Exquisitely modulated and superbly mounted, the directing debut of skilled cinematographer Lajos Koltai went through an extended, unpredictable production history to emerge as a genuinely new way of looking at the Holocaust that is markedly different in tone from other such stories including "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist."

Deftly balancing epic sociopolitical scope with intimate human emotions, all polished to a high technical gloss, Deepa Mehta's Water is a profoundly moving drama.

Stunningly played story of faith vs. family.

Gripping, intimate genre triumph.

Taxidermia sets a benchmark for body horror in the cinema.

Taped in stark black-and-white and clocking in 15 minutes shy of six hours, invigorating pic is big, passionate and brimming with compelling human details and broad sociopolitical idealism.

Unflaggingly genial and universally funny.

A barkingly funny new "mockumentary" that does for those canine pageants what the helmer's 1996 "Waiting for Guffman" did for smalltown theatrics.

Recent history once again intrudes on the present-day lives of working Czechs in the masterful multicharacter drama Beauty in Trouble.

An extraordinary performance by vet thesp Yolande Moreau in the title role.

Fine, gritty, contempo love story.

A vibrant, immediate treatise on love and cultural identity in a complex new world of fluid borders and deep suspicions in the stunning new Czech drama Up and Down.

Crowd-pleasing, darkly comic joyride.

Laugh-out-loud funny, tartly off-color and ultimately touching.

Superbly modulated yet unrelentingly grim, Mirage builds upon a remarkable performance from young Macedonian newcomer Marko Kovacevic to tell the tragic tale of a talented schoolboy driven to violence through neglect and manipulation.

It will garner critical huzzahs from those it lampoons, which will broaden the duo's (Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy) fan base.

A virtual primer on the unique mixture of self-deprecating dark humor and personal tragedy that has been the Czech cinema's stock-in-trade since their celebrated 1960s New Wave.

An atmospheric and cumulatively impressive feature-length debut from Argentine writer-director Lucrecia Martel.

The star plays Doyle as just rough enough around the edges to warrant the character's setbacks, but not so unpleasant that the twinkle in his eye is extinguished.

About as vigorous and intricate as a glossy romantic comedy can get without collapsing under the weight of its own merriment.

No-frills talking head docu eschews vintage photos and period footage, rendering visually static pic of greatest interest to history buffs, fests and the tube.

A forceful, affecting experience.

The trio is so individually and collectively charismatic that the film eventually neglects fully fleshed-out narrative in favor of sublime characterization.

A rueful yet gentle fable about the price of individuality and the value of dignity that preserves the intellectually stimulating spirit of Kieslowski's best work while tapping into a universally understandable vein of low-keyed absurdist comedy.

Wenders lets the music and the sprightly people who make it speak for themselves, although the director's ongoing fascination with the urban environment is in top form as the camera serenely cruises the streets of Havana, often at a velvety dusk.

A genuine and tangible fondness and respect for the characters and their eccentricities.

Sure, it's all been done before, but seldom with this degree of vigor and panache.

Managing to be at once epic and intimate, Zelary matches a resilient urban woman against a compassionate rural man in the spectacular Moravian countryside during World War II. Results rep a triumph of regional filmmaking, but in the David Lean tradition.

A humanistic, warts-and-all battle of wills between a dissolute father and an emotionally ravaged daughter.

Undeniably powerful on the bigscreen.

A savvy sequel that should speak to anyone who's let that one great love slip away.

Universally embraceable subject matter, coupled with helmer's sterling rep as benevolent booster of humanistic pioneers.

Helmer-poet Amie Siegel delivers a provocative, confident film.

A tonal triumph of true-life storytelling told with equal measures of tension and redemption.

A curious young helmer tracks down the profanity-spewing subject of a two-decade-old viral video with results at once scabrously funny and uncomfortably poignant.

Filmed over the course of nine months' worth of night shoots, the resulting coverage is hypnotically immersive.

