|
4/4
|
87%
|
The Ground Truth (2006) |
"
perhaps the most important protest statement yet committed to film since the outbreak of [the Iraq War]"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Feb 6, 2012
|
|
4/4
|
91%
|
City of Life and Death (2011) |
"
...among the greatest war films ever made. Rich in humanist themes and absolutely unflinching in its depiction of the moral chaos and physical violence of war."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Jan 19, 2012
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) |
"
an all-time masterpiece of characterization, structure, pacing and storytelling in general"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Feb 15, 2011
|
|
4/4
|
90%
|
Together (Tillsammans) (2001) |
"
effortlessly poetic"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Sep 5, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
89%
|
The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (1933) |
"
[Lang's] ambitious command of the medium...keeps us rooted to our seats from start to finish."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Sep 5, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
94%
|
Stray Dog (Nora inu) (1963) |
"
Mifune is magnetic"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Sep 3, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
97%
|
Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) (1955) |
"
There is a faith in the art form here, a pure, loving, embracing faith that really restores my own faith in movies."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 24, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
Nanook of the North (1922) |
"
absolutely brilliant "
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 22, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
98%
|
Murderball (2005) |
"
a triumph of filmmaking: of structure, character development, and pacing"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 21, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
91%
|
The Weather Underground (2002) |
"
a history lesson that takes us on a lacerating journey from the '60s anti-war movements to their emotional ripple effects in the modern-day"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 17, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
85%
|
Europa (Zentropa) (2001) |
"
Beautiful, brilliant, hallucinatory filmmaking"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 17, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
Nóz w Wodzie (Knife in the Water) (1962) |
"
The acting, music and camerawork all weave together to create an unexpectedly magical, brilliantly crafted, intensely sensuous experience."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 17, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
Lacombe Lucien (1974) |
"
Malle's absolute faith in his skills as a storyteller and in the inherent power of this true story puts Lacombe, Lucien in the company of the best humanist portraits ever filmed."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 17, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
The Leopard (1963) |
"
Vividly shot, beautifully acted, and paced slowly, deliberately, gathering a kind of power that only a true master can conjure""
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 17, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
98%
|
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) |
"
With spry editing and camerawork, [Frankenheimer] fuses together a documentary-like realism and more expressive stylizations to create a hybrid thriller-satire"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 17, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
92%
|
The Silence (1963) |
"
Truly intense and cinematically arresting."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 17, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
80%
|
Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light) (1962) |
"
a perfect film"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 16, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
Såsom i en Spegel (Through A Glass Darkly) (1961) |
"
Bergman's mastery with actors (there is absolutely never a bad performance in a single one of his films) and with the cinematic form (using space and mood to communicate his theme) is abundantly clear here."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 16, 2010
|
|
4/4
|
97%
|
L'Armée des ombres (Army in the Shadows) (1969) |
"
one of those blessed pictures in which all elements, from its writing through to its editing, coalesce into a work of profound philosophical and emotional unity"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Apr 22, 2010
|
|
5/5
|
96%
|
Nanking (2007) |
"
a documentary that may well rank among the greatest re-tellings of a historical event put on film"
—
Boxoffice Magazine
Posted Mar 1, 2007
|
|
4/4
|
99%
|
La Battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) (1967) |
"
what really resonates on watching Algiers is its message about the widespread loss of civilian life and the staggering destruction to civic infrastructure as the heaviest costs of war"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Dec 7, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
93%
|
Grizzly Man (2005) |
"
chilling"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 24, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
83%
|
Fitzcarraldo (1982) |
"
Awesome, hypnotic storytelling, Fitzcarraldo finds this director working in top form"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 24, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
94%
|
Journal d'un curé de campagne (Diary of a Country Priest) (1951) |
"
a flawless piece of work"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 20, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
94%
|
Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes are Flying) (1960) |
"
dazzling, magnificently made"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 20, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
98%
|
City Lights (1931) |
"
City Lights is a great gift to all of us by a filmmaker at a latter-day peak of his genius"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 20, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
90%
|
L' Amour l'Après-Midi (Chloe in the Afternoon) (Love in the Afternoon) (1972) |
"
a beautiful character study about what it is to love one woman and yet be in love with all women"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 20, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
100%
|
The Birth of a Nation (1915) |
"
a masterpiece that still packs a punch and whose standard-bearing genius remains untarnished."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 20, 2006
|
|
4/4
|
90%
|
Amarcord (2009) |
"
A vulgar, crassly funny, tender, always affectionate nostalgia trip, Fellini style."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Aug 18, 2006
|
|
5/5
|
91%
|
The Killing Fields (1984) |
"
One of the most potent politically-charged dramas ever made, managing to honor both the epic and the intimate aspects of its drama. One of the top films of the '80s."
