|
|
88%
|
Brief Encounter (1945) |
"
... still embraced as one of the most romantic films ever made, and it has earned its reputation."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
71%
|
Blithe Spirit (1945) |
"
... a lightweight comedy built on witty remarks and upper-class smugness (which Rex Harrison so perfectly embodies), but comedy is not Lean's strong suit."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
This Happy Breed (1944) |
"
It's quite the study in domesticity and acceptance, and it even presents socialist activism and union strikes as some sort of idealistic fling..."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
93%
|
In Which We Serve (1942) |
"
... an accomplished, sincere, and moving piece of filmmaking that honors the characters and involves the audience."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
89%
|
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) |
"
It's Gene Wilder, at the top of his form, who makes this uneasy amalgam work, but [Mel] Stuart must surely deserve some of the credit..."
—
GreenCine
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Hit! (1993) |
"
... a conventional version of the mainstream crime caper with a rare African-American lead, which is the film's only memorable accomplishment."
—
Parallax View
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Buccaneer (1938) |
"
Cecil B. DeMille plays fast and loose with his history, as usual, but he also has more fun with the story than in many of his big historical spectacles..."
—
Parallax View
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) (1968) |
"
It's less Summer of Love than Season of Lust and any sense of liberation is limited to her sexual horizons ..."
—
Parallax View
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (Trial of Joan of Arc) (1962) |
"
As much as I love Bresson's works, I'm rarely caught up in the sweep of his drama. The drama comes for me only at the conclusion - and then lingers for days after. "
—
Parallax View
Posted May 4, 2012
|
|
|
89%
|
Napoléon (1929) |
"
... a cinematic experience like no other."
—
Parallax View
Posted Mar 18, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
J'Accuse! (I Accuse) (1919) |
"
The cinematic sophistication and visual expressiveness of this 1919 release is astonishing."
—
Parallax View
Posted Mar 18, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Thirteen Women (1932) |
"
It's hysterical and bigoted and just plain ruthless, almost unbelievable, and perversely fun for all that."
—
Parallax View
Posted Mar 11, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Taxi! (1932) |
"
How can you refuse a film that embraces non-violent arbitration and still gives a pass to Cagney taking revenge?"
—
Parallax View
Posted Mar 11, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Nude Vampire (Vampire nue, La) (1974) |
"
... a strange work of conspiracy, family rebellion, and innocence imprisoned, both a vampire film and a strange science fiction fantasy of shadowy old men performing secret experiments."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Mar 10, 2012
|
|
|
95%
|
Belle de Jour (1968) |
"
Luis Bunuel's cheerfully brazen satire of sexual repression, social decorum, and erotic fantasies is in the running for Bunuel's kinkiest film, and that's saying a lot."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Mar 10, 2012
|
|
|
88%
|
Vanya on 42nd Street (1995) |
"
... a record of a creative collaboration that has a life of its own, at once documentary, filmed rehearsal, play within a play, and private production restaged for a camera..."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Mar 10, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
World on a Wire (2011) |
"
... a heady, witty, stylistically audacious, highly compelling, and very entertaining science fiction thriller years ahead of its time. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Mar 10, 2012
|
|
|
88%
|
Margin Call (2011) |
"
Chandor underplays the human drama and the anonymity of the Wall Street office building so much it risks slipping into doldrums, but the stakes are too great and the actors too sharp to let that happen."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941) |
"
...a little Hardy noir: a homeless kid that Andy hides in his boarding house room dies, an apparent suicide in the wake of shattered dreams. This is a real education for Andy..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Judge Hardy and Son (1939) |
"
You can also see the jalopy humor becoming one of the defining elements of the Andy Hardy series here."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (2001) |
"
It's classic Andy: he gets his comeuppance and then gets his happy ending. It's also a superb [jUDY] Garland turn. "
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Out West with the Hardy's (1938) |
"
...Rooney's smart aleck patter, comic smugness and blithe confidence trumps the generic script..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
You're Only Young Once (1937) |
"
...sends the family on a California vacation (and into the predatory dating scene of West Coast decadence)..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Tokyo Drifter (1966) |
"
...plays like a mix of spaghetti western and samurai melodrama relocated to the pop-art splendor of 1960s Japan..."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
90%
|
United Red Army (2011) |
"
...historical drama as psychological thriller."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
84%
|
Mysteries of Lisbon (2011) |
"
This is a film of labyrinthine storytelling and cinematic weaves of character and narrative that stretch across countries and time itself..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Il cappotto (The Overcoat) (1952) |
"
... behind the bouncy caricatures and deft satire is a quiet humanism that sneaks up on the story and haunts the final images quite literally."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
