David Lynch lite.

Maggie Gyllenhaal cements her reputation as a gifted, if somewhat aloof, actress in Laurie Collyer's sad character piece.

With very little dialogue and lingering shots of the landscape -- always a very important visual trope in Dumont's deep-psyche explorations -- the film is nevertheless tighter and, clocking in at under 90 minutes, relatively brief.

A fascinating rumination on humanity, technology, entertainment, sex, and politics that is virtually incomprehensible on first viewing and needs to be seen several times before one can even begin to unlock its mysteries. (Review of Original Release)

It's also very cleverly edited - one scene will often branching off from another in much the same way a crossword puzzle works - and features a bang-up ending that will actually leave you cheering over a word game.

In capturing the compelling battle between a boy and his abusive stepfather, director Michael Caton-Jones cannily avoids obvious sentimentality, opting to let a rather brutal story tell itself.

The result is a bittersweet trifle one can conceivably fall in love with, and Honore's best film so far.

Barbarously beautiful and gut-wrenchingly (literally) violent, it's a mesmerizing vision of the past refracted through the dark obsessions of the present.

The nerve-racking wait at the Contention hotel is no longer the film's centerpiece, but the deeper characterization gives Bale an opportunity to once again sink his teeth into a complex role, and offers a reminder as to why the notoriously difficult Crowe is sometimes worth the trouble.

A beautifully shot, wonderfully moving film.

A gorgeous feature that's both passing strange and undeniably beautiful.

Director Alan Rudolph and producer Robert Altman combine forces to create a quiet, intelligent film about Dorothy Parker.

What fills the screen is not heightened melodrama, but a series of stark, sometimes painfully poignant vignettes that reflect the oppressive stasis of their lives.

More than any previous film on the subject, Braun's documentary offers an answer to a common question, perfectly phrased and answered by Cheadle himself: "What can I do? More than nothing. A lot more than nothing."

Under the beautifully appointed costumes and to-die-for interiors is Breillat's preoccupation with female sexuality and desire, all centered on a blistering performance from a perfectly cast Asia Argento.

Forget haunted houses and the mountains of the moon: There's no better environment to show off the wonder of the immersive IMAX 3-D experience than the deep blue sea.

Poking fun at its American mythos, but never descending into camp comedy, this sequel makes for a wonderful time.

The anger that fuels Ferguson's film is felt in nearly every frame.

Big is a winning, charming film, primarily because Hanks makes it work. He is extraordinarily convincing as an adolescent who suddenly finds himself dealing with a new, adult body, responsibilities, and a romantic relationship, while simultaneously trying to survive vicious corporate infighting.

While touching on subjects as serious and diverse as capital punishment, the devaluation of women in Iran and the true Islamic concept of forgiveness, this powerful melodrama from the Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi is anything but a message movie.

A charming, if often-seen, tale, paced with alacrity by Wilder from the adaptation of Taylor's hit play. [Review of re-release]

What one interviewee calls a "fog of ambiguity" surrounding what was and wasn't officially authorized shielded superior officers and key members of the Department of Defense -- namely Donald Rumsfeld.

Poignant and sometimes downright hilarious, much of the film unfolds in the small area outside the arena -- an "offside" penalty box for women who just won't behave.

Without relying on dialogue, and once again making good but sparing use of Yo La Tengo's toasty guitar soundtrack, Reichardt proves herself a filmmaker with a masterful sense of the expressive purity of the passing moment.

If you've never given much thought to the lives affected each time you choose one brand of coffee over another, allow this handsomely mounted documentary from British filmmakers Marc and Nick Francis to serve as a bracing, double-shot of reality.

Vibrant, funny and tragic documentary.

Audacious, hypnotic and utterly breathtaking.

Remarkable and evenhanded film.

An icily seductive parable about family, power, unconventional justice and the perils of answered prayers.

Raises important questions that resonate far beyond the subject at hand: What is the meaning of accomplishment, and how do you define triumph?

For a movie about all sorts of warm and gooey things -- faith, surrender to wonder, and the possibility of love in a hard, cold world -- it's got a bracingly astringent edge.

