Fascinating documentary.

Woo's career, LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY gives fans of Woo's later work (A BETTER TOMORROW, THE KILLER, BROKEN ARROW, FACE/OFF) the chance to see him develop his expertise at staging action and telling stories of friendship, loyalty, and betrayal among a close-knit group of men.

Funny, thought-provoking and, yes, touching.

"Survivor" meets "Cinema Paradiso"in this wonderfully entertaining documentary about a film fanatic's quest to bring Hollywood movies to a remote South Sea island.

The action varies from a show-stopping train/bus wreck of Schwarzeneggerian proportions, to some more ironically staged pursuits which throw a welcome dash of "Tom and Jerry" into the mix.

Too bad that Romanek feels compelled to tie it all up with a banal pop psych explanation that offers an all-too simplistic solution to an otherwise uncommonly complex thriller.

The filmmakers' attempts come to terms with a recent catastrophe of indeterminate meaning but global consequences are often fascinating.

Both genuinely funny and authentically horrifying, it puts the average horror comedy to shame.

Sensitive and expertly acted crowd-pleaser that isn't above a little broad comedy and a few unabashedly sentimental tears.

Eastwood's slow-building story of loss and deliverance is a fine, understated piece of storytelling that earns every emotional body blow it lands.

The film's measured pace may put off impatient viewers, but the brilliantly underplayed ending is worth the wait.

Roberts fans will, of course, be delighted to see her in a role that plays to all her strengths -- fresh-faced looks, charming gangliness, air of infinite approachability -- and neatly sidesteps her glaring inability to act by having her more or less play herself.

Penn's stark and unvarnished portrait of the challenged Sam makes even the hardest-to-swallow plot acceptable.

An enthralling, suspenseful documentary about spelling bees.

Warm and thoughtful tale.

Its brightly colored surfaces and chirpy, picaresque tone notwithstanding, filmmaker Ra'anan Alexandrowciz's first feature is a scathing condemnation of the rampant venality he perceives as having gripped his country.

The result is a beguiling mix of the familiar and the exotic, vivid proof that a good story can withstand endless variations without losing its fundamental vitality.

Catches you with a creepy sucker punch.

A genuinely heartbreaking, romantic film based on a true story; frankly, if it doesn't make you cry, we don't want to know you.

Actor-turned-director Andrey Zvyagintsev's feature debut is haunted by an elusive past and suffused with dread about the future, and it's all suggestion without explanation.

Despite its scant 48-minute running time (which many viewers will find frustrating), the film sets up a provocative equation between vampirism and American involvement in Asia.

The filmmakers have allowed themselves an overlong 140 minutes in order to preserve as much of the plot as possible, but they have bypassed many of the novel's key ideas and ironies.

While the film is unabashedly pro-Kerry --Butler and Kerry are longtime friends -- it isn't simple hagiography; it's also a portrait of Vietnam War-era America.

If the ending isn't conventionally happy, it's certainly deeply satisfying.

Powerful, documentary-style drama draws on the real-life experiences of "at risk" teenage girls.

Culkin's Alig has the face of a debauched cherub, but the former child star never quite captures the charisma everyone swears was an essential component in Alig's success. Green's St. James steals the picture out from under him (poetic justice of a sort), and the supporting cast is nothing short of amazing.

Looks very much like a documentary: It's grainy and raw, and Seidl's actors -- a mix of actors and non-professionals -- are often unglamorously posed under what appears to be natural light.

The combat visuals that follow are as powerful as those of any war film.

It's almost inconceivable how Glass could have gotten away with so much, but the movie makes a convincing case for how Glass used office politics, the good faith of his editors and his own personal charisma to get away with the worst offenses a journalist could commit.

The film is beautifully told and superbly acted. More importantly, Paul Laverty's screenplay goes along way toward showing how the traditionalism that can turn a community inward on itself is often a response to racism, and in that sense the film's timing couldn't have been any better.

It's a fascinating story teeming with pride, arrogance, greed and overweening hubris, and Gibney attempts to give it all an added dimension by finding the archetypes of Greek tragedy among the sleazy deals and Ponzi-scheme financing.