—
Los Angeles Alternative
Posted Mar 22, 2005
|
|
5/5
|
95%
|
The Crowd () |
"
my favorite silent film: poetically told with dazzling direction"
—
Los Angeles Alternative
Posted Jan 28, 2005
|
|
5/5
|
98%
|
Raging Bull (1980) |
"
a work of religious devotion by a filmmaker to his craft and an apotheosis of Scorsese's promise"
—
Filmcritic.com
Posted Jan 18, 2005
|
|
5/5
|
98%
|
The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003) |
"
a deeply felt testament of a man struggling to wring meaning and redemption out of history's hard, unyielding surfaces"
—
Los Angeles Alternative
Posted Sep 30, 2004
|
|
4/4
|
92%
|
Charulata (1964) |
"
A singularly accomplished song to love, idealism, heartbreak and disillusionment."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Apr 29, 2004
|
|
4.5/5
|
80%
|
El Norte (1984) |
"
the definitive portrait of the experience of undocumented Latin-American workers in the United States"
—
Filmcritic.com
Posted Jan 12, 2009
|
|
4.5/5
|
96%
|
From Russia With Love (1964) |
"
a James Bond movie with the sensibilities of a classic Cold War thriller"
—
Filmcritic.com
Posted Dec 5, 2006
|
|
4.5/5
|
100%
|
Viridiana (1961) |
"
quintessential Bunuel"
—
Filmcritic.com
Posted May 17, 2006
|
|
4.5/5
|
93%
|
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) (Lift to the Scaffold) (Frantic) (1958) |
"
a perfect hybrid of French noir elegance and the New Wave's rough hewn realism"
—
I.E. Weekly
Posted Apr 20, 2006
|
|
4.5/5
|
95%
|
The Return (Vozvrashcheniye) (2003) |
"
an absorbing psychological drama and coming-of-age story in the guise of a road movie"
—
Los Angeles Alternative
Posted Dec 15, 2004
|
|
4.5/5
|
79%
|
Vendredi soir (Friday Night) (2003) |
"
a most rewarding cinematic journey"
—
Los Angeles Alternative
Posted Sep 30, 2004
|
|
4.5/5
|
83%
|
Bukowski: Born into This (2003) |
"
a loving tribute to a writer, his craft and, above all, the idea of living and dying by one's own creed"
—
Los Angeles Alternative
Posted Sep 30, 2004
|
|
4.5/5
|
95%
|
Before Sunset (2004) |
"
[a] charming, intelligent romance"
—
Los Angeles Alternative
Posted Sep 30, 2004
|
|
3.5/4
|
75%
|
The Way Back (2011) |
"
a solid, resonant meditation on survival, on hope, on the value of life in the face of implacable hostility, portrayed memorably by an excellent cast and [Director] Weir's vast, brutal, awe-inspiring landscapes"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Feb 16, 2013
|
|
3.5/4
|
89%
|
Lincoln (2012) |
"
There is directorial mastery here, and, even for those like me for whom the power of Lincoln is a percolating realization, one thing is certain: The performance by Daniel Day-Lewis is astonishing."
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Nov 24, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
93%
|
Looper (2012) |
"
Looper is among the cleverest, most skillfully crafted and entertaining sci-fi thrillers of the past 20 years. "
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Nov 2, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
96%
|
Argo (2012) |
"
Argo is among the worthiest spy thrillers to come out of Hollywood in years, and it puts to rest (at least for this reviewer) any doubts over Affleck's chops as a smart, shrewd director of consistently topnotch fare. "
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Oct 29, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
96%
|
The Kid with a Bike (2012) |
"
continues the Belgian writing-directing brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's extraordinary run of charting the lives of European down-and-outers navigating difficult moral and spiritual terrain."
—
Paste Magazine
Posted Mar 15, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
87%
|
The Last Lions (2011) |
"
an extraordinary achievement"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Jan 27, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
59%
|
The First Grader (2011) |
"
achieves a poignant, humanist sincerity"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Jan 27, 2012
|
|
3.5/4
|
80%
|
The Last Mountain (2011) |
"
trenchant, impassioned"
—
Cinema Writer
Posted Jan 27, 2012
|
73%
79%
62%
52%
26%
4%
