Shawn Levy

In an unassuming way, the film sizzles -- a perfect embodiment, as it happens, of the marriage of the bad man and the man of letters.

The film ends on an absolutely sick-making note, with live-action footage of the massacre and its aftermath.

Slight but terrific. The intertwining of the sharply tuned actors and the guileless (and often hilarious) townspeople is seamless, the tale is sometimes despairing but never heavy, and the blend of drama, comedy and music is brisk and fresh.

Anderson, possessed of an eerily Edwardian aspect, is superb, luminous and knowing and convincingly proud and desperate as the situation requires.

For long stretches, the film is just as funny as the first -- which is saying something, since the first is one of the funniest comedies of the decade, the only film in years to truly infiltrate our communal language and sense of humor.

It breaks so sharply from the practice of contemporary horror film that it requires us to return to the most basic understanding of what it is to be frightened by a movie.

This is some of the finest acting you will see on-screen, maybe ever. Single-handedly, Washington turns The Hurricane from so-so to must-see.

One of the best children's movies in years. Spunky, inventive and filled with life and wonder.

In Volver, the latest marvel to emerge from his sharp and joyful mind, Almodovar blends autobiography, gossip, melodrama, music, the supernatural and the suffocatingly quotidian in a story about a woman -- indeed, a tribe of women -- struggling through a life of pain and disappointment.

Gorgeous and saddening, Osama makes the human-scale claim for the overthrow of governments ruled by the iron hand of religious fundamentalism far more persuasively than any of the rhetoric coming out of the White House or No. 10 Downing St.

Undefeated puts us inside his locker room, and you simply cannot fail to be moved by the human affection, commitment and passion you feel there.

As someone new to the material, I found Jackson’s film soulful, respectful, masterful, horrifying, rending and emotionally true. It may not be the Lovely Bones that you have in mind, but it’s a fine and powerful one.

Amir Bar-Lev shows in the absorbing, eye-opening and sometimes enraging film The Tillman Story, if there was one thing that you could count on Pat Tillman to do it was speak his mind: loudly, intelligently, and often in salty, pointed language.

It's hot and sweet and made with inspiration and cheek. And it is not your children's animated fare -- which, in this case, is a recommendation.

This is the sort of film for which the phrase 'movie-movie' was coined -- and coined as a term of highest praise.

Recoing's performance is chillingly low-key -- sometimes you can swear that he believes his own fictions -- and Livrozet, making his film debut, has a perfect long-in-the-tooth charm.

An empathetic portrait of humanity on a house-by-house, heart-by-heart basis.

We laugh, yes, but we're touched, too, a delicate balance that the film manages again and again, right through to its bittersweet conclusion.

It's the most charming and buoyant film Spielberg's ever made.

This is grand, inspiring entertainment of a sort that Hollywood aspires to and rarely achieves.

Beautifully shot and cut, written with a visceral aversion to cliche, deftly skirting sentimentality, sensationalism and simplicity, it continually surprises, engages and satisfies. For a small, unheralded film, it's a knockout.

Anderson delivers a satisfyingly quirky, cinematically masterful valentine that contains more seeds of truth about the human heart than a hundred big fat Greek comedies.

A rousing and agreeable movie that resurrects a small but important episode in baseball history that parallels the larger history of the nation.

Along the way it provides the grand, intelligent entertainment of a superior cast playing smart people amid a compelling plot. It may not be perfect, but it's decidedly a cut above.

A riveting and impeccably researched documentary.

This is a first-class film that will appeal to anyone who wants to see a plausible, witty, absorbing human story told well -- indeed, told gorgeously.

An altogether astounding testimony to the band's longevity, vitality and verve.

Delirious. Hilarious. Absolutely one-of-a-kind.