Megan Lehmann

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.