Marc Savlov

Dreamlike, disjointed, and possessed of a stunningly complex sensual and narrative poetry that may confound audiences not familiar with Chinese director Wong's defining stylistic tropes, Ashes of Time Redux is, simply, one of the most gorgeous films ever made.

In many ways, A Field in England is a funhouse mirror of audience expectations and something of a filmic Rorschach test.

The great director's masterpiece of bad juju. [Director's Cut]

It's an out-of-this-world, real-life adventure for kids of all ages, budding Neil Armstrongs and Ray Bradburys alike.

It's a veritable shoo-in for an Oscar nod this year, and one of the more disturbing films to come out of a major studio in ages.

Diehl’s performance is a model of restraint; he more often imparts information by a look, a glance, the slump of his shoulders, than he does with a spoken word.

Nothing short of horror-hound heaven.

Honestly, this ultra-noir adaptation of Frank Miller's black-and-white cult comic series is a visual feast ripped straight from the original medium's blood-soaked pages.

Sellbinding, distressing, and possessed of a dark and terrible beauty.

Cyberpunk meets renegade romance, à la Orwell.

An immersion into the characters' world in toto, from the "Oh geezes" and the "Oh, yaahs" to the dark and flinty core beneath.

Pixar's animation is simply flawless; colorful, deeply realized, and ably conveying both the chaos of the kitchen, and the sensual allure of food well prepared.

Remarkably fresh and exciting.

Terribly Happy isn't, but it is wonderfully unhinged, and a painstakingly constructed meditation on a place where good and evil meet, mate, and make sour times sublime and, dare I say it, beautiful.

Alternating between color footage and the genius interplay of startlingly lovely sequences of Stanton singing and playing harmonica in granular black-and-white, Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction perfectly captures the essence of the man.

McCarthy’s film is rich in tone and subtlety, but has precious little dialogue. It feels less like a modern motion picture than some odd poem long lost and then discovered in another age, a timeless, ageless gem of hard-resined emotions melting into real life.

Which ultimately is what Applause is really about: applying the greasepaint of the daily mundane over the scar tissue of a damaged life, striving for a reality outside of a bottle (and off the stage) while still maintaining some semblance of what made this particular lion roar in the first place.

McKim’s documentary is as jangly and urgent as its subject and his art, and it packs a melancholy wallop, using the artist’s own running commentary via cassette tape (there were two hundred hours of it) and layering it over snatches of Wojnarowicz’s Super 8 films, countless photographs, and recollections from those who were both there at the start of Wojnarowicz’s career and at the end of his life.

This is Pixar's finest and most emotionally powerful film yet, and it draws on a wealth of cinematic resources that run the gamut from Chaplin's best to Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati, and even Martin and Lewis.

A wholly original creation, crossed with shadows and light and the everyday madness of Savannah and its remarkable citizens.

Frankenweenie is that rare film that's both kid- and adult-friendly.

The Kids are All Right, a grin-cracking great portrait of a modern American family in minor and then major crises.

An anime version of "Mr. Mom" this is not. Director Hosoda’s clear-eyed story allows for comic moments of fatherly ineptitude but focuses just as often on the marital and familial stress this sudden role reversal causes.

A third-act revelation will knock viewers silly and cause them to reevaluate everything that’s come before, but even without that jaw-dropping information, Moss’ film is a righteous piece of empathetic, of-the-moment documentary filmmaking.

Blomkamp and his entire cast and crew have created an instant genre classic that transcends the self-limiting ghetto implied by the term "science fiction" and instead, like precursors such as Robert Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still," engages not only the mind but the heart as well. It's magnificent.

The Princess Blade opens with one of the most note-perfect action sequences ever committed to film.

The images this war photographer shoots are beyond awful, but there's just no looking away.

About a Boy knows exactly what it wants to do: It wants to make you smile, and grin, and then laugh with recognition, and it manages all three, again and again.