Critic consensus:A powerful and uplifting documentary.

Numbered reviews:1. The glimpses we see of them and their all-too-knowing interactions with their hellish surroundings are somehow both too much, and not nearly enough.
2. Filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman find intermittent beauty without pushing our sentimental buttons. But the title promises more than the movie delivers.
3. It brings us to a place we'd never see otherwise, gives us a poignant lesson in the difficulties of saving those who seem doomed, and reminds us how beauty can exist even in the ugliest of places and circumstances.
4. Before our eyes, Briski confronts and answers questions of exploitation that can shadow profilers of the downtrodden.
5. This is the kind of film that reminds you of what movies, at their best, are capable of.
6. While this moving, hopeful documentary is credited to Briski and partner Ross Kaufman, its most touching moments come directly from the lenses of the kids themselves.
7. It may sound like the most prehistoric of clichés, but Briski and Kaufman's astonishing documentary confirms that art feeds the soul.
8. Some of these images will stay with you, seared into your mind, dispatches from a desperate world that will break your heart.
9. Will break your heart, then warm it up and leave you with that 7-Up longing to know what happens next to Zana's kids.
10. A documentary that changed the lives both of subjects and filmmakers, it will reorder the worldview of whoever sees it.


Critic consensus:A charming, captivating tale of love and music, Once sets the standard for the modern musical. And with Dublin as its backdrop, Once is fun and fresh.

Numbered reviews:1. This touching Irish re-imagining of the classic backstage musical has a filmmaker's eye and a poet's heart.
2. John Carney's direction is unassuming and without a hint of pretension, and his short screenplay lets the music do a lot of the talking.
3. Every note brings us closer to these characters.
4. A touching, tender and smart film that effectively blends elements of musical and romance, while maintaining an air of realism and honesty one rarely finds in either genre.
5. By the end of the year, Once will be the movie doomed to lose at the Oscars but live on in everyone's hearts.
6. Once is a simple yet not simplistic love story which doesn't end as you might expect.
7. We do not fall in love nearly enough at the movies, but this is one to adore.
8. Like all great pop songs, you can't wait to hear how it ends, and few conclusions feel as complete as that in "Once." For a film so joyfully attuned to the tumultuous nature of composition, it's no surprise that this is one of 2007's best.
9. Even when Carney lays on the indie film visual aesthetics a little too thick, the movie never feels anything less than heart-wrenchingly authentic.
10. Casting musicians rather than actors proves to be a wise choice because their interplay is completely naturalistic. All of the musical interaction is authentic and, by extention, so is their entire relationship.


Critic consensus:It isn't deep or groundbreaking, but what it lacks in profundity, Puss in Boots more than makes up for with an abundance of wit, visual sparkle, and effervescent charm.

Numbered reviews:
1. Where the visuals fail, the script does not pick up the slack. [The] screenplay plods along, and not even the occasional prison-rape joke can make it come to life.
2. 'Puss in Boots' is uneven, but when it's on course, cat fans will be in heaven.
3. Puss in Boots is a Shrek spin-off, which might seem pointless in addition to predictable.
4. Entertaining spin-off enlivened by a terrific voice performance from Shrek scene-stealer Antonio Banderas and colourful animation work but the script is weak and the film blows all its best gags early on.
5. It may be ogre-free, but it's a monster of a movie.
6. Purr-fect fun for rugrats mourning the end of the Shrek series.
7. What the film boast in charm and exuberance, it sadly lacks in emotional core, and while there isn't really any depth to the bonds formed over the 90 minutes, it's still a great family-friendly action-comedy.
8. Every time Puss opened his mouth to speak I was so captivated by his gnashers they helped to make this one of the most entertaining animations I've seen since The Incredibles and Happy Feet.
9. this western-parodying cat-with-too-many-names is closer to Rango than to anything from the Kingdom of Far Far Away.
10. Just a whisker away from being the cat's whiskers.