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.

Stone handles his huge ensemble cast extremely well.

Flashing by like images in a flip book, these protean forms appear to dance a cosmic quadrille set to the music of the spheres.

With its artfully artless hand-held cinematography, haphazard focus, non-diegetic dialogue and what sounds like a largely improvised script, Thraves's film is all about style, but contains a surprising amount of substance.

This sweet, lovingly passionate story is nonetheless a charmer. Anderson's technique -- jaggy, product-testimonial close-ups; eerie still-image insertions -- is arresting, but this is an actors' showcase.

A cool indictment of television's near-irresistible pandering to the inner peeping tom.

Such astringent details as a banjo player plucking a few ominous notes from "Dueling Banjos" when Ed first lays eyes on the Norman Rockwellian beauty of Spectre ensure that the story's fundamental sweetness never becomes cloying.

It's filled with great footage of what must have been a wild time behind the Iron Curtain, and the music itself speaks volumes.

Israeli director Keren Yedaya's remarkable debut feature, which won the 2004 Cannes Film Festival Camera d'Or, is a powerful study of a teenager's willingness to do anything to save her mother, a Tel Aviv prostitute who may be well beyond salvation.

Alternately accessible and obscure, the film is almost too rich to digest at one sitting, but even if experiencing this remarkable films means latching onto just a few of its myriad ideas, it's still a richly rewarding encounter.

Stands out by virtue of its impressive visual style and the filmmakers' decision not to massage the facts into cliched conflicts with neat, feel-good resolutions that produce the proper sense of uplift.

Story of small triumphs and everyday sorrows is never maudlin or sentimental.

Classic melodrama given a thoroughly modern, utterly Almodovarian face-lift.

Filled with some of the most powerful poetry and shattering images ever to come out of warfare.

Evokes feelings of fascination and heartbreak, as well as a sense of disbelief.

Warm and frequently very funny, Argentine director Carlos Sorin's third feature weaves together three story lines into one road-tripping adventure that's a joy ride from beginning to end.

It's an ideal collaboration: A stylish director desperately seeking substance transforms the first, somewhat flat novel of a promising young writer into powerful and brutally honest film about a highly controversial subject.

Kusama's impressive feature debut is an affecting coming-of-age drama whose story is familiar without being hackneyed.

It differs from American films about the period in its evocation of day-to-day passion. The power of beauty is often dealt with in films, but not so often its powerful curse.

Generations of healthy spirits were twisted and deformed by the good Sisters of Mercy, all in the name of salvation.

An occasionally surreal meditation on coping with loss, and a love story with a dark side the size of Montana.

More reminiscent of Hitchcock's progeny than of the master's own films, Cedric Kahn's intelligently menacing thriller combines Brian DePalma's sexy style with the ice-cold cool tone of Claude Chabrol and the sense of mounting panic George Sluizer exploited in "The Vanishing."

Generous, slyly tough-minded documentary.

It starts slowly, but this contemplative drama's cumulative effect is genuinely haunting.

The film proceeds from an utterly fascinating notion. As with A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Spielberg's admirable intent is to create a prescient, serious science-fiction movie.

Only the heavy stylization mitigates some highly artificial plot contrivances, and the final photo montage of America's poor, while no doubt exciting to Von Trier the provocateur, is maddeningly oblique.

Blanchett's quietly radiant performance anchors even the most outrageous plot developments, and she's well-supported on all sides.

First-time director Lisa Cholodenko, who has made a powerful and modish film with a subtle and knowing script, is more than ably assisted by a spectacular cast.