This is a solid, spellbinding drama based closely on real history, which along the way offers a not-so-subtle commentary on the diverse, immigrant-rich society of contemporary France.

The Kids Are All Right ranks with the most compelling portraits of an American marriage, regardless of sexuality, in film history.

Slinky, smart and funny, Irma Vep doesn't send up that sticky-sweet incense smell you usually get in movies about the joy of cinema-with-a-capital-C. It's a languorous love ballad, and a daring one, about the way moving pictures move, the way they hold light, the way they steal from us when we're not looking.

Although Josh Olson's script was originally based on a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, it has now unmistakably become a Cronenberg movie, and one of his finest.

I’m saying that King has fearlessly forged into unexplored territory — that being the African-American stoner comedy, with an adult audience in view – and the results are profoundly hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, often brilliant and entirely devoid of political piety.

A gripping, mysterious use of no-budget cinema at its finest, and an intimate character study with surprising emotional power.

Mr. Turner is a rich, ruthless and profoundly compassionate study of life and love and art, for those who find themselves on its wavelength, but it also presents itself as a challenge.

A wonderful adventure film that's no less thrilling for its modest scale, and a film whose emotional power and intelligence sneak up on you.

To sum it all up, The Nice Guys is basically “Chinatown” remade by Quentin Tarantino and starring foulmouthed, updated versions of Abbott and Costello, as played by two of the most recognizable male stars of our time.

Idlewild has just about everything a popular entertainment can offer. It also has a soul, and that comes free with the price of a ticket.

May well be the most exciting documentary of the year so far. I guess it took a British director, David Sington, to capture the story of the dozen American men who walked on the moon -- the only human beings in our species history yet to visit another celestial body.

If this actually were 1968, the pipe-smoking sophisticates of "Esquire" and "Playboy" would be proclaiming I Served the King of England a nettlesome masterpiece. For whatever good it does this film today, I'll stick my pipe in my mug and agree.

A surprising, puzzling and in many ways brilliant work.

Unlike so much contemporary horror, it's devoid of sadism and mean-spiritedness. The looseness Raimi allows himself here results in an especially joyous kind of filmmaking, the sort where the filmmaker's delight in scaring us (and making us laugh) becomes part of the movie's fabric.

Southpaw is a tremendous accomplishment of mainstream cinematic craft, a near-perfect match of director, material and star.

(Coppola) connects with the essential purity of Eugenides' story, stripping it down to its bare essentials and cutting straight to everything that's wonderful about it.

It's rare to see a movie adaptation in which a filmmaker has taken so much care in translating the odd little qualities that make a particular novel special, to preserve the complex and fragile threads of feeling between characters that are often much easier to grasp on the page.

A magical and supernally beautiful meditative drug-trip head-space picture (a full-fledged ZZM, q.v. above) for which all Euro-film masochists should rearrange their schedules. It'll be out on DVD soon, and that's great. But Garrel's films are almost never seen on the big screen, and this one's worth it.

An imaginative and largely intact retelling of this gory, troubling, uniquely sweet and uniquely dark vampire tale.

You wouldn't mistake Donnie Brasco for a great movie or an important one, but it's something that's become almost as rare in American movies: a consistently absorbing and intelligent adult entertainment.

May not hit every note perfectly, but the picture they've come up with is full-bodied and intelligent.

A tightly structured thriller with a brilliantly moody performance by Jeanne Moreau, and depending on your point of view, it's either one of the few genuine French noir films or an early entry in the New Wave.

Never less than witty, charming, accomplished.

With one foot in the grind house and one in the art house, the smarts in Freeway are more than equal to its visceral kick.

A remarkable accomplishment, a swirling, choral sea of humanity that forces us to confront that a man who does terrible things can also be a loving father who gives his infant daughter a bath.

It's an expertly constructed thrill ride with wonderful atmosphere and tremendous good humor; if its heart of gold is artificial, that won't stop you from enjoying the heck out of it.

You may feel lost or bewildered at times in 2046 (and I certainly did), and you may feel that Chow is suffering from self-inflicted wounds. But every new adventure with every new girl vibrates with possibility, and the filmmaking is so stunning that you may not care that this is less a movie with a plot and characters than a hermetically sealed universe of romantic regret.

This bloody celebration finally gives the American Revolution the epic it deserves.

Stop Making Sense is so beautifully choreographed that in some ways it's more like theater than a rock show. [Review of re-release]

Andrew Jarecki could have done more to lay out the marriage of sexual and religious and social hysteria that made cases like this possible. But he deserves credit for having the guts to say, in this case and in so many like it, who suffered the most.

Wedding Crashers may be the most optimistic Hollywood comedy of the year, because it restores at least some dim hope that directors, writers and actors with actual brains in their heads can somehow triumph over unimaginative studio execs. In that way, Wedding Crashers isn't just the life of the party, but its pulse.

