Steven Rea

It's a devilishly twisted affair.

Chuan's unsettlingly beautiful black-and-white, wide-screen account of those nightmare six weeks, re-creates that horror in ways that are at once allusive and lucid, mixing cinematic impressionism with documentary-like detail.

A story of companionship, loneliness, resilience. It's a small, artfully crafted thing, but it resonates in big ways.

Her life, and her work, transcended what we think of as "fashion."

Try not to let the film's overbearingly jaunty score get in the way. The Lady in the Van is quite a feat.

Although the pervading mood of Twin Falls Idaho - a beautifully shot, noirish thing - is one of sadness and loss, the Polishes' film is playful, too.

Tcheng finds Simons in moments of haughty self-confidence and tremulous self-doubt.

A gorgeous confection, packed with gargantuan gowns and pornographic displays of pastrystuffs, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette is also a sharp, smart look at the isolation, ennui and supercilious affairs of the rich, famous and famously pampered.

Rain is a quiet, disquieting triumph.

An amiable mix of "Grumpy Old Men" comedy and "Apollo 13" can-we-fix-this-jalopy-before-we-die? Drama.

David Ayer, the writer of "Training Day," director of "Street Kings," writer/director of "Harsh Times," does not make movies about princesses with witchy curses, about yuppie commitment-phobes, about talking plush toys. His territory is narrow, but he owns it: cops, in Los Angeles.

Tender but never sappy, Monsieur Ibrahim brings two people of vastly different age and background together in ways that are touching, and telling. It's a small, glowing gem.

Roiling with laughter, tears, drunken confessions, revelatory soliloquies, pain, sorrow, hospital visits, and various kinds of love, A Christmas Tale is a smart, sprawling, and sublimely entertaining feast.

A sly and surprisingly sublime little noir romance.

A gorgeous operatic tale of obsession and madness.

A beautifully mopey adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's much-praised novel.

Career Girls doesn't have the sweep of Secrets & Lies, nor the venom of Naked (which also featured the riveting Cartlidge). But in the small world it keenly describes, the film packs an emotional punch - silly voices and all.

It's a movie with a pulse. Sometimes, it flies off the chart.

Into the Abyss is a true-crime drama, to be sure, but in Herzog's hands it becomes something much more: an inquiry into fundamental moral, philosophical, and religious issues, and an examination of humankind's capacity for violence - individual and institutional.

A bruising, dark comedy.

A thinker and an educator, Zinn has led a life of commitment and compassion, and the film offers a loving tribute.

It's great to hear a director talking candidly about the actors he's worked with, dishing out good, juicy stuff.

Does what the best movies can do: take viewers to what might be unfamiliar places, into a culture with unique customs and traditions, and show, through drama and comedy, how the fundamental truths of the human experience need no translation.

Crash fools around with chronology in a Tarantinoesque way that brings its story full circle. You could argue that as events, and people, merge, Haggis' spiky screenplay (cowritten with Bobby Moresco) gets to be, quite simply, too much.

Mongol is great cinema, great fun.

Must-see stuff.

Offers a sometimes lyrical, sometimes gut-turning portrait of war seen through the eyes of children.

This beautiful, unfolding film is an antidote to the high-velocity, maximum-volume world most of us find ourselves immersed in, offering a glimpse into a rigorously spiritual alternative. Its calmness, its reflection, is full of allure.