"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" By Charles Taylor
A restored version of Luis Buñuel's Academy Award-winning black satire takes aim at the Spanish director's most cherished old hates. (05/16/00)

"Center Stage" By Stephanie Zacharek
Nicholas Hytner, director of "The Madness of King George," takes a mild-mannered genre picture and turns it into a rare entertainment. (05/16/00)

"Battlefield Earth" By Andrew O'Hehir
L. Ron Hubbard's pulp sci-fi classic comes incomprehensibly to the screen starring Scientologist John Travolta. (05/12/00)

"Hamlet" By Stephanie Zacharek
There's something rotten in Denmark, but not in this darkly glittering update of Shakespeare's great tragedy. (05/12/00)

"Gladiator" By Andrew O'Hehir
We who are about to be bored salute you! Russell Crowe stars in Ridley Scott's Roman bloodfest. (05/05/00)

"Up at the Villa" By Michael Sragow
The new film from the folks who gave us "Angels and Insects" is strictly "Minor Piece Theatre." (05/05/00)

"Where the Heart Is" By Andrew O'Hehir
With an Oprah-book plot and Hallmark sentimentality, the trailer-park melodrama never lets you forget that Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd are hot babes with perfect complexions. (04/28/00)

The revenge of the Sex Pistols By Bill Wyman
Blood, chaos, hatred and fear: The lads who changed rock history tell the story their way. (04/28/00)

"Set Me Free" By Stephanie Zacharek
A 13-year-old girl falls in love with a glamorous fictional prostitute in this elegiac coming-of-age story. (04/28/00)

"Gossip" By Andrew O'Hehir
It doesn't really matter who sleeps with whom in this sub-"Melrose Place" college fantasy, just that both actors will end up shirtless. (04/21/00)

"The Virgin Suicides" By Stephanie Zacharek
Sofia Coppola finds the bare-bones poetry of Jeffrey Eugenides' novel. (04/21/00)

"U-571" By Charles Taylor
Damn the torpedoes! Damn the formulaic modern American action movie! (04/21/00)

"28 Days" By Charles Taylor
Not even court-ordered rehab could save this stumbling drunk of a picture. (04/18/00)

"Keeping the Faith" By Andrew O'Hehir
Edward Norton's dopey directorial debut gives interfaith romance a bad name. (04/18/00)

"American Psycho" By Stephanie Zacharek
Mary Harron's clinically ironic take on the infamous Bret Easton Ellis novel tastefully avoids showing murderous violence -- and making a point. (04/14/00)

"Where the Money Is" By Charles Taylor
Credit aging bank robber Paul Newman for almost saving this merely diverting little heist comedy. (04/14/00)

"Joe Gould's Secret" By Charles Taylor
Stanley Tucci and Ian Holm face off as a New Yorker writer and the loopy Greenwich Village street character he turned into a celebrity -- with devastating results. (04/07/00)

"Ready to Rumble" By Andrew O'Hehir
Is it a feature-length commercial for World Championship Wrestling or a juvenile work of deviant genius -- or both? (04/07/00)

"Return to Me" By Stephanie Zacharek
David Duchovny and Minnie Driver star in a movie that almost seems like a godsend in this age of romantic-comedy schmaltz. (04/07/00)

"Black and White" By Charles Taylor
Gangsta meets wigga in James Toback's brutal, hip-hop-driven look at modern-day race relations. (04/05/00)

"Beau Travail" By Charles Taylor
Claire Denis' baffling and exhilarating "Billy Budd" smolders with heat-blasted rhythms and supercharged acting. (03/31/00)

"High Fidelity" By Stephanie Zacharek
Love, rock 'n' roll, lists and record-store geeks come together swimmingly in the romantic filmed version of the Nick Hornby novel. (03/31/00)

"The Skulls" By Andrew O'Hehir
Evil lurks in the hallowed halls of higher education; so does lousy dialogue. (03/31/00)

"Buddy Boy" By Andrew O'Hehir
First-time director Mark Hanlon may have watched "Eraserhead" too many times, but he sure knows how to sustain a mood. (03/28/00)

"Romeo Must Die" By Andrew O'Hehir
In this canny and ingeniously crafted action thriller, Jet Li glows with a quiet, unquantifiable something -- and he kicks butt. (03/24/00)

"Erin Brockovich" By Charles Taylor
In this sexy, exciting legal drama, Steven Soderbergh delivers his most straightforward movie -- and Julia Roberts her best performance. (03/17/00)

