Performances that are natural yet weighted with history and frequently heart-wrenching.

As Dardenne films go, with their slow, minutely observed journeys from despair to faint hope, L'Enfant is a horror movie of sorts, and for a few minutes at least, a kind of thriller.

Both funny and furious -- on why black people are different from white people.

It becomes clear that all this man-child craves is to be loved and, thus, saved.

Whereas "Nine Queens" was a movie of clockwork precision and blindsiding reversals, El Aura is more internalized and digressive but no less striking, in large part thanks to Darin's mesmerizing performance.

This is writer-director Hilary Birmingham's first film, and it's a lovely thing, as reserved and unfussy as its characters and, like them, full of surprises.

Kurt Russell is adorably self-mocking as the cluelessly enthusiastic dad in his dorky superhero uniform, and even the spiffy effects lack self-importance. "The Incredibles" it ain't, but Sky High will do nicely.

It's Walken who's most impressive.

Dean Parisot's direction of the funny, affectionately satirical script by David Howard and Robert Gordon is crisp and assured.

A marvelous tribute to a heady age.

A beautiful and exhilaratingly clear-eyed new film by the equally celebrated South Korean director Im Kwon-Taek.

Levin crawls into America's woodwork to ferret out anti-Semites of all stripes, then rushes at them with Socratic reasoning -- a futile and often hilarious project, since they prove immune to thought reform, however rational.

The film offers an impressive melding of quietly radical images and ideas with, yes, an old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing holiday tearjerker.

One's laughter builds on such a rising curve that memories of its flaws burn away.

Penn's own gifts as an actor seem, in turn, to bring out the best in Nicholson, as well as the rest of the cast.

Writer-director Niki Caro, who adapted the screenplay from the novel, has crafted a script replete with both crowd-pleasing touches and subtle but powerful insights into all the characters.

It's clever, vulgar and fully committed to making us howl with laughter. If only all sequels were this much fun.

The protracted final sequence, which involves balletic swordplay worthy of the famous scene in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," will take your breath away.

Every car chase, every plane crash, every potential drop off a cliff is a masterpiece of grace and surprise.

It all sounds like a recipe for the most noxious liberal jerk-off movie since "Crash," but in the hands of writer-director Richard LaGravenese, Freedom Writers turns out to be a superb piece of mainstream entertainment -- not an agonized debate over the principles of modern education à la "The History Boys," but a simple, straightforward and surprisingly affecting story of one woman who managed to make a difference.

King Leopold's Ghost is an often infuriating (and excruciating) film to watch, but one that gets to the root of the despair that now plagues so much of the African continent.

An even richer, smarter, funnier sequel.

In the landscape of contemporary movie comedies, Kitchen Stories is like a rejuvenating blast of crisp Nordic air.

Quiet and meditative, Dinklage neatly sidesteps the trope of the angry dwarf, and Clarkson, even in pain and rage, is characteristically warm and sexy -- she's our very own Helen Mirren.

Real kudos goes to Molly Parker, searing as a heroin-addicted mother immobilized by the death of her husband, and to a poised little boy named Harry Eden, who's astonishingly good as the 10-year-old son desperately trying to hold her to the straight and narrow.

When she unabashedly puts herself in the same category as Richard Pryor (the master of identity politics and cultural reportage), it's not just presumptuous posturing on her part. She's earned her place there.

Although character arcs are a little too abruptly truncated as the story moves, Natali never fumbles the big picture.

Although parents of small children are advised to give the film an advance look, Holes may nudge older kids toward that most ancient of after-school distractions: reading.