With this artlessly profound and affecting story of love, von Trier emerges as one of those blessed filmmakers who've managed to blend their early stylistic flamboyance with enough human empathy to make their work both visually and emotionally compelling.

This isn't some pomo arthouse picture looking to score points by subverting the gangster paradigm; it's a killer film about killers who idolize film but are unable or unwilling to parse the doom that always crops up come Act III.

Niccol's futuristic fable is a gorgeous construct, from its cast on down to the brilliant, clinical nature of the set design that reflects a future in which even a particle of saliva can be one's undoing.

At heart, White is a black comedy with intriguing characters and a plot that plays its cards close to the deck.

Gravity is a major filmmaking accomplishment, no doubt, although it would have been interesting to see how it might have played sans dialogue. Unthinkable to Hollywood, sure, but still … Kowalski and Stone’s backstories and banter are, in the end, secondary to the film’s jaw-dropping visuals.

Corrosively funny yet emotionally devastating.

Just the thing to clear your Capra-glutted holiday movie palate.

Don’t let the early 19th-century France setting of this adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s serialized novel Illusions Perdues fool you into assuming Lost Illusions is just another stuffy period piece lacking in modern sensibility.

Nagahisa's script dares to embrace true nihilism: not selfishness, not posturing decadence, but the genuine commitment to your core that the meaningless of the world isn't a bug, it's a feature. These zombies may be dancing in the trash, but at least they're dancing.

Fight Club's dirty little secret is it's one of the best comedies of the decade.

Feels feverishly dreamlike while keeping its subject firmly rooted in the present. If you desire a female empowering musical manifesto with both claws and kisses, here it is.

Hustlers is an absolute joy and one of the most refreshing movies you’ll see all year.

The Rider is a stunning piece of fiction played close to the bone.

Technically, what’s on display may not be the Oscar winner’s finest go at filmmaking, but never has his message seemed more urgent and unaffected.

Big Night is, in a word, delicious.

It's enough to make you weep.

Death and the Maiden is a streamlined razor-ride of a movie: taut, riveting, and a psychological horror show that will leave nail-marks in your palms for days afterwards.

This is Iranian cinema at its most accessible: a bit slow even in its 92 minutes, with more environment than story, but deeply immersive and thought-provoking, and quite often funny.

It's Cronenberg's film, but it's the actors who elevate Eastern Promises from mere thriller to some other, more disturbing plane.

To be crystal clear: Comedian and actress Gilda Radner was a genius. Her humor and her life were an impeccable combination of a love of life and precise comic timing. There are beings that light this planet, shining brightly. And Radner shined. It is impossible for me to think of a world without her, and Lisa Dapolito’s documentary goes above and beyond in marking this person’s life.

Cavite isn't a horror film, per se – its nightmarish sense of unreality is thoroughly grounded in the geopolitical here and now – but the emotions it conjures from the audience can be traced straight back to Shockers 101.

Rather than this being some random moral crusade, Flaherty’s understated anger is about how the very rehab process that helped him so much has been perverted into a system indistinguishable from how street dealers operate. It’s his furious curiosity that informs the film, and gives it such devastating insight.

It’s a slow burn of a film, one that creeps through the consciousness. But it is not without levity.

Julie’s restlessness is anchored by a self-confidence that Reinsve conveys guilelessly and brilliantly.

This criminal tale excited audiences and landed the kinetic Cagney on the movie map. Now a classic, this is the movie in which Cagney famously crams a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face.

Fueled by witty imagery, wonderful performances, and careful direction, Heavenly Creatures is a must-see for those who like their films a little on the adventurous side. And while many will feel that they are discovering the work of an intriguing new director, die-hard fans may fear that Jackson is “selling out” to a mainstream audience because the picture isn't loaded with severed limbs and spurting arteries -- but, rest assured, this is hardly the case: Heavenly Creatures is the director's most unconventional movie to date -- and is coupled with both a delicate maturity and confidence that makes his evolution as a filmmaker all the more thrilling to observe and lead one to wonder what this unpredictable talent will come up with next.

In its cinematic incarnation, Sex and the City has lost none of its bawdiness yet gained a more profound sense of soberness. Parker, especially, who in the last season of the show bordered on insufferable in her affected squeaks and shrieks, is allowed to go to very dark places – to be, in fact, quite unfabulous.

It is an exhilarating feat of control, and a scathing deconstruction of the sacrifices made in the name of art. You have to confront those threatening corners of the psyche. You have to embrace the black bear.