Peter O'Toole, looking frail beyond his 74 years, gives what may be his farewell performance as a leading movie actor in Roger Michell's Venus. It's one for the books - and maybe the Oscars, too.

A lyrical, subtle, chaste and nearly wordless romance.

But don't worry if you miss some details; this is the kind of movie that rewards a second viewing.

Once Franco's on his own, everything is played across this terrific actor's deceptively goofy face.

If this lovely tribute sends viewers in search of the real thing, that would be a neat trick indeed.

Weisz's meticulously crafted turn is certainly touching, but it lacks the immediacy of, say, Celia Johnson's in 1945's "Brief Encounter."

One of the best movies of the year.

Is a movie worthwhile if it makes you sick? Absolutely, in the case of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

A remarkable and moving account of a part of the French experience that needs more remembering and less forgetting.

The cast is all top-notch. Harrelson can peel and eat scenery like a bunch of bananas, but he’s mostly in control here. Andy Serkis is beautifully intense as Caesar, and Steve Zahn a welcome addition as the scaredy-cat Bad Ape.

The same audience that loves "March of the Penguins" will eat up this beautifully told, gorgeously shot story of a grieving boy trying to return his pet cheetah to the wilds of South Africa.

A slick, fast-paced production with first-rate performances and an emotional punch you won't soon forget.

Short Term 12 wraps up with one of the most touchingly memorable last moments of any film this year. Despite a title that’s hard to recall, this brief but resonant movie sticks with you.

Don't let the slow, deliberate pace fool you. A lot is going on in David Cronenberg's masterful A History of Violence, and you'll miss it if you blink.

Anyone planning to see The Empire Strikes Back should be warned right away that it is done as a two-hour chapter and ends in a cliffhanger, which is likely to leave an unsatisfied feeling, unlike “Star Wars,” which can be taken as a self-contained unit. This acknowledged, the movie nevertheless is a spectacular piece of work that carries the new “Star Wars” tradition forward.

A thoughtful drama about guys who have a moment in the big time before returning home to an odd reflected glory.

Beautifully shot, both in darkened homes and on the misty green Irish landscape by Loach's frequent cinematographer Barry Aykroyd, "Wind" has a you-are-there intensity and intimacy about it that make it nearly overwhelming. But for all its violence and subsequent sadness, it's a movie of extraordinary importance.

The Lobster is a love story for the unloved. Dark-hearted and brutally sour - and imaginative, and sometimes very funny - it's set in an alternative world where relationships are mandatory.

One of the most emotionally devastating movies of the decade.

Breathtaking.

A great divorce movie. It's also one of the canniest comedies ever made about a certain kind of literary pretension.

School of Rock may be to Black what "The Nutty Professor" was to Jerry Lewis, or "Groundhog Day" was to Bill Murray - that rare, perfectly tailored opportunity to play against one's broadest impulses. Not to neutralize them, necessarily, but to tame them and turn them into something very human and charming.

The new Star Trek is more than a coat of paint on a space-age wagon train. It's an exciting, stellar-yet-earthy blast that successfully blends the hip and the classic.

This may be a sci-fi fantasy about giant man-eating bugs, but it’s grounded in human facts and folly. Little here is safe. Nothing is predictable. It’s surprising how effectively the silence increases the scares, too.

The Namesake is suffused with radiant grace, and manages to be old-fashioned yet immediate, epic and intimate.

Aiming for lightness but landing with a thud, Frances Ha is a well-meaning blunder. Director Noah Baumbach’s ode to Brooklyn twentysomething life is a flibbertigibbet fable that, like a self-absorbed flirt you meet at a party, grates on the nerves despite being easy on the eyes.

A richly inventive, slightly eerie animated movie from Japan.

An emotionally devastating drama that isn't for the squeamish.