All the uplift could easily get cloying, but director John Lee Hancock knows how to keep things in control, and the whole is surprisingly satisfying.

Everything seems to fall into place according to earlier Egoyan films, which suggests that you're likelier to enjoy this one if you haven't seen the others.

Writer-director Aiyana Elliott gives her father his due in this evenhanded yet impassioned documentary.

Story is fairly conventional and not especially well told, though as usual Tran's images are so sensual and beautiful that I was rarely bored or frustrated.

For the most part this is a scenic and well-scored Holocaust survival tale.

Director Ron Howard's deftness in suggesting the subjective experience of Crowe's character, who's later diagnosed with schizophrenia, makes for inspirational narrative.

The film is still hilarious, though time has dimmed the luster of Lemmon's hamming in favor of James Cagney's superbly psychotic commanding officer.

Sanitized it may well be, but agonizing nonetheless—it's a domestic squabble that somehow touches history.

In some mumblecore movies the semi-improvised dialogue can be engulfed by hipster irony, but the acting here is so skilled, and the emotional terrain so rocky, that Shelton manages to break past the genre's narrow social parameters to a moving story of grief, betrayal, and devotion.

Douglas Sirk's famous 1959 remake was pure metaphysics; this version emphasizes the social content, particularly in its Depression-era attention to class nuances.

This 1987 film doesn't quite leave its slasher antecedents behind, but the styling is never less than assured, and Ruben knows how to put bland, unruffled surfaces to sinister Hitchcockian uses.

Considering that none of the characters is fresh or interesting, it's a commendable achievement that the quality of the storytelling alone keeps the movie watchable and likable.

Bacon conveys the weight of his character's anguished struggles through his economy of movement, and the powerful, spare script is refreshingly devoid of cant.

Most of the film feels recycled from sexually explicit art movies dating back at least to "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) and continuing with movies like Patrice Chéreau's "Intimacy" (2001) or Götz Spielmann's "Antares" (2004). With nothing new in its characters, settings, or themes, Shame has little to offer except McQueen's style, which does little to elucidate anything around it.

This small gem about a South Central LA girl with a gift for spelling restores luster to the family genre.

Occasionally lighthearted but always affecting cautionary tale.

This documentary about Crazy Horse, the legendary Parisian nude cabaret, is so warm, colorful, and sensuous that it seems like a real anomaly for the highly disciplined filmmaker.

It's worth seeing for the tightly coiled plot, well-realized characters, and novel take on rapacious teen culture.

Even though he's psychologically expanded his source, the material is a bit too schematic to work as much more than a scaled-down thriller.

In this comedy by David Koepp, Gervais handles the big, crowd-pleasing gags with aplomb.

A tolerably warm bath of postcollegiate self-pity, salted with irony and self-mockery.

A text that provokes thought more than directs it, which should fascinate new and repeat viewers for a long time.

Funny? This one is. It's also sweet and thoughtful.

This is better than good, it's wonderful: if facial expressions can be compared to colors, Gedeck works with an unusually broad palette, constantly surprising us, and she helps her costars shine.

As the star-crossed couple, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon contribute all their own vocals, and their soapier scenes together reminded me of no less than the 1954 "A Star Is Born."

Darkly funny and metaphorically potent.

Reilly's performance here is hilarious: he's located the character in the bursts of shouting he uses to do his job and the warped sense of humor he needs to deal with the weird kids sent his way.

Director David Barker creates tension by crosscutting between shots of the sun-drenched landscape and charged close-ups of the cloistered characters before delivering a bloody climax.