The greatest fascination is watching these three people when they're planted firmly inside the frame, talking at cross-purposes while trying to perceive one another in the reflected light of their needs and risky assumptions.

The silents, as this film suggests, achieved aesthetic marvels before sound came along to set things back for a while.

Room 237, which goes into national distribution this weekend, may be the surpassingly eccentric — and enormously entertaining — film that Kubrick deserves.

Challenging and fascinating -- everything you didn't know you didn't know about Derrida's life and work.

A minor comedy, though a major delight.

A hoot, or at least a collection of delightful hootlets hung on a short, frayed line.

Exceptionally likable and affecting as well as entertaining.

A small independent feature that's everything an independent feature -- small or big -- should be.

Lovely & Amazing goes to the heart -- and face, and skin -- of a subject that's sure to ring true with women, and may even educate men.

Apollo 11's mission was a singular chapter in the story of mankind; The Dish finds a whimsical, winning way of telling it anew.

For him (Schneebaum) it's a journey of stunning rediscovery. For us it's the discovery of a brave soul.

A wonderfully generous spirit. It's a film about cultural yearning and fearless love.

I took it as a pretty piece of ephemera, and I must confess that I laughed a lot.

It's hard to stop quoting from a movie this good.

All the backing-and-forthing between olden and modern days intensifies the emotional impact of a compelling story, and underlines the enduring power of narrative itself.

The main reason to see Bandits is celebrity actors riffing with each other. That's not a bad reason, though. These two actors are also skillful comedians.

It's a horror flick, and a creepily good one, that also functions as an allegory of the war that still haunts Spain seven decades later.

An expertly developed farce that's very funny and surprisingly affecting in the bargain.

Mr. Miller tells several interlocking stories with such daring and intensity that you sense he could go on indefinitely, spinning one terrific yarn off another.

Looks like Weimar decadence and feels like down-home friendship.

Ambitious, visually stunning and hugely accomplished.

Elegant and sometimes inscrutable.

All three performances are excellent, in their different ways.

Eureka demands active attention, but rewards it with emotional resonance, thematic complexity and a succession of images that take up permanent residence in our brains.

One of the many stylistic distinctions of this outwardly modest production is the complex voice that the filmmaker has found for his young hero.

Long and winding though it may be, Road to Perdition gets to places that are well worth the trip.

A fine, heartfelt film, sometimes harrowing in its violence but blessedly free of pretension or bombast, even though it aspires to -- and achieves -- the stature of a classic Western.

Straightforward in form but surprisingly intricate.

Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about a movie that never got made, is more involving -- and heartbreaking -- than many movies that do get made.

For the director, Mr. Leconte, and for the usually volcanic Mr. Auteuil, the quiet, cumulative power of this film is a striking departure from the dazzling energy of their previous collaboration in "Girl on the Bridge."

An endearing film, and a fascinating one.

A genuinely eccentric comedy that explodes with funny ideas and expresses most of them in wildly original animation.

Spellbinding on its own terms, a modernist fable with a madly romantic soul.

Readily accessible, slyly subversive and perfectly delightful film.

A surprising, entirely beguiling little film.

Lee's journey of the body and soul is something else. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes it strangely touching, a revelation.

Has its flaws, but it's better, as well as darker, than the first. It's also longer, by nine minutes, but hold that protest to the Kidney Foundation; the time flies, albeit in fits and starts, like players on a Quidditch field.

Mr. Pandya tells a story of conflicted assimilation that's been told before, but he and his exuberant cast invest it with fresh energy and winning humor.

Fresh and flip and enjoyable, it's a sci-fi-tinged romantic comedy that I urge you to seek out.

Why, in our drum-thumping, ritually trumpeting time, did so little fanfare precede the opening of a movie with so much to recommend it? This is grand entertainment.

Training Day can be simplistic, formulaic and absurdly melodramatic -- but Mr. Washington is flat-out great.

Appeal lies on the bright, shiny surface of its ostensibly simple plot, and in its rat-a-tat-tat language, which often sounds like Mamet-visits-Spyne.

It's very funny, terrifically lively and, considering how awful it might have been, surprisingly tender in its portrait of a young guy who learns sensitivity the hard way.

A harrowing lesson in unintended -- and intended -- consequences.

The outcome is distinctive and entertaining. There's no way you'd mistake this for James Bond, and no reason you would want to.

The best car commercial ever, an absolute triumph of product placement, and great fun as a movie in the bargain.

More to the point of this marvelous film, who knew there were kids as heroic, in their various ways, as these valiant super-spellers?

Serendipity is "Sliding Doors" with no alternate versions; it's willed enchantment all the way.

Unexpectedly thoughtful, as well as touching.

Every action adventure needs a memorable villain, but no movie needs the strident intensity of Mr. Dafoe, who either has no interest in, or no grasp of, the sort of charmingly malign wit that Gene Hackman brought to "Superman," or Jack Nicholson to "Batman."

Difficult too, and certainly problematic, but it's sometimes quite wonderful. Do see it if you're curious about one-of-a-kind films, and if you care about the ever-evolving career of one of our most gifted filmmakers.

