Only Yesterday is a little-seen gem in the crown of Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli.

Chatwin may be the nominal subject, but this film is really about Herzog: Not in a self-serving way but, rather, self-analyzing.

A fearless sort of melodramaticism that might have seemed silly if it weren't for the impeccable EVERYTHING on display here, from the lush, sexy camerawork of director of photography Yorick Le Saux (Swimming Pool) to the throbbing, atavistic score by John Adams. It's not silly or, at least, rarely so, and Swinton's nuanced, aching performance is downright revelatory.

Like something by Tolstoy or Dostoyevski, but -- of course -- on a much smaller, less ambitious scale, it is a work that weighs on your mind long after you leave it.

The film's closing may be less than conclusive, yet The Son's Room must be admired, at least, for its unsentimentality.

The documentary’s sugar rush display of healthy fandom is a rarity, giving the film legs outside its pandemic novelty.

It's a kick, it's a gas, and it gives the Rat Pack itself a run for its money.

Araki's self-described “guerrilla” style of filmmaking has just the right edge here, yet is polished enough not to distract. In this respect, Totally F***ed Up is a much better film than Araki's last effort, The Living End. Although the teenaged ennui in the film sometimes comes off as hip nihilism, there's no question that the pain and turmoil depicted is anything but heartfelt.

Without preaching from the pulpit, A Fantastic Woman powerfully communicates the hostility and hatred that persons such as Marina encounter simply due to their otherness. In its way, it resembles those Hollywood-era message movies like "Gentleman’s Agreement" and "Pinky," but without the self-congratulatory importance that weighs those films down with all the subtlety of an iron anchor.

The material begs for a much longer consideration than the film’s trim 79 minutes, but it’s still a must-watch for serious film fans.

Most striking is Macdonald's deft use of music and Marley's lyrics (many of them obscure) to illustrate the film's points. So thoughtful is this counterpoint that it almost makes up for Macdonald never showing any one song in a complete performance.

The entire cast gleefully digs into their parts with a relish not seen in an ensemble in quite some time. Even my screening partner, who has a notorious aversion to British period pieces, was helplessly beguiled by The Personal History of David Copperfield.

It would be difficult not to be swept away by the dramatic intensity of Incendies.

Koepp's film examines the interconnections between man and the electronic society, and the terrors that are unleashed once those connections are severed, and does so in a wholly original and unnerving manner.

Much as Blue Moon is a eulogy for the death of a creative life, it’s also a testament to Linklater’s continued vitality as a filmmaker.

Why wait for 2012? If you're hankering for a taste of the apocalypse, the opening sequence of this eye-opening, stomach-queasing doc has plenty to go on – witness menacing superimpositions on a bleak, blighted landscape – and the hits just keep on coming.

It's Disney's best traditionally animated outing in ages.

This film, the inspiration for the less successful Sorcerer, is a textbook case of how to handle suspense. It has also been called the cruelest movie ever made and it certainly earns that title by the film's end.

As depressing as it may sound on paper, directors Argott and Fenton have crafted a deeply disturbing but equally moving documentary.

Lean as a hellhound, Shelby Oaks doesn’t rely on jump scares, although there are plenty of those. Instead, its true terror is found in writer/director Chris Stuckmann’s ability to move effortlessly from adrenaline shocks to creeping psychological strain.

Flat out, Air Guitar Nation (winner of the Audience Award at South by Southwest 06) is a damn good time.

Mad Dog and Glory, thankfully, finds the director in remarkable form, crafting an engrossing new film out of what might have been, in less competent hands, simply another Hollywood formula movie.

The magic of this Neverland is knowing we just have to believe and we will always be able to fly.

It's not perfect - infrequently the comedy and drama rub up against each other too much - but it is the genuine article: a wholly unique family film that can moisten your eyes even while it quickens your pulse.

Brittany certainly deserves a happy ending, just perhaps not quite in the time allotted.

Awesome.

The best comic-book movie in a long time, though based on no comic, Lucy is a film that mates classic Besson with Quentin Tarantino in a go at the mystical, world-solving vision found in Stanley Kubrick’s "2001: A Space Odyssey" and Terrence Malick’s "The Tree of Life."

Tamra Davis' directorial debut is a noir-ish, adrenaline-fueled tale of a love on the border between teen angst and homicide, and it packs a mean, unrelenting punch.

Last and Future Men is a haunting film of melancholic beauty, but hidden within are stubbornly persistent elements of hope.

This is character study as portraiture, and – just like visiting a gallery – it places the burden on the audience to sit and wait for small details to be revealed through the act of observation.

The film ostensibly is about bees and honey and how that affects these families' lives and income, but what really hits home is a broader impact of humanity (in all its messy glory), and a document of so many things: grief, loss, happiness, and joy.