The ever-charismatic character actor George Coe stands out as a small-town jeweler grateful for a late-life affair.

Beautifully filmed, but extremely painful examination of the African slave trade takes a difficult position: Rather than focusing on the white European superstructure, Ivory Coast director Roger Gnoan M'bala focuses on African complicity in the capture and selling of African people.

Shot on location in Manhattan, the film is steeped in understated New York City ambiance and discreetly tinted by Jeffrey M. Taylor's subtle score.

Powerfully acted, intensely carnal drama.

When she's not babbling about the weird symbological system that rules her personal cosmos Imelda is an entertaining storyteller, vividly describing a life that became a national embarrassment and a camp legend.

WHERE THE BOYS ARE is plenty moralistic, yet the film is not without a naive sense of charm.

This film is the product of artists working at the peak of their powers.

An intelligent and very funny satire about the bloody game of American politics.

For what could easily have been a slickly vulgar variation on "American Pie" or "Porky's", this libidinous comedy explores some unusually complicated territory, and benefits greatly from Verdú's unpredictable performance as Luisa.

Fessenden uses an unsettling mix of montage, time-lapse photography and animation to create an atmosphere of great, unknowable menace that closely approximates the haunted spirit of Algeron Blackwood's unforgettable tale "The Wendigo." These hills are indeed alive.

As a visual counterpart to some of the most sublime verse ever written, it's often thrilling.

The result isn't an easy film, but it is rewarding.

Its idiomatic wordplay and social satire is vintage Wilder, and the opening sequence where Dino performs in a nightclub is one of the funniest things that Wilder has ever done.

His epic reworking of their lurid conventions proved so long that it was divided into two parts, and this one ends on a hell of a cliff-hanger.

Highly unlikely plot complications never once threaten to throw this remarkably amusing film off-track, thanks to the narrative intelligence of writer-director David O. Russell, the only member of the filmmaking bratpack who seems to understand how movies work and why they entertain.

Anyone lucky enough to have lived within broadcast range of Rodney Bingenheimer's radio show on L.A.'s KROQ during the late '70s had a privileged upbringing, whether or not they realized it at the time.

The weight of the film rests on the shoulders of Hawke and Delpy, and they're both remarkable.

Marker revisited (the film) in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union: He trimmed an hour and added a remarkably prescient coda: "Terrorism has replaced Communism as the ultimate evil."

Thoughtful look at the itinerant street musicians of Paris.

An excellent introduction to the subject, and a movie buff's delight.

Bertuccelli's heartfelt film affords a unique peek into the hearts and minds of a generation who, after having been awakened from the lie they'd been living all their lives, must now face the aftermath of an entire nation's failure.

Though it clearly explicates the problem, the film is by no means a straightforward documentary.

This film, with an all-black cast, is a cut above most black -exploitation films of the period, despite the regulation blood and gore.

A behind-the-scenes documentary that manages to be unabashedly sympathetic without being a puff piece.

A moody, subtle drama that has more in common with the tragedy of "Endless Love" than "Where The Boys Are."

The storytelling is livelier and more engaging than previous adaptations of Clancy's turgid techno-thrillers.

Under the candy coating and girl group soundtrack, the film acknowledges some hard truths about women and education that haven't changed much since the '60s. But it never loses sight of having a good time, and the girls are great.

Powerful and startlingly unsentimental.

Like so many true stories, Comes' lacks the clarity and comforting resolution of fiction

A fascinating fictional documentary.

Beautifully edited by Soderbergh, the film is evenly paced, its subtleties accreting slowly, and by the end it gathers powerful emotional momentum.

A surprisingly charming fable.

We only experience the horror of the genocide through several layers of artifice -- first Saroyan's, then Egoyan's own -- a sad acknowledgement that with each story told, we're drawn that much further from the truth.

"We're not that different, but we're different from what you think we are," says 16-year-old Ebony, and no playwright could have said it better.

Though occasionally repetitive, Gramaglia and Fields' admirably evenhanded documentary gives the Ramones the respect they deserve: Fans will be grateful and the uninitiated should listen and learn.

