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

One of Australian director Peter Weir's most sensitive films.

The film is never less than a satisfying mix of compelling entertainment and social critique. The performances are uniformly superb.

A new version of the greatest psychological mystery of all: love.

Naturalistic, gritty, and unrelenting.

Together is unabashedly about people who need people. The film's satiric skewering of '70s liberalism works because it feels emotionally authentic.

Ozon -- has finally hit a home run, and Rampling is his most remarkable RBI.

Unfolds like quietly engrossing short fiction, reminding us that there are few things more pleasurable than being in the hands of a good storyteller.

Director Martin Scorsese's spectacular, irreverent picture.

No Hollywood film within recent memory has achieved such richness and originality of texture, such a compelling amalgam of passionate human drama and awesome technique.

Unapologetically sentimental, this movie is certain to melt all but the hardest of hearts.

Moviegoers of any (or no) religious persuasion can share in the simple satisfaction of his tense, well-spun murder mystery.

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

A funny, frenetic, and often quite touching microcosm of the Big Apple life itself, essayed by a pitch-perfect cast and boasting authentic urban flavors.

What sells Shrek is ultimately the full-bodied personality of its characters.

One of the year's best films, and certainly its most challenging so far: At more than three hours, watching it is less like consuming entertainment and more like living.

Director Charles Crichton's hilarious romp.

Amid the chaos of this marvelous, uncategorizable film squirms one of the year's best performances.

It is one of the most beautifully staged American movies in a very long time.

Not only one of the best films of the year, it's one of the best films of the decade.

No other movie released this year is as much of a filmgoing necessity as Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now Redux.

Witty portrait of a troubled community.

Stomps the summer movie competition with heart and humor.

Though the film's subject matter is grisly, the electricity between Foster and Hopkins during their prison tête-à-têtes could power every maximum-security prison in this country.

So intensely funny that the viewer must hang on every word: comic gems spill forth almost continuously.

The Japanese title means chaos, and that is what is let loose when a powerful king foolishly tries to release the reins of power, in the hopes of enjoying a peaceful old age.

See L.A. Confidential. Be astonished at discovering anew how very, very satisfying movies can still be. And how fine that can feel.

Rereading Greene's book, one is struck anew by the absolute perfection of the film's casting.

Traffic is a riveting, semi-documentary drama, and yet calling it that is a disservice to just how suspenseful and stylish an entertainment it is.

The one movie so far this year that every filmgoer should see, if only to get a big dose of what we've been missing from Hollywood.

Bird's movie neither panders to children nor sneers at them, and it beautifully, lucidly captures the giddy adventurousness of childhood.

The best film we'll see this year.

So breathtakingly textural, so empathic in its images, that it transcends its context and achieves timelessness.

It's an exhilarating display of filmic artistry.

I've not stopped thinking about it -- weighing might-have-beens and alternative courses of action, as though remembering an actual event rather than a nimble, superbly-realized fantasy. That's a first-rate achievement.

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

For the discouraged filmgoer, Erice's tone poem will be a ray of hope itself.

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

Intelligently written, sharply directed, and beautifully played.

The execution is crisp and the fundamentals are solid. Like its protagonist, Finding Forrester got game.

The most heartfelt tribute to women -- specifically, actresses -- he's (Almodovar) ever made.

A must-see for avid fans and a welcome primer for nascent hip-shakers everywhere.

Her (Cheung) gorgeously sad face and slow, lithe frame are the movie's hammer and chisel. One shot of her walking away from a rented room down a hallway is, all by itself, twice the movie of anything else currently in theaters.

The best kind of summer blockbuster -- the kind that makes you immediately crave a sequel.

This is what Woody Allen movies might be like if they were not ruled by narcissism, pretentious point-scoring, cheap observations, and Woody's peculiar speech patterns.

The result is a film that is as witty, astute, and romantic as its timeless subject.

Election is a bracingly intelligent adult comedy that shrewdly captures adolescence.

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

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

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

For two hours and 35 minutes it is absolutely riveting.

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

Astonishingly deep and moving.

It's a film which aims to persuade us of its truth without props or signposts--and it does so with unforgettable beauty.

It's the awesome, metaphysically charged spectacle of man doing terrible things to man within the multicolored and multifarious cathedral of Nature.

Roos combines a sharp script with excellent performances.

Easily the best directorial debut of the year, and possibly the most mature and haunting film to ever come out of Scotland, Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher is a throat-catching masterpiece of lyricism, observation, and stone-cold realism.

The ride is remarkable.

It's the funniest, saddest performance of the year in a film of uncompromising wit and heart.

Flock (don't walk) to the theater to see Chicken Run.

One of those special movies whose freshness and vitality are so bounteously infectious, your humble reviewer wishes everyone had the pleasure of discovering it brand-new and undescribed.

Startlingly vigorous and entertaining piece of work.

Surprisingly charming romantic comedy.

Cho is raw, uncensored, and side-splittingly hilarious.

The Truman Show is one of the films for which the '90s will be remembered, and it is not to be missed.

The Coens are masters at striking a tone and holding it.

That rarest of independent films -- it's risky and exciting.

It might be the scariest movie ever made.

A technologically marvelous animated movie that's just as funny and inventive as the first, but also more emotionally engaging than most live-action films. This is clearly a sequel in name only.

Easily the year's most trying, tormented, and thrilling movie ordeal.

Maddin's movie is, frame for frame, the densest and most spectacular (albeit cardboard-cheap) film playing anywhere.

Even if the great debate that pits artistic integrity against corporate compromise doesn't thrill you, see Cradle Will Rock anyway. It's marvelous, provocative entertainment; art for art's sake.

An ingenious, incredibly entertaining, Rorschach-blot meta-comedy based on a spec script (by first-timer Charlie Kaufman) that is completely unlike anything anyone has ever seen before.

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

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

Leaving Las Vegas may not be a top choice for an upbeat outing, but there's something oddly poetic about the simplicity of Ben's mission and Sera's acceptance of it.

Especially timely in light of the current escalation in Palestinian-Israeli aggressions, but this is one sad story that would pack a staggering punch in any political climate.

42 Up is filled with truth and poignancy as these people reflect on their first half of their lives, their goals, ambitions, and how they, for the most part, succeeded in reinventing them.

A fitting tribute to these displaced children because it so simply and elegantly personalizes their place in the most horrific chapter of 20th-century history.

Crowe's script is a thing of wonder, and he again proves himself to be an outstanding director of actors.

An intensely involving, Ibsen-esque human drama populated by complex, sympathetic heroes.

Though frequently brutal and off-putting, Beautiful People is a must-see.

What evolves among them is a kind of realistic fairy tale, sustained by the sweet gravity and guttural, deadpan minimalism of Thornton's performance.

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.

It's a disturbing film in the best sense.

Blessedly free of candy-box prettiness, cloying gentility, and anything else that might dishonor its deeply felt, sensitively observed memoir.

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

Though modest in scale, this romantic gem constitutes yet another superb leap in the evolution of Figgis' career.

Massively entertaining.

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

Russell has combined pathos, terror, and black comedy with a dollop of Hollywood feel-good patriotism to make one of the best studio efforts this year.

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

It's the sum of things not spoken, things too painful to express, that's the heart of this quietly moving drama.

The most poignant (if hard-hitting) depiction of childhood to show up this year.

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

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

There are only a handful of great music documentaries ... but Temple's film deserves a place in the canon.