A deliberately coarse character style that's more Gumby than Gromit.

| Dec 16, 2009

A small gem of an animated film, $9.99 manages to be rich in whimsy and fantastical turns while still rooted in human ground.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 11, 2009

Set in a grim, grimy, often bleak world, a hybrid, densely detailed environment of interwoven stories and chance encounters, with occasional flights of fantasy and rare glimmers of hope.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 17, 2009

The whole never quite comes together, in fact -- but even without that unity, the film has an oddball charm and intelligence.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 16, 2009

The creation of this world is amazingly detailed; it's magic, really. But maybe the film doesn't quite reach the heights of everyman experience to which it aspires.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 9, 2009

It has been a good year for animation that pushes thematic and visual boundaries.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 7, 2009

$9.99 may not be entirely successful from a dramatic perspective, and it certainly offers little enlightenment about the meaning of life. But the film is so intriguing in other ways that it's definitely worth a look.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 6, 2009

Using the medium of Wallace and Gromit and Gumby, Israeli filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal turns her clay figures into real people in $9.99, a wise, wistful study of hope and dread.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 30, 2009

It isn't always clear if the animation is integral to the movie or merely a way of sprucing up its more familiar tales of melancholy and yearning.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 24, 2009

The stop-motion animated world of $9.99 is a marvel to behold.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 16, 2009

It's an entertaining, depressing and ultimately hopeful movie about the times we live in.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2009

While I'm normally all for pushing boundaries and doing things a bit differently, most of the time watching this I could help but feel like Keret and Rosenthal were being weird simply for the sake of being weird.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 1, 2009

A charming, poetic and at times surreal stop-motion animation co-written with Etgar Keret and based on the Israeli writer's short stories.

| Jun 26, 2009

A movie that entertains and enlightens without being preachy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 25, 2009

With all the hoo-ha over Up, the latest Pixar extravaganza, it would be a loss if the highly worthy little animated feature $9.99 got buried in the avalanche.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 19, 2009

This often haunting stop-motion Claymation movie ultimately suffers from what bedevils many live-action movies culled from short stories: a herky-jerky plot.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 19, 2009

Fans of deadpan comic fantasy writers like Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut are likely to be intrigued by this lively little packet of weird -- then dive like a dolphin into Keret's loopy story volumes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 19, 2009

$9.99 uses an extraordinary technique to bring the Israeli writer Etgar Keret's world to life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 19, 2009

It's a sleepy film, both in its consciously low-key execution and in its startling flashes of dreamlike whimsy.

| Original Score: B | Jun 18, 2009

Using the droll, wise stories of Etgar Keret as her guide, Israeli filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal concocts an artful film that 
 expresses deep thoughts, lightly.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 17, 2009