Lawrence Van Gelder

Mr. Gast skillfully blends photographs, celebrity interviews with Norman Mailer and others, and colorful forays into the Zairian countryside, where Ali fostered black brotherhood and became a huge favorite, in a film that ''gazes well beyond the ring and seeks engagement with history''.

Propelled by a captivating, wrenching performance by Karine Vanasse as Hanna, a 13-year-old girl adrift in a sea of powerful emotions in Montreal in 1963.

Yakusho and Ms. Shimizu deliver unerring performances in a splendid film that harvests hope from a bleak landscape.

Experience filmgoing joy.

Mysterious, poetic and allusive, The Werckmeister Harmonies beckons filmgoers who complain of the vapidity of Hollywood movie making and yearn for a film to ponder and debate.

Quite simply a treat for the ear.

A fine and loving memorial that preserves his charm, his intellect and his splendid body of work.

Brims with understanding of the complexities of relationships, the frailties of humankind and the possibilities of joy.

Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks, especially Mr. Brooks, deliver outstanding performances in the first feature film to be directed by Ms. Lahti.

Director Curtis times his audience immersions into the ice bath of terror with such skill that moviegoers will scarcely have the leisure to ask why some of the renters aren't a bit more observant and curious about their dwelling.

Mr. Drake can be rivetingly angry, intense, frenetic, frank and touching.

Not often does a family film come along that is literate, clever, mischievous and just plain fun.

A beautiful and devastating meditation on war, history and loss.

Its winning cast, spirited music and mordant view of establishment figures, from the police to cocaine-sniffing record industry executives, make Bandits a stylish, buoyant entertainment.

With top-drawer voice talent including Joan Plowright and Dick Van Dyke, original songs by Jack Johnson, and old-fashioned two-dimensional animation that echoes the simple colors and shapes of the books, Curious George is an unexpected delight.

Acted by an appealing cast, enlivened with well-chosen and varied music and filmed with bleak beauty by the cinematographer Eduardo Serra.

A smooth, skilled example of animated filmmaking.

In a very real way, The Great Dance constitutes an act of preservation and a requiem.

As skillfully written and directed by Jia Zhang Ke, a product of the Beijing Film Academy who uses a nonprofessional cast, the cool-eyed Xiao Wu appears to be more than a relatively nonjudgmental portrait of an emotionally repressed young thief turned against the weight of conformity.

Harrowing yet hopeful film.

An unusually cerebral filmed essay that demands focus and patience from its audience as it sets about the task of unearthing a secret history of the 20th century. Adam Curtis, the film's director and writer, saves the proceedings from being overly dry with his visual wit and deft touch with archival materials.

But while rooted in British sensibilities, Bean is not to be confused with a Noel Coward comedy. Not every gag in Bean succeeds, but compared with most comedies, this one is a keeper.

The innate suspense and charm of the spelling bee, along with a trio of crack performances, turn what is in essence a formulaic sports picture into something more satisfying: an underdog tale that manages to inspire without being sappy.

Literate and handsome.

Mr. Beesley, an Oklahoma City native who has been following and filming the Flaming Lips for 15 years, is far too close to his subject to offer a critical perspective, but he achieves a level of intimacy with the band members that most rock documentary directors can only dream of.

An intriguing and entertaining introduction to Johnson through his varied art; the mystery surrounding his death, which may have been his final performance piece, and the reminiscences of contemporaries.

Jeff Feuerzeig, who won the best-director award at the 2005 Sundance festival, cobbles together a moving portrait of the artist as his own ghost, using a wealth of material provided by Mr. Johnston, from home movies to audiocassette diaries to dozens of original, and often heartbreakingly beautiful, songs.

Candleshoe, with its beguiling English countryside settings, languid pace, defanged Dickensian villains, compassionate butler, down-at-the-heels nobility, hidden treasure and orphaned children engaged in a plot to outwit swindlers, keep up appearances and save the old manor from foreclosure, is the fiction of a bygone era.