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.