So enchanting it takes your breath away.

Turns out to be more than simply a near-miracle of filmmaking, however; it is also an astonishing work of art, a historical epic that drifts through one's consciousness like a reverie.

It's the best thing Wong has done in years--perhaps ever.

A delicious little thriller about an uptight, ill-humored English mystery writer who becomes enmeshed in murder, Swimming Pool is at once comical, contrary, resourceful and ambiguous.

So inventive, confident, and accomplished is the production that it's a shock to learn Sliding Doors is the work of a first-time director-screenwriter.

While Sollett provided cast members with a detailed breakdown of the story--a kind of narrative guide--he wanted them to improvise their own dialogue based on how they would react to a similar situation in their own lives....The result is quite extraordinary.

This engaging film proves a total pleasure, suitable for moviegoers who like their films a bit old-fashioned but still mainstream.

A gentle, beautifully realized tale of love and intimacy...It moved me to tears.

The acting is remarkable across the board, undoubtedly a combination of a strong script, gifted actors and exceptional direction.

Pure joy to watch -- and an invaluable documentary record of a bygone era.

It is that rare find: a film that is as emotionally truthful as it is satisfying.

Emotionally gripping from start to finish, the movie presents an electrifying and unforgettable look at life in a place that God has all but forgotten.

A beautiful but depressing film.

A character study, the film succeeds in large measure due to the kinetically charged performance of Romain Duris.

Alternately heartrending and buoyant, tragic and sweetly humorous, the film leaves an indelible impression on the heart and mind. It's among the best of the year.

Though we know the story's final outcome, the trial scene and its aftermath are no less shocking and affecting.

Packs an unexpected emotional wallop. Gavin Hood's film tells a story of violence and redemption that's even more remarkable when you consider that neither of the lead performers had ever acted in a movie previously.

Rich in story, character, and design, The Cider House Rules is obviously a collaborative effort, but above all it is a triumph for director Hallström.

Sly and corrosively funny political black comedy.

Fascinating and engrossing on every conceivable level

A beautiful film from Iran explores beauty both physical and spiritual.

This brutal film borders on the brilliant. Beautifully structured and edited, with a chilling central performance by Ian McKellen and an exceptional score by John Ottman, who also edited the picture, it churns up emotions and leaves the viewer feeling stunned and depleted.

In her first major role, Ferrera is amazing -- It is a wonderfully natural performance. To top it all off, she and Ontiveros are completely believable as mother and daughter.

Audiences will leave the theater ready to sign up for some dance classes themselves.

It's a melodrama more than a drama, a light thriller –- which is not to say that it is not wonderfully entertaining and satisfying. In fact, it is both.

Viewers with a low tolerance for sentiment may balk, but the emotions are so true and the characters so appealing that the film should completely win you over.

An engaging, family-oriented romantic comedy that should appeal as much to fans of the original movie as to viewers unfamiliar with the 1961 Hayley Mills version.

On one level it is highly intimate, yet it is also universal, a modern metaphor for the human condition and the precariousness of life itself.

Both actors are marvelous, and the film, low-key but heartfelt, is a gem.

The charismatic Jamal has the spirit of a young Antoine Doinel, and Winterbottom shoots him to evoke the memory of Truffaut's young hero.

Thanks to the performances and McCarthy's understated script and direction, the film walked off with both the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

This intriguing jigsaw puzzle is visually arresting, narratively inventive, and psychologically enigmatic.

Far more than a mere visual feast.

No matter how restrained the direction or unsentimental the performances -- and White Oleander scores points for both -- there is no escaping the semi-trashy but oh-so-life-affirming ring of the plot.

A disarmingly funny, clear-eyed, and affectionate memory piece.

Emotionally powerful.

Cheadle, always a fine actor, is outstanding here--an almost willfully naive yet uncommonly decent man who sees civilization crashing and burning around him yet who, almost against his own better judgment, refuses to give in to it.

This latest adventure proves to be a suitably sweet addition to Pooh's cinematic canon.

Explores a wealth of issues and conflicting ideologies.

Sails by on cute dialogue, some funny visual gags, and two enormously likable leads.

Last Days shouldn't be half as engrossing as it turns out to be.

Adding to the film's underlying sense of urgency and unease is composer Robert Miller's haunting score, so reminiscent of Philip Glass' music for "The Fog of War."

Viewers looking for extremely light, romantic entertainment with a guaranteed happy ending could do worse.

Nothing, however, can diminish the sense of horror we feel at what happened that day in September, while Macdonald's revelations and the candid comments he elicits more than make up for the film's less successful elements.

The story itself is absolutely amazing, and the sense of outrage it evokes is universal, but director Noyce faces a difficult task in that once the story is set in motion there is very little action, other than walking shots of the girls, and almost no dialogue.

A bleak, beautiful film.

Far superior to either "Life Is Beautiful" or "Jakob the Liar."

That the film is good rather than great proves a disappointment, but just finding a good film these days is rare, especially a big studio picture.

When all is said and done, Far from Heaven proves an easier film to appreciate than to emotionally embrace. It fails the test of being, in the descriptive phrase of Pauline Kael, "compulsively watchable."

While too many things about the story don't ring true for the film as a whole to work, there is enough in Next Stop Wonderland to keep the viewer wide awake and entertained.

Pak's writing has a simplicity that belies the film's emotional impact.

