A treat.

A funny, elegiac, uplifting, and deliciously different movie.

Buscemi's semi- autobiographical first feature as writer/director is a beautifully low-key, disarmingly perceptive blue-collar character-study, reminiscent of vintage Cassavetes in its sociological and emotional authenticity.

Beautifully directed, unsentimental and darkly funny.

Well-played, highly entertaining and playfully ingenious thriller.

The most delicious blackly comic collision of sex, food and murder, Bartel's film arrives as a delightful surprise from the former court jester of Roger Corman's exploitation stable.

What makes it a prototype film noir is the vein of unease missing from the two earlier versions of Hammett's novel. Filmed almost entirely in interiors, it presents a claustrophobic world animated by betrayal, perversion and pain, never - even at its most irresistibly funny, as when Cook listens in outraged disbelief while his fat sugar daddy proposes to sell him down the line - quite losing sight of this central abyss of darkness, ultimately embodied by Mary Astor's sadly duplicitous siren.

David Mamet's play about the wheelings and dealings of real-estate salesmen gets dedicated playing from a splendid cast, but gains nothing by the transfer from stage to screen..

The Old Man & the Gun plays like a long-winded joke with a sneaky punchline that warms you belatedly, like a shot of bourbon.

Exploitative as this may seem in theory, it works beautifully onscreen, mostly because of Binoche’s radiantly complicated humanity.

While it would be interesting to see a film about a woman trying to break kabuki’s glass ceiling, part of Kokuho’s charm is that it celebrates the art form as it is, not as it might be. It’s a wonderful demystification of a mysterious art form.

Phillips goes too far sometimes (border-jail breakout?), but his new direction is promising.

There’s a lot going on here: you never quite know what Maggie Gyllenhaal is going to throw into the pot next, but it’s always visually exciting and often funny.

Warm, self-assured and free-flowing, Pretty Red Dress is the long overdue expansion of Black masculinity that the big screen has been crying out for. It’s about daring to be different, but mostly just yearning to be understood.

The story is a little slight compared to the grand romantic ache of Pride and Prejudice, but Beckinsale and Stillman do their inspiration proud: Finally, a Jane Austen movie that's fresh and deliciously rotten at the same time.

Neither Reilly nor Tomei have ever seemed so effortlessly funny, and whoever thought to cast one of Judd Apatow's regulars as a dysfunctional, disturbed manchild should be dubbed a genius.

This isn’t a straight documentary — part of what makes the film so suggestive is the idea that we’re seeing a double performance pitted against our own prurient interests. As for the movie’s final scene, you won't witness something as confrontational all year: a yowl from beyond the grave. It’s a small piece of revenge for a lost soul.

Significantly, Hitchcock didn't use much of Raymond Chandler's original script, because Chandler was too concerned with the characters' motivation. In place of that, Hitchcock erects a web of guilt around Granger, who 'agreed' to his wife's murder, a murder that suits him very well, and structures his film around a series of set pieces.

Perhaps a more caustic picture was intended, but the film grows to like its characters, and the final result is amusingly indulgent and generous in a way few current American films are: one has to look to East Europe (especially the work of Milos Forman) for a similar quality of ironic compassion.

This riotous, arcade-game-inspired sequel powers up with fresh ideas and some brilliantly-executed pastiching.

Set in WWI France, the film is Garbo's even before she appears on screen to dazzle her willing audience; once there, it becomes impossible to dissociate the legend of the star from the myth of Mata Hari.

This moving, surprising documentary offers a tale of Hollywood pigeonholing that feels particularly timely.

One of the many powerful things about The Image Book is how it so aggressively rejects any sort of gloss or neat packaging. The telling is the story.

It’s a profound performance by Murphy – perhaps even more so in fewer words than Oppenheimer – as Bill’s anger burns with tragic urgency.

Its qualities are almost entirely abstract and visual, with colour essential to its muted, subtle imagery. Christopher Lee looks tremendous in the title role, smashing his way through doorways and erupting from green, dream-like quagmires in really awe-inspiring fashion.

Right down to a final shot that’s scored joyously by a brass band, Sachs delivers an achingly beautiful film that’s sexy, sad and so very French.

The movie works on a bedrock level that many ostensible action films forget. Let New Age viewers in your crowd get misty-eyed - there's plenty here for anyone.

Veering from blaxploitation spoof to undercover thriller and ending with a no-punches-pulled real-life coda, it’s riotous fun one minute, savagely biting the next.