Maitland McDonagh

Roos' sly, throwaway insights into the ways people deceive and undermine themselves are both ruefully funny and painfully on the mark.

This Australian tear-jerker finds more humor than you'd imagine possible in the story of a dying woman getting to know her adult children.

The film rests on Depp's evocation of Barrie's gentle, playfulness and deeply buried sorrows; it's difficult to imagine another actor so gracefully evoking Barrie's childlike qualities without seeming creepy or emotionally malformed, and only the hard of heart will come away dry-eyed.

Less a sequel than a variation on a haunting theme -- the nature and origins of humanity.

Would be funny if it weren't so horrifying.

Antal's debut is a sharp, blackly comic hugely entertaining thriller.

Gray doesn't condescend to his outer-borough characters and elicits pitch-perfect performances from his ensemble cast.

Above all, Jackson evokes an almost palpable sense of the will to power trapped within the ring. Without this evocation of the ring's insidious ability to sniff out the potential for corruption and capitalize on it, the entire enterprise would be precious drivel.

Moreno's subtly calibrated mix of intelligence, naivete, rebelliousness, charisma and practicality produces an unforgettable protagonist; even Maria's recklessness seems reasonable because it's so clearly rooted in desperation.

Its imagery is never less than breathtakingly beautiful, and is occasionally truly awesome

Serrau effortlessly navigates the tricky transition from ruefully comic chick flick to gritty crime picture.

Piercing, sweetly melancholy and acted with a breathtaking eye for nuance.

William Klein's film documents a turbulent time and an outsized personality, but the film's glories are in the details and its intimacy would be unimaginable in the rigidly spin-controlled atmosphere of 21st-century sports.

The framing story is pointless and almost insulting, even though it's part of former New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen's novel.

This amazing footage alternates with interviews that include more than a dozen surviving members of the troupe, whose recollections are by turn funny, touching and mind-boggling. What a time!

You don't have to be a chem-lab wonk to be seduced by the seven scientists who discuss their work and lives in this engaging film.

A rapt fascination with transcendent lunacy runs through Herzog's work, both fiction and documentary; while disdaining Treadwell's rhapsodically anthropomorphized vision of nature.

Steven Soderbergh's direction conjures an understated '70s vibe, striking an apparently effortless balance between grit and glamour.

Medem's stupendously gorgeous puzzle movie features strong performances from its four leads.

A very entertaining, hugely neurotic romantic comedy.

Enthralling, darkly funny, horrifying and hopeful.

One of the flat-out creepiest films ever released by a major American studio.

Romero isn't a subtle filmmaker -- the sociopolitical underpinnings of his DEAD films have always been brutally clear -- but LAND is alive with subtle touches.

A beautifully acted slice of intersecting lives defined and driven by the business of beauty.

A cut above the preposterous action spectacles that now pass for espionage films.

Overall, Owen and Law are more nuanced than Roberts and Portman, but Portman's dewy youth is 90 percent of Alice (the remaining 10 is an eleventh-hour twist), and Nichols uses the unkindly costumed Roberts so skillfully that her performance looks like a revelation.

This fast-paced entertainment is a surprisingly successful mix of spectacle and human-scale drama.

Though the specifics of the story may be unfamiliar to Western viewers, its broad outlines and underlying themes are universal, and Christopher Doyle's ravishing cinematography transcends language.