insights from all directions." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Jul 20, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 98%
| The Hurt Locker (2009) | "
Harrowing and horrifying, The Hurt Locker delivers the visceral, heart-in-throat action goods, and in doing so, gets at more truths about Iraq than its preachy ... brethren." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Jun 22, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 88%
| Coraline (2009) | "
So dynamically careens between set pieces of elation and dread that one hardly has time to soak in all the twirling, tumbling visual marvels enveloping the screen." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Feb 15, 2009 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 94%
| Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) | "
A manipulative, tearjerking thriller that, functioning as a sustained, anguished primal scream, is as emotionally devastating as any film, fiction or non-, released this year." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 9, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 67%
| Synecdoche, New York (2008) | "
Kaufman's meta-meta mind-boggler is, ultimately, far more heady and haunting than maddeningly egocentric." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Oct 22, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 96%
| Gomorra (2008) | "
A tough, cynical, blistering fictionalized study of the Camorra crime organization that controls much of Naples." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Sep 5, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 87%
| Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) | "
Thrilling and touching in equal measure, it's on the short list of great superhero films." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Jul 1, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 96%
| WALL-E (2008) | "
More impressive than its ecologically minded message is its modestly profound portrait of loneliness, obligation and the desire for reciprocated affection." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Jul 1, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 86%
| Reprise (2008) | "
That rare debut in which self-conscious formal daring proves exhilarating rather than excruciating." — Lessons of Darkness Posted May 15, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Rotten 27%
| Boarding Gate (2007) | "
Distills genre tropes (and their consequent pleasures) to their lean, potent essence." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Nov 30, 2008 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 89%
| Rescue Dawn (2007) | "
Rescue Dawn's baseline narrative is stirring but its offhand touches are what elevate it to near-greatness." — Lessons of Darkness Posted May 22, 2007 |
Fresh A-
| Rotten 46%
| Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres (2007) | "
There's ultimately something exhilarating -- and, dare I say, liberating? -- about the film's chaotic avant-garde energy." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Apr 19, 2007 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 82%
| Paprika (2007) | "
Becomes far more enthralling ... the more one simply surrenders to the awe-inspiring beauty of Kon's images of flesh, metal and unhinged mental delusions." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Oct 10, 2006 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 74%
| Happy Feet (2006) | "
Stands at the very top of the 2006 animated kid's film class." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Apr 10, 2007 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 71%
| Inland Empire (2006) | "
Lynch's epic about the movie biz and identity seems less a depiction of the dark recesses of the human mind than an actual product of it." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Oct 19, 2006 |
Fresh A-
| Rotten 47%
| Miami Vice (2006) | "
Thrums with a raw, fierce, jazzy soul." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Aug 4, 2006 |
Fresh A-
| Fresh 93%
| The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2006) | "
Possesses a raw, focused outrage that’s difficult to shake." — Lessons of Darkness Posted Sep 26, 2005 |
IGN RSS Feeds