What remains discomforting is their sheer failure to be funny.

Less an American product than an international escapade, it's the kind of pigeonhole-resisting romp that Hollywood too rarely provides.

Cantet has rich insights into this material, and brings them alive through sensitive acting and powerful filmmaking.

Its grimness is explicit, so approach it with caution.

If you're in the mood for razor-sharp satire, this is the most refreshingly outrageous movie of the season.

Foster is fine, but the story's outcome would seem a tad more uncertain if another actress had the part. How scary are three New York tough guys when you've handled Hannibal Lecter in your time?

Energetic acting and perky filmmaking help this likable Argentine comedy-drama avoid the sentimentality that intermittently threatens it.

Debrauwer brings crisp conviction to what might have been an overly sentimental tale, filming it with a straightforward style and good-natured sincerity that ring consistently true.

Everyone raves about this 1957 film -- and everyone's right.

Too much repetition and an unconvincing finale take a toll on the film's overall effectiveness.

Muddled screenwriting and uninspired directing.

The movie makes a commendable effort to celebrate bravery and underscore the terrors of war, but its melodramatic approach is more spectacular than insightful.

One of the season's most watchable treats.

If you want a movie time trip, the 1960 version is a far smoother ride.

Rarely have Gibson's tears seemed more fictional than in this supposedly authentic account of a historical event that's far too tragic to merit such superficial treatment.

Desplechin wants to film an adventure of the human spirit in the manner of a Hitchcockian drama, but he doesn't have a solid enough grasp of English culture to equal the complexity of his French productions like "The Sentinel" and "The Life of the Dead."

This masterpiece of poetic realism features one of Gabin's most renowned performances, a smart subtext about French colonialism, and enough exotic atmosphere to keep your head in the clouds long after the final scene.

It's an impressive movie, pointing to Howard as a promising new director.

This modestly produced drama isn't acted or directed with much flair, but it shows a welcome awareness of the complex links between personal and political impulses.

Fans of Robert Altman's hit "Gosford Park" will find similar pleasures here: colorful characters, multiple story lines, and clever blends of comedy and drama.

Costner is convincing as the hero, ably supported by Joe Morton as a short-tempered supervisor and Kathy Bates as a feisty neighbor. Dragonfly has little chance of "Ghost"-like popularity, though.

It's as forgettable as they come.

The credo of Italy's fabled neorealist movement was that movies rooted in real, unadorned experience carry more dramatic impact than studio concoctions can dream of, and this 1952 masterpiece exemplifies that argument brilliantly.

A smart and scary voyage into the uncanny realm where hard realities,mind-spinning myths, and hallucinatory visions blur.

It's refreshing to see a cartoon that looks like a cartoon -- and a lovingly drawn one -- rather than a conglomeration of computer-generated bits and bytes.

All right, it's far-fetched. But it's fun to think about, and Rubbo makes a merry case. Will the real Bard of Avon please stand up?

There's nothing special about this movie -- it's just business as usual for today's debased action-movie genre.

Results are illuminating, harrowing, and riveting.

Solondz is a courageous social commentator and a canny provocateur at the same time. He'll never get to Hollywood if he stays on this track, but cinema will be a lot duller if he ever mends his incendiary ways.

This doesn't mean Maelström is for everyone. It's a strange and quirky yarn, moving between deceptively calm scenes and episodes as tempestuous as its title.

Moretti's acting skills aren't up to the demands of the main role, and his portrait of family life is too simplistic to be credible.

It's a smart and creative comedy that skewers cheaply dehumanizing architecture and self-absorbed yuppie mentalities in a series of skillfully assembled scenes. See it in a theater that's waydowntown, and city life may never look the same.

Sail to the box office, swashbucklers. Dumas is back in style.

At times, the film meanders from its course and loses dramatic focus. But it's vividly acted and creatively directed.

The plot is predictable, the characters are cliches, and all the actors look and sound like refugees from a movie Martin Scorsese would have made vastly better three decades ago.

Its low-key charm shows that Dogma filmmakers have yet to run out of ideas.

Much of the historical horrorfest is more frenetic than fascinating. Look out for bursts of over-the-top violence.

Tsai's cinematic style is unique: He unfolds his stories in long, static shots that let you discover their surprises and mysteries on your own. And that's great fun. What Time Is It There? is perky, entertaining, and one of a kind.

The film would be more informative if it put Goldsworthy into the broader context of modernist art movements. It's visually ravishing from start to finish, though.

Perhaps they truly believe war is an inescapable aspect of human life. If so, why make movies that rub our faces in its horror? If artists have no antidote to war's evil or insight into the suffering it brings, their motive in depicting it must be merely to sensationalize its terrors and make money from the morbid fascination it holds for audiences. We deserve better.

The story has inherent emotional power, but Jeremy Brock's formula-bound screenplay rarely soars beyond cliches.

The film means well, but each scene gets clobbered by sappy screenwriting.

Its ethical and intellectual insights wane when the love story kicks in, weakening what might have been a much deeper movie. Still, its performances are wonderful to watch.

This territory is familiar if you remember the great BBC miniseries "Upstairs Downstairs," but Altman gives it a new twist with his restlessly roaming camera and incisively satirical approach. He's still near the peak of his powers.

What keeps the movie from championship status is a sense that the filmmakers see Ali's social and political contributions as extra added attractions, ultimately less important than his greatness in the ring.

Spacey is endearing, bringing his shy character to life despite glaring psychological gaps in the screenplay.

While it's a splendidly acted film, A Beautiful Mind is also a wasted opportunity.

The film tries to revive the sort of good-hearted optimism associated with Frank Capra classics of the 1940s era, but pictures like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" were never so simplistic, syrupy, or tedious to sit through.

