The dilemma is simple: Living, making art, and then dying does not constitute much of a story.

It's all well-acted and eerily compelling, but the shocker ending is patently implausible.

Dumont's movie has virtually nothing wrong with it -- aside from the fact that it drives people crazy. Take the leap, but expect no answers. Just like life, as they say.

Lusts for a feel-good ending the material doesn't comfortably provide. One can't help wondering how dismal Jerry and Dorothy's life together will be after the credits roll.

Given a decent script, they might make a fun summer movie. Given the script for Shanghai Noon, they've come up with a middling Old West oater that falls flat at least as often as it finds the funny bone.

The final reel of Rosetta is like nothing else ever filmed, and it would be wrong to describe it.

If you haven't seen his (Crudup's) work before, Jesus' Son could be the one that makes you his biggest disciple.

Despite Arteta's best efforts, I eventually stopped caring about their bond because Chuck's character is conceived as such a two-dimensional yuppie.

Byrne is a stand-up poet the way some actors are stand-up comics. His innate depth prompts The Usual Suspects to transcend its own cleverness--and this is the movie's smartest, least predictable surprise.

Suzhou River might be more pulpy than profound, but it still sings its old song better than we've heard in years.

A near-perfect confection, a beautifully executed Hollywood all-you-can-eat salad bar of glamour, plot twists, breathtaking Mediterranean vistas, and jazz.

Aviva Kempner's utterly conventional documentary plays like a lost chapter from Ken Burns' "Baseball."

Emblematic of the man's (Oshima) career: ironic, ambiguous, sublime.

For all its wit and sharp casting, State and Main is way too pleased with itself to be funny or endearing.

Pure, irrational, claustrophobic, gritty, unpretentious.

Hallström, a past master at cockeyed coming-of-age chronicles ("My Life as a Dog," "What's Eating Gilbert Grape"), has a near-genius for unpatronizing tolerance, and for seeing beauty in the world and nature and seasons without turning them into postcards.

Croupier should please people who take their noir straight up -- with plenty of twists.

Though similar thematically to "Anywhere But Here," Tumbleweeds is a breath of fresh air that busts the cliches of dysfunctional mother-daughter sagas.

(Paradis) delivers what might be the most affecting film performance ever given by a supermodel.

Strains our patience with overacting and photography so sumptuous you can't help but ponder why so much bloodshed and mayhem is being so expertly prettified.

This historical epic about the "virgin queen" of England's early life moves with the crackling urgency of a contemporary political thriller.

Formally astute, visually arresting, and fearlessly horrifying.

In a season of mechanized spectacle and brain-dead comedies, Bulworth is a brave and bracing exception.

Will take you by surprise as a romantic, fast-paced, entertaining spectacle that deserves to earn back every penny spent to produce it.

Arresting, visually accomplished documentary.

Rises instantly above its genre merely by taking the time to develop its characters and scenario.

The film ends with a surprisingly upbeat coda. But Startup.com leaves us with a sense that our heroes' idealism will be forever lost.

A uniquely personal, vibrant mosaic of the American dream, and like a dream, it evaporates beautifully before our eyes.

A bully good romp, and it thumbs its nose at the bloated blockbusters towering over it at the multiplexes by ending the moment it arrives at its raucous, richly deserved climax.

Some moviegoers are bound to take issue with the trick, "Sixth Sense"-style ending (or cynically see it coming), but The Others is mostly spooky fun, and a strong calling card for Amenabar.

A 25-minute third act is far too short to suffice, especially when the previous two hours are as astute and technically impressive as they are here.

As fascinating as the case is as history, however, Scottsboro: An American Tragedy is a TV show, not a movie.

Tucci has crafted a poignant remembrance of a bygone era, and a touching examination of the responsibilities of creativity.

This is certainly the best studio movie of the new year to date, and Douglas might even be remembered at next year's Oscars.

Massively entertaining.

Captures the emptiness of small-time lives as evocatively as Peter Bogdonavich's "Last Picture Show."

Plays like "The Honeymooners" might have if Ralph Kramden were from Pakistan, but with less laughs and more ignorant spite.

A profoundly moving human drama, a quasi love story about two lost men who form an unlikely friendship.

Liam is mostly an emotionally devastating chronicle of the disintegration of a family. The entire cast is superb, but Frears has cast two screen naturals in the lead roles.

John August's script is exciting, witty, original material, and this film's got the talent to match.

A disarming helping of Capra-esque corn served up by writer-director Rob Sitch.

This is such seductive entertainment that you might as well stop grousing and give in.

Shower isn't a bad movie -- just a baneful sign of things to come.

In terms of raw wit and fearless satire, the South Park kids put Mike Myers and Adam Sandler to shame.

It's such an accomplished, beguiling film in its details that you almost don't notice that the story is scattershot, arbitrary, and thin -- almost.

Moodysson's teen protagonists are more complex than both the high school stereotypes (the nerd, the jock, the beauty queen) in films like "American Pie" and the self-absorbed philosophers on "Dawson's Creek."

