Ann Hornaday

The history of filmmakers skewering Hollywood's darker excesses is a long and rich one, from Billy Wilder through Robert Altman. With Tropic Thunder, a rude, crude, over-the-top satire about rude, crude, over-the-top action movies, Ben Stiller makes an ambitious and surprisingly effective bid to join those vaunted ranks.

This refreshing alternative to the usual potted biopic provides an absorbing look at a singular, steely determination as it was forged and annealed, long before it made itself known to the world.

A lovely, amazing, wonderfully provocative film.

Eastwood's instinct for creating efficient, adult, mainstream entertainment is virtually unerring. He's still a class act, not to mention craggy, suave, laconic and very, very cool.

A nifty piece of work -- with, by the way, a fantastic musical score and soundtrack -- that, if there's any justice in the movie world, will eventually earn a mystique all its own.

Block, an experienced documentarian, does an outstanding job walking the knife-edge between personal and self-absorbed.

The cast is superb, especially the young actors who portray Vitus; Gheorghiu is a real-life piano prodigy, lending an extra frisson to the intoxicating music that plays throughout the film.

A vivid portrait of a society in the midst of wrenching change, but it transcends its immediate context to become a thoughtful, even unforgettable, chamber piece, performed with exquisite subtlety by two fine actresses.

For a gripping, thoroughly involving account of a flawed but inspiring real-life hero, audiences need look no further.

What gradually comes into focus is a terrifying, appalling, infuriating cycle of exploitation and corruption.

A smart, marvelously drawn account of the bravery of homing pigeons during World War II.

Even if its most ironic humor will sail over the heads of very little ones, Enchanted is that rare comedy that will appeal to the whole family.

The film leaves viewers with the sad, even tragic sense that his legacy would have been more profound had he gotten out of his own way.

Pirates of the Caribbean moves easily from sunny 18th-century seafaring adventure to creepy zombie flick and back again.

Seems propelled by a doomed sense of inevitability and is all the more gripping for it.

An exhilarating ride.

See Food, Inc. after dinner, but see it.

A deceivingly simple film, one that grows in power in retrospect, as the cumulative impact of so many quiet moments makes itself felt.

The ending is enormously satisfying and moving.

Thanks to the uncommonly shrewd judgment of screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos and director Patricia Riggen, both newcomers, the film never feels like rank exploitation, even as it steadily aims for the emotional jugular.

A wildly ambitious, luridly indulgent spectacle of romance, action, melodrama and historic revisionism, Australia is windy, overblown, utterly preposterous and insanely entertaining.

A riveting, amusing, enlightening and emotionally affecting movie by a guy you've never heard of, about -- wait for it -- the consumer debt crisis.

Bears the unmistakable stamp of authenticity, even at its most outrageous.

A gorgeous and surprisingly profound meditation on a place and its people.

The film looks great on the screen, and Hamer has commissioned a terrific musical score from Kristin Asbjornsen, who has set a few of Bukowski's poems to haunting, jazzy music.

Smart, funny, well-acted and visually lively.

A startling portrayal of how the cycle of abuse plays itself out in the lives of its victims.

Designed to educate, outrage and finally spur viewers to action. That it does so with vibrant visual style and an engaging narrative makes it that rare consciousness-raising film that's not only good for you, but a joy to watch.

Smart, silly, splenetic and a bit smug, it's a movie that might put a viewer's teeth on edge were it not for its winning lead performances.

Spielberg's dark side may not be where everyone wants to live, but it's somehow encouraging to know that he has one.

Writ small, Golden Door is an absorbing and moving love story; writ large, it's the story we've never stopped telling ourselves.

Kwietniowski has managed to create a surprisingly engrossing and suspenseful narrative without resorting to cosmetics, melodrama or hype.

The beauty of Nine Lives is that its occasionally overlapping stories feel entirely unforced; Garcia's is a filmmaking style of rare lyricism, compassion and discretion.

Still, it's difficult to hold his whoppers against him. In creating characters of such spirit and life, and in imagining such a vibrant, imaginative homage to the transformative powers of love, Kramer, more than most, has earned the right to push his luck.

After delivering scene-stealing turns in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" Rudd claims the much-deserved spotlight in I Love You, Man, which in its own endearing way tweaks the very same male-bonding pieties that those movies made a fortune celebrating.

