A riveting, amusing, enlightening and emotionally affecting movie by a guy you've never heard of, about -- wait for it -- the consumer debt crisis.

Along with such colleagues as Abbas Kiarostami and Moshen Makhmalbaf, Panahi has perfected the art of realist filmmaking,

Kristin Scott Thomas delivers an unnervingly smooth performance as Auteuil's suspicious wife.

Even the uninitiated will be hard-pressed to resist the movie's charms, from its likable leading players and its charming Dublin setting to its wistful take on modern love.

Writ small, Golden Door is an absorbing and moving love story; writ large, it's the story we've never stopped telling ourselves.

Like its predecessor, the movie is a joyous celebration of extravagant pulp and post-Soviet kitsch, joyously trafficking in gore, loud cars, ladies' stilettos and excess for its own sake.

The cast is superb, especially the young actors who portray Vitus; Gheorghiu is a real-life piano prodigy, lending an extra frisson to the intoxicating music that plays throughout the film.

An extravagant and thoroughly irresistible story of intrigue, romance, comedy and artistic inspiration.

A vivid portrait of a society in the midst of wrenching change, but it transcends its immediate context to become a thoughtful, even unforgettable, chamber piece, performed with exquisite subtlety by two fine actresses.

Designed to educate, outrage and finally spur viewers to action. That it does so with vibrant visual style and an engaging narrative makes it that rare consciousness-raising film that's not only good for you, but a joy to watch.

The result is a film exponentially more vivid and absorbing than the garden-variety rock-doc or biopic. "About a Son" is a must for anyone who still loves Cobain, or still has hope for cinematic portraiture.

This is documentary-making at its best, not pretending to be journalism, but still playing a crucial role in telling stories that otherwise wouldn't make the front page.

Even if its most ironic humor will sail over the heads of very little ones, Enchanted is that rare comedy that will appeal to the whole family.

A fascinating experiment that, if the viewer is willing to surrender to Haynes's sometimes hermetic meditations on Dylan's life, heartily rewards the investment.

For all the pain and loss that The Kite Runner depicts, it is still a film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity, conveying an enduring sense of hope.

Combining the best of fantasy and somber reflection, The Water Horse is a lovely ride.

Smart, subtle, deceptively simple little.

If Fighting for Life is propaganda, it's the best kind, largely avoiding editorialization and instead focusing on simple human drama.

Van Sant is such an assured filmmaker that Paranoid Park is almost inescapably absorbing; he has found a particularly engaging leading man in Miller, whose expressive, even painterly face goes from blank to angelic in the blink of a long-lashed eye.

Thanks to the uncommonly shrewd judgment of screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos and director Patricia Riggen, both newcomers, the film never feels like rank exploitation, even as it steadily aims for the emotional jugular.

Gives viewers a perceptive, deeply personal take on the timeless immigrant narrative, in which the most epic journey is finally one of self-discovery.

The Fall is often an affectionate caricature itself, but one of astonishing beauty, featuring two heartfelt performances from Untaru and the tender, often mordantly funny Pace. They're perfect foils for Tarsem's gorgeous tone poem to cinema as a medium of magic and miracles, stories and lies.

As portrayed by William Moseley, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley and especially Anna Popplewell as Susan, the Pevensies still make for terrific tween protagonists, and Aslan, the majestic mythical lion voiced by Liam Neeson, is still a breathtaking manifestation of the Cat Upstairs.

Terrific family entertainment, an action comedy on a par with "Night at the Museum" and "National Treasure."

The movie is jampacked with jokes, sight gags and set pieces guaranteed to appeal to the audience's sense of the preposterous.

The history of filmmakers skewering Hollywood's darker excesses is a long and rich one, from Billy Wilder through Robert Altman. With Tropic Thunder, a rude, crude, over-the-top satire about rude, crude, over-the-top action movies, Ben Stiller makes an ambitious and surprisingly effective bid to join those vaunted ranks.

A wildly ambitious, luridly indulgent spectacle of romance, action, melodrama and historic revisionism, Australia is windy, overblown, utterly preposterous and insanely entertaining.

A crafty, swift, subtly stylish thriller.