The film's tone is set by a bravura opening sequence that follows a single bullet from a factory conveyer belt to its resting place in a child's skull, and by Cage's flawlessly sardonic voice-over.

Xiao's bittersweet film is superficially a swoony love letter to the cinema. But her valentine has a hidden sting, rooted in some hard truths about movie mania.

The movie belongs to the fifth-billed Bishil, a truly gutsy young actress who captures the essence of young female desire in all its adolescent confusion.

To better capture the extremity of Dengler's ordeal, Bale once again underwent the kind of dramatic weight loss that shocked audiences of "The Machinist," but he's downright plump next to the emaciated Davies, who looks like Charles Manson in the end stages of a hunger strike.

The performances are uniformly strong, with Gere offering some of his best work - though it pales in comparison with Gossett's tour de force as the tough, principled Sgt. Foley.

While director Tony Scott's brash and boisterous take on the material may lack that certain '70s quirkiness, it gets just about everything else exactly right.

No matter how slick and questionably appropriate Morris's style may be, the content is compelling.

Flawed but refreshingly intelligent.

Kang's marvelously assured feature debut is a subtle adaptation of Ed Lin's acclaimed novel "Waylaid."

This is sentimentality of the best kind, a touching display of male bonding amid terror and aching loneliness worthy of Howard Hawks at his finest.

Provocative, deeply unsettling mockumentary.

It's a fascinating film, simultaneously enthralling, infuriating and guaranteed to make viewers ask how such a perversion of the political process could be taking place in America.

Harrowing and heartfelt, with knockout performances by a pair of fine actresses.

Smart, stylish, and cynical about the values of its time, this movie aspires to be The Graduate for its generation and it comes pretty close.

This tart but fluffy paean to good sense and clean linen is a bracing reminder that the reason the English think they're so clever is that they are -- some of them, at any rate.

Fast paced and engagingly acted.

Aside from its frank consideration of preteen sexuality, the most daring thing about Cuesta's extraordinary film is its willingness to put honest, intelligent dialogue in the mouths of kids.

The film flows like a sinister and unsettling piece of music, from gripping overture to the tightly orchestrated movements to the unforgettable coda.

Murphy is a revelation as James, and what American Idol castoff Hudson lacks in technical acting craft she makes up for in raw energy and a voice that could melt the rhinestones off a beauty queen. To complain that Beyonce pales by comparison is to fault her for nailing the essence of the infinitely malleable Deena.

Faithfull is marvelous: Once notorious for her own escapades, this great-great-niece of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is no shrinking violet, but she's perfect as a plump, frumpy widow with a huge heart and a hidden talent no one would ever suspect.

Strikingly authentic, socially conscious crime drama.

Literate, but not at the expense of the cinematic, THE BODY SNATCHER is one of Lewton's greatest works and contains what is arguably Karloff's finest performance.

The Unbelievable Truth captivates with its committedly off-center vision of suburban angst.

Thanks largely to Tabatabai's superb performance, it's on this level that Maccarone's film is most affecting.

Harrowing, psychologically astute drama.

The material is well served by director Roman Polanski, who knows well how to instill a subtle, claustrophobic sense of dread in an audience and has put together a rather elegant potboiler.

Allen Loeb's first produced screenplay is an unvarnished treatment of death and its aftermath that's unusual for a Hollywood film.

The film's title refers both to tiny, fish-shaped vials of liquid heroin and the small fry flitting around the edges of the urban drug scene.

With Bruno, Baron Cohen essentially turns a carnival mirror on society, and some people simply aren't going to like what they see. This is satire at its most confrontational and incisive.

For all the bloodshed, it's fundamentally a cold, cold fable, the icy whisper that turns every happy thing to ash.

Peter Askin's powerful documentary serves as an important reminder of our First Amendment rights, and a tribute to one man who fought to preserve them in the face of Congressional intimidation.

For a film that feels so breezy on the surface, it's a surprisingly complex character study.

The crisply photographed and edited Body of Lies reveals some ambition, for while it certainly works as pure entertainment, this tale of a good man trying to extract himself from an impossible situation offers some commentary on America's feelings about being in Iraq.

Sweetly sentimental story of young love.

