A hilarious and harrowing cautionary tale.

Alas, the movie is less clever than its characters.

Law is lively and Shyer keeps the action hopping with help from the movie's original gimmick of having Alfie keep up a running monologue to the audience.

A compassionate, life-affirming Spanish comedy-drama.

Interesting for its historical content.

Sharper and smarter than any animation since "Shrek 2," making it one of the season's supermovies.

Illuminating and alarming.

It's conventional in approach and sometimes sentimental, even corny, in its content. But there were so many fascinating overtones in Mr. Charles's life and career that any account of them is bound to be riveting at least part of the time.

Horror fans will find plenty to shriek about. Everyone else should keep their distance.

The eerie tale is steeped in brooding atmosphere and psychological suspense thanks to Glazer's hugely imaginative visual style and creative use of music, sound, and silence.

If you don't compare it with the novel, it's one of the season's better films.

Amiable, though much too long.

Fascinating.

Not a masterpiece, but definitely one of the year's most entertaining movies.

There are a few amusing moments, helped by subdued performances from Affleck and Gandolfini, but this is no "Bad Santa" despite its obvious ambition to play similar holiday tricks.

See it with an open heart and a tapping toe.

Bale is brilliant.

Taking great artistic chances in storytelling and performance style, Green finally fulfills the promise he showed in his fine 2000 drama "George Washington" as a terrific builder of mood, atmosphere, and psychological suspense.

Harrowing and imaginatively made.

The first hour is eloquent and true. Once the story takes its big turn toward tragedy, though, it becomes predictable and sentimental.

Talky and mostly humorless, but interesting as a reflection of Breillat's experiences directing her own popular film "Fat Girl" in 2001.

The net effect is a barrage of jokes that strain to be outrageous - just as the marionette gimmick strives to be different - but wind up canceling each other out.

Falls flat, with more "sound design" than delicious music, more slick film editing than graceful ballroom gliding.

Part of the movie's fascination is watching Ms. Bening play a role that tantalizingly mirrors her own position in today's movie world - and she does it with wit, sparkle, and all-out energy.

The offbeat screenplay turns even the corny bits in unpredictable directions, and it's rare indeed to see such consistently superb ensemble acting.

This sometimes harrowing, often delightful drama stands with his (Sembène) most compassionate, colorful, and artfully filmed works.

Riveting documentary about the early California cable outlet and its ingenious programmer, Jerry Harvey, whose unsettled life and tragic death provide a dramatic framework for the account.

The acting is brilliant and Leigh's screenplay - developed through his usual process of improvisation and rehearsal - is very long on compassion, very short on preaching and politics.

Contains amazingly candid views of warriors behind the scenes of battle.

The story is spotty, but the acting is fine, especially when Walken is around.

The screenplay is convoluted but fascinating, flawed less by its built-in complexity than by the limitations of the characters' psychological depth.

Meant to be a romp in the old Ken Kesey tradition, it's more like a dull drive with a bunch of leftover flower children.

In the popularity sweepstakes, Stage Beauty may earn top honors, outdoing the overrated "Shakespeare in Love" as a dramatic comedy about life and love in an era more naive - but hardly more innocent - than our own.

Stirring on religious and humanitarian levels, and very timely notwithstanding its 1979 setting.

Sordid and sleazy, although the lead performances are hard to fault.

Diverting but minor.

Frivolous but fun, somewhere between a comic "French Connection" and the craziest Nascar race you never saw.

Harrowing, extremely disturbing at times, but brought to the screen in dazzling pop-art images that make the movie's grim content very much worth watching.

The screenplay isn't remotely as funny as it tries to be, and the visual style is equally unexciting.

David O. Russell hasn't yet developed enough filmmaking savvy to juggle so many intellectual, emotional, and narrative elements. He's clever and ambitious, but perhaps too much so.

What makes the movie powerful is Timoner's decision to structure it via Taylor's perspective on his competitor, with no holds barred.

Absorbing.

The screenplay is overwrought at times, but the acting is superb by any standard.

Informative documentary about the recent history of efforts to legalize gay marriage, tying these in with the history of marriage as an institution.

Spooky, atmospheric tale.

One thing few will disagree on is the quality of the film's acting, especially by Gael García Bernal as Guevara and Rodrigo de la Serna as his friend. Both effortlessly embody the footloose, sometimes feckless quality of this "On the Road"-style adventure.

Hearing her speak her finely honed mind in unscripted, un-"handled" terms is worth the price of admission in itself.

Breillat is a smart, serious observer of sexuality's often disruptive role in human life, but this existential drama is sadly pretentious.

