Although the pervading mood of Twin Falls Idaho - a beautifully shot, noirish thing - is one of sadness and loss, the Polishes' film is playful, too.

First-time filmmaker Kolirin paces his can-we-all-just-get-along? parable as if it were a silent comedy, which for long stretches it is. This movie about musicians has no soundtrack. Its musical moments are few, but potent.

Tcheng finds Simons in moments of haughty self-confidence and tremulous self-doubt.

A superb film that begins with death, ends in renewal, and finds almost as much to laugh about as to cry for.

A gorgeous confection, packed with gargantuan gowns and pornographic displays of pastrystuffs, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette is also a sharp, smart look at the isolation, ennui and supercilious affairs of the rich, famous and famously pampered.

Rain is a quiet, disquieting triumph.

What gives North Country urgency is that it's about how a man comes to understand that it's bad for him and for his community to deny his daughter privileges and prerogatives he'd grant his son.

An amiable mix of "Grumpy Old Men" comedy and "Apollo 13" can-we-fix-this-jalopy-before-we-die? Drama.

David Ayer, the writer of "Training Day," director of "Street Kings," writer/director of "Harsh Times," does not make movies about princesses with witchy curses, about yuppie commitment-phobes, about talking plush toys. His territory is narrow, but he owns it: cops, in Los Angeles.

Tender but never sappy, Monsieur Ibrahim brings two people of vastly different age and background together in ways that are touching, and telling. It's a small, glowing gem.

For Kudlow, for whom "music lives forever" - it's never over. And the opportunity to seize the day continues to present itself in this deeply human documentary.

Far too good to be watched in one sitting.

Roiling with laughter, tears, drunken confessions, revelatory soliloquies, pain, sorrow, hospital visits, and various kinds of love, A Christmas Tale is a smart, sprawling, and sublimely entertaining feast.

A sly and surprisingly sublime little noir romance.

A gorgeous operatic tale of obsession and madness.

Macdonald's film brilliantly telescopes the '70s, an era when every physical action had its equal and opposite political reaction.

A beautifully mopey adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's much-praised novel.

Career Girls doesn't have the sweep of Secrets & Lies, nor the venom of Naked (which also featured the riveting Cartlidge). But in the small world it keenly describes, the film packs an emotional punch - silly voices and all.

Directed with tremendous style and vibrant, buoyant energy.

Corinne's journey begins with an act of blind faith. The movie ends, but you have a palpable sense that the journey does not.

Jarmusch’s movie serves both as a fine intro to one of rock’s great bands and as a window for longtime fans into what makes Iggy tick.

The way that power and wealth corrupt the spirit is a recurring theme in Huston's work, and it is served up here in a hugely entertaining fashion. [17 Mar 1995, p.11]

Next to the cheerleader grunts and aerobic struts that pass for dance numbers on most music videos, the sequences in the compilation film That's Entertainment! III are like treasures from a highly evolved ancient civilization. [06 Jul 1994, p.E01]

Underlines the nightmare of entrapment so vividly captured in The Day I Became a Woman.

The film treats the ensuing issues of conscience and compromise with subtlety and warmth.

It's a movie with a pulse. Sometimes, it flies off the chart.

Garfield melts into his Doss character in a performance that seems impossibly still and tranquil. He’s mesmerizing. It’s almost impossible to imagine he ever played Spider-Man.

A dynamic portrait of an artist by an artist, one as wry, audacious and erotically charged as its flamboyant subject.