Derek Elley

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.

Bright and sassy, The Full Monty is a treat.

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.

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

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

This is upscale French entertainment at its best.

A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.

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

A 10-course treat for the eyes and ears.

An exquisite reflection on personal bereavement.

Maverick director Wong Kar-wai manages to pour old wine into new jars with Happy Together, a fizzy chamber yarn about two gay Hong Kongers in Argentina that's as slim as a bamboo flute but is his most linear and mature work for some time.

From its opening shots, Butterfly Kiss exudes a confidence and distinctive feel that promises something rather special. Unlike its characters, the pic knows where it's going.

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

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

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

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

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

Shines like a freshly minted coin in Oliver Parker's adaptation.

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.

All of the promise that was evident in Scottish helmer David Mackenzie's flawed freshman feature, "The Last Great Wilderness" (2002), is richly achieved in his second pic, Young Adam, a resonant, beautifully modulated relationships drama.

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

A handsome chunk of widescreen entertainment that's as nimble as its rakish hero.

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

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

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

Playful and sporty, with just a small twist of the knife, The Cat's Meow is good, uncomplicated fun.

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

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.

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.

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

Claire Denis comes up with her emotionally richest pic to date in Nenette and Boni, a multilayered look at unformed teen emotions and the mysterious, almost invisible ties that bind siblings.

Delightful comedy of manners.

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.

Engaging, highly accessible movie that marks a slick feature debut by helmer Jeong Jae-eun.

Though it doesn't quite match recent classics like "Kabhi khushi kabhie gham" in sheer technique and production sheen, in-depth star casting and thorough entertainment values make this a must-see for Bollywatchers.

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

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.

A dazzlingly lensed, highly stylized meditation on heroism.

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

A crackerjack serial-killer chiller in "Seven" mold, Tell Me Something cleverly disguises its thoroughly generic content and leaps of logic with highly honed technique and an involving approach to narrative.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

An ersatz "Pride and Prejudice" in all but name, Becoming Jane is a finely tooled Brit-lit costumer that, like Anne Hathaway's flawless accent as the young Austen, lacks only that final convincing 5%.

Surprisingly conventional Olde London Towne gaslight mystery, gussied up with some doctored visuals, and an eccentric performance by Johnny Depp.

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

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.

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 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.

Engaging chemistry between leads Emmanuelle Devos and Vincent Cassel.

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.

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.

A quietly subversive my-sister-is-turning-into-a-werewolf movie that doesn't wimp out at the end.

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.

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

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.

Laden with gritty action, but with an emotional undertow that carries the drama even through its weaker moments, picture reps a strong comeback by Hong Kong helmer-producer Peter Chan.

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

Has buckets to spare of that rarest screen commodity — genuine, engaging charm.

An utterly charming retro romancer set against a background of '70s movie going. Full of lovely touches and well-etched performances, and flawed only by a bland male lead.

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

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

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

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.

Some genuine shocks punctuate The Exorcism of Emily Rose, an unusually intelligent genre item that manages to mix full-bore horror with courtroom drama.

Sverak's sheer technical finesse, and ability to spin on a dime between comedy and tragedy, the personal and the historical, makes Dark Blue World succeed where other similarly themed movies, from "Battle of Britain" to "The Blue Max," seem heavy-handed by comparison.

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.

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.

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.

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

Marvelously involving family saga.

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

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

The most emotionally satisfying pic to date by Korean iconoclast Kim Ki-duk.

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.

An entertaining chick pic for all ages and sexes.

A cracking slice of old-fashioned, widescreen entertainment.

A funny, touching, off-the-wall relationer that's one of the freshest helming debuts in world cinema this year.

Poetic, bawdy, contemplative, often side-wrenchingly funny and finally quite touching, this tale about a nerdy garbage man whose life is changed by an egocentric hobo philosopher is flawed only by its length.

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

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

After several years of transition, Jackie Chan finally gets the mix right in The Accidental Spy, an entertaining meld of far-flung locales and criminal shenanigans that sees the 47-year-old action star comfortably combining the twin demands of action and maturity.

A small picture with a big heart.

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

Strongly recalls Hong Kong kung-fu movies of the late '60s and '70s, with physical grit, over-the-top heroics and inventive fight choreography providing the entertainment.

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

A powerful, slow-burning portrait of human fallibility.

Rather dark, decidedly English and exceedingly well played, Keeping Mum is a neatly crafted black comedy with more than a nod in tone toward the Ealing classic "The Ladykillers."

It manages to suspend disbelief without over-taxing the viewer's patience, and boasts at least one terrific performance, by actress Yeom Jeong-ah as a scary stepmom.

Though the script never makes a convincing case for the lads as '90s Robin Hoods, it's restlessly inventive, with a pleasant, rather than rib-cracking, humor and likable touch of naivete.

Borderline grungy but highly entertaining comedy-drama.

An extremely silly but effective enough romp for family audiences.

Slick, grisly and determinedly umbral, German cop thriller Tattoo is a largely effective "Se7en" wannabe that gradually develops its own character after an over-derivative start.

Ip Man will be manna for those who like their kung fu straight and wireless, their villains Japanese and their heroes unconflicted Chinese patriots.

A star-loaded, Gotham-set relationships movie that's generally good but works better in bits than as a whole.