Megan Lehmann

A sublime variation on the buddy road movie, infusing the midlife crises of the two main protagonists with hope and poetry.

It's a wistful yet penetrating film, shot through with magic realism and life-affirming humor, that gets you deep down where you live.

Chance encounters and fated love are the stuff of fairy tales, which is what makes the deliriously romantic sequel Before Sunset a small miracle.

Like a bomb exploding in a fireworks factory: It's fierce and shocking and dazzling and wonderful.

Big crashes, lithe women and roiling testosterone, not to mention the addition of The Rock as a fire-and-brimstone federal agent – there's plenty to pull in the (mostly) young male audience.

Who's going to love it? Anyone with a sense of humor: Team America: World Police is hands-down the funniest movie of the year.

Exhilarating, opaque, heartbreaking and completely bonkers – French auteur Leos Carax's so-called comeback film, Holy Motors, is a deliciously preposterous piece of filmmaking that appraises life and death and everything in between, reflected in a funhouse mirror.

In place of elaborate sets, clever filmmaking gives the impression of a central London emptied of people and cars, to eerie effect - and this opening reel is nothing short of magnificent.

One of the year's most engaging films.

More than a ripped-from-the- headlines drug drama, Maria Full of Grace is like a horror movie made real.

A comedy as black as the asphalt desert of a mall parking lot.

Devoid of 21st-century irony, this visually stunning, action-packed yuletide treat is sweet and, yes, magical in a way that will enchant kids and give older viewers a twinge of nostalgia.

Even with Burton's imagination turning its trademark cartwheels, the film's big beating heart holds the whimsical offshoots steady.

A stunning display of a filmmaker adventuring on the far side of what's possible.

Despite its shock value, Thirteen rises above dysfunctional-family-drama cliches, thanks to the truthfulness of its script and the keen eye of a sympathetic director.

Hilariously overblown, "Cruelty" fairly pops at the seams with the beloved eccentricity of Joel and Ethan Coen, from the fiendishly ludicrous scenarios and casually tossed off visual gags to the razor-sharp repartee.

It is an important, thoroughly bewitching work of art.

This wonderful party of a movie, as totally original as its hero, stamps on a smiley face that will linger for hours.

Anderson gives The Machinist a sickly noirish look that contributes to the creeping horror - but it's the emaciated Bale's spectral presence that leaves the imprint.

More than a celebration of Chaplin's art; it is a thorough examination of what made this gifted artist, the world's first true celebrity, tick.

Brilliantly idiosyncratic.

[McCarthy] marries beautifully spare compositions with comically abbreviated dialogue to craft something magnificent from a vaguely precious premise that could easily be the foundation for a parody.

A leisurely, scene-setting start, peppered with authentic banter and winning localized humor, fleshes out the characters in Manito so well you feel as if you live alongside them.

Uber-hip technique triumphs over substance in Reconstruction.

At once, a joyful celebration of female friendship and an unusually honest look at newly responsible young women wistfully saying goodbye to the dreams of their youth.

Kosashvili's clear-eyed approach to the cultural tradition of arranged marriage balances respect and scorn, and he reconciles the comedy and tragedy inherent in Zaza's tug-of-love with finesse.

Ferrell's manic, overgrown-kid energy sweeps all before it, announcing him - after his standout turn in "Old School" - as a major leading-man talent who can charm as well as amuse.

A pleasantly diverting period romp that Annette Bening turns into a wickedly funny tour de force.

There is much sadness in this finely wrought drama, winner of nine prizes at the Israeli Academy Awards, but the family's hard-won escape from emotional lock-down is ultimately uplifting.

Metallica brought back the rights and funded the project, and it's their honesty and willingness to front the cameras, warts and all, that makes this well-edited, often very funny, documentary so compelling.

While immersed in the horror of their plight, you might forget to breathe.

Sometimes teeters on the verge of going completely over the top, but it's mostly saved by its own self-awareness.

There's a carnivalesque medley of subplots scampering about the screen, but Serreau manages to emerge triumphant with all the threads nimbly stitched together.

