Screenwriter Shawn Slovo -- whose white parents were anti-apartheid activists in South Africa -- ends his finely tuned screenplay on a note not of violence and anger but of forgiveness. It's a breathtaking coda that reminds us of that undeniable human beauty: the ability to survive, to fight for right -- and then move peacefully on.

The movie doesn't quite achieve the transcendent effect it reaches for, saddled with an ending that fails to live up to our expectations. But the experience of watching Babel is undeniably riveting: Even if the film doesn't really lead anywhere, you still can't take your eyes off it.

Ceylan examines human relationships with an eye for details and a soul for the big picture.

The movie itself frustrates by guarding the secret of Walsch's newfound spirituality.

The fact that you might emerge from the theater eager to give their albums a listen is a testament to how effective this lively and stirring movie about freedom of speech really is.

Aside from satisfying some kind of ghoulish curiosity about how such an incident could possibly happen, there's precious little in Death of a President to justify the extremity of its central conceit.

Although the movie doesn't exactly romanticize the period, the film still generates a twinge of pride in viewers who lived in South Florida during that time -- and lived to tell about it.

The dance numbers grow tiresome after a while, and director/screenwriter Ramon Salazar throws in so many calculated oddities that it's impossible for anyone to become too attached to his characters.

Coppola and her crew were allowed to shoot at Versailles -- family pedigree does pay dividends, apparently -- which gives the film a needed whiff of reality.

While the attentive art direction of Running With Scissors pays scrupulous and imaginative attention to period detail, the film overlooks its greatest asset: Burroughs.

An ambitious, powerful, somber picture, but it never quite moves you the way it should.

The film paints a fairly realistic portrait of four people bound by blood but -- like all of us -- all too capable of underestimating each other.

Nolan, who has become an assured, stylish filmmaker in the span of only a few films, keeps the complicated plot spinning.

It's the damndest thing, watching this light but genial movie self-destruct. It's as if writer-director Barry Levinson set out to sabotage his own film by gradually turning what should have been a minor subplot into the story's main subject.

Despite its slight and vaguely silly premise, Driving Lessons turns out to be sweet, never cloying, and amusing in an understated British way.

McGrath makes literal what the other movie only hinted at -- that Perry falls in love with Capote -- turning the relationship between author and subject into something far less complicated and more mundane.

Slowly loses its grip, becoming just another story about infidelity, albeit an exceptionally polished, well-acted one.

This is the most vibrant, exciting and invigorating movie-movie of the year.

Coolidge knows he's not making "Death of a Salesman" here (he names the store managers Glen Gary and Glen Ross in tribute to David Mamet's elegy to the American Dream), but he's got the same eye for detail that made "Office Space" great. What he lacks is Arthur Miller's (or even Mike Judge's) sense for character.

If watching people having their faces cut off, getting their legs amputated and having their throats tenderly slit is your idea of a horrific good time, you'll certainly get your money's worth here.

For Americans, the film may be best taken as fodder for debate, especially for individuals interested in sociology. You wonder why those people stuck to the commitment. You may also wonder how different a parallel American film would've been.

Shortbus is, first and foremost, an experiment -- an accessible, audience-friendly movie about love and sex in which the screen doesn't fade to black once the actors start taking off their clothes.

The Queen taps into the universal curiosity the world shares toward royal families -- an element of the movie that Frears wisely mines for gentle humor.

I'm not suggesting Costner and Kutcher should run out and remake "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" just yet, but in The Guardian, the two actors turn out to complement each other well enough to make a lot of this supremely derivative and formulaic picture go down better than it should.

For an inaugural effort, Open Season ain't bad, but the studio shows far more promise with its gee-whiz visuals than it does in the story department.

In post-"Wedding Crashers" Hollywood, the entire exercise feels dated (just as the comedy's PG-13 rating -- this in spite of a recurring rape joke -- makes it feel neutered).

Director Kevin Macdonald, an accomplished maker of documentaries making his feature-film debut, gives The Last King of Scotland the pace and crackle of a thriller, albeit a thriller with substance.

A handsome, sincere, well-meaning bore.