Inexhaustibly funny and bittersweet

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 1999)

I don't know anymore how many times I've watched "Annie Hall," and I'd still be happy to see it again any time. The dialogue is so eminently quotable, so sharp and snappy and hysterically funny, that you almost don't feel it reaching somewhere deeper at first, but pretty soon you might notice a tear or two rolling down your cheeks that's not just from laughing so hard. Unquestionably Allen's masterpiece, it does such a great job of capturing the awkwardness, humor, pathos, insanity, futility, and hopeless beauty of romantic relationships that it's almost the only film you need to see on the subject. There are so many classic scenes in this film that I've almost begun to imagine "Annie Hall" was really two or three movies--all of those great bits couldn't really be from the same film, could they? The opening and closing monologues are great examples of and tributes to a great and very old tradition of Jewish humor, and they set just the right tone for this wonderfully sad and hilarious story. A true must-see.