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.

Lee's biography of the slain civil rights leader treats Malcolm, not as a political rallying point, but as a fully rounded individual whose life defies reduction to symbolic status.

Good Morning is thoroughly enjoyable comedy that, somewhat atypically for director Yasujiro Ozu, is sunny throughout, without the darkness or sense of melancholy that rests under the surface of most of this gentle director's work.

A moving, brilliantly photographed picture that portrays the legendary eccentric folksinger Woody Guthrie in a trip across Depression-era America.

Extremely difficult but worthy film.

Wildly entertaining and quite poignant.

There's nary a drop of blood on screen in this rollicking funhouse of a movie but there is enough sheer cinematic ingenuity on display to coax screams out of the most jaded gorehound.

Its interrogation of cross-cultural dysfunction and the colonialist legacy notwithstanding, Chocolat's foremost pleasures are visceral. Denis, even at this early stage, already seems attuned to film's power to suggest and seduce. Her debut emanates the effortless sensuality and sinewy elegance that have come to mark her movies, making it a sterling introduction to her cinema of sensation.

Errol Morris' characteristically distanced documentary is empathetic without being especially sympathetic.

From the ravishing landscape photography to the exquisite costume design, the entire film is a stunning visual experience; rarely since Hollywood's golden age has the genre been so well served.

A hilarious and deftly convincing satire.

Astaire and Rogers persistently upstage the romantic leads, Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott, and they simply fly, largely unburdened by the plot.

Its opponents, Arab and Israeli alike, the "wall" is a dispiriting symbol of apartheid and defeat.

While Corman may veer dangerously close to pretention, his crisp staging and confident visual style keep the film from collapsing under its own weight.

The strengths and foibles of human beings are what this film--and all of Eastwood's directorial efforts--is all about, and his Tom Highway is one of the most vividly etched male characters seen onscreen in years.

Although slow-moving and uneven, Freaks is one of Browning's more consistently fine films, a landmark still worth seeing.

[Solondz's] blistering, brilliantly transgressive satire is sure to rattle even the most jaded filmgoer. It's also a remarkably compassionate profile of American life at its most desperate.

Dark, oddball Capra, but a worthwhile watch with a tail ending wagging the dog.

There's an amazing display of acting talent, even though director Lumet doesn't quite tie all the strands together.

Both Russell and Winger give solid performances, and the memory of the complex interplay between their ultimately not-so-very-different characters lingers long after the film has ended.

Very nearly a classic, this Americanization of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai does a good job of mirroring the major themes and attitudes of the original while re-creating that monumental film in an occidental setting.

Filled with moments of real poignancy and gentle epiphanies, the film is also marked by strong Christian undercurrents, but, like everything else in Salles's film, they're handled with extraordinary delicacy and never feel exclusionary.

The film represents a retreat from the explicitly political concerns of TO LIVE (which landed the director in serious trouble with P.R.C. authorities), but there's a distinct satirical subtext underlying Zhang's Chinese Gangland, a place of limitless greed, self-destructive ritual and fatal hubris.

An intriguingly mysterious, self-reflexive ode to the dream factory, it's one of Lynch's most satisfying films.

Alternating between the sad facts of Nascimento life -- which included a stretch at one of Rio's notorious prisons -- with the events unfolding outside the botanical garden, the film is a pulse-pounding piece of documentary reportage, and a terribly important account of a social problem in developing countries that won't be going away anytime soon.

Jarring and electrifying drama.

A rare treat — catch it while you can.

There are no grand Hollywood moments in Ruby in Paradise, a drama about one intelligent woman finding herself, just a series of quiet scenes and personal epiphanies that add up to a satisfying independent film.