Far from the movie of the year, the first installment of the long-awaited Lord of the Rings trilogy is an all-around disappointment.

Dench and Winslet give strong and creative performances, and Broadbent is positively brilliant as old Bayley.

While the movie is well acted and creative, its story and style are too self-consciously clever to build a high degree of emotional power.

Anderson's cinematic style gets more adventurous from one movie to the next, and he begins this story with bursts of originality that leave his respected "Rushmore" far behind.

While it's often harsh in style and melancholy in subject, Kandahar taps into veins of humor and compassion as well.

Resembles a fast-and-flashy variation on "The Sixth Sense," with touches of "The Matrix" as a bonus.

Expressively filmed story of rivalry, romance, and cultural conflict.

Good performances by a distinguished cast don't quite overcome the weaknesses of the disappointing screenplay.

Some of the film's points are made a bit too heavily, but the subject is as timely as it is timeless, and many of the performances strike a pitch-perfect balance between parody and passion.

A caper that rarely goes wrong.

Try to imagine "In the Company of Men" with a feminist twist and you'll have the gist of this fervently acted, ultimately unconvincing drama.

Weir had a truly magical touch in early films like this 1977 masterpiece, which offers a transfixing excursion into the "dream time" of Australian myth.

The movie has almost enough corny appeal to offset its lack of originality, though, and Walken is fun as Cagliostro, the court's great prognosticator and all-around weirdo.

Haneke brings his usual dark sensibility to bear on the multifaceted story, expressing the fractured quality of modern city life through scenes that wander through a labyrinth of missing links and lost connections.

The results are unbelievably tedious, but Mansfield buffs may find it intermittently worthwhile.

Denis's pungent images create a nightmarish mood but don't bring full artistic coherence to her odd mix of gothic horror and postmodern reverie.

Directed by newcomer Todd Field, who has a sensitive eye and a knack for storytelling.

It's imaginatively filmed and builds a sense of brooding emotional power.

Columbus has done a rousing job of bringing Rowling's rambunctious story to the screen. The eerie corridors and ever-shifting stairways of Hogwarts are as daunting, haunting, initially bewildering, and ultimately comforting as when Rowling painted them in prose.

Would have more heft if the filmmakers had been supplied with talented stars, original ideas, and a barely adequate budget.

Although this is a likable comedy-drama, it never quite balances its humanitarian message (disabled people fall in love like everyone else) with its standard-issue romantic angles.

Most of the time we see her through Hal's idealizing eyes, though -- no surprise, since Hollywood won't let glittery stars like Paltrow play down their sex appeal for long.

The ultimate challenge of making a first-rate caper movie is dishing up often-used ingredients with enough novel twists to make them seem familiar and fresh at the same time. Mamet soars over the hurdles with energy and imagination to spare.

The movie has magical moments, but it's too contrived to gather much comic or dramatic power.

The movie's cutest twist is that the monsters are more scared of kids than kids are of them, because they think human children are toxic.

The barometer for whether you'll enjoy Amélie is whether you liked "Moulin Rouge" last summer. If snappy visuals, tangy colors, mood-drenched scenery, and a good-hearted heroine make you as happy as a box of Parisian chocolates, it's definitely for you.

Linklater keeps it lively with imaginative camerawork and razor-sharp editing.

Most of the way this ranks with the Coens' most immaculately crafted work. Cain would have loved its dreamlike chills, and so will audiences nostalgic for the movies of half a century ago.

In short, this movie is exactly the kind of starry-eyed escapist fantasy that Dr. Powell suspects Prot of having. It's harmless enough, since we can be cured just by leaving the theater.

This dark psychological story falls short in terms of filmmaking and acting, but it's original enough to stand out from the crowd.

Isn't for everyone, but horror fans with strong stomachs will find it a memorable monsterfest that rarely loses its bite.

The movie's one good performance is given by the house, full of ominous inscriptions, inscrutable chambers, and fiendish machines. The human characters are played with various degrees of manic overacting.

Plays like a warmed-over "Last Tango in Paris," with more explicit sex but a lower level of originality and acting skill.

The result would be an important drama if the screenplay (based on an early Arthur Miller novel) didn't lapse into preachiness and imprecision at times.

The movie works well as a straight-out horror yarn, proving that the Hughes Brothers are more versatile than their previous "ghetto pictures" suggest.

Few American filmmakers put more faith in the ability of words to stimulate mind and heart.

It will frustrate viewers who like stories to make instant sense, but fans of provocative puzzles will have mind-teasing fun.

Rigorous and riveting.

This is as challenging as movies come, alluding to everything from philosopher Thomas Hobbes to the history of Western music.

This disturbing drama has many telling moments, but it ends with an out-of-the-blue shock episode that raises more questions than it answers.

This exceedingly romantic comedy begins with flair but lapses into clichés long before the sentimental (and predictable) finale.

The title means "The Swamp," and you may feel you're in one after 103 minutes with such a generally unlikable gang.

Magical movie, which has brilliant fun with the contrasts between film and theater, love and infatuation, reality and fantasy.

Loses its way in a crime-movie subplot and a less-than-believable love affair.

Gilliam's first solo flight as a director is more notable for its inspired visual ideas than for the frequency of its laughs, but Python devotees will have fun.

The movie has promise as a psychological thriller, but the filmmakers show far more interest in chases and shoot-outs than characters and ideas.

Hicks doesn't always keep the story clear and compelling, but Hopkins is in top form.

The movie has enough color and spirit to make lively viewing.

The acting is excellent, and the movie has a good-natured spirit to match its ultimate faith in the hero's deep-down goodness.

Paints a sincere and serious portrait of the seductiveness of evil and the self-destructive nature of depravity.