Noe isn't a graceful filmmaker. He wants to traumatize his audience, barnstorm us, make us pay in anxiety and sweat and scorched nerves for the ugly truths he wants us to swallow.

What pushes it above mediocrity is that it ends better than it begins.

A minimalist film, Ten looks and feels like a documentary. At the end, there is no big denouement, but a profound realization that the people we see on camera are all aching for answers -- and struggling to come to terms with their lives.

Between the off-center comic riffs of Tom Arnold and the wildly improbable hair's-breadth escapes, the whole business dissolves into amiable action farce.

And you thought Hamlet was a melancholy Dane. Compared with this gloomy group, he's Pee Wee Herman.

Stays emotionally mired because of a static screenplay that fails to express its issues dramatically.

While Dark Blue may not be easy to watch, it's exceptionally well made.

The result is a film that's honest and tepid, intelligent and dull, worthy and forgettable.

It's a plodding, episodic film, reverent and sanctimonious, and its pro-Southern viewpoint -- a time-honored Hollywood tendency -- makes "Gone With the Wind" look like a Northern polemic.

The saving grace of Old School is that it has about a dozen funny moments. These moments aren't mildly funny or chuckle funny but really funny.

By the end, it reveals itself as too pat, too absurd and -- as a polemic against capital punishment -- philosophically self- defeating.

A documentary that is as thoughtful and inspiring as the music it celebrates.

A handsome film, filled with lavish costumes and set designs and told in a series of exquisitely composed images. But even with its visual polish, it's a chilly, largely unaffecting film about an unsympathetic man.

The overall result of this remake is something as safe and dull as oatmeal.

Gerry is ragingly bad art that contributes to a definition of independent film as something no one would want to sit through.

This is an acerbic examination of erotic obsession, told from different perspectives, with wit, suspense and cold-blooded detachment.

A movie that eliminates Hollywood gloss and pop cliches -- and in their place offers an honest look at young love and its pitfalls.

An action blockbuster that's one of the biggest misfires in its genre since "Godzilla."

Heartfelt but somewhat bloated documentary that's partly an homage and partly a literary mystery.

A not-insubstantial comedy.

It's about as close to French farce as romantic comedies get, and the closer the better.

Desperately unfunny action comedy.

The obvious idea is to stage a motorcycle version of "The Fast and the Furious." Instead we get the flat and the tedious.

Captures one of the wildest, most heartbreaking episodes in Gilliam's career.

Silly and soulful.

Funnier than the original.

A labyrinthine brain twister.

A fable about women struggling to free themselves from that myth, and even at its most obvious, it's exhilarating.

Dumb.

Riveting.

Unfortunately, structural flaws and a built-in lack of suspense keep it from being nearly as moving as it was intended to be.

Not only celebrates Deren's cinematic legacy but also reveals a gifted talent whose explosive temperament was at odds with the lyrical, dreamlike imagery she put on screen.

Of mild interest as a curiosity, but not as entertainment.

Romantic and even silly -- a combination that makes Divine Intervention an almost irresistible work of art.

Feels so moldy and out of date.

A childish, empty effort.

A sour story with a repellent lead character, deadly comic schtick and tin-eared direction to produce 90 minutes of sheer, plodding mirthlessness.

Lame comedy.

Brutal, tough to watch but impossible to ignore.

An engrossing tale of class differences that reveals tiny details of one man’s descent into hell.

Follows the Japanese tradition of humanizing movie monsters, this time in a rather disturbing way.

Shrewd, highly controlled little film from Belgium that builds to an unexpected emotional climax.

Clearly a minor classic, mainly for reasons besides its crime story plot -- namely, the urbane fatalism of its cast and the overall mood of inevitability that hangs over every scene.

Had a chance to be not just OK, not just fluff, but something special, and it's a shame that the people making it either didn't realize it or didn't have the guts to take this movie where it wanted to go.

An overwrought drama.

A moody picture that's filled from start to finish with camera tricks, unexpected angles and innovative flourishes.

A downbeat but oddly affectionate tale.

It's a generous tale, told through big performances by a talented cast, presenting a range of colorful characters that only Dickens could have created.