A hilarious, pitch-perfect comedy.

The dirty old man who became a cult poet and author was a true original, and every minute he's on screen, whether it's reading from his brutally honest work or musing on a hard-lived life for the cameras, it's hard to look away.

The frantic nuttiness of the stylistically dynamic Huckabees is often laugh-out-loud funny, but amid the pandemonium there's a sense of truly rigorous soul-searching.

Aside from a jarringly fake computer-generated avalanche scene that momentarily challenges the necessary suspension of disbelief, the big-bang set pieces are superbly crafted.

It's the addition of Depp's corrupt CIA agent, Sands, that really makes this violent, over-the-top action film, with its maze-like plot, sing.

Bale, one of the most intriguing actors of his generation, plays a young man rebelling against his liberal upbringing with a mix of bemusement and lost-puppy anguish, making this film as much about mothers and sons as struggling couples.

It's a hushed work of restrained emotions, elliptical storytelling and spare dialogue, peopled with smart, authentic characters who have drawn you into their lives before you know it.

Some of the visual flourishes are a little too obvious, but restrained and subtle storytelling, and fine performances make this delicate coming-of-age tale a treat.

When Gilliam is finally forced to admit defeat, it is nothing short of heartbreaking - for audiences, too, as the few shots that made it into the can hold such promise.

It's a credit to the actors, particularly the superb Campbell, that completely preposterous material can be made strangely touching.

Delivers its provocative message in the measured tones of a college professor -- yet there's no danger of falling asleep in this lecture.

An amusing side dish to the sober political documentaries flooding the art houses, The Yes Men effectively uses high farce to mock the status quo as a way of questioning it.

A cheerfully trashy, dead-on spoof of the B-movie genre, boasts the kind of cheese-tastic effects, overcooked dialogue and rigid performances that would make Ed Wood proud.

There's also enough laconic humor, warming camaraderie and hopeful stabs at dignity to keep the story from assuming the glum gunmetal gray of its setting on the coast of northwestern Spain.

Delivers a sugar rush without the calories.

A tour de force that is weird, wacky and wonderful.

This is what IMAX was made for: Strap on a pair of 3-D goggles, shut out the real world, and take a vicarious voyage to the last frontier -- space.

Infused with the hazy golden glow of nostalgia and unfolds at a leisurely pace, reminiscent of "The Virgin Suicides."

Indie hipster Jarmusch's distinctive brand of effortless cool and quirky humor percolate through each of 11 vignettes, all shot fairly statically in crisp, aesthetically pleasing black and white.

Jenkins doesn't stint on the sickening reality of Wuornos' abhorrent behavior -- it's Theron's complex, deeply felt depiction of a thoroughly messed-up soul that forces us to look beyond the monstrous nature of her acts.

A joyous, toe-tapping celebration of a musical style born of sorrow.

A gentle comedy, brimming with hope and faith in human resilience.

Dialogue is sparse in this leisurely paced chase; instead, the bluesy vocals of indigenous singer Archie Roach -- singing de Heer's lyrics -- are layered over the action as a kind of musical narration.

Offers an idyllic, comforting surface of tree-shaded lanes and sunshine-dappled fields - but a disturbing tale throbs beneath.

Builds steadily from its smarter-than-your-average-horror-film beginnings to a genuinely cunning psychological thriller with a third-act twist guaranteed to shock even the most eagle-eyed watchers.

Settles into an unflinchingly honest coming-of-age portrait.

The spaniel-eyed Jean Reno ("Ronin") infuses Hubert with a mixture of deadpan cool, wry humor and just the measure of tenderness required to give this comic slugfest some heart.

The strapping Damon's lived-in performance makes us happy to follow Bourne wherever he may go.

A love letter to a New York neighborhood that is rapidly disappearing -- a tight-knit Dominican community.

One of those all-too-rare cases in which a riveting premise is expertly executed.

It's hard to go wrong with documentary subjects as articulate and intriguing as childhood friends John Flansburgh and John Linnell.

