Matt Tyrnauer’s celebrated docu-portrait of a fashion icon begins with the designer’s 75th birthday party and final show, then arcs backward to detail Valentino’s rise in the industry and the building of his branded, ...

This pared down, offbeat approach to rendering Chekhov may inflame purists, but actually helps make the playwright's depressing work more accessible. We get the full treatment, with no flubbed lines or distractions to ...

What drives a man to kill? Are monsters created by society or an inner compulsion? This complex and twisted psychological thriller by Japanese master-of-the-sordid Shohei Imamura ("The Eel") tries to answer that ...

Playing a somewhat lecherous, once-dashing actor in his twilight years, O'Toole deservedly received an Oscar nod for "Venus," a witty and heartfelt variation on the Pygmalion myth. Hardly known for sober restraint in ...

Written and directed by the gifted Leigh, this heart-wrenching drama concerns a woman whose almost saintly sense of charity extends to all around her, but whose naiveté ultimately results in a traumatic reckoning with ...

Whether you laugh out loud or sit gaping at the absurd, idiosyncratic soliloquies of these endearing Vernon locals, one thing is for sure: You'll feel right at home under Morris's studiously unobtrusive observational ...

Hitchcock's psychological tingler was not a huge success on release, but understandably has achieved cult status over time. Ambitious, dense and more than slightly twisted, "Vertigo" is both an elaborate ...

Basil Dearden's tense, gripping drama was daring for the time in addressing the victimization of closeted homosexuals by unscrupulous criminals. Bogarde is superb as Farr (no relation), and Syms is equally compelling as ...

Blake Edwards's musical triumph and an ideal late-career showcase for real-life wife Andrews, this dazzling picture employs the venerable talents of tunesmiths Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse, not to mention reuniting ...

Often compared to John Ford’s “Grapes of Wrath” and the humanist tradition of Italian neorealism, Dos Santos’s “Vidas Secas” was one of the important early works in Brazil’s own Cinema Novo movement. With his ...

Leave it to Canadian horror maven Cronenberg to concoct a bizarre but intelligent paranoid chiller involving televisual mind-control, sadomasochism, and a mysterious leader named Brian O'Blivion. Cronenberg's cunning ...

With elegantly precise cinematography and timing meticulous enough to please the unnervingly quiet children who inhabit the film, Village of the Damned practically invented the slow burn, fostering a subtly building ...

Altman’s mesmerizing biopic breaks new ground by focusing on Van Gogh's dealings with virtually the only advocate he ever had-his own brother. Roth and Rhys both bring nuance and passion to their portrayals of the ...

Documentarian Cox's deceptively simple approach to penetrating the enigma of Vincent Van Gogh scores a direct hit. British actor Hurt's weathered but still rich voice expertly conveys the artist's building ...

The fascinating "Vincere" freely jumps through time, combining color and B&W footage, historical fact and melodrama, punchy graphics and rich orchestral scoring to create a truly operatic piece of cinema. Director ...

Based on the real-life case of Violette Noziere, a young poisoner whose crimes and wanton sex life scandalized Paris, Chabrol’s masterful suspense drama refrains from overtly judging its subject, played with sultry ...

Perhaps the crowning achievement in Buñuel's oeuvre, "Viridiana" details the efforts of a virtuous former nun to minister to the poor after she's irrevocably changed by a fateful encounter. As you might expect from ...

This film is a boon for motion-picture lovers and a succinct primer for anyone interested in the underappreciated art of cinematography. Summing up the achievements of cinema’s great DPs from the 1930s to the present ...

Starring real-life piano prodigies Gheorghiu (playing Vitus at six) and Borsani (playing Vitus at twelve), Murer’s gently intelligent, often mesmerizing film tells the tale of a gifted lad trying to determine his own ...

Part murder mystery, part ghost story, and one hundred percent witty, estrogen-fueled fantasy, Almodovar's story of three generations of women is one of the Spanish director's most exuberant films. Enamored of outcasts ...