Poitras boldly dispenses with the traditional documentary voice-over, but her film is filled with telling moments that are far more eloquent than any scripted narration.

Feels astonishingly fresh, filled with subtle performances and devastatingly understated images - Sautet's final shot of Davos alone in a Paris crowd is a killer.

A truly fresh take on the romantic comedy: It's as sad as it is funny, and the boy-girl match so misbegotten you can't help but pray it won't work out in the end. Call it an anti-rom-com, and see it if you can.

Carries an important and timely reminder about the fate of torture victims, so deftly wrapped within a touching and beautifully acted melodrama that the result is the furthest thing from a didactic message movie.

Arguably the best adaptation of a Stephen King novel.

Avrich's colorful account of Wasserman's career starts out looking like a puff piece, but quickly reveals a refreshing willingness to delve into the dirty side of a glamorous business.

A nonstop cavalcade of Roth-style animation starring Rat Fink, vintage footage, artfully animated black-and-white film, and fanciful "interviews" with beautifully preserved cars of the era.

Like "Air Guitar Nation," the stranger-than-fiction cast of characters is fascinating, and their high-stakes machinations are nothing short of mind-boggling.

Don't be put off: Hernandez's exquisite romance works on an emotional, as well as intellectual, level.

Director and co-screenwriter Oliver Stone pulls off an amazing filmmaking feat with JFK, transforming the dry minutiae of every John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory of the past three decades into riveting screen material.

Butch Cassidy's winking awareness of its own cinematic nature (from the opening "silent movie" train robbery to the famous closing freeze frame) and witty banter give the story a degree of charm and exuberance.

Bleak, darkly humorous and surprisingly unsentimental, Michael Winterbottom's film has the desperate air of a cri de coeur, and unlike many fiction films about war, its use of real-life footage seems in no way inappropriate or exploitative.

The film is surprisingly satisfying and meaningful.

Director Gillian Armstrong's feminist spin on classic material retains the moving humanity of Louisa May Alcott's novel while reworking it with welcome freshness.

A sharp, superbly acted character-driven comedic drama.

While Gyllenhaal is a competent actor, Ledger - surprisingly enough - is becoming a great one, and the levels of intensity they bring to their roles render this romantically star-crossed relationship emotionally lopsided.

The casual listener is easily put off, but by the end of the film, even a newcomer can see the magic that made fans of Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth and led the estimable Yo La Tengo, Pearl Jam and Wilco to cover Johnston's remarkable body of work.

Baer asks all the right questions.

Akin achieves a peaceful balance here –- alongside the death and seemingly senseless tragedy, there’s also a kind of reassuring equilibrium.

Bernal continues to demonstrate an impressive range; the character requires the normally laid-back actor to be a wild ball of energy, and he's more than up to the challenge. His performance is hilarious, heartfelt and more than a little creepy, which could also be said about the movie itself.

A clever, ingeniously animated film filled with many shining moments.

Beautifully shot in rich colors by Franz Lustig, it's possibly Wenders' most accessible film to date, and among his most emotionally satisfying.

A wildly entertaining detective thriller that succeeds entirely on its own terms.

The standard British murder mystery is raised to a higher plateau by Hitchcock in STAGE FRIGHT, but still falters in comparison to the best of the master's works.

The village is filled with nay-sayers and depressing townsfolk, but Pollyanna soon changes matters by always managing to find something good in every situation, seeing the bright side of even the blackest occurrences.

Indeed, Hirschbiegel himself seems reluctant to single out a protagonist, and finally settles on Junge.

A sober, intelligent drama with surprising integrity.

Complex, atypical Bogie performance is keynote for strong drama from Pulitzer-winning novel and Broadway show.

A powerful, yet subtle, picture from Australian director Peter Weir, who has demonstrated quite a flair for mystical themes.

This dark, almost mythic heart is what makes the film such an emotionally rich experience.

Jean-Luc Godard visited the world of young folk to create his most humane film. (Review of Original Release)

Suspenseful and very frightening, thanks to Robert Mitchum's lethally threatening performance and the frightened reactions of a pro cast.

Musically it's often breathtaking.