Part urban thriller, part unorthodox love story, this well-acted portrayal of the shadowy realm occupied by London's illegal immigrants is buoyed by stinging social commentary and a surprising twist of intelligent humor.

Ironically, what's lacking in Howard's stark, often brutal, late 19th-century chase drama is emotional punch.

This contemplative drama manages to dodge mawkish potholes to emerge as a strangely life-affirming work.

A true fan's nirvana.

Leigh's uncanny ability to mine emotional truth packs the usual punch. And the trademark flashes of humor sprinkled throughout ease the bleakness of the landscape.

Against all odds, director Steven Shainberg has managed to craft an oddly compassionate -- and often very funny -- tale of an emotionally symbiotic affair.

Clarkson, the reigning queen of the indies, is simultaneously funny and heartbreaking, following up killer performances in "The Station Agent" and "All the Real Girls."

As this Woodstock-on-wheels careens through the countryside, stopping only to play for thousands of hirsute revelers -- and, once, to stock up on booze in Saskatoon -- its famous passengers celebrate with delirious joy the pure, unadulterated magic of music.

Most of Ultimate X is comprised of truly exhilarating footage of men -- and one woman -- pushing their bodies and their nerve to the edge.

It manages to be both kinetic and dream-like at the same time -- "Run Lola Run" by way of David Lynch.

Commendably, Carrera steers clear of preachiness in his exploration of a timely and relevant issue, and Bernal's transformation from naive priest to tortured adulterer to hard-nosed careerist is riveting.

Conforms to many of the tropes of a formula thriller but, aided by an evocative Philip Glass score and Tim Orr's beautifully naturalistic cinematography, it transcends the genre.

A compelling portrait of a matchless man, who's still going strong at 72.

An atmospheric and subtly engrossing relationship saga, which wowed the critics when it played on British TV and is just now getting a theatrical release.

Overly long and uncomfortably intrusive, but never less than compelling.

An intelligent and entertaining exploration of racial and sexual politics that brings alive the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, and draws parallels with African-American identity crises of today.

Has a desolate air, but Eyre, a Native American raised by white parents, manages to infuse the rocky path to sibling reconciliation with flashes of warmth and gentle humor.

As transporting as its otherworldly title suggests.

Campbell is a sweet presence and a capable dancer, featured in a theatrical pas de deux on an open-air stage during a wild thunderstorm that is one of the film's visual highlights.

A thrillingly vicarious experience that answers a primal urge to join our feathered friends as they soar and glide in the blue beyond.

Paints a picture of a young man enamored of his own image. His enormous success turned the ever-cocky Gator egomaniacal -- and abusive.

Succinct yet detailed storytelling, evocative cinematography (by Ellen Kuras) and arresting central performances add up to a trio of engaging character portraits.

An amusing McGimmick.

A fanciful little indie brimming with emo music and curious little vignettes, marks a self-conscious but very promising debut for "Scrubs" star Zach Braff.

Its "I see dead people" premise is shopworn, but Hong Kong brothers Oxide and Danny Pang manage to deliver real skin-prickling jolts with their minimalist horror film.

A wickedly sexy Daryl Hannah is particularly memorable as the Pilager family's black sheep Maddy.

Engrossing.

Director Timothy Linh employs a delicate - but never sentimental - touch which, combined with strong performances from the principals and Kramer Morgenthau's vivid cinematography, makes for a transporting experience.

This is an egotistical endeavor from the daughter of horror director Dario Argento (a producer here), but her raw performance and utter fearlessness make it strangely magnetic.

Harmless, if slightly hyperactive, fun.

A good-looking, if imperfectly plotted, coming-of-age feature -- that doesn't quite manage to sidestep the clichéd sport-as-metaphor-for-life trap.

It's mostly a political thriller, contingent on a love story. It's kind of noirish, subtly humorous and intermittently confusing.

It's a chaste "Austin Powers," a less ridiculous "Casino Royale," a more subtle "Spy Hard" — in other words, yet another James Bond parody.

A weird hybrid of cloning thriller and futuristic love story, with hints of "The Godfather" and "Ice Castles" - and it wears its disjointed nature like a badge of honor.