An intelligent film with a sophisticated understanding of art and the significance it played in Hitler's psychology.

The result is something rare, especially considering how fine the novel is, a film that's fuller and deeper than the book.

One of the great Holocaust films.

The movie is a total blast, and what a surprise.

Big, opulent and frequently wretched, Pinocchio is so bad that its American distributor, Miramax, opened it on Christmas Day with scant advertising and no advance press screening.

What lingers in the memory is the impression of having experienced a frolic, a ride through the park on a bright winter day.

It all adds up to a cheekier "Lion King" on a lower budget. But what you miss in spectacle you will make up in laughs.

Anyone who prefers Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock to Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez is bound to regard Two Weeks Notice and not "Maid in Manhattan" as the better candidate for romantic comedy of the season.

Strange, moody film.

In this small and very smart film, Cronenberg does several things at once and makes them all look effortless, capturing various shadings of consciousness and versions of reality.

Liotta's acting can't redeem senseless violence.

Lacks one thing -- an epic grandeur.

Has warmth and integrity, but it lacks the urgency of a story that had to be told.

The result is a film of sadness and power, the first great 21st century movie about a 21st century subject.

An outstanding effort that maintains the integrity and purpose that distinguished "The Fellowship of the Ring."

Dull but sweet.

A Cinderella story with star appeal going for it and everything else against it.

Fails to engage.

Convoluted.

These aren't the marching band songs of your father's or mother's generation but a musical expression that is modern and exciting to watch.

Surprises you with heart.

A seriously good movie, a challenge to viewers, a rebuke of the way many Americans live their lives.

It's a big disappointment.

A gangster movie with the capacity to surprise. People do unexpected things and for reasons we wouldn't anticipate.

Slyly powerful.

Super- violent, super-serious and super-stupid.

Snags on the fact that neither story depicted -- not Kaufman's and especially not Orlean's -- is enough to sustain more than an incidental interest.

A breathtaking story of defiance and triumph that has to be considered one of the year's most sublime films.

Marks a cinematic milestone.

Perfectly acceptable, perfectly bland, competently acted but by no means a scary horror movie, in which "they" are coming to get people.

Part of the appeal is that it's so bad it's good: The story is ridiculous. At other times, it's just plain good: There are ski and snowboarding scenes, plenty of them, that are beautifully filmed and exhilarating to behold.

A ponderous and dreadful film.

You've never seen a movie go from awwwww to ewwwww so fast.

The new movie lacks something, a special something. It's a quality that has characterized some of the best of the first 19 Bond movies: extravagant ludicrousness.

A hit-and-miss affair, or, to be more precise, a miss (story one), hit (story two) and break even (story three) affair.

A substantial examination of character, morality and destiny.

A smart and literate effort with a few weaknesses.

This is Almodovar's stab at serious drama, and the result is bizarre and affecting but also unsettling in ways that the filmmaker may not have intended.

The jokes are sophomoric, stereotypes are sprinkled everywhere and the acting ranges from bad to bodacious.

A sweet, unabashedly sentimental tale.

Catches magic on the screen -- a behind-the-curtain peek at some of the world's best-loved music, straight from the cats who made it happen.

The movie's storytelling is limp, and writer-director Neil Burger's ultimate unwillingness to commit to a point of view -- was this guy really the assassin? -- seems artistically chicken-hearted.

About as weak a movie as can be made without actively trying.

Conveys the character of this tiny, insular community through richness of detail.

This is a heartfelt piece, and while passion alone can't carry a movie, it sure helps. Ararat is uneven because Egoyan couldn't tell it smoothly.

Scenes that should have been cut are included, so as not to disappoint anyone. What could have been a small, sweet and genuinely scary film is instead a full hour too long and many millions too fat.

For the most part this is a dull, dour documentary on what ought to be a joyful or at least fascinating subject.

A touching, sophisticated film that almost seems like a documentary in the way it captures an Italian immigrant family on the brink of major changes.

If it's ultimately a failure -- and I think it is -- it's still worth seeing, because it's the most ambitious and magnificent failure in recent memory. That, in a sense, qualifies it as a certain kind of "good movie."

A "Rocky"-like tale of determination and long odds that will appeal even to those who are turned off by most rap music.