The good news is that Alfredson finds his footing in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and delivers a rousing, grueling, almost operatically scaled finale to the series.

It's a warm, richly funny and highly enjoyable human story that takes an intriguing sideways glance at a crucial period in 20th-century history.

Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch is one of two small-release art films this season that deliver nuanced and fascinating portraits of faith.

An intimate, gorgeous and wrenching portrait of a working-class marriage in what may be a state of terminal decay.

Applause may present as gritty European realism, but the struggle inside Thea is almost theological in scale, and worthy of Milton or Kierkegaard.

Aladag's point, I think, is that no matter how righteous we may feel about this kind of zero-sum cultural collision, for the human beings involved it often results in unbearable tragedy.

It's by far the funniest and warmest movie Araki has ever made, with much less juvenile angst and much more command of his craft.

Trapero makes naturalistic films with plenty of sex, violence and dark humor; in Carancho you can see the influence of 1950s film noir, the ballsy renegades of 1970s American cinema (especially early Martin Scorsese) and a little touch of the Coen brothers.

A stylish and muscular thriller with some nifty twists and turns, a wicked sense of humor, several terrific performances and not one or even two but three of the best car chases in recent action-flick history.

I suppose the perfect ending to the chapter would be to report that The Beaver is a masterpiece. It isn't quite, but it does offer an astonishing and resonant performance by Gibson, who spends most of the movie playing two simultaneous characters, often in the same shot.

The Tree of Life is pretty much nuts overall, a manic hybrid folly with flashes of brilliance. But even if that's true it's a noble crazy, a miraculous William Butler Yeats kind of crazy, alive with passion for art and the world, for all that is lost and not lost and still to come.

A sad, sweet, funny and ultimately unforgettable love story about a man and a woman and a father and son, and also ranks among the most affectionate and sensitive portraits of homosexuality ever crafted by a straight person.

It's an expertly constructed thrill ride with wonderful atmosphere and tremendous good humor; if its heart of gold is artificial, that won't stop you from enjoying the heck out of it.

A haunting, beautifully told tale about a genuine American original.

A gripping, mysterious use of no-budget cinema at its finest, and an intimate character study with surprising emotional power.

This story about Joyce McKinney, a one-time beauty queen who found herself not once but twice at the center of outrageous, tabloid-friendly news stories, is another of Morris' alternately hilarious and disturbing inquiries into the slippery nature of truth.

You don't have to know or care anything about Formula One auto racing, or ever have heard of the legendary Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, to become fully drawn into this film's universe.

It's also possible, I suppose, that a movie as deranged and grotesque and spectacular as Álex de la Iglesia's near-masterpiece The Last Circus, an overcooked allegory that's been dialed to 11 in all directions, simply doesn't appeal to you. But if you like your baroque sex and violence with a side dish of heavy-duty symbolism, and if the idea of an unholy collaboration between, say, Guillermo del Toro, Federico Fellini and William Castle appeals to you, then put The Last Circus on your must-see list right now.

Ultra-violent and ultra-stylish, Drive stands out in this year's Cannes competition for its calculated, hard-edged brilliance.

A chilly, fascinating thriller at odds with itself.

A terrifically crafted little movie that bounces off current events and the nation's downbeat mood ingeniously, and that it variously suggests comparisons with the early work of Terrence Malick, Stanley Kubrick and the Coen brothers. Yeah, I think it's that good, but please note that I also said "little."

My Joy has a bleak, grotesque, near-perfect poetry in its soul.

For the right kind of film buff, it's absolutely one of the most enjoyable pictures of the year - and if you've never heard of the guy before, I can't imagine a better place to start.

Full of imaginative, outrageous and egregiously insulting 3-D gags.

There are so many great things happening on almost every level of this movie, from Swinton's haunting, magnetic and tremendously vulnerable performance, which is absolutely free of condescension to the suburban American wife-ness of her character, to the many unsettling individual moments.

In the long and fraught history of Franco-American cultural relations, this movie is more than a peace offering; it's a loving, goofy, joyous French kiss.

What contemporary relevance you may find in Alfredson's chilly, marvelously acted and gorgeously composed new film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - is a highly individual question.

What a handful of patient moviegoers may find in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, however, is a subtle, gorgeous and mysterious allegory that may be Ceylan's masterwork to date.