"Mission to Mars" By Andrew O'Hehir
In space, no one can hear you jeer. (03/10/00)

"The Ninth Gate" By Charles Taylor
Johnny Depp stars in Roman Polanski's newest, an amusing and deadpan literary thriller. (03/10/00)

"Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" By Stephanie Zacharek
Jim Jarmusch adds lyrical violence to a Zen meditation on warriors hip-hop and ancient. (03/09/00)

"3 Strikes" By Andrew O'Hehir
The loosey-goosey South Central romp could use a translator for Clueless White People, but it's packed with physical comedy yuks. (03/03/00)

"Drowning Mona" By Charles Taylor
Bette Midler, Casey Affleck and Danny DeVito star in a backwoods slapstick that lacks the anarchy needed for true farce. (03/03/00)

"The Next Best Thing" By Stephanie Zacharek
Madonna and Rupert Everett star in a gay-themed family comedy that goes seriously awry. (03/03/00)

"What Planet Are You From?" By Stephanie Zacharek
It's a sad day for cinema when a vibrating penis upstages a perfectly good actress. (03/03/00)

"Judy Berlin" By Charles Taylor
First-time writer-director Eric Mendelsohn offers an unfashionably affectionate look at suburban angst. Edie Falco -- from "the Sopranos" -- stars. (02/25/00)

"Reindeer Games" By Charles Taylor
Ben Affleck provides a charismatic star turn, but John Frankenheimer's out-of-season heist thriller is dead on arrival. (02/25/00)

"Wonder Boys" By Andrew O'Hehir
Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire clash, connect and get baked in Curtis Hanson's literate upscale entertainment. (02/25/00)

"Boiler Room" By Stephanie Zacharek
Giovanni Ribisi shines as a decent guy turned boom-market scam artist (02/18/00)

"Pitch Black" By Andrew O'Hehir
The movie of the season for sci-fi and horror fans (02/18/00)

"The Whole Nine Yards"By Andrew O'Hehir
Bruce Willis kill you would be preferable to sitting through this cheap gangster farce (02/18/00)

"The Beach" By Stephanie Zacharek
No phone, no lights, no motorcar -- not a single luxury! Leonardo DiCaprio and the "Trainspotting" creators can't rescue Alex Garland's trouble-in-paradise bestseller from trite moralizing. (02/11/00)

"Not One Less" By Andrew O'Hehir
Zhang Yimou's modest Chinese fable uses elegant realism to examine the underside of childhood in the Information Age. (02/11/00)

"Simpatico" By Charles Taylor
Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges lead this adaptation of Sam Shepard's play about broken promises, not-quite-abandoned dreams and silky smooth corruption. (02/04/00)

"Scream 3" By Andrew O'Hehir
The final installment of Wes Craven's trilogy may be too wrapped up in its own cleverness, but it's still a fond farewell. (02/04/00)

"Isn't She Great" By Stephanie Zacharek
The Divine Miss M tackles an icon her own size in this frothily enjoyable (if highly fictionalized) yarn about the life and loves of celebrity novelist Jacqueline Susann. (01/28/00)

"The Big Tease" By Daniel Mangin
Craig Ferguson of "The Drew Carey Show" is effervescent as a gay Scottish hairdresser in Lotusland, but Kevin Allen's hackneyed comedy is as light as a squirt of styling mousse. (01/28/00)

"The Cider House Rules" By Stephanie Zacharek
Driven by Tobey Maguire's marvelously layered performance, Lasse Hallström's old-fashioned cinematic yarn-spinning yields genuine emotion without sentimentality. (01/25/00)

"Play It to the Bone" By Stephanie Zacharek
Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas sour the sweet science. (01/21/00)

"Rear Window" By Charles Taylor
James Stewart loves watching the defectives in Hitchcock's restored peeping-tom thriller. (01/21/00)

"Mr. Death" By Andrew O'Hehir
An idiosyncratic documentary examines the life of Fred Leuchter, a man who built a better electric chair -- and denied the Holocaust death camps. (01/14/00)

"The Hurricane" By Andrew O'Hehir
Denzel Washington's knockout performance wins over an otherwise flat-footed film. (01/07/00)

"Galaxy Quest" By Stephanie Zacharek
A sweet-spirited and clever film for anyone who's ever been a sci-fi nerd -- or laughed at one. (01/07/00)

"Titus" By Charles Taylor
Like so many self-conscious directors, Julie Taymor wrecks Shakespeare's already disastrous play with her own horrific vision. (01/07/00)

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