An exciting caper, though sometimes a trying one, with great dollops of self-parodying dialogue that will test your loyalty to Mr. Mamet's way with words.

Adaptation, like "Being John Malkovich" before it, is far from a well-made film, even on its own flaky terms. But it's a brave, sometimes brilliant one, with a phantasmagoric ending, full of love and hope, that defeats prose description. Never was an adaptation more original.

Breathes new life into a familiar story: coming of age in high school.

An accomplished and enjoyable Spanish-language debut feature by Fabían Bielinsky.

I'm still smiling as I recall Jess, the soccer star-to-be, standing behind her straitlaced mother in the kitchen and casually bouncing a head of lettuce on her knee.

Throbs with an ambition that sends it soaring, then brings it down.

For the most part, though, Ms. Moncrieff has given us a portrait of a young woman with a luminous soul.

Provides a reminder of the power of unadorned drama and language -- whole torrents of eloquent words -- in the service of a nifty idea.

You can't take your eyes off Ms. Kidman; she has never played a role with more focused energy.

I laughed myself silly through most of A Mighty Wind, and was pleasantly surprised when it took a turn toward genuine feeling near the end.

Mr. Franklin has always been easy with quicksilver moods -- and Mr. Washington is terrifically appealing as a fool for love who loses his cool as he learns about fear.

A droll and affecting debut feature by Tom McCarthy.

None of this would work, of course, without stylish performances in the leads and Mr. Clooney and Ms. Zeta-Jones do themselves and their dubious characters proud.

A smart, suspenseful drama, starring Hayden Christensen, that honors its own factual roots as no movie about journalists has done since "All the President's Men."

The film grows on you too, a later-stage version of "The Big Chill" that starts schematically and ends as a stirring celebration.

A single seeing isn't enough to take in the eccentric marvels of The Triplets of Belleville, an animated feature by Sylvain Chomet that creates a visual language all its own.

Diane Keaton has the crucial role, and she makes the most of it.

Haunting, troubling documentary.

Clearly Mr. Altman was enthralled by the company's work process, an alchemy through which sweat and muscularity on the rehearsal-room floor become exquisite abstractions on stage. His pleasure is infectious.

Recreates the Taliban era with chilling details and startling beauty, and follows its terrified heroine on a journey that no child should have to take.

A singularly strange and affecting comedy.

Some comedies make you laugh out loud. This one makes you smile inwardly, but often.

Given the white-on-white color scheme, I didn't expect so many shades of feeling.

Before and after plot mechanics, a drama of family tension and warmth.

News management is the main issue. Control Room shows how coverage is tailored to fit the audience, both by al-Jazeera and its Western counterparts.

It's a great accomplishment and, at a time when satire is in short supply, a terrific surprise.

More than a deadpan comedy about oddball losers. This dork has his day, and this story has its touching subtext -- growing pains relieved by unlikely hope.

A sports movie with a quick wit, uncommon grace and a romantic soul.

A convincing, entertaining portrait of the revolutionist as a young man.

His story is instructive, as well as chilling and occasionally hilarious -- a brief, probably foredoomed career during which a would-be Orson Welles, playing shamelessly to the camera, draws from a bottomless cesspool of hubris, bile and rage.

Why, then, should we be eager to see a story of such incomplete inspiration? Because it's thrilling, and stirring. And because it is truth.

Has its share of contrivances, some more successful than others, but center stage is occupied by truth, and austere beauty.

Hotel Rwanda isn't impersonal, even though it only hints at the story's full horror. It's stunning.

That Mr. Rohmer is an octogenarian just beginning to play with digital technology makes the venture even more intriguing.

Mr. Stettner has a serious subject here -- how the hurts that women suffer at the hands of men can be internalized more deeply than the victims know -- and his film is graced with a stunning performance by Ms. Channing.

Tender, funny and smart, Machuca is that rare discovery, an incisive political parable that also succeeds as a drama of sharply drawn individuals.

Fatih Akin is a filmmaker to be reckoned with. His characters grow and change in a stunning film that pulses with life.

Strong stuff, and all the stronger for having taken itself so comically.

Intriguing and affecting documentary.

Immensely likable, and allows Mr. Smith to fulfill his manifest destiny -- as an urbane comedian who is also, shades of Cary Grant, a romantic hero.

A cry of anguish for the youngest victims of every war.

The movie's sense of place is hypnotic, but there's more to it than gorgeous images -- Campbell Scott's astute direction; Joan Allen's beautifully laconic performance; a sense of lively, if occasionally pretentious, inquiry into the wellsprings of art.

Full of entertaining vignettes that eventually make a happy mockery, as they're meant to do, of the tragedy vs. comedy dialectic.

His film is not for the weak of stomach or heart, but it's a stunner all the same.

Make what you will of the story and its symbolism, but Mr. Antal has made a remarkable feature debut with this visionary film, chockablock with memorable images.

The latest in a series of stiletto-sharp social comedies by the French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui.

Gives us the same sort of perverse pleasure that's been a staple of "60 Minutes" over the years -- watching world-class crooks tell world-class lies.