Derek Elley

A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.

Result is always watchable, occasionally creepy and teasingly pitched halfway between a genre riff and a genuine scarefest.

Tradition and informality collide -- and mutually benefit -- in the deliciously written and expertly played The Queen.

Superbly cast drama… that looks to be a solid upscale attraction wherever the special chemistry of good writing and performances is appreciated.

The tangled tale of love and disguise is awesome in its action sequences but doesn't touch the heart to the same degree.

Kore-eda sketches the inner, spiritual and emotional lives of the children with subtlety and sensitivity, delivering the goods after a seemingly directionless first half.

An exquisite reflection on personal bereavement.

A family ensembler of utter simplicity, Oliver Assayas' Summer Hours is a salutory (and belated) reminder that, as with his earlier Cold Water and Late August, Early September, some of this writer-director's best work comes in modest packages.

Superbly cast drama, in which the lives and emotional arcs of six people -- four Turks and two Germans -- criss-cross through love and tragedy.

Visceral, torn-from-the-memory filmmaking that packs every punch except one to the heart, Lebanon is the boldest and best of the recent mini-wave of Israeli pics ("Beaufort," "Waltz With Bashir") set during conflicts between the two countries.

A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie reflecting one man's life journey.

Sports a stronger narrative spine than is usual in Vietnamese rural dramas and a less fragile tone in its deployment of landscape and character.

A dazzlingly lensed, highly stylized meditation on heroism.

A rough, gritty, often scabrously humorous tribute.

Rarely has a book sprung so vividly to life, but also worked so enthrallingly in pure movie terms, as with Atonement, Brit helmer Joe Wright’s smart, dazzlingly upholstered adaptation of Ian McEwan’s celebrated 2001 novel.

Leigh’s gallery of haves and have-nots, of emotional anorexics and exploited deadbeats, carries a strong political charge that’s there for the taking. But the pic also plays simply as a black, offbeat comedy with a romantic undertow.

On almost every level, there's never quite been a monster movie like The Host. Egregiously subverting its own genre while still delivering shocks at a pure genre level, and marbled with straight-faced character humor that constantly throws the viewer off balance.

Strength of Davies’ vision is the crux, and it holds the line to the final, confident fadeout.

Picture more than delivers on the action front -- not in bang-for-your-buck spectacle but in the kind of gritty, doculike sequences that haul viewers out of their seats and alongside the main protags.

Neither pure masala musical nor pure masala meller, Lagaan is an involving, easily digestible hunk of pure entertainment that could be the trigger for Bollywood's long-awaited crossover to non-ethnic markets.

There’s plenty of unvarnished, off-the-wall Irish humor, especially in the ensemble scenes of family life and boozy barroom chat, plus real warmth beneath the rough one-liners.

Though the movie sounds irredeemably depressing on paper, there’s a real warmth to the central relationship that lifts “Ladybird” above similar-sounding exercises in Brit self-loathing.

A treat, a delicious blend of perversity, playfulness and deadly passion concealed beneath the tranquil, moneyed surface of the Swiss bougeoisie.

Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody.

A powerful, slow-burning portrait of human fallibility.

A movie for the age, and a keeper for the ages, Pride & Prejudice brings Jane Austen's best-loved novel to vivid, widescreen life, as well as making an undisputed star of 20-year-old Keira Knightley.

Not so much a Hitler movie as a portrait of a totalitarian machine's spiritual and emotional collapse, Downfall is a cumulatively powerful Goetterdammerung centered on the last 10 days of the bunkered Fuehrer and those around him.

Direction, performances and lensing blend into an immensely satisfying, if almost uncategorizable, whole in Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love.

Engaging chemistry between leads Emmanuelle Devos and Vincent Cassel.

A sustained genre parody that's equally funny but (maybe in deference to the genre) much more pumped up.

The Wedding Banquet slides down easily even if it doesn't leave much aftertaste.

Precision lensing by Benoit Delhomme, and charming, contained playing by the amateur cast, add up to a tasty package.