No Blade of Grass (1970) |
"
Cornel Wilde's grim, fatalistic end-of-the-world thriller... is a forgotten dystopian classic of its time."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Caught (1949) |
"
... belongs as much to the murky world of American film noir as to the polished European dramas of high society social appearances and power games. "
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948) |
"
[Max] Ophuls' first personal project in Hollywood and he injects this exquisitely stylish romantic melodrama with his continental sensibility."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Exile (1947) |
"
...while Fairbanks lunges and leaps, Ophuls choreographs the crowd scenes to give the film a scope the belies the budget and a grace lacking in most such adventure films."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Le Frisson des vampires (The Shiver of the Vampires) (1970) |
"
...a mad skin flick for surrealists where bad acting, slapdash effects, and narrative abstraction are transformed into an aesthetic."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
La Rose de fer (The Iron Rose) (1973) |
"
...a spiritual rather than a physical threat."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Nude Vampire (Vampire nue, La) (1974) |
"
[Jean] Rollin's love of twins and matched pairs is first hinted at here, as is his penchant for romantic heroes drawn to mysterious women and supernatural places."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Rebecca (1940) |
"
It's an elegant production, beautifully photographed and designed like a dream house shrouded in mourning, but it also favors the pictorial over the cinematic and surface over subtext. "
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
97%
|
Wings (1927) |
"
...the last of the grand studio epics of the silent film era."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Roots of Heaven (1958) |
"
...a different kind of African wildlife adventure: the heroes are early eco-warriors, animals rights activists who take on both private elephant poachers and government indifference..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Truth About Youth () |
"
...briefly flickers to life when [Myrna] Loy comes on as slinky nightclub singer "The Firefly," seducing [Loretta] Young's betrothed..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Safe in Hell (1931) |
"
...imagine Casablanca as a lice-infested backwater run by mercenary opportunists and filled with the sleaziest criminals to escape a manhunt. "
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Mob (Remember That Face) (1951) |
"
[Broderick] Crawford is at his best as the veteran lawman playing the tough-guy dockworker, engaging and compelling and, at times, quite funny. "
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Burglar (1957) |
"
...sordid world of twitchy crooks, flophouse hideouts, duplicity as a way of life, and an atmosphere dripping in sexual longing and lust, with fractured, jagged storytelling..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Drive a Crooked Road (1954) |
"
... what I like to call beachhouse noir, a world away from the classic nocturnal urban style with its coast highways and sunny beaches and sleek West Coast architecture."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
83%
|
Under the Olive Trees (Zire darakhatan zeyton) (Through the Olive Trees) (1994) |
"
... a marvelous glimpse into the working methods of Kiarostami, but that becomes merely one of the many layers of "reality" in this film."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
And Life Goes On (Zendegi va digar hich) (Life, and Nothing More) (1996) |
"
It's a film that denies even the most rudimentary of dramatic arcs: Nothing happens, and yet life erupts all around."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Khane-ye doust kodjast? (Where is the Friend's Home?) (1987) |
"
On one level Kiarostami paints a society rooted in authoritarian demands, but on another he reminds how us kids get lost in the grown-up world of business and responsibility."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
Man in the Iron Mask (1939) |
"
[Director James] Whale turns the dialogue into a duel in its own right, with the advisors currying favor with the corrupt King Louis XIV and the Musketeers jabbing away with witty comments."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
——
|
The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) |
"
... slow and static and creaky, stopping dead for monologues and exposition to explain what the film can't afford to show."
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
57%
|
Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958) |
"
[Director Frank] Tashlin... was all about the gag and helped define Lewis as a walking cartoon, the rubberface spastic adolescent in a grown-up body. "
—
Parallax View
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Seven Chances (1925) |
"
... Keaton transformed the material into his own brand of humor: from stage farce to snappy cinematic slapstick, with Buster turning verbal jokes into visual gags."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Feb 19, 2012
|
|
|
93%
|
Drive (2011) |
"
... celebrates -- one might say revels in -- the pulp mythology of existential anti-heroes and criminal chivalry and street opera tragedy of American movies."
—
MSN.com
Posted Jan 31, 2012
|
|
|
93%
|
Midnight in Paris (2011) |
"
[Woody] Allen brings his fantasy to life with such affection and joy that he transports us into his dream come true as a shared fantasy."
—
MSN.com
Posted Dec 22, 2011
|
|
|
88%
|
Margin Call (2011) |
"
Chandor is more interested in the banality of greed and opportunism and the ease in which principled employees are swayed to engage in unprincipled acts."
