Babel (2006)

"An extension and expansion of 21 Grams in every way, and this time proves too much of a mystical thing."

The Bachelor (1999)

"As desperate as its thousand wannabe brides."

Bad Company (2002)

"Rock, Hopkins sleepwalk through formulaic flick."

Bad News Bears (2005)

"Even if we've seen it a million times, there's still fun to be had watching zeroes become heroes."

Bait (2000)

"Ultimately, it's Foxx's insistence on filling any dead air with wisecracks that spoils Bait."

Ballets Russes (2005)

"A casual interest in dance is all it takes to enjoy Ballets Russes, an enchanting new documentary about the famed French ballet company."

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2005)

"The movie may lose some of its bite when translated from page to screen, but it still delivers a valid message. When one of the boys starts reading good literature, life takes on new meaning."

Bamboozled (2000)

"The fact that Lee has some compelling and interesting points to make can't make up for the movie's sluggishness, artlessness and lack of anything like originality."

Bandits (2001)

"Like all the best outlaws, it empties your pockets painlessly, and leaves a good story behind."

The Barbarian Invasions (2003)

"While it would seem like an unlikely candidate for a sequel, The Barbarian Invasions at least revives its talky debates over the things that matter: politics, literature, love, friendship and, of course, sex."

Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004)

"Funny and entertaining."

Bartleby (2002)

"The movie, like Bartleby, is something of a stiff -- an extra-dry office comedy that seems twice as long as its 83 minutes."

Basic Instinct 2 (2006)

"The only real suspense in Basic Instinct 2 is whether Stone will or won't reprise the scene that she once absurdly claimed she was tricked into doing."

Battle of Algiers (1966)

"Pontecorvo essentially established the cinematic language that we recognize in recent dramas based on actual events, from Bloody Sunday to Black Hawk Down."

Be Cool (2005)

"The movie lacks anything approaching a rhythm -- which, as everyone knows, is the record business' deadliest sin."

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)

"Audiard has wisely avoided the crime-movie clichés of Toback's Fingers, and if his film is not exactly naturalistic, it is steeped in a reality that makes it all the more compelling."

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

"Tells us little about paranoid schizophrenia, less about genius, and next to nothing about Nash."

Because I Said So (2007)

"What makes this seem sad instead of simply silly is the way Keaton throws herself into this slop."

Becoming Jane (2007)

"Explains Austen's art simply and neatly: too simply, in fact, to do justice to such a brilliant observer of social manners and hypocrisies and weaver of complex, romantic moral tales."

Bee Season (2005)

"Though Bee Season has flaws beyond Gere's casting, it compels us to look at the things that words and lives are made of, which is no abstract achievement."

Before Sunset (2004)

"For all its modesty, lingers in the mind like an unresolved relationship or a life-altering, if random, moment."

Before the Fall (2004)

"Nearly every point made in Before the Fall, be it about militarism or the secret sexual codes of fascism, is made too obviously, or has been made before, in films from Cabaret to Europa, Europa."

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2007)

"There is a lot of cleverness at work here, especially when the movie switches from the Blair Witch-style shaky camera to more accomplished and atmospheric low-budget lensing."

The Believer (2002)

"Easily the most thoughtful fictional examination of the root causes of anti-Semitism ever seen on screen."

Below (2002)

"Distances you by throwing out so many red herrings, so many false scares, that the genuine ones barely register."