Stephen Holden

An obscene, misanthropic go-for-broke satire, Pretty Persuasion is so gleefully nasty that the fact that it was even made and released is astonishing. Much of it is also extremely funny.

Mr. Burns shuffles this dense material with the dexterity of a card shark. The pace, although swift, is never rushed. The writing and acting give you vivid enough tastes of the characters - there are seven children, two parents, and assorted spouses, lovers and friends - so that each registers as a singular flavor.

Words and Pictures has a host of flaws, but the performances by Mr. Owen and Ms. Binoche have a crackling vitality, and the screenplay’s strongest moments set off the kind of trains of thought that dedicated teachers hope to spur in their students.

An indelible and ultimately moving vision of humanity buffeted by the elements and by international political tides.

As technically innovative as it is emotionally unsettling.

Exudes a throbbing flesh-and-blood intensity so compelling that it's impossible to avert your eyes.

Although the movie, adapted from a book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, pushes emotional buttons and simplifies its true story to give it the clean narrative sweep of an extended folk ballad, it never goes dramatically overboard.

The characters have enough dimension to avoid appearing to be symbols of a social tragedy, and the movie’s relative gentleness makes the harsher realities of Brandon’s world all the more distressing.

For all its narrative glitches and its homemade quality, Thirteen evokes the rhythm, texture and tone of Nina's world in a way that a more carefully scripted film never could.

As I Open My Eyes is best when it observes the fraught but loving mother-daughter relationship between Hayet and Farah.

Even more amusing than "Super Size Me," the documentary that put Mr. Spurlock on the moviemaking map in 2004.

Gimme Danger is still plenty entertaining and includes many moments of foaming-at-the-mouth musical fury.

Although the thriller aspect of "La Sentinelle" doesn't quite add up, the film is still an absorbing, psychologically resonant portrait of French student life. As directed by Desplechin, the attractive young cast hardly seems to be acting.

This is synergy of a high order.

Has the feel of a clinical case study elevated into a subject of aesthetic and philosophical discourse.

The Magdalene Sisters would be too painful to watch if it didn't have a silver lining. Suffice it to say that it is possible to fly over this religious cuckoo's nest and remain free. All it takes is courage and the timely kindness of strangers.

With its intense chiaroscuro and meticulous manipulation of color that ranges from stark black and white to richer, shifting hues in scenes set in a metaphorical orchard, the film surpasses even Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon" in the fierce beauty and precision of its cinematography (by Martin Gschlacht).

Illustrates the underlying fear that when energies that should be directed toward warfare are diverted into passion, unity is impossible.

Despite holes in the storytelling, Ms. Swank and Ms. Rossum keep it real.

[A] small, likably sentimental film.

The entrancing visual imagery goes a long way toward filling in the screenplay's gaps in logic.

Remarkable for its seamless ensemble performances.

For all the talk nowadays about a revival of swank, nothing in contemporary fashion can compete with the glamour of upper-class English life in the 1930's as it is elegantly caricatured in Ian McKellen's updated Richard III.

If Cremaster 3 is an innovative artwork that has been credited with breaking down the distance between sculpture and film, is it also a great movie? Probably yes.

Working within the confines of the teen-age genre film, Pump Up the Volume succeeds in sounding a surprising number of honest, heartfelt notes.

Gonzalo Arijón’s documentary offers an incontrovertible argument for the necessity of team spirit in the face of catastrophe.

A gem of contemporary neo-realism, the movie offers a ground-level view of a poor but vital community where many residents survive by scavenging bits of recyclable steel and plastic.

If the title role of Gabrielle weren’t so fully embodied by its star, Gabrielle Marion-Rivard, this French Canadian movie about love among the disabled would fall on the condescendingly mushy side of the line between heartwarming and saccharine.