Patrice Chereau's portrait of a marriage en crise is an excoriating look at the deep unhappiness that can fester within the most respectable-seeming of households.

Equal parts soap drama and ham-fisted morality tale.

Frei assembles a fascinating profile of a deeply humanistic artist who, in spite of all that he's witnessed, remains surprisingly idealistic, and retains an extraordinary faith in the ability of images to communicate the truth of the world around him.

Kurosawa's farewell film is full of sentiment, tears, toasts and songs.

The main event is the Mamet-esque battle of foul words between vintage hard-case Ray Winstone and the seething sociopath played by Ben Kingsley.

Talented Englishman Schlesinger had an unerring eye for capturing the grimy reality of New York, even if his directorial style is more jittery than is really necessary.

Held together by the sheer power of Klaus Kinski's performance as the vampire, Nosferatu, the Vampyre evokes several scenes (practically shot-for-shot) from the Murnau classic while slightly altering some of the original's thematic structures.

The film ends on an ambiguous note that will infuriate some viewers and strike others as the only possible finale to Don's sad absurdist journey.

Margaret Brown's documentary is actually an examination of the racial divide in a city that claims there is none.

Neat and quirky, this is undoubtedly one of the freshest black comedies around.

This is a powerful, important and, in the end, profoundly poignant movie dedicated to the lives of men and women who fight wars and shoulder the burden of becoming "heroes" to help the rest of us make sense of what remains incomprehensible.

This rich, complex and surprisingly entertaining film also becomes a meditation on filmmaking and the parallels McElwee finds between cinema and, of all things, smoking.

The result is a rich and touching exploration of the vagaries of fortune, literary reputation and, above all, friendship that works on several levels at once. The soundtrack includes songs by Joy Division, New Order and Le Tigre.

Handsomely appointed and faultlessly acted, but no more alive than a well-dressed corpse.

More of the same from Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang, which is good news to anyone who's fallen under the sweet, melancholy spell of this unique director's previous films.

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

The multitalented Jaoui and Bacri excel on every level; her direction is efficient and unobtrusive, their script dissects the nuances of corruption by celebrity with a razor-sharp scalpel, and they deliver a pair of subtly unsparing performances.

The film stumbles a bit towards the end (some deeply rooted conflicts are implausibly resolved), but terrific performances from a large cast -- particularly Elizabeth Pena as Sam's childhood sweetheart -- smooth over the rough spots.

It's a bit like a Chinese "Splendor In The Grass."

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.

Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz are superb in Wim Wenders's The American Friend, a gripping Hitchockian thriller based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith.

Even those who dismiss Von Trier as a talented sadist might reconsider after seeing this revealing and ultimately poignant documentary -- and the funny thing is, on the surface it's not even about him.

Despite an intelligent title performance by Ben Kingsley and impressive cinematography in the manner of David Lean, this huge, clunky biopic offers less than meets the eye. Director Attenborough seeks not to understand but to canonize his subject; as a result, both Gandhi's teachings and the complexities of Indian political history are distorted and trivialized.

Martial arts spectacles don't come more spectacular than this, and Yuen bestows a quality of grace on the entire production.

Jane Campion has established a reputation for making slightly off-center films in which regular folks get glimpses of the darkness that lurks beneath the surfaces of their lives. An admirer of Frame's novels since she was a teenager, Campion builds her film around a heroine who defies Hollywood conventions; she's not beautiful or sexy or sophisticated, and her adventures are mostly intellectual.

Although occasionally bleak, the film affords many pleasurable moments, showing early man learning to laugh and expressing delight and amazement at the sight of fire.

McCarthy's flawless casting may be the film's greatest strength: Veteran character actor Jenkins and his costars vanish into their characters -- their performances are so subtle and unforced that they don't feel like performances at all.

The performances are first-rate (finally free of the casting constraints, Hitchcock displayed--in 1972's Frenzy as well--a deliciously offbeat taste in performers) and the screenplay by Ernest Lehman (North By Northwest) is a witty model of construction. The humor is more obvious and subversive than any of Hitchcock's films since The Trouble With Harry.

This is a happy movie and leaves a long, lingering warm glow.

A dark delight that combines pop-culture wit and genuine emotional depth.

If any film can be considered required viewing as the conflict in Iraq continues to drag on and be reported, surely this among them.

As the film makes pointedly clear, ALS is what is considered an "orphan disease," meaning drug companies aren't willing to devote their resources to finding a cure because they feel too small a percentage of the population suffer from it to make an effective drug profitable.