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché is the daughter cinematically coming to terms with their complicated relationship and with a figure who changed our culture.

For the 10th entry in such an unlikely franchise, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in all of the typical mannerisms that grant this series its identity. Even when the Fast films are stuck spinning their wheels, they still have their foot firmly on the gas.

Lush, succulent, verdant, aromatic. These are the kind of words that come to mind when describing this new Vietnamese film, a film dominated by textures rather than plot.

The Good Dinosaur may not be as revolutionary as 1914’s “Gertie the Dinosaur,” but as Jurassic World already demonstrated this year, we never tire of these prehistoric critters.

Full of revelations, all brought to light by Bell's good-natured, Michael Moore-lite dogging of athletes, health experts, government officials, and even his own parents.

Despite the buildup of these horror expectations, there is no predicting how deliciously enjoyable it is to witness the macabre dance performed by Moretz and Huppert, two of the best actresses working in today’s movies. They play their game of cat and mouse with claws out; by the end of the berserko film, their characters are practically swinging from the rafters. Everyone appears to be having a grand time in Greta, and it would be crass for us as viewers to not respond similarly.

Director Roth has accomplished the near impossible with Hostel: Part II: He's crafted a vastly superior sequel to a film already considered something of a classic by genre aficionados, one that supersedes its predecessor's sadistic entertainment quotient by orders of magnitude while also upstaging its own outrageous gore effects with a script that's smart, vicious, and occasionally, gleefully subversive.

In Passages, Sachs’ enthralling eighth feature, he and his regular co-screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias return to the more experimental bent of Keep the Lights On, echoing that film’s elliptical nature and naturalistic presentation of sex, its dizzyingly destructive relationships and Euro-arthouse affect.

This film will either drive you mad or make you angry, possibly both, if you’re lucky, but it’s rarely boring.

If you're looking for a few hours of mindless, uncomplicated, air-conditioned escapism to get you through a hot late-summer's evening, I'd recommend you look some place other than Traitor.

This love letter dedicated to opera’s biggest rock star, the larger-than-life Luciano Pavarotti, achieves something most documentaries about the deceased rarely do: It brings a man back to glorious life.

As always, Affleck remains one of the directors who can disguise a powerful parable as giddy, crowd-pleasing entertainment.

A life-affirming documentary if ever there was one, A Brave Heart is a litmus test for gauging compassion, one I would recommend everyone take immediately.

The film's politically correct repudiation of the familiar black-and-white characterizations of the white and red man is ultimately undermined, however, when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction.

It's not the crowning achievement in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre, but Minority Report stands on its own sturdy sci-fi legs, and there's no sign of that little imp Haley Joel Osment, to boot, thankfully.

Despite its compelling nature, Greenaway’s film is not always an easy one to sit through.

You won’t want to miss a word of the deliciously bad dialogue in this Hollywood tale of twisted sisters.

Director Espinosa stages the endless action with a tremendous flair that recalls John Woo's grittier moments, and cinematographer Oliver Wood, who shot Woo's finest Hollywood moment, "Face/Off," gives the whole violent show a downright brackish look that borders on the sublime.

The best thing in this movie is the performance by a cast that rarely falters. It’s solid, from top to bottom.

Rarely have I seen a film so willing to champion the fallibility of the human heart.

Paul Laverty's script is a masterpiece of ambivalent populism.

It smarts, and shocks, and just for a moment blows your mind.

Vogt brings out the ugliness of childhood (the shallow empathy, the lashing out, the selfishness, the curiosity about the disgusting) and ramps it up with endless malice that slowly builds to horrific action. It's the anti-jump scare, with a sickening catharsis that what you think is coming does, indeed, come to pass.

Late Night With the Devil is able to mine plenty of effective and fun ideas out of its premise, and it works as a potent examination of the price of success.

Cheech & Chong's first movie is still their best. The duo wrote the genial script about the never-ending search for great pot, and a good supporting cast co-stars.

The Unknown Country is a naturalistic exploration of America that’s hopeful of human connection in the midst of a country that sometimes feels hostile. It’s simplistic, but honest and true to Maltz and Gladstone’s optimism in the face of a place that sometimes bleeds hopelessness.

Blanchart’s not reinventing any wheels – if anything, there’s a certain pleasure to be had from his decision not to follow the current trend of trying to simulate a real-time effect.

A confident return to the kind of teen comedy that's funny without being raunchy, youthful without being juvenile, and reflective without hitting you over the head.

American Woman lives in the quiet spaces of Deb's life. Always suitably understated, it remembers that loss doesn't always swallow a life, but it always leaves a void.

Deeply moral, thoughtful, and amiably humorous.

It grabs you by the viscera in the opening prologue and for the next two hours rarely lets go.

Canny and somewhat overwhelming documentary.

This is a strange and beguiling film to the end.

