While the significance of the imagery, including the slow disintegration of an immense piece of sculpted petroleum, is elusive, the strangeness of Barney's visual sense never fails to stimulate the senses.

Ripe with characters and events reflecting the psychic travails of today's young adults.

Another worthy performance comes from Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.

A heartbreaking look at broken trust.

Free of the ghetto clichés that fill the movies made by people who have never lived in one, Killer of Sheep is a strongly individual portrait of black, working-class America.

A miracle of a movie that is both fairy tale and slice of life.

An allegory of our times, Shotgun Stories is a tragedy of biblical scale and an intimate family drama. Unlike the more lauded films of last year, which glorified a national preoccupation with bloody deeds, Shotgun Stories is a passionate cry to end the violence and a reminder that we, as free individuals, have the power to determine our own destinies.

Most political films involving children are vicious or sentimental. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, set in 1970 when Brazil was under the military dictatorship of General Emilio Medici, is neither.

Everlasting Moments both is a tribute to Larsson -- a relative of the director's wife, Jan (author of the original story) -- and a love letter to the art of photography.

Machuca is a quiet film, moving sadly toward its inevitable climax, the final scenes a lesson in the methods by which the military restores order to a divided country.

Genuinely funny and sweet, the film's "everybody wins" philosophy resonates beyond the feel-good surfaces.

The dark, rotting interiors and sunless winter skies create a festering atmosphere of unexpiated guilt as Kremer ponders the question of how a decent man is to navigate the rivers of hell.

Speaks in the raw mumble of the dirty South. A regional film in the truest sense, it does for Memphis what its producer, John Singleton, once did for South Central Los Angeles.

A lesson in listening.

Margaret Brown's honest and non-judgmental film captures the artist's high and low points, from early appearances on regional television shows such as "Nashville Now" to the drunken and disorderly performances that defined his later years.

Captures both the spirituality and humanity of monastic life.

Captures the open-air rock festival experience more completely than any previous film of its kind.

There is more comedy than outrage in this critique of sexual inequality in Iran.

A top-flight example of cinematic storytelling, thanks in large part to the unusual narration, spoken in English by David Gulpilil.

Even without the oral history, this trippy exploration of Cobain's earthy habitations would be worth seeing as a "Koyaanisqatsi" for the Puget Sound area.

And who would have guessed that, in this age of excess and one-upmanship, when bigger is always better, the year's most romantic screen kiss would last a mere two seconds.

Meirelles adds another perspective, that the epidemic might be a good thing if, by being thrown into the darkness together, we may once again recognize the human family to which we all belong.

Where other documentarians look for a charismatic personality to enliven their films, Berlin and Fab focus on the community as a whole.

Stunningly beautiful film.

From the floating particles of dirt that open the film to the final image of a man and woman on a beach, Yes insists that we live with our mistakes since there is no escaping them.

Fukada captures the stubborn individualism of a girl who embraces an unpopular lifestyle.

Suffers from a simplistic reductionism that suggests buying from local organic farmers might help avert the possibility of a worldwide famine triggered by Monsanto's suicide gene. It is a noble and quaint solution to a situation that won't be easily swayed by consumer votes.

Panayotopoulou casts a transcendent eye upon her downbeat subject matter, never dodging the unsentimental truth that growing up is about learning to live with the loss of those things we have loved.