While what's on screen is unsparing and clinically presented, the underlying, almost invisible humanity and artistry of the film inspire rather than depress.

For a film that consists largely of a series of talking-head interviews, The Gatekeepers is a riveting a documentary.

With a level-gazed approach to its milieu, empathetic but clear-eyed, Winter's Bone practically makes up for 40 years of "Deliverance"-style hillbilly cartoons.

Takes on the air of a heist film as the preparations proceed, and even knowing the outcome, tension still remains.

The first to take a big-picture view of just how the plans for postwar occupation went so far off track.

The acting is flawless, the world feels utterly real, and the finale accomplishes the miracle of finding in the everyday world something profound.

The result is a gripping film which, despite the annoying rugrat, demonstrates how part of leaving childhood behind is learning how and when to lie, and to do it well.

What makes the Dardennes' films so powerful is their refusal to judge, positively or negatively, their characters.

As unpleasant as so many of its going-on are, Wake in Fright works both as an early instance of "Ozploitation" cinema and as a harsh critique of Australian colonialism and the absurdity of trying to bring so-called civilization to this vast arid wilderness.

The period details are spotless, kindling memories of those days of yellow ribbons and nightly news updates on the fate of the American hostages.

Difficult to sit through, Our Daily Bread is nonetheless an important record, invaluable for those with the courage to watch it.

Akin is German-born but of Turkish heritage, and his films have often been concerned with the particular clashes and conflicts between those cultures. This film, though, does so in a much more oblique way than 2004's "Head-On."

This combination of fatalism, nostalgia and willfully naive optimism captures something essential in the Russian soul.

Nguyen reportedly worked on War Witch for a decade, and it shows in both the immediacy and authenticity of his tale, and the meticulous craft with which it's told.

A keenly observed, typically high-quality family drama of the sort only the French seem capable of making anymore.

While the third act inevitably bogs down a bit in gunplay and chases, there are more than enough moments of visual wonder and storytelling surprise to make it worth the trip.

Perhaps the most beautiful film to hit Portland movie screens this year.

The halting dialogue, full of awkward pauses and restarts, seems improvised in the way that only carefully scripted material can.

In the fine tradition of well-made thrillers, it's enough that it all feels solid at the moment, and the final revelations are unexpected and seemingly inevitable.

With this amoral business environment, it's not a question of if there will be another Enron, but when.

An alternately harrowing and poetic take on the fatal 1982 hunger strike of Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands, Hunger is also one of the most impressive feature directing debuts in years.

A mental workout of the most invigorating sort.

As numbing as the drumbeat of downbeat documentaries can be, as hard as it is to even be shocked at the depravities committed in our name, a film like this remains important, both as an indictment of the present day and as a warning to future generations that the ends don't always justify the means.

The film verges on hagiography as one interviewee after another testifies to Dominique's positive influence on his nation, but in this case the cynical notion that there must be another side to the story is easy to tamp down.

The longer it goes on, the more you're swept up into the jet stream of good feeling.

Kaurismäki is a master of expressive stillness for whom inaction often speaks louder than words, and the performances he elicits are perfectly pitched, including young Miguel's.

My Summer of Love, with its lush, sunlit landscapes, may occupy the opposite end of the visual spectrum, but it reinforces the sense that this director knows his way around the range of human emotion as well.

The pace of this Oscar nominee may be a bit contemplative for audiences seeking "Yojimbo"-style action, but it's surely a more realistic and moving look at life in 19th-century Japan.