Steven Rea

Jolting, suspenseful, full of twisted sympathy for its goons' row of characters, and wickedly amusing to boot, Killing Them Softly summons up the ghosts of "Goodfellas" and a whole nasty tradition of crime pics. And then it lets its ghosts go, whacking and thwacking away.

It's a charmer.

Quietly and keenly observed, Summer Hours nods to Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" (a country estate, a family reunion, an impending sale). Assayas displays a lucid sense of how personal history and family identity are inextricably linked to a physical place - here, to a house that is still busy accumulating its memories.

This is Highsmith, and so things do not go as planned for her protagonists. The Two Faces of January - drop-dead gorgeous to behold - is not a merry tale, but a murderous one. Murderously good.

A funny, sad and absolutely lovely film.

Brian Cox is especially good, and slippery, as Menenius, a Roman senator.

The Hoax makes the fakery of disgraced writers Jayson Blair, James Frey and Stephen Glass seem puny by comparison. Irving was the grand master, and Gere's portrait and Hallström's movie suggest why: He almost bought his own story, believed his own outrageous pack of lies.

Monaghan is stronger still. This is a performance that deserves to be noticed. She is crushingly good.

How the film plays out, and what happens to the boy and the adults in his company, may prove a revelation, or a disappointment, or something in between. But getting there is thrilling and wondrously strange.

A darkly comic, piercing, and occasionally painful study of a young woman's quest for identity.

It's a beautiful, grim tale.

Leaves you feeling rich - and richly satisfied.

A rollicking tale of rehabilitation and redemption, rife with cool special effects, Hancock is smart and surprisingly raunchy.

The Dardennes are aces at these small-scale human dramas, and Two Days, One Night is almost without flaw.

Made in a forthright, unfancy style and utilizing a cast of born naturals, Washington Heights deftly draws parallels between father and son's complicated relationship and the tensions that pulse through this predominantly Dominican American community.

It's a feminist nightmare, the world brought to life -- in hard-hitting documentary style.

Fear(s) of the Dark, a French production, interweaves the shorts, linking the segments together thematically, and narratively.

A spirited, smart-alecky look at the ongoing conflict between a government that wants to eliminate pot and a public that wants to smoke it.

Ergüven's film, beautifully shot and beautifully performed, cuts its storybook tone with starker, more brutal truths. Anger - aimed at a conservative social order and those complicit in maintaining it - courses through this sad, striking tale.

It's a celebration of the good times and bad times shared by a man and woman who found each other in the middle of some historic craziness, and it rocks.

The story of Donald Crowhurst is not one of remarkable courage or remarkable endurance. But it is remarkable.

Selma may be flawed, even spurious at points. But in its larger portrait of a man of dignity, purpose, and courage, and in Oyelowo's performance as that man, the film rings true.

A riveting documentary.

A heartbreaking story of true love.

A wonderful, witty mix of horror and social satire, The Host takes its simple, time-tested premise - menacing creature terrorizes the populace - and runs with it.

Exhilarating, alternately funny and horrific film.

Pray has a great story here, but it's much more than just "The Brady Bunch's Endless Summer."

If Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter takes its time, it's time worth taking. The cinematography is lovely: great swirls of midnight snow, frosted trees in glinting sun, the bustling modernity of Tokyo, a big library, subway stations exquisite in their orderliness.