Lisa Schwarzbaum

Of all the shocks in the riveting and timely political thriller Paradise Now, the most unsettling may be the dignity bestowed on a pair of prospective Palestinian suicide bombers.

The breath of cinematic life, though, the sensibility, the energy, belong to Joel and Ethan Coen, and this is their stirring success.

A dark and hilarious thwomping of the whole miserablist British gangster genre.

Exquisitely structured, pitiless study of a middle-aged man trapped in a stagnant emotional weather pattern.

Out of the zany strictures of Dogma 95...Danish newcomer Thomas Vinterberg has made a funny, volatile, visually dynamic story about the unraveling of one extended family during the course of a patriarchal 60th-birthday dinner.

What could have been a parlor game becomes a surprisingly rich sketchbook, boosted by the work of fine actors.

Without doing anything so divisive as taking sides, The Counterfeiters pays sympathetic attention to those who play their cards to win even when the rules are terrible, not least because the remarkable Markovics, an Austrian TV actor with a pugnacious anvil of a head, is so riveting as an unsaintly survivor.

Campion's big-sisterly encouragement of Cornish's lovely, openhearted performance -- and Whishaw's well-matched response -- results in a character instantly, intimately recognizable to anyone remembering her own first love.

Even blood, spilled so freely, has a distinctive intensity of red in this beautiful and harrowing film.

It's a tiny, sunny character study about a fat guy who's an unlikely chick magnet. And as such it's a pip.

One hell of a creepy little eco-horror picture.

In Please Give, the sharp-eyed filmmaker sends her vibrant representative out into the world to explore what it means for a woman to be lucky and still feel itchy. The report has the resonant ring of truth.

The fetching cast (including Jennifer Beals as a histrionic girlfriend), while a long way from Gwyneth and Matt stature, nevertheless reflects Stillman’s enhanced status as an established indie talent.

Turns out to be the funniest, most risk-taking, most incisive movie of the summer.

Talented filmmaker Susanne Bier (Brothers), armed with an outstanding compositional sense, keeps control over the storms of melodrama that swirl in this rich weepie.

Sky Captain is a gorgeous, funny, and welcome novelty.

A stunning study of one desperate woman's conscience.

The subtle selectivity of Leconte's eye, how he moves with great control from gesture to gesture, is matched by the disciplined intensity of the performances.

With its propulsive punk-rock soundtrack and beautifully rough cinematography, Dragonslayer makes you care about this scrawny young man, skating to nowhere.

Everything is vast and hugely ambitious in Martin Scorsese's magisterial, scrambled historical epic.

Many of the characters go by two different names. So best advice for optimum viewing is, see Broken Embraces...twice.

Her death was shocking; this well-made telling of her life is inspiring.

Gripping, highly original.

MIB3 is one giant leap for mankind because Josh Brolin shows up to play the younger Agent K. And he just nails the feat, triumphantly creating a riff on/homage to the Tommy Lee Jones-ness of K that goes much deeper (and funnier) than a simple imitation of drawl and speech patterns.

A satisfying contraption of twists, missteps, and blithe repartee that produces old-fashioned, honestly earned guffaws.

"Old Boy's" vivid star Choi Min-sik plays a terrible schoolteacher -- yet another damned soul in Park's inflammatory, inimitable movie inventory of hell on earth.

Bleak, scathing, and utterly compelling.

The charm and art of De Felitta's gentle domestic sketch expand far beyond biographical borders.