Condensing a massive tome like Les Misérables into a cohesive 129-minute film is a labor of love in any case, and August succeeds with remarkable, powerful results.

The movie brims with unexpected zest, an enthralling joie de vivre that seduces despite any reservations you may have.

It's done with such a wonderfully dry style and wit that you don't mind having to stop to catch up now and again.

In her assured film debut as Freddie, Park holds your rapt attention.

It is an inspired, strange, and occasionally choke-on-your-popcorn funny ensemble piece that, frankly, blows just about every other current comedy out of the water.

Even though the storyline of Real Women Have Curves is a somewhat familiar tale, the film's originality lies in the way in which it's told.

Even if it still isn’t the band’s time (as Bowie might say), Fanny: The Right to Rock is essential viewing for every student of rock history, not to mention feminism.

The Thunderbolts may not be the Avengers, but they’re the heroes we need now.

A drop-dead gorgeous period noir, rife with paranoia, femmes fatales, and good men inexorably sinking into the bloody mire and opaque texture of life (and death) during wartime.

The story of the short-lived women's baseball league gives Marshall the opportunity to examine the roots of modern feminism and have a darn fine time doing it.

All said, Nightmare Alley is something to be admired, rather than treasured. It’s big, classic moviemaking with a moral in the end. And there can be a lot to be said for that.

Billed as Li's final martial arts epic (would that Jackie Chan be so thoughtful), Fearless is fittingly peripatetic, finding the Hong Kong superstar ricocheting across the screen.

Affleck's greatest talent, however, may lie in his casting instincts: In addition to the above-mentioned turns by Arkin and Goodman, stand-out performances are also delivered by Bryan Cranston as Mendez's boss and Victor Garber as the morally heroic Canadian ambassador to Iran.

The House I Live In is depressing stuff, but it sparks the fires of anger, and from that anger, possible action.

The cast is game and Siemen’s trenchant observations are the mark of a filmmaker with something to say – an increasing rarity in this day and age.

Though the movie delivers its chuckles and elicits its sighs in a calibrated narrative arc that softens the hard edges of its late bloomer’s life, it would be shortsighted to hastily dismiss Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris as sentimental escapist fare that quickly evaporates into the ether of silly romanticism.

Materialists is messy in a good way – there’s a lot to chew on here, and Lucy in particular feels recognizably unresolved – but as good as Song is at succinctly compacting her characters’ past lives, I struggled to entirely understand what everybody in the present was thinking. That mystery might be fun on a first date, but as a romance, Materialists left me wanting more.

The result is a riveting, eco-wise epic that'll do fans of both Ralph Nader and Katsuhiro Otomo proud.

It is Depp, however, who really nails this thing by simply blending in with all the other voice talent and characters and not reverting to the oversized Captain Jack Sparrow swagger. Rango becomes the hero of his own story, and for this he needs no stinkin' badge.

Sollett’s first feature is a small, but indelible picture, one that approaches the most universal of themes -– first love, confused hormones, parental clashes -– with originality.

On the mean streets, Devil is okay; but it's something special when it gets to Easy's street.

This is Woodard’s show, and her Bernadine is mesmerizing as she navigates her life of meting out justice while grappling with the price of it.

Even among all the fictions, audiences will find more truths about modern Russia than they’ll get from most news broadcasts.

Look, when Mel Brooks is both a producer and star of your film, you know it’ll have some laughs.

With top-notch performances (especially that of Mortimer) and the gray of the Siberian wilderness providing an apt backdrop for the movie's gray zones of morality, Transsiberian is on a great track.

Fiennes assumes the character and recites shocking revelations that Amirami’s obsessive research has disclosed. It sounds like a cheap trick, but the actor pulls it off flawlessly.

A challenging concept conveyed here most impressively onscreen.

This is one time Texas can't keep its weird political landscape to itself: What happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas. When it comes to textbooks, what happens in this state is of national concern. Nothing less than the education of our nation's next generation of citizens is at stake.

For audiences who don't know the books, this is a bracing, blasphemous horror that pulls you in and twists your nerves.

Like any great funfair ride designer, it’s Barker’s grasp of pacing, of when to lull and when to launch, that makes Obsession such a terrifying blast.

Few filmmakers these days are as capable and assured with the fumbling ambivalence of human conversation as Green is; his ear for the half-truths, misapprehensions, and long-simmering defensiveness of everyday dialogue is a wonder to behold.

Then along comes a movie like Deconstructing Harry, which marks the writer/director/actor's return to top form, once again using the stuff of his life to create the stuff of his fiction.

Layer Cake is suffused with a stately sense of menace and a sort of doomed existential suave.

The Adjustment Bureau is, above all, a romance of chance and chaos theory of the heart. (In this respect, some viewers will recognize it as kin to the early Gwyneth Paltrow fantasy "Sliding Doors.")