A potent and well-executed drama.

Even these ludicrous notions illustrate the real point of Room 237, as I see it, which is that “The Shining” is a disturbing, complicated and highly unusual creation of pop cinema that works on many levels, and whose slow-acting toxin continues to spread through our cultural veins more than 30 years later.

While "Ballplayer" is certainly unsettling, must-see viewing for baseball fans - a nonfiction follow-up to Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's outstanding 2009 feature "Sugar" - it's a vibrant tale, alive with color and texture, that's far more than a sports movie.

The group's members come off more like real musicians than parodists.

If the movie isn't true, it's at least true to itself. When Nine Queens spirals out of the realm of believability, we've already been won over enough that we don't care.

It's mournful and troubling in a way that goes beyond ordinary movie manipulation. It burns clean.

Though it definitely requires a strong stomach, Ravenous may be the best cannibal tragicomedy ever made.

An urban epic, a noisy, swirling, flawed, hilarious, witty, tender, violent, questionable train wreck.

It's a hit for the most surprising reason of all: because it's very good.

Fans of "Swingers" may be disappointed. Made doesn't give us as many jazzy catchphrases to latch onto, or figuratively hoist us aloft on a giant martini glass of prolonged adolescence. But then that's precisely why it's the better movie.

I'd put The End of the Affair just beneath the top rung of Jordan movies or Greene-based films (it's no "The Fallen Idol" or "The Third Man"), with Moore the critical element that makes it necessary viewing.

In this floor-level view of the rave scene, director Jon Reiss keeps it pumping, humming, buzzing and spinning.

I can't recall the last time a picture left me feeling so caffeinated.

It's a tantalizing case study that suggests ordinary people still have the power to steer a course between faceless bureaucracies and greedy capitalists, but only just - and only if they can find a way to overcome their differences and work together.

Carrey provides one of his most whacked-out and enjoyable performances.

Fascinating quasi-documentary about Norma Khouri.

Reconstruction has a poetic sensibility, as well as an old-fashioned Continental appetite for romance, that makes it distinctive.

An art noir that courts pretension but just manages to keep from succumbing to it.

Such an exhilarating, spirited piece of work that its embellishments and omissions cease to matter.

A landmark -- the first movie to give a convincing, feature-length account of sex from a woman's point of view.

Captain America is exactly what the third week of July needed: a curiously fun, surprisingly imaginative and unashamedly old-fashioned yarn of skulduggery and adventure.

Kostic, a Bosnian actor who has done quite a bit of British film and TV, and the Sarajevo-born beauty Marjanovic make a combustible screen couple, and Jolie knows it. Despite the film's generally somber tone, there's more than a hint of "Night Porter"-style perversity to their relationship, which at different times is platonic, therapeutic and highly erotic.

An enjoyably off-kilter romantic comedy with a touch of madcap farce and just a hint of darkness.

A picture that's fully open to some pretty rough truths. But it's also a joyful, heartfelt movie, one that speaks to the openness and vitality we see in Bettie's pictures.

Frequently beautiful and intermittently haunting and could be called a meditation on aging and mortality, an intimate study of a peculiar variety of fame and a portrait of a genuinely remarkable person.

Most of the movie's subterranean emotion is found in the unsettled relationship between Solo and William, and in the extraordinary performances by the two leading men.

A clever picture, and something of a novelty -- it's not going to change the face or direction of horror filmmaking in any drastic way. But it's fun to watch something that's so obviously made with love.

Once you get past the question of why someone would make a movie this artificial in the first place and move on to the answer (purely for the hell of it), Sukiyaki Western Django is a blood-drenched, dynamite, often hilarious and uniquely weird big-screen entertainment.

If Land of Plenty isn't always elegant, it has the inexpressible aura of mystery and wonder that exemplifies his best work. Fans will feel echoes of both "Paris, Texas" and "The State of Things" here. Like those movies, this one is less an angry critique than a sad meditation on the American dream, something Wim Wenders understands well and has never been able to resist.

The tremendous power of Aronofsky's filmmaking -- its omnivorous omnipotence, if that makes any sense -- has the curious effect of diluting its emotional impact.

The kicker is that Joy Ride is funny, too. In fact, it would be a superbly frightening entertainment if not for the way Dahl fixates, disturbingly, on sadistic details.

The picture itself is so ebullient and celebratory that it practically beams with perverted innocence.

The original Ocean's is fun, fun, fun. It was a heist caper that was just an excuse for a bunch of friends (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., et al) to get together and make whoopee.

Stronger is an actor’s movie. Gordon Green’s touch is subtle.

The picture is clever and vivacious -- at times, like the first "Shrek," it seems a bit taken with its own precociousness. But its moments of sheer inventiveness can still catch you off-guard, and some of them are wittily poetic.

