Jami Bernard

The same audience that loves "March of the Penguins" will eat up this beautifully told, gorgeously shot story of a grieving boy trying to return his pet cheetah to the wilds of South Africa.

Feels like an old-fashioned movie in the way it deals with bold sacrifices made in the name of love, while its setting and chary view of the era's political machinations mark it as distinctly modern.

It's a deceptively simple tale that tackles, serenely and with surprising humor, issues of gender, power, custom and change.

A delightful and endearing romantic comedy with the shape and resonance of a Jane Austen novel.

In Wide Blue Road, his (Montand) character and the wages of desperation are much more complex. Here is the real lost Atlantis.

This stirring children's movie about separation anxiety is swimming with comic references only adults will catch, thus greatly expanding the potential audience.

Seeing the splendid new version of Pride & Prejudice can be hazardous to your health: There's a very real danger of swooning.

A rare blend of comedy and tenderness whose point is not the horrors of war but the lengths a parent will go to protect his child's innocence.

One of the most honest and harrowing depictions of female adolescence ever put to film.

Less bloody than its predecessors, Lady Vengeance wraps up with a killer (literally) finale that calls into question the killer instinct. It's one of the reasons Park's brutal films are so emotionally rewarding.

Caché seems at first glance like a straightforward thriller - about a talk-show host being stalked by a technologically savvy blackmailer. But it's really a sly, subversive commentary on conscience, race, class and inequity.

A haunting, melancholy work.

This is a wickedly funny skewering of a prewar London society gone mad with frivolity.

The combination of old-time Hollywood valor and ahead-of-its-time surprises makes this restoration a big event.

Million Dollar Baby is a knockout. It is Clint Eastwood's baby in every respect — a movie that approaches the level of great boxing films, like "Raging Bull," by using sport as a metaphor for human nature.

It's the rare film, Dogma or otherwise, that keeps you smiling long after the lights come up.

Like watching an American teen-sex comedy through a glass darkly.

After all the observations on heartache, politics, art, commerce, passion, identity, mortality, even mental health, six hours begin to seem downright compact.

Its simple, straightforward storytelling makes mincemeat of the idea that, gee, if these people just worked a little harder and got motivated, they, too, could get a piece of the American Dream.

Is a movie worthwhile if it makes you sick? Absolutely, in the case of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

Tarnation represents a breakthrough in the possibilities of the personal film as a mix of poetry and journalism. It's also harrowing as hell.

Susan Tom has her hands full in Jonathan Karsh's documentary My Flesh and Blood -- she's dealing with her 13 children, most adopted, some with serious maladies. Rarely does one encounter such capable hands.

Hell has not yet frozen over, but here's something equally unexpected: David Mamet has made a G-rated movie for adults.

Giddily inventive.

An entrancing experience for Potter fans. It's a carefully crafted, dreamy immersion in a world that feels snugly familiar even when evil intrudes.

Another perfect little gem from Iran in which the simplest story unleashes a torrent of emotion.

Funny gem.

No picnic to watch -- Leigh's camera is unsentimental and unsparing.