Exercising admirable restraint in its expose of ingrained racism in the Romanian educational system, absorbing docu Our School follows the sad yet resilient journey of three Roma children over four years as they grapple with prejudice and stereotyping.

TV scribe Kundo Koyama's first bigscreen script peppers the proceedings with rich character detail and near-screwball interludes that shouldn't fit but somehow do.

Predictable yet charming, The Grand Role is a crowd-pleasing dramatic comedy about love, friendship, role-playing and Jewish pride.

Fans of the Grammy-winning musician will revel in the proximity to their idol, though second pic from talented helmer Thomas Riedelsheimer plays a tad long to those unfamiliar with his, or her, work.

A dignified and wistful look at the unusual life, difficult career and lasting influence of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

An Argentine writer dying of AIDS searches for a medical cure and some human warmth in the hospitals and S&M clubs of Buenos Aires in dignified, thoughtful drama A Year Without Love.

Part mob-trial thriller, part "dese 'n' dose" extended standup routine, character-rich pic plays like vintage Lumet, mining the grim comedy from life-and-death legal wranglings in the manner of "Dog Day Afternoon," "Prince of the City" and "The Verdict."

A surprisingly conventional portrait of a decidedly unconventional man.

The big, burly Samoan Wedding is a shrewdly written, impeccably timed and audaciously played romantic comedy.

Picture reflects the no-nonsense storytelling skills of prolific helmer Michael Apted, whose career-long mix of feature and documentary work holds him in good stead once more.

Continuing the late-career renaissance of historically urgent, politically engaged fiction filmmaking that began with 1999's "The Legend of Rita" and 2004's "The Ninth Day" German vet Volker Schloendorff stumbles slightly, but doesn't fall, with Poland-set Solidarity saga Strike.

A natural for kidfests, pic is a fine example of old-fashioned story-telling and also will dance wherever detailed character development and leisurely-paced drama are appreciated.

Anchored by a fearless, commanding lead perf by newcomer Jonas Ball as deranged assassin Mark David Chapman, The Killing of John Lennon is a harrowing, impressionistic, widescreen tour-de-force that unfolds with the propulsive urgency of a scrapbook thrown into a howling wind.

The moral quandary of Nazi complicity is revisited in taut drama The Counterfeiters, which tells the true story of a disparate group of imprisoned artists, financiers and swindlers secretly assembled in a concentration camp to forge millions of pound and dollar notes to support the German war effort.

Though it may feel undernourished to the faithful, Winnipeg is an easily digestible meal, for the uninitiated and fans alike.

A successful novelist whose films bear the expansive plotting and telling character detail of the page, Doerrie never seems in any particular hurry to tell her tales, preferring the journey to the destination.

Joyously funky documentary.

Anchored by another marvelously quirky yet deadly serious performance from John Malkovich, and likely to be relished by the fan base of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel, this is a strong, perceptive, old-school arthouse picture.

Unaffectedly hip and affably manic, Down & Out With the Dolls picks up where "Singles" left off.

The most nonconfrontational and thus accessible title in the Dogma lot to date, and will speak the international language of proletariat love to arthouse auds who go for such fare.

Noteworthy for its detail and evenhandedness.

Sublimely pointed in its idealistic simplicity yet willfully scruffy in presentation -- much like the enduring Young's best music.

Confronts an incendiary topic head-on with grace, style, compassion and exquisitely practical wit.

As engaging and stimulating as the man himself.

Arresting and fascinating.

This triumph of historical verisimilitude in the service of solid storytelling requires no detailed knowledge of the period to be appreciated as the moving story of a son's unconditional love for his mother.

Todeschini has the most physically demanding role, with a gaunt face and ravaged body that utterly convinces of the brutality of the ailment.

Dryly funny and benevolently shrewd.

Timely and entertaining concert documentary.

A quasi-docu about the formative years of the African National Congress that relies heavily on handsomely-mounted dramatic recreations to tell its story.