The cast is largely nonprofessional, and the story has the simplicity of myth.

Mild as satire and completely unconvincing as tragicomedy.

This is, recognizably, an indie film, in the best sense of the term.

An ambitious film, nearly an exploitative one, but its lingering effects are positive.

An explosive experience...and you have to love the movie's rabid energy and lust.

It's funny. Really funny.

This wildly imaginative thriller is a futuristic head trip you most definitely want to take.

Director Roger Michell ("Persuasion," "Notting Hill") has made his finest film to date.

Far from creating a pungent portrait of a society gone mad with blood and greed, Schroeder's movie strives for political points while it's whiffing on simplicities like character, motivation, and believability.

He's (Eastwood) made a mature film that bests nearly all of the summer's highly touted blockbusters for pure escapism.

The real reason to see it is Brian Cox, best known for being filmdom's other Hannibal Lecter (he played the role in Michael Mann's "Manhunter").

All of the filmmaker's fine work and good intentions cannot make this repetitive and finally tiresome saga fly.

Accomplished, middlebrow costume-drama entertainment. It's not so simple that it could be mistaken for the work of, say, Lasse Hallström, and yet it's not so sophisticated that audiences of "Chocolat" would be mystified.

Savy script... terrific performances... [yet] the movie's herky jerky pacing may leave you wanting.

Gets to the funny bone, but it could've cut deeper.

It's a tad too generic to be a slam dunk.

One of the year's best imports and one of the very few queer movies that transcends its sexual orientation.

This brash, clever picture caught the attention of audiences after years of moribund product from the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone.

A superb, wise, and witty Taiwanese film about being single and what to do about it.

It's yet another serial killer movie, a plot element that by this point in time, far from being disturbing or fascinating, is just plain dull.

If you're looking for refuge from summer movie bombast, it's frequently intoxicating.

There's talent to burn in this movie. But the flame is cold.

Has a blithe tone and a capable cast, but Veber's script is 100 percent laugh-free.

Until he (Smith) learns the difference between what has meaning and what's meandering, what feels real and what feels contrived, he'd be better off sticking to the funny stuff.

It's another subtle, fantastic performance from McKee ("Notting Hill," "Croupier").

Rodriguez has made a movie for kids, and the most and least that can be said about it is that parents, while hardly being catered to, will experience profound relief that the movie knows how to entertain and does so.

Intelligently written, sharply directed, and beautifully played.

The man (Apted) behind the excellent "7 Up" series has put a human face to science, making the seemingly abstruse both accessible and easily relatable.

It's amiable enough, but the only real opportunity here is to see Walken step out of the shadows.

As a portrait of a man barely qualifying for a cinematic portrait, Benjamin Smoke is a trifle, but when Sillen and Cohen turn their cameras on the weedy, workaday, hellhole America that Benjamin calls home, the movie comes alive.

Works best as a mood piece — the mood, however, is grim.

It's Norton's movie, really, and he shines both as cocky Jack and as cerebral-palsied Brian.

The flutes soar a little too often, but Yimou's film is genuinely moving.

Has such perfect pitch in small matters that, as it builds, it proves no less capable in tackling bigger issues--and what begin as chuckles become deep belly laughs.

"Run mad whenever you choose, but do not faint," Austen wrote in her early journals. Despite its brazen politics, Mansfield Park never goes giddily amok as promised.

Offers effortless charm, wit, and originality in spades.

Never the heart-wrenching emotional experience it seems intended to be.

Might be the most original film of the year.

It is only once the movie has exhausted its roster of "weird" notions and contrived images that it finds its emotional footing, leaving you with one half of a lovely, woebegone film.

Mesmerizing entertainment, but it's also a cop-out.

Eventually succumbs to fatal overlength.

The nerviest, oddest, most outlandish and idiosyncratic American indie debut since "Buffalo 66," Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko defies description.

A charming movie.

A literate, dialogue-driven treat delivered by a cast that truly savors the script's wicked wit.

Almereyda never plays up the gimmickry at the expense of the performances, and as a result, his movie largely succeeds, despite an overabundance of pretentious pokes at our consumer culture and the risky casting of Ethan Hawke in the lead role.

A cute, clichéd, coming-of-age comedy.

Normal ideas of truth, illusion, and representation are sent into the meat grinder, and the result is consistently disarming and beautiful.

"Trek"-heads will laugh hardest, but there are plenty of yuks for the uninitiated as well.

A vapor trail of a comedy, comfortable as an old chair (and deliciously photographed in shades of melon and banana by Chinese vet Zhao Fei), but ultimately quaint and unchallenging.

A modest project with an agreeably modest point of view, but it cries out for a sharp, believable naturalism Kusama simply doesn't supply.

Jon Reiss' compelling documentary on the people, music, and social constructs of dance culture, may perhaps provide some needed balance to the mass media attention.

This joyous romp is no mere new groove, it's a live wire -- 110 volts of pure holiday cheer.