If you're after some family-friendly classic lit at the multiplex, here 'tis.

Wildly enjoyable look at the fifth-grade ballroom dance competition held annually in New York City.

Writer-director David Mamet delights in his own supposed cleverness; he wants you to scratch your head while he manipulates your brain.

Film critics are put in a difficult position when they see a movie that's well-made but features characters so unbelievably odious you wouldn't want to spend two minutes with them in real life.

O'Connor as Fanny is irresistibly appealing.

While too many things about the story don't ring true for the film as a whole to work, there is enough in Next Stop Wonderland to keep the viewer wide awake and entertained.

This uncommonly clever, surprisingly poignant fairy tale packs a social wallop that we're not quite prepared for.

A fluent, intelligent piece of work whose sex and violence are anything but gratuitous, and exactly the kind of highly personal, no-holds-barred vision of life on the ragged edge that independents always aspire to but rarely have the goods to achieve.

When all is said and done, you'll likely find you have nowhere to place your sympathy, no character worth rooting for.

Without question, Shadow of the Vampire is a stately and elegant horror film, interwoven with delicious strands of black comedy.

A gentle, beautifully realized tale of love and intimacy...It moved me to tears.

The film splits the difference between the brutal reality of the cable-TV prison series "Oz" and the romanticized fantasy of "The Shawshank Redemption" and provides a vivid, well-rounded gallery of inmate portraits.

Suffice it to say that Cruise never seems right in this part--never as treacherous as he should be, nor as mysteriously tortured. Foxx has his moments, but there's no room for his trademark humor, and we can never quite get our minds around the idea that the hit man has beguiled the cabbie.

This is not pleasant stuff, but it's important, and thoroughly heart-wrenching.

Fans of Arthur C. Clarke may be pleased, but fans of serious biology may bust out laughing at the goofily rendered aliens who show up.

This may sound an eensy bit hyperbolic, but dig: Mayor of the Sunset Strip is the greatest rock-and-roll movie of all time.

That this mess should come from the hand of Istvan Szabo, the brilliant Hungarian director of "Mephisto" and "Colonel Redl," is the real shocker.

Mrs. Henderson hits all its marks, well-worn though they be, and Dench fans will once more find themselves glorying in her reckless spirit.

Since the narrative's destination is awkwardly obvious, and the tone occasionally melts into a sticky-sweet mess like cotton candy in the sun, the movie is most often saved by its generous helpings of clever dialogue.

Quills is bound to titillate some, but for most it's likely to summon little more than a few Oscars and appreciative yawns.

Despite the few good performances, this Hamlet is not a keeper.

Even if there were a great movie here, it would have been undermined by two lead actors who are barely even there, asked to deliver lines they can't handle: Bale, playing the Batman with clipped wings, and Katie Holmes as an assistant district attorney who doesn't have the gravitas to pass as an intern. Come back, Alicia Silverstone; all is forgiven.

A good-hearted movie aimed at Orthodox Jews who don't normally go to the movies.

Arcand loyalists are bound to miss Rémy, but at least he goes out in style. Even the antagonists will have to admit that.

The movie works because Berg never forgets to keep his heart in the game and not just his head.

This sweet little movie is a mild comedy, a much calmer cousin to "Sister Act," with men in robes rather than women in habits.

Authenticity and plausibility get gunned down from the get-go, but if explosive shaky-cam ultraviolence and frequent extreme close-ups of greasy whiskers are your bag, this hyperactive wannabe may count as something of a score.

The makers of this film are clearly fans, and they've put more heart and genuine humor into this piece than Paramount has into the original franchise in years.