Some of the finest ensemble acting this year.

Eureka is, quite extraordinarily, never dull.

If the performances are the prime reason the film is as engaging as it is, it must also be said that Majidi's visual style seems far more sophisticated than in "Children of Heaven."

One of the compulsively watchable films this year, second only to "Memento." It's a must-see, except for those with a sensitivity to on-screen mayhem.

Those with an interest in new or singular sorts of film experiences will find What Time Is It There? well worth the time.

It's funny, heroic, exaggerated and, most of all, energetic; the film speeds along as though afraid to lose the audience's attention for even a moment.

As a document of rockin, youth rebellion, the film lodges perfectly between "American Graffiti" and "Trainspotting."

The film could be subtitled "Six Characters in Search of an Ending:" When they find that ending, it is gently, delightfully uplifting.

Wisely, Run Lola Run lasts something under 80 minutes; any longer, and it would have been as exhausting and boring as a half-hour Donna Summer track.

The sensitive art-house viewer should be warned: Though slow-moving at first, the film ends in explosions and violent death, with a level of sadism that will undoubtedly prove too intense for some viewers.

What Nolan does accomplish here that we haven't seen from him before is staging a few horrifyingly effective suspense set pieces -- one of which, in particular, is likely to stay with you for a long time.

An exciting, sharply realized melodramatic film noir, based on Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's novel "The Blank Wall."

Headey, Skarsgård and Rampling flesh these people out marvelously, bringing them fully to life. It's almost a pity: The more real they become, the less pleasant is the time we spend with them.

The pleasure is in watching veteran star Bouquet and the versatile Berling go at it -- they even seem to look alike.

From the start, a comprehensible, if necessarily simplified, sense of an extremely complicated moment in history.

Though not as visually impressive as comparable Terry Gilliam fare such as Jabberwocky, the verbal wit is fast and abundant (abetted with cameos by Billy Crystal, Peter Cook and Mel Smith), and you'd better believe the midnight movie crowd will remember almost all of it.

For better or worse, the filmmaker says nothing directly political about the cruel fate suffered by her people, but the dark poetry of her allusions is powerful.

The film's biggest strength is the same characteristic that may cause people to underrate it: that the group of friends we watch onscreen feel not like England's greatest actors showing off, but rather a group of friends who have indeed known each other for years through life's little triumphs and large tragedies.

The film proves unrelentingly grim -- and equally engrossing.

What's most impressive about this is that, if one didn't know better, the naturalism of the performances could be taken for that of a documentary.

Brilliant new documentary.

In the end, leaves you feeling both violated and startlingly informed, as if a mugger had whacked you in a dark alley.

Nunez's direction is as self-consciously homey as a floral welcome mat.

The miracle here is not so much that Pray captures the DJs in peak form, but that he comprehensively captures SO MANY of them.

Pulsates with music, dance, color and laughter, but also glows with quiet moments of drama.

A film worth your time, and if you know going into it that there's no closure, it'll give you all the more freedom to enjoy what IS there.

It's a killing comedy for people who have learned to stop worrying and love their iden-tity crisis.

We expect some depth and perspective from filmmakers, but even in talking about the movie Peralta sounds like an ex-high school quarterback who never got over the Big Game, or an old campus revolutionary who's never glimpsed the folly that went along with the fervor.