But long after you've grown tired of [Flynt's] escapades, the scenes in which he and Althea support one another against the slings an arrows of outrageous fortune are touching and, ultimately, genuinely tragic.

The point isn't what happens, but how it happens, and under the direction of George Cukor--working from the script by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon--Tracy and Hepburn turn in unforgettable performances.

The problem is, some of the truly horrifying moments slip through the censorship cracks, scaring little kids (and their parents), leaving POLTERGEIST a very disjointed, uneven movie.

A gallon of grade-A filmmaking fuel squandered on unoriginal material, but serious moviegoers will want to take a look.

Emir Kusturica's magnificent fresco rips through half a century of the tragic history of his homeland -- the former Yugoslavia -- with all the solemnity of an amusement park ride.

Nicely shot with a good youthful cast.

Brilliantly acted and lugubriously paced, Liv Ullmann's fourth feature as director — the second written by her mentor, Ingmar Bergman — will no doubt be manna to those who miss the brilliant acting and lugubrious pace that characterized Bergman's late-period films.

Both informative and intensely moving.

Their doomed fling is oddly hypnotic and ultimately haunting.

Caustic and despairing, Shrader's film lacks the delicate beauty of Atom Agoyan's "Sweet Hereafter," but has just as much bitter power.

While this extraordinary, 90-minute film -- culled from over 10 hours of footage -- offers few revelations about Hitler's private life, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the psychology of a follower who remained blindly obedient until the bitter end.

A touching and memorable film, this brilliant romance offers evocative performances by Boyer and de Havilland.

Shamelessly manipulative and heavyhanded, it may be an endurance test for those not absolutely entranced by large aquatic mammals.

The original ad campaign boasted that the only thing more terrifying than the last five minutes of SUSPIRIA were the first 90. Actually, it's the first 15 minutes that contain some of the most frightening footage ever committed to celluloid, but why quibble.

Thirty years down the line, not everyone looks as they once did, so even fans will have trouble putting names to aged faces. Newcomers, meanwhile, will feel hopelessly shut out.

Harrowing but enormously empathetic.

A zesty, satisfying celebration of animation, fantasy, love, and the Beatles that pleases the eyes as much as the ears.

It's an engaging diversion from a master director who, at the ripe age of 78, appears to be once again at the top of his game.

Burtynsky's keen sense of color, pattern and composition are obvious from his work, but equally acute are his thoughts on how he as an artist as well as an inhabitant of the planet fits into the larger scheme of things.

Fincher gets it all right, and Donovan's hippie-dippy "Hurdy Gurdy Man," which bookends the story, has never sounded so hauntingly menacing.

Actually a moody horror story disguised as a documentary, designed to make the viewer feel how arbitrary and fragile the world of law and society really is.

Yugoslavian-born writer-producer-director-editor Vladan Nikolic weaves together the intersecting stories of lost souls who bring their international miseries to New York in this cool, cynical thriller.

Audacious, hypnotic and utterly breathtaking.

The film's extra-special trick, the one that kicks in under your radar because it's so busy with all the flash, is that it makes you care deeply for Lola and Manni.

An extremely witty, well-paced comedy which plays beautifully today.

First-time feature director Tucker displays an astonishingly assured touch, allowing his phenomenal cast to creep into their characters' skins and surrounding them with images of shimmering and slightly threatening beauty.

Disney's first CinemaScope cartoon, Lady and the Tramp cost $4,000,000 and took three years to complete, but it grossed over $25,000,000, making more money than any other film from the 1950s except THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and BEN-HUR.

Brooding ghost story is rich with psychological and political implications that never obscure its fundamental creepiness.

n a remarkable directorial effort, Eastwood shows a great flair for atmosphere and composition and presents a nuanced, complex, humane portrait of Parker's talents, obstacles, virtues and failings. Whitaker gives a towering performance as the tortured musical genius, and Venora is equally impressive as the independent, compassionate Chan.

Tsai finds great beauty in streets of Kuala Lumpur particularly at night, making this gorgeous film one that should be seen on a large screen in the total darkness of a theater.

A superior thriller, Play Misty For Me proved that popular actor Eastwood could direct himself in a film, concentrate on every aspect of the production from the visuals to the performances, and complete the shooting ahead of schedule and under budget. What he delivered was an engrossing study of how loneliness and longing can be transformed into irrational rage after a thoughtless act of selfish indulgence. Much of the credit must go to Jessica Walter for her outstanding performance which somehow manages to be chilling while at the same time sympathetic.

