Ruthe Stein

To say it is about a debilitating disease is as reductive as saying "Little Miss Sunshine" is about a beauty pageant. Both are intimate stories of family ties that bind but sometimes also choke.

One of very few films to accurately portray the experience of growing up male.

A breed apart from anything coming off the Hollywood assembly line or, for that matter, from the saccharine romances Britain has lately produced.

Wise and wondrous.

Evokes grand emotions -- anxiety, sadness, joy -- sometimes within moments of one another. Broken Wings has heart and a poetic soul.

A revelatory independent film whose moments of incredible sadness are offset by the same state of grace that blesses its astonishing title character.

An engrossing new drama from France.

The Visitor, is, if anything, more imaginative and touching than his first.

Frothy and exuberantly entertaining - in part because of the sexual innuendoes - it's the best romantic comedy so far this year.

There's an edge to this exemplary family movie, just as there is in the story.

Exhilarating and enchanting family picture. It's the best I've seen this year and highly recommended for girls and for boys, too.

Often is on the verge of spilling over into melodrama, but that doesn't bother me because life is the same way.

The thrills in Spike Lee's singularly savvy thriller are in small unexpected moments.

Unlike Sean Penn's demagogue in "All the King's Men," you're able to forget that Whitaker is acting. He embodies the role. When clips of the real Amin are shown at the end, it's almost shocking to realize the extent to which Whitaker has become him.

Block's hypnotic documentary, among the finest of the year.

Daring in its affirmation that a dowdy woman in her late 60s still can let go of her inhibitions and exhibit a lascivious side.

Utterly enchanting.

Sly, near-perfect comedy.

The very best thrillers -- a select group to which The Clearing clearly belongs -- exploit subconscious fears that bubble up at vulnerable moments.

The humor manages to be simultaneously sophisticated, supremely silly and very dark.

The real wonder becomes how British filmmaker Sandra Goldbacher was able to write and direct such an accomplished, touching and original movie her first time out.

Immediately has you in its thrall and doesn't let go -- a reminder of how powerful and moving cinema set in wartime can be when all the elements align.

Woody Allen's strongest and most mordantly funny movie in years, even if it is also his bleakest.

It grabs you from a symbolic opening scene of gang members rolling the dice -- the odds, it soon becomes clear, are stacked against them getting lucky -- and never lets go.

A film that must be seen to understand the sad truths of our times. It's been made with a sensitivity and creativity that's come to exemplify Winterbottom's work.

Richly satisfying entertainment the way movies are at their best, when they prod you to think.

Deliriously charming.

The movie is a stunner, so hypnotic that the length hardly matters.