At once an astonishing feat of advocacy filmmaking and a white knuckle eco-thriller; think Michael Moore meets Michael Mann.

Eastwood tells the story at a pace well under the Hollywood speed limit, tosses in details so beguiling they seem about to sprout into motion pictures of their own and bathes his subjects in shadows as lovely as those in any Rembrandt.

Breathtakingly inventive story.

Here's the sliver of hope: In contrast to everything we've been told, the people who run Al Jazeera turn out to be decent and level headed.

On its own terms, Departures is a thing of rare and remarkable beauty.

Bleak, weirdly witty at times and unrelentingly suspenseful, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is the cinematic equivalent of a perfect storm.

The two actors (Hanks/Seymour Hoffman) have terrific chemistry and riff off one another like partners in a veteran comedy team.

The final act is all but guaranteed to astonish and satisfy. See this movie.

The movie gives us lovingly shot landscapes, portraits of extraordinary friendships, a great score, dialogue that only occasionally slips into history lessons, a number of memorably etched minor characters, a splendid performance by its youngest star and two mysteries.

This is a tale of friendship, corruption, betrayal and desperation masterfully told without an ounce of filmmaking flash and with an unflinching commitment to realism.

Yolande Moreau's most impressive costars are the extraordinary compositions of Seraphine Louis.

The combination of pen, ink and geopolitical strife have yet to yield anything quite like it.

Tykwer makes of all this murder and madness a concoction of improbable beauty and rare artistry. "Perfume" is not just the finest film of his career but easily one of the past year's most accomplished.

Her beauty, independence, and stock portfolio notwithstanding, Chelsea’s tale is a timely, tragic one told with typical Soderbergh finesse, a sly, sleek merger of sex, lies and hi def video.

From the performances of its first rate cast to the infectious score and Audiard's deft direction, this is one of the most accomplished movies you'll see anytime soon-old, new or, as is the case here, combining the best of both.

Not since the breakthrough days of Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler and the Farrelly brothers have two hours of movie comedy simultaneously felt so wrong but oh so right.

The film is a wonder and a joy to watch on any number of levels.

The amazing thing about Venus is that it's brutally honest about all this but at the same time funny as hell.

Movies about writers are almost always romanticized affairs but Starting Out in the Evening is the rare exception. It is at once an elegy for the vanishing generation of Bellow, Cheever, Mailer and Updike and a dead on indictment of our culture’s current state.

There is no shortage of remarkable moments.

Simultaneously offers priceless insight into the nation's past and a worrisome take on the future.

The score is appropriately ethereal. From the Paris skyline to the Great Wall of China, the film's locales on every continent are rarely less than breathtaking. Calling the camerawork stunning, of course, is an understatement.

The movie does an admirable job of juggling political, dramatic and comic elements.

I find Soderbergh's Solaris an eminently more satisfying experience than Lem's. This is a film as elegantly directed as any by Kubrick, one which is superbly acted and brilliantly scored, as spellbinding a work of cinema as we're likely to see for some time.

Jenkins' film ranks as one of the past year's very best. Like "In Cold Blood," "The Onion Field" and "Dead Man Walking" before it, her picture provides a mesmerizing portrait of the human side of evil.

Proved that cheerless, existentially unflinching literature can provide the basis for exhilarating cinema.

Costner sets course for one of the most stirringly choreographed shootouts in movie history.

Each and every one of the movie's 125 minutes is a moment of searing truth.