Whatever its flaws, this is one of very few American films to deal with fundamentalist beliefs about predestination, faith, and sin with empathy and intellectual acuity.

If his ambitious first feature isn't entirely successful, it nevertheless poses genuinely provocative questions and opens a window into the way the 9/11 disaster looks from outside the U.S.

Despite a predictable plot and an abundance of stereotypes--the product of a surprisingly clunky script by Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin--this is a well-meaning film with strong performances all around.

The one film to see on this most crucial subject.

OCTOPUSSY features the usual array of fine stunt work and special effects, and Adams' appearance marks the first time that a Bond woman was allowed an encore performance, but little is added that departs from the Bond formula.

Looks and sounds great, and is at its best when it isn't trying too hard to have fun.

Begun over seven years ago and described by the filmmaker as a work-in-progress, the documentary still feels a bit incomplete.

This southern-fried mess of poetic crime-movie cliches is redeemed by standout performances.

Stunning production design, smart pacing, and a well-handled romantic angle make for a seamless, if undemanding, entertainment.

A stylishly shot thriller with several hair-raising moments.

Powerful and disturbing on both a physical and mental level, The Brood is the first Cronenberg film to use name actors, and marked a significant progression in the director's exploration of biological horror.

A thrilling pseudo-expose on the corrupt inner workings of covert organizations.

Otto Preminger defied the Code with this pioneering look at drug addiction, featuring a stylish rendering of the post-war hipster milieu, a crisp jazz soundtrack, and a remarkable Sinatra.

In the end it all comes down to Mitchell. She turns in a truly harrowing performance that will leave you shaking.

Overall, the film feels a little stiff, perhaps because screenwriter Steven Peros adapted his own stage play. But the performances are a delight, especially Dunst's effervescent turn as Marion Davies.

The film's dispassionate examination of the shifts in Susan and Daniel's relationship as they drift from irritation to barely suppressed panic is at least as nerve wracking.

Eye-opening documentary by New Zealand filmmaker Alison Maclean.

An extremely funny, ultimately heartbreaking look at life in contemporary China.

Buck is a very audience-friendly film, provided that the audience is willing to let itself be taken along for a fairly manipulative ride.

This is the ultimate student film.... The film is a creative, ultra-low-budget effort with a good sense of place and character. Scorsese presents a detailed look at the lives of these confused boys struggling to become men in an oppressive environment.

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

It's lighter, funnier and violent, and it's not entirely without hope, making this tale of survival under horrendous conditions far more suitable for younger, more impressionable audiences.

The film's standout moments include a photographer's (Vittorio Congia) death in front of a moving train; a car chase the streets of Rome; a sequence involving poisoned milk (a clear tip of the black leather gloves to Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 Suspician); and a final rooftop battle between Giordani and the elusive killer. Morricone's music fits tightly into this sophomore suspenser by Italian giallo specialist Dario Argento.

Underneath the numerous entertaining cameos, not much is going on, and it shows. The film's terrific first half-hour can't sustain itself. Depp is nice to look at, but too diminutive to bring much force to his sexy biker. Locane is well, okay, but she's eclipsed at every turn by the marvelously vulgar Lords, who embraces the genre with the energy and anarchy of the much-missed Divine.

The loose, rambling conversations that substitute for action might be more interesting if any of the characters were capable of real introspection. But they're so shallow and distracted they can't even manage sustained navel-gazing, which makes their so-called relationships profoundly uninteresting.

This scrappy, ultra-low budget comedy, made in 19 days for $70,000 by North Carolina School of the Arts graduates Jody Hill, Danny McBride and Ben Best, comes with its own Cinderella tale: It debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival but failed to find distribution until comedian Will Ferrell and his business partner, Adam McKay, championed it.

Set in Paris in 1975, this sensitive, low-key film is another exquisitely crafted volume in French director Benoit Jacquot's collection of films about young Frenchwomen at pivotal points in their lives.

Once the film gets bogged down in the outback, however, it comes to a virtual stop. Wenders seems to be saying something pretty banal about the emotional emptiness of the recorded image as opposed to the "real thing." If that's the point, why make a film at all?