The movie develops into a painful story of one generation inflicting its selfish compromises on the next. The three leads are uniformly excellent, and the strong supporting cast includes Mark Duplass and Philip Baker Hall.

This highly stylized portrait of a loveless marriage at the beginning of the 20th century merges a claustrophobic theatricality with dazzlingly cinematic wide-screen compositions (the sumptuous cinematography is by Eric Gautier).

The video lapses into self-congratulation near the end, as many of the principals reunite for a 2002 retrospective, but for the most part this is a powerful tale of conscience, betrayal, and forgiveness.

Claude Chabrol's capacity to make shopworn material seem almost new is especially evident in this 2007 drama, which he cowrote with his stepdaughter, Cecile Maistre.

At 92 minutes this could hardly be considered a definitive statement, yet its combination of high drama and carefully articulated principle delivers quite a punch.

Visually and structurally it's a mess, but many of the situations are genuinely clever, and there are plenty of memorable gags. The perpetual problem is that Allen isn't nearly the thinker he thinks he is.

I'd hate to guess whether most Americans know, any more than these fictional partygoers, what soldiers go through in Iraq. But if the market for movies about the war is any indication, they don't want to.

A winner of the Cannes film festival's Un Certain Regard prize, this stayed with me, though I wasn't always happy to stay with it; the incessant braying of sheep, camels, and children may send you racing from the theater in search of the nearest martini lounge.

A lunatic cast energizes this comic fantasy.

Ken Marino, who plays the silliest of the diggers, wrote the script, and when it isn't straining after elegiac moments, it's fresh and unpredictable.

This big-budget western bears a striking resemblance to the recent Tom Cruise vehicle "The Last Samurai," though it's more fun and less pretentious.

The dance numbers, choreographed by Allison Faulk, are inventive and athletic, but not really erotic; Soderbergh never lets you forget that, for these men, dancing is above all a job.

Though complicated, the plot has an interesting payoff, the slow burn of an understated but surprisingly erotic love story that crisscrosses 40 years.

This kind of filmmaking is riddled with so-called errors, but these mistakes are indistinguishable from the uncommon rewards.

It's all very clever but not really provocative - though a layer of political subtext may make the scenario seem funnier and more meaningful.

It provides a more detailed and perhaps more reliable picture of the early movement's motives and practices than anything I've seen in the mainstream media.

Washington's stoic persona here conceals a volcanic rage, and the cast of pros--including Giancarlo Giannini, Mickey Rourke and Rachel Ticotin--support him with relish.

The performers are fresh and offbeat, with the diminutive Peter Dinklage (Elf, The Station Agent) especially funny as a gay wedding planner named Benson Hedges.

Contrary to some reports, this is not Jet Li's last action movie--he already has another in postproduction--but it represents his farewell to wushu, the martial-arts tradition that made him an international star.

The staging is wooden, the story insipid, and the dialogue sequences mostly painful, but the film’s integration of song, dance, and story (“100% All Talking! 100% All Singing! 100% All Dancing!”) was a clear narrative advance over the music pictures being released by Warner Brothers and Fox, and the score is great.

From "Beavis and Butt-Head" to "King of the Hill" to "Office Space," Mike Judge has become our most dogged examiner of middle-American foolishness; no other comedy filmmaker more skillfully exploits that nagging sense that you’re surrounded by idiots.

It's striking not for its originality but for its energy in juggling familiar elements.

Attractive black-and-white 'Scope compositions, strong Paris locations, and effective handling of the actors makes this captivating throughout.

In a tale filled with perverse twists of fate, the most perverse may be that Overnight, not "The Boondock Saints," is Troy Duffy's masterpiece.

Thoughtful and complex.

Despite Jarecki's varied success in bringing these six people's stories to life, their stories personalize our current geopolitical predicament and remind us that in a democracy no one can shrug off responsibility for the war.

The long campaign waged by the Yokotas and other families demanding Japan's diplomatic intervention forms the core of this haunting BBC digital documentary.

As frequently happens in both Loach films and history, the betrayal of ideals, socialist and otherwise, leaves a harsh aftertaste, which made me feel sadder but not much wiser.