David Edelstein

Filmmaker Oliver Stone couldn't wait for President Bush to leave office before he made a movie about him. And despite Stone's famously left-leaning views, his treatment of The Decider is surprisingly empathetic — though ultimately the film doesn't do justice to its characters.

David Edelstein reviews Body Of Lies, a new spy thriller directed by Ridley Scott and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. Set in Iraq and Syria, the film charts a young CIA operative's growing disillusionment with his superiors in Washington.

It's not often you hear the word "masterpiece" coming from a film critic. But David Edelstein says it applies to Jonathan Demme's newest film, a marvelously textured thing at once focused and bursting at the seams.

Miracle At St. Anna, based on James McBride's novel, follows four soldiers of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division after they're cut off by Axis forces in the Tuscan countryside during World War II.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews two new coming-of-age movies: Towelhead, which features a young Arab-American girl who is sent to live with her father in Texas, and Hound Dog, about a troubled girl who takes comfort in the music of Elvis Presley.

Joel and Ethan Coen's new black comedy sets its dim-bulb characters careening through a blackmail-and-infidelity plot. The cast is top notch, but the directors seem so little invested, they might as well be on autopilot.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new documentary American Teen. Directed by Nanette Burnstein, the film follows a group of seniors at a high school in Warsaw, Indiana.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new stoner-action comedy, Pineapple Express starring and co-written by Seth Rogen.

With a tightly woven narrative, James Marsh's superb documentary studies Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the Twin Towers. Critic David Edelstein says the film is often awe-inducing.

Batman should be dark, reviewer David Edelstein says, but Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is a sadistic film with "no wit, visual or otherwise."