That rare, genuinely transporting movie that creates an alternate universe, invites the audience in and lets them sink ever deeper into its particular, sublime reverie.

For its flaws, Blood Diamond is a gem, if only for being an unusually smart, engaged popcorn flick.

For filmgoers whose idea of a good time is getting the stuffing scared out of them (who are you guys, anyway?), Signs should prove to be time well spent.

What makes Wilbur worth watching are its smaller bits: Mads Mikkelsen's hilarious performance as a taciturn psychiatrist and Julia Davis's equally funny portrayal of a needy group therapy counselor.

Efficient, precise, carefully calibrated and terrifically entertaining.

Not to be missed, if only for an unforgettable leading performance by Kevin Bacon.

Although the dogs have surely been Disney-fied to some extent, the sequences of them trying to survive are magnificent and deeply moving. Bring the Kleenex, and hug your pups when you get home.

A fascinating experiment that, if the viewer is willing to surrender to Haynes's sometimes hermetic meditations on Dylan's life, heartily rewards the investment.

Even the uninitiated will be hard-pressed to resist the movie's charms, from its likable leading players and its charming Dublin setting to its wistful take on modern love.

An absorbing and inspiring portrait of two musicians whose unerring sense of what's right -- both artistically and ethically -- has not just held them in good stead but driven their particular brand of success.

If the zombie genre steadfastly refuses to die, we can be grateful to Shaun of the Dead for breathing fresh, diverting life into the form, with subtle visual humor and a smart, impish sense of fun.

A wise, funny film about the little leaps of faith it takes to just get through the day.

Kristin Scott Thomas delivers an unnervingly smooth performance as Auteuil's suspicious wife.

May well wind up being the smartest bonehead comedy of the summer.

Isn't everyone's cup of tea -- as the Polishes admit in a clever bit of critical preemption -- but it possesses an undeniable, haunting grandeur.

A killer concert film, an ecstatic testament to the joys of fandom and a tribute to the democratizing potential of moviemaking technology.

Engaging, witty and touching film, one that defies categories to become a romantic comedy, historical biopic and philosophical rumination, all in one.

Terrific family entertainment, an action comedy on a par with "Night at the Museum" and "National Treasure."

Cinema at its most intellectually honest and morally necessary.

Full of visual dazzle, engaging characters and a reasonably sprightly narrative.

Nader haters may not be mollified, but An Unreasonable Man, like its subject itself, is a one-stop civics lesson no one should miss.

An extravagant and thoroughly irresistible story of intrigue, romance, comedy and artistic inspiration.

As portrayed by William Moseley, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley and especially Anna Popplewell as Susan, the Pevensies still make for terrific tween protagonists, and Aslan, the majestic mythical lion voiced by Liam Neeson, is still a breathtaking manifestation of the Cat Upstairs.

Stands as a valuable chronicle of a brief and snarling musical movement.

It doesn't take a screenwriter, for example, to point out the uncanny fact that, when two parent penguins perform a neck-curving pas de deux above their tiny chick, they resemble nothing so much as a perfect heart.

Clerks II finds Smith up to the profane, raunchy, profoundly humanist mischief of which he alone is the master. This is a lewd, lascivious, exhilaratingly life-affirming celebration of misfits and the misfits who love them.

This is documentary-making at its best, not pretending to be journalism, but still playing a crucial role in telling stories that otherwise wouldn't make the front page.

Combines nonstop action with an absorbing story to become a classic on par with "Hoosiers" and "Hoop Dreams."

A sweet and hilarious romantic comedy featuring a breakout performance by British comic genius Ricky Gervais, inspires viewers to pause, reflect and praise one of the most rare and wondrous occurrences in contemporary cinema: the Good Movie.

Combining the best of fantasy and somber reflection, The Water Horse is a lovely ride.

With composure so out of fashion these days in the public square, Steven Soderbergh's adamantly restrained The Informant! arrives like a cleansing tonic.

Belongs, wholly and completely, to Clarkson, who delivers Joy's mordant asides and withering observations with a flawless balance of tartness and vulnerability.

For all the pain and loss that The Kite Runner depicts, it is still a film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity, conveying an enduring sense of hope.

Blessedly free of the self-righteous histrionics and sentimentality that so often cheapen powerful personal stories.