Although the outcome is public record, picture is undeniably gripping as it reveals a distressing degree of voter complacency.

An uncommonly resonant sports drama in which a talented yet troubled gymnast comes to terms with a turbulent past.

This unaffected charmer treats a hot-button contempo issue with old-fashioned grace and benevolent wit, rendering it a sure-fire word-of-mouth crowd-pleaser.

Though treading a firm, clear-eyed line between education and exploitation, the well-acted and technically proficient drama -- too chaste to scandalize, too dark for general audiences -- works as a mobilizing tool for its cause.

A taut police procedural that craftily blends ripped-from-the-headlines genetic issues with foreboding Icelandic stoicism, Jar City reps a supremely confident stride into mass-appeal genre fare for Icelandic hyphenate Baltasar Kormakur.

Thesping is pitch-perfect across the board.

Prolific helmer Kari Skogland draws a fiery performance from vet Burstyn and a beguiling one from Christine Horne as the young Hagar. Yet the book's sheer "Giant"-like scope necessitates generational cross-cutting that's both rushed and cluttered; pic would have have been better served as a more leisurely miniseries.

Longtime fans of Walker's warm, sepulchral baritone, startlingly evocative songwriting and lushly imaginative instrumentation will rejoice at this revealing documentary.

A beautifully atmospheric vessel that will seem infinitely deep to some and chafingly dry to others.

What elevates the picture above the norm is a series of remarkably candid and eerily prescient interviews.

A cumulative feeling of urgency and you-are-there world-beating are key to the picture's seductive appeal, though lack of informed dissenting opinions reps an unfortunate editorial choice.

An entertaining profile of the self-avowed participatory journalist and his tumultuous life and times.

Stands reasonably well on its own as an urgent, updated genre meditation on nurture vs. nature.

Picture's cliched underlying story of restless youth plays as too naive for an older audience and too provocative for teens.

A natural crowd-pleaser.

It doesn't make for involving drama, unless the audience is already invested in the subjects' fortunes. Thus, 49 Up will have more appeal for long-time followers than newcomers.

Self-consciously mannered yet fitfully interesting, Around the Bend gets the most mileage it can from the eccentric, low-key charisma of Christopher Walken.

Washington reveals himself to be a filmmaker with a clean, uncluttered storytelling style. Too often, overtly inspirational material such as this can become strident or mawkish.

A sibling survivor story of uncommon personal and political breadth.

"It's the ultimate Dogme movie, before the birth of Dogme," is how 79-year-old Lithuanian-born independent mainstay Jonas Mekas describes peaceful, enthralling assemblage encompassing home movie footage from last three decades of his life.

Results are solid, if stylistically unspectacular.

A cut above the average Aussie crazy-clan comedy.

Links narrative fiction filmmaking to avant-garde with vision and authority.

Explores another courageous, little-known chapter in the saga of resistance and heroics during World War II.

The Time We Killed reps avant-garde vet Jennifer Todd Reeves' most ambitious work yet, a dense-packed feature-length black-and-white journey into a beautifully restless mind.

Sixty years after World War II, descendants of a prominent Nazi responsible for implementing Hitler's policies in Slovakia reignite debate over their heritage in emotional docu 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him.

Admirably idealistic but dramatically awkward.

Helmer Bruce David Klein's near-reverential treatment is a nice contrast to the rough-and-tumble of tour life.

Picture raises pithy questions sure to provoke animated discussions pro and con. Credit Davenport for a mostly unbiased presentation that presents her own disenchantment in a balanced manner.

Topolski and his story are so engaging that the resulting discord of voices and agendas can't drown out the voice of the little guy questioning the system.

Promising frosh helmer Felix van Groeningen exhibits a fresh eye, though his script is full of too many self-consciously Tarantino-ish verbal digressions that serve to distract from the story, and self-conscious quirks he mistakes for character development.

Overly plotted erotic drama.