The humor is more childish than raunchy, but it's interesting to see that becoming a big-time Broadway impresario hasn't led Waters to sell out his affection for gross-out gags.

The movie's heart is in the right place, but it looks and sounds regrettably bogus.

Thai filmmaking continues its renaissance with this moody, offbeat drama.

While it's not a great movie, it's a revealing study of how long it often takes for businesspeople to realize they're being freaked out, not flattered.

Bataille was a serious philosopher as well as a sensation-seeking writer, but you'd never guess his provocative ideas from this updated version.

Crass and soulless.

Well acted, handsomely photographed, a bit too long.

Leaving aside Huston's bland acting and a few other flaws, Sayles's politically charged drama raises a rousing number of issues and ideas, inviting us to ponder them and draw our own conclusions.

Ingeniously crafted with flashes of intelligence, if not very memorable.

This is a funny, sad, stunningly smart movie about the end of movies, made in Tsai's inimitable, unblinking style. No movie lover should miss it.

Starts cleverly but becomes more preposterous as it goes along.

This uneven drama might have been more effective if someone with more on-screen charisma than writer-director Elster had played the main character.

Effective at times, and Gyllenhaal shows a new side of her talent, but the main impression is of first-rate performers doing second-rate work.

The influence of Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier looms heavily over the whole film.

Starts quirky, grows steadily darker, doesn't build much excitement.

The movie morphs into a deconstructed remake of "Indecent Exposure" and it's downright riveting, with Campbell doing her best acting to date.

Moving and informative.

It's all deliberately homemade and raggedy, and that's where its charm comes from, along with the delightful old-music score.

Gripping.

Impressively filmed but not dramatic enough to justify its length.

Not a great movie, but a valuable and revealing document.

Almost entirely devoted to combat violence and sentimental interludes.

Very well acted and directed, if overlong.

What's missing from this Vanity Fair is the sense of plucky, anything-goes adventurousness that abounds in Thackeray's novel.

Gallo's earlier work suggests he has directorial talent, but here it's buried beneath too much ego to be detectible.

A walloping entertainment, brimming with the magic-realist action that made Ang Lee's somewhat similar "Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" a hit.

A skeptical view of George W. Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, using argumentative strategies common to agenda-driven documentaries.

The movie's main contribution is its fresh look at the Vietnam War, being refought in the Kerry-Bush presidential campaign at the time of the film's release.

Deeply personal, morally alert, and highly entertaining.

The gently told comedy-drama is more colorful than you'd expect, using wry humor and lively music to keep sentimentality at bay.

An enjoyable movie that marks a rattling good directorial debut for Stephen Fry, the English actor who's best known for starring in "Wilde" seven years ago.

While serving up music so free of thought that the best of it seems to crystallize our thoughtless, tightly wound era.

This documentary strives to fill the gap, and the result is memorable; viewing is mandatory.

His readings of his own work are especially thoughtful, moving, and provocative in the best possible ways.

The movie is woven with care and complexity, again confirming von Trotta's place as one of the world's greatest female filmmakers.

Imagine a bolder "Bully" blended with a more probing "River's Edge" and you'll have some idea of this little drama's strong dramatic and emotional power.

A diverting dramatic comedy.

Strange, scary, and atmospheric, with a delicious Claude Debussy score.

Supercharged with an energy and ingenuity that "Run Lola Run" once had a patent on.

Not a deep movie. It is a very honest one, though - there's not a cheap cinematic trick in sight - and it's a graceful one, energizing its small-town story with eloquent camera work and ingenious musical touches.

Smart and sumptuous.

There's a new visual idea every second, each teeming with energy, pitch-dark comedy, and inspired cinematic lunacy.

Stylishly made, if less intellectually resonant than first-rate Mann films like "Ali" and "The Insider."

A spicy critique of tabloid TV is buried in romantic-comedy material that strains too hard for cuteness. Ditto for Murphy's acting.

The story suggests a more violent "Seven Samurai," full of jungle mayhem and eloquently filmed action-movie suspense.

Not always compellingly made, but intelligent and perhaps prophetic.

Moody, atmospheric, and bewitching, like other first-rate examples of modern Thai cinema.

Worth a dozen "Blair Witch Projects," with much more harrowing psychology and pithy dialogue. It's a bone-chilling plunge into no-holds-barred storytelling.

The story is so eager to highlight macho action scenes that it loses track of the important historical and political issues it raises.

This is an op-ed polemic, and it's refreshing to see one so skillfully produced by filmmakers with a shoestring budget and meager access to mainstream distribution. A must-see movie, no matter what your politics are.