Despite the idealized portrait of Kelly and the very predictable plot, the film proves engaging, thanks in large measure to Ledger's sympathetic and believable performance.

Be forewarned: Scenes of the protagonist learning to swallow the drug pellets will make many viewers queasy. Rarely has the power of suggestion been so unsettling.

Well acted by an unusually likable cast.

Viewers still need a window into a character's soul if they are to connect on a deep emotional level. And that is missing here.

The film's intent -- contrasting the relatively benign craziness of a group of mental patients with the far greater insanity of war -- is worthy but obvious, while the execution is overly indulgent and at times precious.

Devotees of the comedienne presumably will think they have died and gone to heaven, while Cho virgins may laugh aloud a half-dozen times but probably won't become converts.

Don Cheadle is wonderful, as always, as the former drug-addict-turned-psychiatrist who worries it's all hopeless but refuses to stop trying. Sounds clichéd, perhaps, but for the most part it works, thanks to piercingly authentic performances.

Does not measure up to its predecessor, but it's child-friendly and lasts only 45 minutes.

With Joseph Fiennes as the conflicted, frequently self-hating Luther, this historical drama/biopic offers a fairly thorough overview of the period (although it's weak on the "good deeds" angle) but is somewhat dry and weighted with significance.

The movie lacks the adult humor of such kid flicks as "Shrek" and "Lilo & Stitch," but the target audience at an advance screening was shrieking with joy throughout.

A major weakness of A Soldier's Daughter is that it has no real plot.

The digital computer work is smooth and convincing; the animals look as if they are talking. But their voices are either devoid of personality or grating and annoying.

Schultze has a spare style, deliberately slow pace, and so little dialogue that to say it's in German with English subtitles seems to be stretching the truth.

Oddly, the film's strengths -- its quiet, understated manner; its non-plot; the awkward speech patterns and uncomfortable pauses that suggest emotional isolation -- are also its weaknesses.

As an actress, she (July) is annoying as hell, with a quirkiness so labored, she seems to be begging for our affection. As a director she is much better.

The voice acting is adequate, but it fails to convey the diversity or personality of "Chicken Run" or "Shrek."

Proves only intermittently engaging as its twisted plot loses energy and becomes confusing in the latter half.

Although meant as a light comedy-drama in which both characters are sympathetic, The Housekeeper instead proves irritating.

Although far superior to recent American fare such as "Alex and Emma," the film takes actors with quirky charms and places them in a homogenized, studiolike picture. What a waste.

A mildly amusing romp.

The ideas behind the story are intriguing and could prompt endless hours of lively discussion, but the film proves surprisingly drab.

Nelson has directed his actors--including David Arquette, Steve Buscemi and Daniel Benzali (no, this isn't a joke)--to speak in David Mamet-like cadence, all short, choppy sentences and staccato rhythms. It's a terrible mistake.

Disappointingly mediocre.

Filled with so much religious righteousness--endless Bible-readings...that the film feels more like a recruitment tool for Soldiers for Christ than a look at the bloody four-year conflict that tore this nation apart.

Most of it is decidedly lame. The actors, however, are ingratiating.

Using humor to make a serious point, Arau suggests that without the millions of Hispanics...life in the Golden State would screech to a halt.

As good as all the actors are, the scuzzy characters are so one-dimensional that the film falls flat.

Overly broad and silly at times, the film also has an "important" message to pass along to its young viewers.

Fame this film ain't.

The film provides solid entertainment for kids but lacks any real sense of wonder and magic.

The actors are capable, but the direction feels stilted, the pacing sluggish, and the story obvious. The film plays like an ABC after-school special.

Manages to be gruesome and grisly, but not particularly creepy or frightening.

Everything that happens proves just as predictable as before.

Slick, glossy, and artificial.

If Campion has a message in all this -- something about the eternal battle of the sexes -- it is far from clear.

The supposedly funny quips and shrugs that fill Jakob the Liar are tepid at best and embarrassingly shticky at worst. Some are simply in bad taste.

Doesn't come close to matching the emotional depth and power of Frank Perry's 1962 "David and Lisa," the most involving and affecting film I've ever seen about teenagers and mental illness.

The film is smart enough to aim for farce rather than whimsy or reality. The songs are still bland--"I hid the alarm clock," "too much lipstick"--but at least the characters are somewhat entertaining.

Peet is still adorable, and a couple of twists enliven the plot, but the jokes are lame, the timing is off, the physical pratfalls are too broad, and there's still no chemistry between Perry and Henstridge.

Tea With Mussolini doesn't come close to John Boorman's captivating "Hope and Glory," which managed to address the terrible destructiveness and misery of the war as well as the magical adventure it offered its young protagonist.

Given the great premise and characters inherited from the first film, it's surprising that this sequel fails to match its predecessor's appeal. The humor is silly, broad, and surprisingly generic.

Proves an absolute chore to sit through.

The Dying Gaul becomes so overwrought in the last act that it ends up as pure histrionics.

The picture's biggest problem is that no one is sympathetic.

That this mess should come from the hand of Istvan Szabo, the brilliant Hungarian director of "Mephisto" and "Colonel Redl," is the real shocker.

The fact that Romance was written and directed by a woman doesn't make the film any better; it simply makes it objectionable on other grounds.

Awful narration almost ruins the ghostly, gorgeous Running Free.