—
MSN.com
Posted Dec 22, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Two Flags West () |
"
... an adult and thoughtful production that explores the conflicts of men who are both enemies and allies in the waning days of the Civil War. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
100%
|
Ich will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt (I Only Want You to Love Me) (1976) |
"
... he brings a morose naturalism to the film even as creates an atmosphere of isolation through the performances. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
83%
|
Shakespeare Wallah (1965) |
"
... a bittersweet drama of the twilight of a theatrical way of life. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
92%
|
Election (1999) |
"
Payne and Taylor are equal opportunity satirists and their sly wit dismantles everything from high school culture to suburban complacency."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom (1991) |
"
... a lightweight, fun-loving romantic comedy set on the bustling streets of Moscow ..."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
92%
|
The Four Times (Le Quattro Volte) (2011) |
"
It's both an embrace of the comfort of ritual and certainly and acknowledgement of the magic of the unexpected and the accidental bringing change to routine. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Doughboys (Forward March) (1930) |
"
... (Keaton) brings his brand of comic chaos to the front lines of France and manages to turn bad luck into a happy ending in the trench warfare of World War I. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Jim Shvante marili svanets (Salt for Svanetia) (1930) |
"
This film doesn't simply record the lives of an alien culture, it dramatizes it with imagery and recreations that turns documentary into drama with a passion."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Po zakonu (By the Law) (Dura Lex) (Troye) () |
"
The tension is grueling and the climax is haunting. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924) |
"
... a political cartoon of a Soviet satire that knowingly spoofs American stereotypes of "Bolshevik revolutionaries" through the comically surreal odyssey of the gullible Mr. West..."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
83%
|
The 10th Victim (La Decima vittima) (The Tenth Victim) (1999) |
"
Petri directs with tongue firmly in cheek, lampooning the media obsession with high risk contests and games of chance with cool sixties style ..."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
33%
|
I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale (Torso) (Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence) (1973) |
"
The motivation is right out of the Psycho playbook, only not quite as convincing."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
86%
|
Les Valseuses (Going Places) (Getting It Up) (Making It) (1974) |
"
... Blier's portrait of showy machismo, reflexive bad behavior and empty pleasure is his sad commentary on seventies culture."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
62%
|
Identificazione di una donna (Identification of a Woman) (1982) |
"
... a film filled with mysteries that are never resolved and images that are simultaneously lonely and lovely."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
91%
|
City of Life and Death (2011) |
"
City of Life and Death puts a convincing image to the abstract history. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
The Quatermass Xperiment (Shock) (The Creeping Unknown) (1955) |
"
... the film is never less than intriguing and, at is best, is haunting, horrific and riveting."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
100%
|
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) (1950) |
"
... at once savage social satire and a compassionate comedy of manners with a sour undercurrent."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
100%
|
Three Colors: Blue (Trois Couleurs: Bleu) (1993) |
"
As one might assume from the title, the color blue dominates the palette, from the light over the city at dusk to the glow from the swimming pool she visits ..."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
90%
|
Three Colors: White (Trzy kolory: Bialy) (Trois Couleurs: Blanc) (1994) |
"
... not so much a black comedy as a wicked satire in the cold white light of Polish winter, which (as you would expect) informs the color palette of this film."
—
Parallax View
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
100%
|
Three Colors: Red (Trois couleurs: Rouge) (1994) |
"
... the most densely and deftly woven of the three films."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Sherlock Holmes (1922) |
"
While Barrymore has the profile and the intent, intelligent focus we recognize, this is a Holmes mystery without the deerstalker cap, the Meerschaum pipe or the faithful Watson at his side. "
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
70%
|
Medea (1969) |
"
Pasolini strips the play down to symbolic, almost abstract expressions of scenes and ideas, like the cinema equivalent of hieroglyphics."
—
Turner Classic Movies Online
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Histoire(s) du cinéma: Seul le cinéma () |
"
... the Nouvelle Vague legend considers the history of the movies with a typically idiosyncratic style and non-linear train of thought. "
—
Parallax View
Posted Dec 17, 2011
|
|
|
96%
|
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011) |
"
... captures the space, the texture, the quality of color of these ghost-like paintings, like shadows of the past captured on the cave walls."
—
MSN.com
Posted Nov 30, 2011
|
|
|
23%
|
The Smurfs (2011) |
"
Call me Grouchy, but I say grown-ups should just say smurf it and avoid the film completely. "
—
MSN.com
Posted Nov 30, 2011
|
|
|
84%
|
Beginners (2011) |
"
[Director Mike] Mills... gives the film a celebratory passion in the quiet closeness of father and son and the playful first-person storytelling..."