28 Weeks Later is flawed -- the constant reappearance of one key character verges on the absurd -- but it knows where it's going, and it gets there in a chilling blaze of fire, blood and poisonous fog.

Nolan's intention was clearly to cast the material in a more conventional Hollywood mold without turning it into namby-pamby nonsense, and he succeeds admirably.

With consummate grace and exceptional style, Terence Davies transformed Edith Wharton's caustic tragedy of manners into a somber, languid dream.

Powerful and startlingly unsentimental.

At a little over two hours, there's a lot of Langlois to digest. But cinephiles won't mind a bit: Richard includes tons of great anecdotes and clips from classic films that wouldn't exist if Langlois hadn't saved them.

Lafosse's razor sharp dissection of relationships strained to the breaking point is hypnotic in a road-accident kind of way.

The film has enough adventure and excitement to satisfy, and the faintly bittersweet note of the ending is made deliciously palatable by its artistic rightness.

A romantic victim to the end, this Ian Curtis is all that worshipful fans could ever hope for.

Not much happens in this gentle-hearted, black-and-white film from Argentina, but it's what doesn't happen that makes it such an unusually satisfying experience.

A superior western that mixes fine cinematography, terrific performances, and a script of higher caliber than most to produce a film still fondly remembered today.

A superbly restrained piece of filmmaking, with Zinnemann directing in simple, unadorned style and Hepburn giving a truly radiant performance.

Bleak and beautiful, GAS FOOD LODGING is a richly evocative look at lives in waiting.

Intelligently acted but oddly stagnant adaptation of Brian Morton's acclaimed novel.

Its imagery is never less than breathtakingly beautiful, and is occasionally truly awesome

A perversely fascinating movie--one that answers no questions, offers no hope and has little meaning. In a way this is perfect for what the film has to say about war, but you find yourself numbed and apathetic as the film progresses.

The entire cast is superb, but the standouts are Bankhead, as the spoiled, wealthy dilettante writer whose expensive furs and jewelry are worth more to her than the lives of her fellow survivors, and Bendix, as the compassionate but not-too-bright stoker whose gangrenous leg poses a threat to his dreams of returning home to dance with his sweetheart.

You'd have to be a grump not to like this funny, sentimental blend of pathos, drama and zaniness.

Fatih Akin's surprisingly grisly feature spills more blood than both of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" films combined, which is strange when you consider that it's a love story.

The Witches weaves many classic childhood fears into its entertaining--and genuinely eerie--action.

The onslaught of one-liners and sight gags in AIRPLANE! is so relentless that even the most dour viewer is ultimately won over--or exhausted.

It's as hard not to ask what former New York Doll David Johansen is doing in their company, prancing his way through an irrelevant version of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," as it is not to wonder why the audience is so overwhelmingly white.

Richly plotted, alternately inspiring and horrifying, Glory is an enlightening and entertaining tribute to heroes too long forgotten.

Swinton lends Margaret an air of grace under pressure, and fleshing out feelings of domestic dissatisfaction -- a key element that otherwise remains buried in the subtext.

A huge hit in France, this ensemble drama revolves around two very different social groups whose encounters with each other change several lives in surprising ways.

This quietly gripping film is both universal and particular.

It's a raw, haunting experience.

Unusually detailed animation glides hand in hand with the film’s aura of wonderment.

Woo's direction is clean and direct, with a clarity of purpose behind every scene that makes each wrenching development seem inevitable. It's strong stuff.

This is a movie with a lot of intelligence and ideas, about someone with a lot of both, for people who, even if they lack one or both of those qualities, appreciate them.

The saucy repartee will amuse adults, while the climactic showdowns -- yes, there are more than one -- are gripping entertainment for the whole family.

Veteran documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus make fine use of traditional verite techniques--hand-held cameras, extended long takes--to create a compelling, dramatic portrait that should appeal to anyone with even the slightest interest in the political process.

The look is rough, but Bujalski's talent is evident.

It all comes down to Nolot's marvelous performance: His Pierre is sulky, morose, self-centered and curiously likeable, and Nolot leaves you wanting to know a bit more about just where this odd figure might be headed.

Groning's approach gives the viewer a rare chance to really listen to what water sounds like when it drips from a tin bowl, or the watch what patterns raindrops make when they fall on a shallow puddle -- purely sensual, cinematic experiences. In such moments we sense the point of view of a patient, sensitive filmmaker.

The same super-heated visual imagination that made Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" such a darkly thrilling delight is very much in evidence in his sequel to "Hellboy." It's a shame that it's at the service of such a blandly conventional story.