The Sun Recommends
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Wondering what else is in theaters this weekend? Here are five films recommended by The New York Sun’s critics that you can still catch around town.
THE PRESTIGE
PG-13, 128 minutes
Magic is in the air with “The Prestige,” not because it’s the second movie about magicians from a major studio in nine weeks, nor because the title itself refers to the structure of an illusion, but because the trickery, or should we say wizardry, of director Christopher Nolan is more impressive here than it’s ever been before.
We’re fascinated by the drama here, not by the trickery; more interested in watching two master magicians duel than seeing all the levitations, transformations, and dissections they could ever throw at us. Thankfully, Mr. Nolan needs no gimmick. He doesn’t need to fool us into oohs and aahs. He’s already fooled us into seeing this engrossing bit of stagecraft as real theater.
— Steven Snyder
MARIE ANTOINETTE
PG-13, 123 minutes
By Hollywood standards, Sophia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” is well researched, its sins mainly those of omission although not entirely: Contrary to what’s shown in the movie, the real queen drank very little), not that those are trivial. This is a Marie Antoinette without the necklace that scandal is never mentioned), but who keeps her neck. The last three to four years of her life, years in which she finally achieved a certain tragic dignity, don’t feature at all, but perhaps they don’t need to. After all, we witness her refusal to abandon Louis XVI as the revolution grew, and we see the bravery with which she faced the mob that had stormed Versailles.
But for all this film’s cleverness, it would not succeed without the extraordinary, almost hypnotic, performance by Kirsten Dunst as the fabulously indulged, fabulously abused Marie Antoinette of Ms. Coppola’s vision, driven quite literally to distraction by the weird predicament in which she found herself.
— Andrew Stuttaford
THE QUEEN
PG-13, 97 minutes
In all the decades of Queen Elizabeth II’s painstakingly (and sometimes painfully) dutiful, conscientious, and tenacious reign, there has only really been one brief, bizarre period, of just about a week, when there was the slightest danger that the Windsors might, like so many of their less fortunate relatives in so many less fortunate countries, be asked to pack their bags. It’s that interlude that is the focus of “The Queen.”
Watch Her Majesty carefully enough and it’s just possible to detect that the smile, the wave, the small talk, and all the rest of it are acts of will, the work of an actress, a pro, trapped in a role that will last a lifetime. Dame Helen Mirren catches this perfectly.
— A.S.
THE DEPARTED
R, 149 mintues
Like its milieu, Irish-Catholic Boston, “The Departed” has plenty in common with the mean streets that Martin Scorsese has trod before, without the watershed setting or the whiff of Grand Guignol that complicated the mix in his last violent romp, the period piece “Gangs of New York.” It has plenty more, too. For both these reasons, it’s awfully fun to watch.
The same could be said for the two informers at the center of the story, which is borrowed from the 2002 Hong Kong policier “Infernal Affairs.” Ostensible gangster Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and ostensible police sergeant Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) are both the opposite of what they appear to be. Billy, a strung-out undercover cop, puts his life on the line cozying up to Boston’s biggest crime lord, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Colin, the spitand-polish young star of the special investigations unit, coolly foils every sting.
— Darrell Hartman
A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS
R, 98 minutes
The director Dito Montiel uses what he knows, namely the streets of New York and its residents, to make a film that proves how painful even the most inevitable of changes can sometimes be.
Mr. Montiel grew up in Astoria, Queens, roaming the streets with his friends and observing the weird jumble of 1980s New York. They had free reign of the city at night, finding wayward locations to take over, girls to chase, and occasionally laws to break.
The film tells the story of an adult Mr. Montiel (Robert Downey Jr.) making a long overdue visit back home after achieving literary success, as he recounts his not so glory days back in Astoria. Shia LeBoeuf, playing the young Dito, puts in a nuanced and moving performance.
— Meghan Keane