In some ways, this is the most conventional of Sheridan's movies. But it never feels sentimental because of the grittiness of his approach.

This is a daring, audacious and sometimes terrifying movie -- purely as a thrill ride, it's probably the summer's best offering so far. That doesn't mean it left me feeling entirely satisfied. There's an emptiness at the soul of Salt -- again, meaning both the movie and the character -- that's extremely disturbing, maybe on purpose.

Among the least-heralded of the Christmas releases, Casanova is one of the few that's wholly enjoyable.

There's so much dreamy beauty in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that it's almost like a narcotic.

In this classy, taut white-knuckler – largely shot inside a real-life decommissioned Soviet sub – Robinson asks us to consider more than the hypothetical possibility that the world nearly ended in 1968. He reminds us that we have no idea how many other near-misses may have happened in the behind-the-scenes history of the modern age and also, more troubling still, that long after the Cold War has faded into memory we continue to have difficulty telling the crazy people from the sane ones.

Behind its mask of deadpan goofiness, it's a friendly, clever picture, one that doesn't feel untouched by human hands. And at an hour-and-a-half, it doesn't wear out its welcome.

An engaging entertainment that packages its thought-provoking ideas in a combination of political thriller, comic adventure and romantic triangle.

It's a breezy and entertaining little charmer.

Not a major Herzog work or one that will draw a large audience, but a must-see for those who suspect (as I do) that he's one of the greatest talents now working in this medium.

Cooper also pulls off the near-impossible, making us feel dashes of sympathy for this twisted and unscrupulous man.

Something like a cross between a torn-from-the-headlines docudrama, a Middle East conflict rendered in miniature and Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard," this latest film from the terrific Israeli director Eran Riklis revolves around the amazing lead performance of Palestinian-French actress Hiam Abbass.

The summer season's most surprising and thought-provoking documentary.

The picture works because, despite the fact that it took nearly six years for the filmmakers to bring it to the screen, it doesn't strive for greatness. It's fleet, concise and clever in a nut-ball way.

Local Hero is as sweet and loving as movies get. But it's also about as off-kilter as they get, too.

It's one of the year's signature film experiences.

Honeydripper offers a leisurely, atmospheric production with lots of time to appreciate his largely African-American cast, along with rocking musical interludes and just the faintest wash of spirituality.

The best rock 'n' roll movies are less about strict authenticity than about capturing a vibe. And The Runaways gets the vibe just right, from its opening shot.

It's such a lovely piece of work -- and, especially for a filmmaker whose name is barely known outside of art-house circles, so pleasingly accessible -- that it's troubling to think that few people outside of major cities will be able to see it.

How many human beings among us are capable of making a comedy with wit and intelligence that also takes bold pleasure in unabashed silliness? I think this is what happens when you let an elf loose with a movie camera.

Watching it is a little like stumbling upon a frayed valentine you put away years ago and then laughing with pleasure at how much it still means to you.

The dirtiest-minded American movie in recent memory -- and an honestly corrupt entertaining picture is never anything to sneeze at.

No single film or book can dispel the cloud of enigma surrounding Kurt Cobain, but simply sitting in the dark and hearing him talk to you for 90 minutes, while the dreary gray-green beauty of his home state moves through your eyeballs and into your brain, goes a pretty long way.

An intelligent adult thriller about the death of newspapers.

It's a fascinating, haunting, unintentionally gruesome spectacle with, as Perry has said, echoes of Shakespearean tragedy.

This new picture will reach only a few devoted American spectators. That's too bad, because once you get used to the apparent flatness and emotional reserve of this picture, it's a sad, slyly comic tale of family trauma and reconciliation that packs a wallop.

At once deeply affectionate and sharply observed: There's never anything smart-alecky about Wright's approach as a director.

This is Gondry at his most liberated and inventive. You simply can’t grab hold of Mood Indigo in its early scenes, and you’re better off surrendering to its crackpot energy and enjoying the ride.

Like the best thrillers it dives below the ordered surface of the genre into the coldest waters of the individual soul, where Hitchcock and David Lynch and Dostoyevsky have ventured. Does Christopher Nolan belong in that company? Not quite yet, but he's on the way.

In its best moments, and they are considerable, Chicago 10 makes you see 1968, that near-apocalyptic year, with fresh eyes, as an extraordinary turning point in history now at least partly set free from boomer nostalgia and regret.

Paine seems delighted to root for all three companies and essentially declares a three-way tie, which may be fine for the moment.

There’s some shocking violence in Pusher II, but it’s a more expressive cinematic work, verging here and there on dreamlike surrealism.

Kundun, which was written by Melissa Mathison ("E.T.") from interviews conducted with the Dalai Lama, doesn't make you greedy for its images the way some gorgeous films do. It allows you to drink each one in tranquilly.