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.