Rarely has a veteran filmmaker rejuvenated his career to such startling effect as John Boorman with The General, a fresh-off-the-slab biopic of maverick Irish crime lord Martin Cahill that both challenges and entertains the audience at a variety of levels, as well as reviving the vitality of the helmer's earliest, mid-'60s pics.

The film spins a beguiling web of detail that builds to a surprisingly throat-clutching finish.

A marked strength of the movie is that it does succeed in making the unlikely central love affair believable within its own universe.

Though there's nothing here that hasn’t been dealt with in other Japanese movies, picture benefits considerably from its pitch-perfect performances.

Combo of some stunning animal direction (courtesy of ace trainer Thierry Le Portier) and exotic period setting somewhere in French colonial Indochina charms when the quadripeds stalk the action but creaks when the bipeds open their mouths.

Slight but sleek, Flirt is still fun.

Though it won't appeal to everyone, the concoction actually works, thanks to Huppert and Greggory's powerful negative chemistry.

Often enjoyable, massively uneven Brit ganglander with an almost surreal approach to the genre.

A movie that is utterly engrossing despite being, on the surface, about very little.

Key casting is aces, led by a deglammed Kim, forcefully low-key as the mother who seems capable of anything to protect her son.

A full-bore zombie romp that more than delivers the genre goods.

Visually detailed but emotionally dry.

Overall, Wong’s movie doesn’t leave as big a wash behind it as the more ambitious “Days” and his “Mean Streets”-like debut, “As Tears Go By,” but it’s an enjoyable cruise.

Has a low-key power that comes as much from its off-handed approach to the dark material as from any manipulative techniques.

A wild, intensely cinematic ride into two men's burning desire to get even.

A warm, often invigorating and ultimately moving ode to community values.

A true original…Beautifully shot, full of droll humor and at 77 minutes never overstaying its welcome.

Triad oozes a confidence that carries the viewer almost without pause to its shocking climax and ironic close.

Recognizably Godard with its playfulness and wordplays, but deeply human at the same time.

An epic story of mismatched love shaped in the most intimate terms, the Ingmar Bergman-scripted The Best Intentions packs a sustained emotional wallop that lightens its three-hour span.

Highly enjoyable when all its gears are clicking, but rarely as good as it should be.

A classic example of a clever idea that could easily have run out of steam halfway. However, co-scripters Pegg and Wright structure it as a classic three-acter (set-up, journey, finale) with enough twists, character development and small set pieces to keep the comedy boiling.

A deliciously observed, ironic take on middle-class Austrian life through an introverted teen's eyes, "Lovely Rita" reps a strong step up to the feature plate by 28-year-old Jessica Hausner after a couple of well-remarked shorts.

A triumph on the casting side but less so dramatically, Richard Eyre's Iris fails to do full justice to its subject.

An ace performance by 26-year-old Julia Jentsch ("The Edukators," "Snowland"), as the quietly determined Munich student who was beheaded for distributing counter-propaganda leaflets in 1943, gives pic a focused dramatic power.

A string of striking set pieces hung on a dramatically shaky clothesline.

There's no shortage of disaster stories in the history of film production, but none have been recorded with such frankness, immediacy and aching sense of disappointment.

Pic is superbly honed at both script and performance levels, with character taking precedence over action.

A wildly inventive, highly cinematic director's showcase that looks likely, at least in the West, to enthuse fans of Asian -- especially Korean -- genre movies more than general auds.

This slyly humorous, cleverly constructed comedy-drama wends its way through different takes on similar time frames to a warm, inclusive ending.

Bright and sassy, The Full Monty is a treat.

A terrific performance by young actress Patricia Kovacs makes the high-stakes gamble of Down by Love -- a light psychodrama almost entirely centered on one character in an apartment -- into an engrossing 90-odd minutes.

Always imaginative, often arresting, but sometimes just too clever by half.

What makes Serenity refreshing is its avoidance of CGI, which gives the pic a much more human dimension; the evident chemistry between the cast; and a humor that doesn't rely simply on flip one-liners.