—
MSN.com
Posted Nov 16, 2011
|
|
|
35%
|
Larry Crowne (2011) |
"
... lacks any sense of gravity. Hanks has too much moxie to let little things like unemployment and an underwater mortgage get him down..."
—
MSN.com
Posted Nov 16, 2011
|
|
|
38%
|
Cars 2 (2011) |
"
Kids will be entertained and so will adults. I just didn't find myself particularly engaged."
—
MSN.com
Posted Nov 1, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Cop Hater (1958) |
"
... an independent production shot largely on the cheap in with a New York cast headed by Robert Loggia..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Oct 22, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Chicago Confidential () |
"
Director Sidney Salkow takes the script through its paces dutifully but unmemorably."
—
Parallax View
Posted Oct 22, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
The Captive City (1952) |
"
... a tough yet austere little crime story carved out of a small budget."
—
Parallax View
Posted Oct 22, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Follow Me Quietly (1949) |
"
This was clearly timed to play the bottom of a double bill, but it has better production values than most B-movies and Fleischer devotes much greater care to the direction."
—
Parallax View
Posted Oct 22, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
The Threat (1949) |
"
... opens with a rat-a-tat energy, quite literally: a prison break, a whining siren, and then the almost unbroken blasts of machine gun fire..."
—
Parallax View
Posted Oct 22, 2011
|
|
|
89%
|
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) |
"
... that rare breed: an imaginative live-action kid's film that engages and delights adults."
—
MSN.com
Posted Oct 19, 2011
|
|
|
86%
|
Batman: Year One (2011) |
"
For a story constructed out of choppy slices, this is probably the most unified of the DC animated features."
—
MSN.com
Posted Oct 19, 2011
|
|
—
|
——
|
How the Earth Changed History (2010) |
—
House Next Door
Posted Oct 19, 2011
|
|
—
|
79%
|
Cold Fish (2011) |
—
House Next Door
Posted Oct 19, 2011
|
|
|
33%
|
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) |
"
Director Rob Marshall stages slapstick like dance choreography and action like a theme park ride. Which I guess is appropriate... "
—
MSN.com
Posted Oct 17, 2011
|
|
—
|
——
|
I Wish I Knew (Hai shang chuan qi) () |
—
House Next Door
Posted Oct 11, 2011
|
|
|
78%
|
Fast Five (2011) |
"
Forget physics, it's just a fun blast of action movie ingenuity, as is the film as a whole. "
—
MSN.com
Posted Oct 4, 2011
|
|
|
86%
|
Jackie Brown (1997) |
"
Tarantino's films aren't so much stories as strings of anecdotes: movie moments, urban myths, conversations strewn with pop culture references."
—
Parallax View
Posted Oct 4, 2011
|
|
|
94%
|
The Day He Arrives (2012) |
"
I always forget how funny Hong's films are until I'm in the middle of their deadpan variations on a by now standard theme of immature, self-involved men and accommodating women fooling themselves."
—
House Next Door
Posted Oct 4, 2011
|
|
|
83%
|
Tyrannosaur (2011) |
"
Like so many other British actors who turn to British miserablism in the warzone of poverty and neglect and crime when they step behind the camera, the redemption is all in the characters and the performance."
—
House Next Door
Posted Oct 4, 2011
|
|
|
81%
|
The Skin I Live In (2011) |
"
Wicked stuff: voyeuristic, brutal, emotionally wrought and visually stripped down from Almodóvar's usual fabric party of textures to a clinical-chic austerity. And fun too."
—
House Next Door
Posted Oct 4, 2011
|
|
|
10%
|
Captain America (1990) |
"
... a real stiff, a corny piece of nostalgic pulp with cheap action, cheesy dialogue and a charismatically challenged leading man."
—
MSN.com
Posted Sep 30, 2011
|
|
|
90%
|
Bridesmaids (2011) |
"
... a girl-bonding romp filled equally with outlandish bridal showers and alcohol-fueled slapstick aggression, grand romantic gestures and furtive sex, high couture and low blows."
—
MSN.com
Posted Sep 28, 2011
|
|
|
75%
|
Basket Case (1982) |
"
The DIY effects may look naively amateur today but there's a loving B-movie attitude and a genuine sense of character to the "monster," the misshapen, fleshy, snaggle-toothed Belial."
—
MSN.com
Posted Sep 28, 2011
|
73%
78%
61%
52%
26%
4%
