A Tout de Suite (2005)

"Tight little drama."

Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story (2007)

"The temptation to juice up the squalid elements of this story would be hard to resist for most filmmakers. Yet, for the most part, [the directors] manage to balance the story's jolting, world-shaking elements with the more intimate details."

About a Boy (2002)

"A shrewd (if uneven) hybrid of American savvy and British savoir-faire."

About Schmidt (2002)

"Even while playing in a minor key with low-to-moderate tone colors, Jack Nicholson can knock your socks off."

Across the Universe (2007)

"There's so much to like, even love, about Across the Universe that you're even more exasperated about its faults."

Adventureland (2009)

"Adventureland may be targeted at teens, but it's a sophisticated film that just happens to be about unformed people and their raw emotions."

Agent Cody Banks (2003)

"This elaborate and good-natured entertainment is never as funny as it should be, but it's also never wanting for energy."

The Agronomist (2004)

"A film guaranteed to promote righteous indignation, sadness and guilt -- as it makes the case that the intertwined history of the United States and Haiti is one of almost unutterable shame."

AKA (2002)

"AKA has the ruthlessness and compassion of someone who has been there, done that and emerged with a heightened understanding of our shared sense of fraudulence."

The Alamo (2004)

"While the battle scenes Hancock conducts are symphonic in their concussive confusion and chaos, it's in the characterization that the film achieves some gravitas."

Ali (2001)

"The most impressive and persuasive rendering of a late-20th-century icon since Anthony Hopkins turned on that old Nixon charm in Oliver Stone's 1995 biopic."

Alice's House (2007)

"Ribas delivers a natural, earthy performance that has helped this film win numerous awards on the festival circuit."

All About Lily Chou-Chou (2002)

"Poignant Japanese epic about adolescent anomie and heartbreak."

All The King's Men (2006)

"In its best moments, All the King's Men exhorts us to sit back and reflect on the dark choices we are all capable of making in the name of power."

All the Real Girls (2003)

"Paul Schneider, a buoyant young newcomer from North Carolina, is the No. 1 reason to see David Gordon Green's All the Real Girls."

Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)

"The sight of enhanced Alvin and the Chipmunks in the movie of the same name is far less squirm-inducing than one might have feared."

Amazing Grace (2007)

"That rare bird: a tear-jerker about the House of Commons and the antislavery movement in England. Michael Apted's idolatrous portrait of abolitionist William Wilberforce is wall-to-wall with intriguing characters and deeply felt performances."

American Adobo (2002)

"Really is a pan-American movie, with moments of genuine insight into the urban heart."

American Hardcore (2006)

"Filmmaker Paul Rachman and writer Steven Blush make an impressive case for a grass-roots movement of mostly white, working-to-middle-class misfits who thought rock-and-roll needed to be rude, abrasive and somewhat scary at the dawn of the Reagan era."

American Splendor (2003)

"Funny, clever, tender and wry, while always holding true to its ongoing identity crisis."

American Wedding (2003)

"[Dylan's] bare-bones approach may trip up along the way, but it keeps the funny stuff in the foreground."

Amores Perros (2001)

"May be the most repellent great movie you will ever see."

Amy (2001)

"A crowd-charming contemporary fable with more than a touch of Dickens in its go-for-broke heart."

Anatomy of Hell (2004)

"Breillat, as usual, leaves us gasping."

And Now Ladies and Gentlemen (2003)

"After an erratic run of screen appearances, Irons delivers a full-blooded star turn, riding on vast reserves of charm and riddled with question marks."