A juicy Chinese-American romance about preserving "face" at the sacrifice of your whole being. This Sony Pictures Classics release is a comic gem.

Rock School rips out in the gritty-underdogs-conquer-the-world story progression. In this real-life scenario, Green whips them into shape for a triumphant performance at a Zappa Festival in East Germany.

Christian Slater and Selma Blair head a solid cast that Harvey Kahn directs with cool efficiency as the tension steadily rises with every passing minute.

Expertly tossing off the type of well-sharpened banter that was the domain of Gable and Lombard and Tracy and Hepburn, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie -- no matter what their off-camera status -- make one swell combative couple.

Pure's lively and colorful cinematic style turns a "downer" story about grim lives and desperation into a powerful love story.

This poetic portrait of simple Japanese life immerses you in the elegance of the ordinary.

Some of the metaphors are a bit too literal but the director largely succeeds with his story and the surprises are convincing. Best of all the film has a terrific sense of humor and the young actresses exploit it delightfully.

Word-of-mouth should make it one of the best-performing nonfiction films of the year.

An endlessly intriguing documentary.

Uses dark humor, incisive characterizations and social commentary to infuse its familiar detective tale with a distinctive flair.

Might be too realistic for its own good: The film takes perhaps a little too much glee in its abilities to manufacture mayhem. That being said, the ride is extraordinary.

It's a splendid microcosm of contemporary China's aspirations and shortcomings.

Riveting.

The film achieves its power through a careful gathering of crucial details, in wordless glances, cruelties of nature and of man and the relentless determination to gain the promised land.

A crackling good suspense thriller.

Here's a film about kids and for kids that has not lost touch with what it is like to actually be a kid.

A likable mix of laughs and wacky action sequences.

Not merely a sitcom of cultural clash. Screenwriter Angus Maclachlan has delicately etched a compelling portrait of a way of life whose decencies and simplicities are often dismissed as being "unsophisticated."

Jakubowicz's direction is assured except in the film's final moments, when he makes a clumsy attempt at sociopolitical philosophy that is delivered by an omniscient narrator. It's an indulgence that threatens to undercut the ferocity that precedes it.

An uncompromising portrait of how global capitalism can exploit an area's resources to the point of near annihilation.

A newcomer to film, Michaletos grew up on a farm with cheetahs, so he can act natural around the animals while making this Huck Finn-like character more than credible.

Has a demented sense of humor, and the cleverness of its taut narrative structure and misanthropic characterizations constantly surprises a viewer. The movie does what you wish more first-time features would do: tell a story economically with first-rate actors and no hint of self-consciousness.

His (Fernando Meirelles) impressionistic, guerilla style of filmmaking works surprisingly well in capturing the hypnotic urgency of le Carre's fiction. And his viewpoint is less British and more Third World.

Transporter 2 really does deliver the goods.

Touch the Sound is at least as inspiring and in some ways more rewarding, thought-provoking and subtly visceral.

Cage is brilliant.

It's a typically poetic film, rich in powerful imagery, which sees a bitter personal tragedy unfold against the major events of 20th century Greece. Although the director doesn't mine any new ground here, either in terms of style or content, it's still a pleasure to sit through nearly three hours of perfectly controlled, visually evocative filmmaking.

The story presents a moral morass involving betrayal, illicit sex, hypocrisy and a crime, yet the film feels tidy. Only one punch gets thrown, and you sense the perpetrator regrets his action immediately. It is all very British.