Room 237 becomes not a film about "The Shining" or even a film about film. Rather, it is an examination of the nature of obsession, about how we are capable of convincing ourselves — and possibly others — that just about anything might be true.

The Eternal Daughter is haunting, as all the best ghost stories are. The best love stories too.

The film’s Lynchian surrealism and time-jumping adventurousness, although occasionally hobbled by narrative digressions, are lifted up by the two leads.

The most frankly sensual movie in memory. Winner of five Cesars, the French Oscar, including best picture and best actress for its luminous star, Marina Hands, it has found the soul of the celebrated D.H. Lawrence novel.

Here, it seems to be saying, was an extraordinary human being who, by offering the gift of his time and attention, couldn’t help but profoundly affect those he met. To watch this movie is to encounter him anew — not in the flesh, but in nearly every other way that matters.

The sly achievement of The Forty-Year-Old Version is to turn a critical eye on the very idea of success (by whose standards?), and to ponder exactly what level of compromise is acceptable to secure it.

His endless string of demeaning apartment-doorway interactions with a convincing cross-section of hungry customers is darkly funny, even if it never snowballs into the “After Hours”-type obstacle course one might hope.

In stripping genre ornamentation away to get to what brings people together in stark, lonely, and in this case, mighty cold circumstances, Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen (“The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki”) has achieved something genuinely unlikely, and quietly renewing about what a love story can be.

The better one knows Stanton’s life and his movies, the more the long silences and gently meandering rhythms of Lucky resonate.

While 7 Prisoners doesn’t pack many surprises, it is remarkably well drawn, featuring gripping performances and a vividly squalid setting.

Assayas displays an intimate, informal style and a sharp sense of proportion that allows him to have some fun, score some points and then wrap it all up before overstaying his welcome. Irma Vep is as effortless as a shrug and boasts a film buff’s dream cast.

Both sweet-natured and sharply pointed, a film whose poignant, emotional effects and subtle acting sneak up on you.

Unusual in both its subject matter and its approach, this film guides us on a pair of intertwined paths American movies rarely venture down.

The civil rights arguments and the activism are handled in remarkably objective fashion, though it is no mystery where the directors' sentiments lie.

An exceptionally adroit adaptation of a play to the screen. As a film, it flows beautifully under Randa Haines' direction and has considerable humor as well as dramatic intensity. It is a classic love story--romantic, passionate, involving vibrant characters.

Writer-director Peter Strickland...uses atmosphere as others would use plot, and knows how to provoke comic shudders. But he tends to repeat himself, and he doesn't quite find a satisfying denouement for the inventive premise.

Despite its seriousness, the film is also among the funniest sports movies ever made. [01 Feb 2009, p.E4]

Bold, acutely observant and universal in its wide-ranging concerns and implications.

Where most movies lie, Lorenzo's Oil tells the truth and pays the price. In a genre rife with romantic sentimentality, this film won't trifle with its integrity and ends up not artificially uplifting but heart-rending and exhausting. Based on a true story, it shows how dreadfully hard you have to fight to make a difference, and how grueling it can be to save even a single human life.

The word “visionary” gets tossed around too much, but there’s really no better way to describe the spectacularly bleak animated science-fiction film Mad God or its creator, Phil Tippett.

The atmospheric heft of Il Futuro is invariably more bracing than oppressive, and in the complexly stoic Martelli and masterfully craggy, haunted Hauer, an alluringly opaque pas de deux of loss and uncertainty is wonderfully realized.

The trouble with describing a story this complex and digressive is that it's hard to keep it from sounding complicated and hard-to-follow. But for a movie about movies, it's surprisingly humanistic, cheerful and true to life.

Couldn't be more unlikely, more unfashionable -- or more compelling.

Concerned with fathers and sons, expectations and dreams, ideals and reality, this completely engrossing film gets more involving as it goes on.

The camera work is meticulous and exquisite in its expression, creating a sense of tense foreboding throughout, linking characters and images with a creepy omniscience.

Firecrackers isn’t just a confident feature debut from Mozaffari, but a daring one, the kind of fast and furious feminine filmmaking that heralds the arrival of several exciting new talents.

Crosby’s spirit remains vital, and he’s determined to fly that freak flag into that good night.

it’s an unexpectedly unnerving film that’s at least as terrifying as it is beautiful.