A stunning study of one desperate woman's conscience.

Surges with an energy and visual verve that improve the play and enhance the themes of dramatist Peter Morgan's script.

The mechanical beauty and android possibilities of the future excite the filmmaker, and that's where Minority Report becomes an alluring postcard from the edge. But it's an edge over which Spielberg never seems to want to step.

With exemplary use of archival footage, director Asif Kapadia expertly contrasts episodes of adrenaline-rush speed with moments of reflective slow motion to capture the addictive thrill and danger of the sport, as well as the personal values of the humble, spiritual sportsman.

The Sessions is first and foremost about Hawkes' virtuoso performance, one of those "My Left Foot"-y transformations that make audiences verklemmt and generate awards talk.

Luc Jacquet's exquisitely shot eye-of-God study of a year in the lives of these distinctive birds is a nature film built with a feel for the epic and a love of operatic narrative.

Great, restrained performances of Beatty and Schreiber, delicately framed by the filmmaker's taste for visual compositions.

The charm and art of De Felitta's gentle domestic sketch expand far beyond biographical borders.

An inviting international audience-pleaser.

Undeniably powerful, the work also comes with its own built-in shield against feeling any one character's difficulties too deeply, or for too long.

Rees presents this vivid, hidden culture with raw honesty.

A strange history lesson that leaves us more overlectured than properly overwhelmed.

There are moments in Baran as wholesomely heart-tugging as any involving Charlie Chaplin and a blind girl, but the film is saved from aren't-kids-cute sentimentality by a warmth that isn't faked and a stately sense of composition.

It's a good bet the average American moviegoer, however familiar with the rhythms of cinematic global culture, has never experienced such a handsomely self contained world.

With its warring factions, citizen uprisings, guerrilla insurgencies, political intrigue, bloody warfare, family tensions, and homoerotic subtext, Coriolanus is one of the year's best political thrillers.

This patient, righteous documentary by Ken Burns, David McMahon, and Sarah Burns recounts the story of justice undone (a serial rapist confessed) with extensive interviews, a thorough use of archival footage, and a less-than felicitous use of ominous-rumble music that unnecessarily insists, Isn't this an outrage?

The result is an engrossing chronicle of creative people under pressure, a movie about the madness of opera for which no knowledge of opera is required for full enjoyment.

Kinsey is patient and educational and never (darn it) rude or shocking.

Greggory anchors Gabrielle in manly bewilderment and rage, while Huppert claws the title character's way to self-awareness.

There's a bravura recklessness to Beautiful People that perfectly fits its subject.

A movie of uncommon sweetness and delight.

This is a movie about actors acting; who cares why Juliette was in the pen?

Reprise is kissed with the breath of French New Wave sensibility, sweet with verve and a love of forward movement. The mood of joy in the midst of youthful pain is enhanced by the freshness of the first-time lead actors.

Tsai builds this shimmering story with deft, deadpan wit and a warm, understated love of the absurd, both in life and afterlife.

The wry filmmaker has created an urbane society of family and friends as ridiculously pretentious and hypocritical as they are cultured, accomplished, and posh.

Gravity-defying kung fu choreography.

This audaciously issues-loaded indie drama works, improbably and entirely, on account of the marvelous, often familiar-looking, rarely starring character actor Richard Jenkins and his perfect performance as a stodgy, widowed economics professor.

Another must-see marvel of horror, comedy, and impeccable filmmaking by the Korean director Bong Joon-ho.