Jonathan Foreman

It's actually the surprisingly compelling plot and the often hilarious dialogue that keep you watching this tale of passion and murder in a Samurai militia unit - not the beautiful scenery or the elegant color palette.

A unique, priceless portrait of the now legendary leader, and of his beautiful country when it was in the grip of a disastrous civil war.

A beautifully shot, well-acted movie that manages to make a complicated, real-life story without much drama feel like a thriller.

Lighthearted and smart enough to be one of the best Altmanesque ensemble comedies of the last couple of years.

A deeply pleasurable, old-fashioned blood-'n'-guts adventure film.

An elegant, quietly comical but slightly constricted period piece whose stately pace is all but offset by several impressive performances.

A sometimes glorious, sometimes disastrous folly.

A formulaic and predictable movie that combines minimal characterization with some irritating implausibility.

Presents an intelligent, profound and at times heartrending slice of Taiwanese middle-class existence - as seen by characters at different stages of life.

Warm and charming and often witty, it's as good a romantic comedy as has come out for some time, with an endearing, perfectly pitched central performance that's a four-square triumph for Zellweger.

Though On the Run is a welcome reminder that effective thrillers don't have to be noisy or dumb, the film does contain slightly jarring moments of inadvertent humor.

The most enjoyable western comedy since "Blazing Saddles."

Spectacular special effects and sets.

If you have the patience, its almost endless silences and extremely slow pacing eventually pay off.

What makes 8 Mile transcend the formulaic nature of its plot is the way it makes these rap competitions compelling even for those unfamiliar with rap music, and its scrupulous, loving rendition of a grim, wintry Detroit circa 1995.

Though never dull and often visually beautiful, this work of operatic sweep doesn't fulfill its own ambitions.

A beautifully filmed, scrupulously authentic but strangely evasive exercise in combat ultra-realism.

A charming, (mostly) briskly unsentimental love story, written, directed and acted with remarkable assurance.

Rescues a rarely performed tragedy and makes a brilliant case that it is the Shakespeare play for our time.

Much less mawkish and predictable than you might expect.

It's an original, and a gamble, and one of those movies that works better than it should, despite considerable flaws of conception and execution.

Director Alfonso Cuaron ("A Little Princess") gets vivid, convincing performances from a fine cast, and generally keeps things going at a rapid pace.

The film's tongue is so firmly in cheek that, without being a spoof like "Dragnet" or "The Brady Bunch Movie," it has more in common with the "Austin Powers" films.

Although the jokes aren't as consistently funny as those in "Lock, Stock," once again writer-director Ritchie demonstrates a deeply pleasurable combination of verbal flair and visual wit while conveying the genuine, intimidating hardness of the English working class and its love of language.

A far more impressive and affecting piece of filmmaking and storytelling than most movies put out by Hollywood this year, and offers, as a bonus, a glimpse into a fascinating, contradictory society.

Part sitcom, part comedy of manners - but it lacks the courage to deal honestly with class and ethnicity.

An extraordinary documentary about an extraordinary man that brings to urgent life potentially dry questions of American foreign policy in the 1960s.

It turns into something that is much smarter, and in a gentle, low-key way, tougher and funnier than you expect.