Stephanie Zacharek

Ask people about their favorite movies and the same titles come up regularly — Casablanca, Pulp Fiction, Annie Hall, Citizen Kane. But some films have special meaning for people even if they don't turn up on lists of established favorites. These are the secret movies we keep in our pockets......

New York is a cruel and beautiful place, just as 27 is a cruel and beautiful age. In Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig plays a woman who's feeling the weight of both. Frances is an aspiring dancer who has reached the age when "aspiring" really means not cutting it. Life with......

Nearly everyone I know who has seen the official poster for the 66th Cannes Film Festival -- a bird's-eye view of a kiss between a young Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward -- has been crazy about it. The couple's lips meet in the center of a perfect sunburst. She's two......

The biggest puzzlement of these early days of the festival comes from Sofia Coppola, one of my favorite working directors. Until now, I have loved every one of Coppola's movies: I love her sure and delicate touch, and she's better than any other contemporary filmmaker at capturing the greatness of......

François Ozon's Young & Beautiful, a portrait of a 17-year-old French call girl, is something else again. This is another story about a family in crisis: Isabelle (played by Marine Vacth, a stunning-looking if ultimately inert actress) is a student who still lives at home with her mother, stepfather, and......

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old flame, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), is coming to Nick's house for tea. Eager......

Where has Robert Downey Jr. gone? There's no doubt he's the star of Iron Man 3; he sprints through the picture like a neurotic panther. Yet he's absent, detached in a Zenlike way from the whole affair. The nakedness that defines his best performances — in any role, up to......