As in "Divine," there's an uneven quality to Suleiman's often surreal ideas, but in general there are way more hits than misses this time round, some of them laugh-out-loud.

Maintains a bankable charm and innocence even when overdrawn on the special effects side.

A sprightly acted, warm and often extremely funny ensemble comedy.

Highly engaging, beautifully played romancer.

Gotham-based documaker Laura Poitras ("Flag Wars") comes up with a still-timely, quietly hard-hitting look at the Iraqi situation with My Country, My Country, focusing on the lead-up to and outcome of the Jan. 30, 2005, Iraq election.

A thoughtfully written drama of ideas with vivid performances by August Diehl and Ulrich Matthes.

The rare ability to make intelligent, entertaining cinema from hot-button current issues is beautifully illustrated by Lemon Tree.

Shows a rather arrogant disdain for its audience in between occasional flashes of flair.

Balances character, grit, spectacle and visceral action in a meaty, dramatically satisfying pie that delivers on the hype and will surprise many who felt the Hong Kong helmer progressively lost his mojo during his long years stateside.

For all its digressions and occasional flat moments, Iwai's movie is a remarkable, acutely involving one, working on an emotional level that can only really be expressed through music -- a strong component in all of Iwai's pics.

One of the world's great cities comes vibrantly alive through its music and musical denizens in Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul.

Cast of regulars blends like those in a late-on Howard Hawks' movie.

Some general viewers may feel let down by the relatively scant action.

A 10-course treat for the eyes and ears.

Very Korean in its emotional content, while also preserving a quizzical distance that is quite French, picture is one of his lightest and most easily digestible metaphysical meals to date.

Shallow Grave, a tar-black comedy that zings along on a wave of visual and scripting inventiveness.

A rarefied love story, conducted with no dialogue between the principals.

Tip-top performances, led by young British thesp Jamie Bell, and a deftly handled tone reflecting all the title teen's confused emotions make Hallam Foe a viewing delight.

A cracking slice of old-fashioned, widescreen entertainment.

Mixed Indian and Western cast --turn the true story of a case that changed British law into an old-style melodrama (in the best sense) complete with a feel-good ending.

Easy on the eye and effortlessly entertaining across almost 2½ hours.

A charming relationships comedy about food, gourmet cooking and emotionally chilling out. Anchored by a career-best performance from German thesp Martina Gedeck.

Bannen and the gawky Kelly, whose screen chemistry is vital to the film's success, make a delightful pair of stumbling shysters, and Jones' script weaves a sizable tapestry of other characters to flesh out the village.

A tightly constructed "dramatic thriller" in which the tension comes as much from what the characters are thinking as from what they end up doing, Jerichow again confirms writer-helmer Christian Petzold ("Yella," "The State I Am In") as a world-class talent who remains underappreciated beyond Germany.

Film's rarity value and still-hot subject matter make this required viewing.

Takes the simplest of stories and weaves a seductive, extremely moving portrait of a young woman’s unshakable love.

Largely thanks to Verbeek's performance, full of physical grace notes and small details, she manages to involve the audience, even though her character is more a movie creation than one based in real psychology. Rea, largely giving his usual mumbling Oirish perf, proves a selfless support, and provides an anchor to the movie.

Moves like an express train across almost 2½ hours without any sense of rush and with strong, empathetic characters etched en route.

The chills and spills keep comin' to agreeable effect in Brit-made scarefest The Descent.

It's a very small pic but engagingly played by a fine cast.

Toplining British comedian/wit Stephen Fry in a once-in-a-lifetime role as the brilliant, acerbic playwright, and mounted with a care and affection in all departments that squeezes the most from its $10 million budget, movie is a tony biopic that manages to combine an upfront portrayal of the scribe's gayness with an often moving examination of his broader emotions and artistic ideals.

A kaleidoscopic but engrossing study of the shifting sands of friendship among a group of Parisians, "Late August, Early September" reps a major advance by writer-director Olivier Assayas in warmth and maturity of observation.