Andrew O'Hehir

Supremely economical, pulse-pounding and undeniably bewildering thriller, which plays like a blend of mid-'90s Hong Kong action flick and mid-'70s European crime drama. Arguably this movie amounts to less than the sum of its parts - but hot damn, those are some parts.

Terrifically choreographed, violent and amoral, but never wantonly cruel, Miss Bala is a knockout.

Most famously, Belafonte ignited immense controversy both within and without the black community by repeatedly suggesting that Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were the "house slaves" of the George W. Bush administration.

It's exactly the sort of movie that Hollywood specializes in, the kind which seems on paper as if it ought to be entertaining, but winds up a massive and chaotic drag.

This is a wonderful, passionate, well-nigh unforgettable adaptation of a great novel about the horrors of love, and the wonderful fact that at least some of us live through it and come back for more.

You don't have to know the first thing about modern dance to be transported to an alternate state of consciousness by Pina, which is utterly free of Wenders' cloying sentimentality (perhaps because it's an elegy for a dead friend) and might be the first of his films I've loved all the way through since his 1987 masterpiece, "Wings of Desire."

If the narrative of Pariah is predictable and its delivery system rather after-school special, the characters and setting are unforgettable and Lee's coming-of-age story feels both true and moving.

García, previously the director of "Mother and Child," "Passengers" and numerous TV episodes (and the son of Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez), never feels entirely comfortable with the period or location, but for all its limitations Albert Nobbs has a puzzling undertow, and gets more involving the longer you stick with it.

What a handful of patient moviegoers may find in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, however, is a subtle, gorgeous and mysterious allegory that may be Ceylan's masterwork to date.

A lean, disturbing and beautifully photographed thriller from writer, director and actor Rafi Pitts, who was born in Tehran, educated in Britain and did his filmmaking apprenticeship in France, working for Jean-Luc Godard and Leos Carax.

I simultaneously want to endorse its ambition and nerve and report that it's a very mixed bag.

Something close to a contemporary masterwork, and maybe the best foreign-language film of the year, right at the tail end.

Speaking as someone who despises almost every aspect of the Thatcherite social-economic consensus that has defined the capitalist world for thirty years (and almost every aspect of Thatcher's actual policies), she deserves more than this.

It's almost a great war movie in one direction, and almost a piece of irredeemable cheese in the other, and there you have it.

Renders Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling 2005 novel into unconvincing Hollywood mush.

Kostic, a Bosnian actor who has done quite a bit of British film and TV, and the Sarajevo-born beauty Marjanovic make a combustible screen couple, and Jolie knows it. Despite the film's generally somber tone, there's more than a hint of "Night Porter"-style perversity to their relationship, which at different times is platonic, therapeutic and highly erotic.

Although I personally still find the rubber-faced, pseudo-human figures produced by this technique unsettling, the work done by Spielberg and Jackson's animation teams here is exquisite.

This is an immersive and powerful thriller, driven by terrific leading performances. It's mostly really good and then it wears out its welcome.

Seeing these four actors launching Reza's zingers at each other at high speed is pretty much worth the price of admission all by itself, and one thing you always know about Polanski is that he won't waste your time.

The most exciting action flick of the year, by a huge margin.

Occasionally thrilling, sometimes hilarious and mostly absolute claptrap. Think of it as a lot like drinking a fourth cup of holiday eggnog: Not really a good idea at all, but you might have fun.

What contemporary relevance you may find in Alfredson's chilly, marvelously acted and gorgeously composed new film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - is a highly individual question.

Humor is notoriously subjective, of course, but I didn't find Young Adult especially funny. It's an intermittently engaging fable of American homecoming that's both intentionally and unintentionally awkward, and flavored from bitter to sour all the way through.

Fiennes' crackerjack Coriolanus stays true to the clever, almost mean-spirited twists and turns of the story, and preserves the authentic flavor and texture of the language.

In the long and fraught history of Franco-American cultural relations, this movie is more than a peace offering; it's a loving, goofy, joyous French kiss.

You can't call W.E. a total disaster; it's too pretty, too nonsensical and finally too insignificant for that.

There are so many great things happening on almost every level of this movie, from Swinton's haunting, magnetic and tremendously vulnerable performance, which is absolutely free of condescension to the suburban American wife-ness of her character, to the many unsettling individual moments.

My Week With Marilyn is the kind of shtick-laden movie in the British TV mode that delivers all its laughs, and all its grand, declamatory moments, right on schedule. I'm delighted to recommend it, as long as you know what you're in for: "The King's Speech" has the subtlety of Chekhov in comparison.