Surprise! An intelligent, well-written high school story.

Swank's nuanced performance is remarkable and it's a powerful film.

Edward Klosinski's staid cinematography lends the film a feeling of late summer languor, a deceptive calm before a terrible storm. The spare, evocative piano soundtrack is by John Cale.

A truly trangressive film as unsettling as it is psychologically acute.

A loving, gently funny and slightly claustrophobic tribute to theatrical life.

Think of it as a dark, suspenseful scenario penned by Joseph Conrad and designed by Toulouse-Lautrec and Auguste Renoir, and jump right in.

Makhmalbaf shot this film under extremely difficult circumstances, and it sometimes shows; but it's still an important achievement.

A moving, gorgeously filmed look at one of the Civil War's more obscure chapters, the quasi-official combat that divided friends along the Missouri-Kansas border.

Harvey Keitel gives an astonishing performance here... Though hardly a film for all sensibilities, Bad Lieutenant has the courage of its own convictions, and follows them to the bitter end.

A sweet and surprisingly unconventional look at the changing definition of family in contemporary Japan.

The tragedy of modern Tibet haunts this otherwise lighthearted tale of life inside a Buddhist monastery-in-exile.

In the film's most audacious break with the ultra-realism of the Dogme program, Bier inserts grainy visualizations of what Cecilie wishes for at a given moment -- a caress from the paralyzed Joachim, or a wave goodbye -- directly into the action.

Everything about Takashi Miike's brilliant and blood-soaked crime thriller comes as a shock.

Trend-setting visuals compensate for a plot that lacks the imagination and edge of the 1984 original.

Christopher Browne's fun, surprisingly exciting film probably won't convert anyone convinced that bowling is something you do while downing fish sticks and beer. But it may teach them a newfound respect for the sport's champions.

A bittersweet rite-of-passage story driven by the subtle performances of newcomers Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt.

The film clearly functions as wish-fulfillment for the kind of people who are nostalgic about all-white basketball, leaving a nasty aftertaste.

This deliriously unsettling film evokes H.P. Lovecraft's exquisitely creepy stories of encroaching madness -- not so much in story terms but in its perversely spooky ambience -- with a subtle dose of David Lynch's dark sense of humor.

A beautiful, slow-motion melodrama.

In a rare and inspiring example of the way art can both reflect and alleviate human suffering, photojournalist Zana Briski's wrenching documentary traces her valiant use of photography to help children trapped in one of the most wretched places on earth.

You come away with a remarkable sense of the filmmakers and actors working together harmoniously as they delve into the heart of relationships between friends and lovers.

The high-profile cast -- play their roles with just the right mix of seriousness and tongue-in-cheek self-awareness.

Featuring outstanding lead performances by Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins; a witty, literate script; and an insider's familiarity with life around minor league baseball--Bull Durham is both one of the best films ever made about the national pastime and a charming romantic comedy.

The subject may be familiar to those who happened to catch the 1998 documentary "Port of Last Resort," but this remarkable true story certainly bears repeating.

Too bad Australian actress Griffiths ("Hilary and Jackie," "Six Feet Under") is as underused as Amy Madigan was in "Field of Dreams": She mastered a realistic Texan twang for the role.

The surprisingly tragic climax may make it rough going for kids too young to grasp the film's comforting message.

Wahlberg, whose Bobby is the kind of guy who enters a room gun first, swinging a can of a gasoline, is the glue that holds everything together; he's perfectly cast and has never given a more persuasive performance.

A slick, mannered and frequently clever comedy.

An illuminating glimpse into what goes on in the dance studio.

Im distinguishes what might have otherwise been a standard Hollywood biopic through his use of exquisitely composed shots that could have been imagined by Jang himself.

It's Norton who makes the film such an enlightening experience, and he's mesmerizing.

Not just an engaging melodrama that explores the class conflict and sexual mores of feudal Japan, but a work of extraordinary beauty; you could literally hang any random frame on the wall and call it art. No doubt the master would have been pleased.