As French crime thrillers go, this is about as good as it gets.

The silence captured in this documentary -- a meditative look at life in the Carthusian monastery of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps -- may be the most eloquent you'll ever hear.

An old-fashioned prisoner-of-war movie that becomes much more because of writer-director Werner Herzog's admiration for the remarkable true story of its protagonist, Dieter Dengler.

In the hands of visionary filmmaker Alexander Sokurov, this simple material makes for a haunting drama about war, generational relationships and the human condition.

Both very funny and a bit of a tearjerker, with an on-the-money performance from Ricky Gervais.

Though the material might lend itself to heavy-handedness, director Ole Christian Madsen is steady, and he gets fine performances from the two leads and Stengade.

The director has said that, though the story was inspired by the deaths of his parents, he hoped to make a film "brimming with life." He's succeeded.

This Is Not a Film isn't just a film, it's a strong one. It's also an act of political defiance, a moving personal document and a meditation on what film is and can be.

Director Corneliu Porumboiu ("12:08 East to Bucharest"), with his deadpan style and probing intelligence, is someone to keep an eye on. Using a minimalist style, and possessing the courage to risk alienating his viewers, he has created a movie full of resonance.

Aimed directly at your inner 8-year-old, and it strikes home.

This nightmarish revenge drama from Korea is grueling, intense, cruel -- the very definition of extreme cinema.

The film is far from perfect but has enough going on to compensate for its excessive length and some sentimentality.

Doesn't add up to much, but it's fast and funny and lets a bunch of top-drawer actors exercise their comic muscles.

Truly a winter's tale.

The film is dazzling and bewildering in equal measure.

A gentle comedy.

A droll, deadpan film, deliberately paced and told.

The stuntwomen are also subject to the unbreakable law of Hollywood, that the advantage is always to the young and beautiful.

Beguiling.

An affable comedy (with some serious notes).

The real joy here is the gorgeous nature cinematography.

Mesmerizing documentary.

Brower's legacy, however, is beyond question. Historian Starr calls him "an American hero," and though Brower was a prickly sort and a zealot, that judgment sounds right.

A superior adventure film with a poetic heart.

This is the heart-rending true story of a man with a seemingly benign preoccupation that turned into something close to madness and brought him to a terrible end.

With his caustic humor, director de la Iglesia is being billed as "the next Almodovar."

This Belgian crime thriller makes compelling viewing out of a "you can't be serious" plotline.

Richly inventive.

You need not be a believer to appreciate its humor and humanity.

Powerful and depressing.

Gripping.

This flawed drama about a self-destructive young actress and her reclusive novelist father has its rewards, mainly in some good performances.

This affecting documentary focuses on their 2004 production, a play whose themes of forgiveness and redemption certainly ought to have some resonance for the inmates.

A potent social allegory told with humor and mystery.

The film's simplicity and intensity are aided by the crisp black-and-white photography of Tariel Meliava. Director Babluani's greenness shows itself in the ending, which is weak, but the film nevertheless stays with you.

There's no objectivity in this film -- Greenwald's goal is not to offer balanced coverage but to roil the waters.

A film of stark and galling contrasts.

This is contemplative moviemaking, with its deliberate pace, often static scenes and emphasis on direct sound. The director keeps the dialogue pared to the bone.

This is a timeless, and nearly plotless, look at the day-to-day life of a nomadic Mongolian shepherding family. Yes, it moves deliberately, and impatient viewers will find it intolerably slow. But those who can get in track with its serene rhythm will be rewarded.

It's tear-jerker material but ends up being quite touching, and it's a good choice for family viewing.

A well-made culture-shock documentary.

A powerful polemic leavened with moments of beauty and humor.

Though not flawless, this is a compelling study, in Dogme style, of a wounded young woman who spends her working life spying on others.

Mike Cahill's King of California reminds me of those '70s-era pictures beloved of the counterculture about appealing rebels who go down in flames of moral victory.

Outstanding in support roles are Alison Lohman, playing a friend of Jerry's, and John Carroll Lynch, playing a neighbor who befriends Jerry.

Exhilarating for Lynch diehards.

Neatly, and often humorously, summarizes a very unhealthy situation.

Adams does offer quite a turn: Portraying a version of Disney's Snow White, she owns the character, down to every warble and twirl.

The stories are harrowing, and because they are delivered by living, breathing witnesses, they move us in deep ways that the archival footage, for all its horror, cannot.

An edifying and forthright drama that aims to create a lump in the throat, and succeeds.

Well-made and modestly enjoyable.

A potent drama from Yang Li, one of China's Sixth Generation filmmakers noted for the stark realism and documentary feeling of their work.

Nothing groundbreaking, but there's an easy charm in the movie.

A provocative character study and portrait of the times.

The scale is small, but Jellyfish has deep currents.

A liberating experience.

A giddy French comedy.

In general the film is so impressive that we can't leave the theater without wanting more.

An enjoyable example of this extraordinary director's documentary work.

Eventually comes into its own as a wacky commentary on the state of America in the fifth year of the Iraq war.

Will probably pass muster with very young viewers, but their parents may grit their teeth at its saccharine quality.

Does about as good a job as any film could be expected to.

Depending on your tolerance for talking Chihuahuas, this could make for a fun family night out.

Overall, it's a nice melding of sci-fi and a crime story.

You can see this Danish offering as a sardonic update of familiar noir material, or simply as the story of the midlife crisis of a guy who wishes - or dreams, or dreads - that he's living out a grand drama. There are pleasures to be had either way.

It's no great shakes as a film, but its combination of mild comedy, slapstick, pathos, many photogenic canines and a positive message will make it irresistible to families.

Artful filmmaking of the old school.

Doesn't allow the story's considerable nostalgia and sentimentality to overwhelm it.

The story, based on a real incident, may be simplistic, but that's the nature of fables.

The strangeness, humor and melancholy of aging are deftly explored in this film.

The most compelling footage was taken during the uprising of August and September 2007, which put a bad scare into the government because a large number of Buddhist monks played a prominent role.

A harrowing story about the will to survive amid the most brutal conditions imaginable.

Bujalski has a serious talent for finding resonance in the mundane.

The acting is good, particularly by Faour, who plays the naive, zaftig heroine as warm and appealing despite her troubles. It's also nice to see veteran Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass ("Lemon Tree"), who plays Muna's sister.

No film could convey all the complexities of the case - what Crude does is air the plaintiffs' claims and show the lawyers at work.

Something of an elegy to modernism.

Defamation tries to give all sides a full airing, but it's not hard to guess the director's own feeling. At the end, he says, "Putting too much emphasis on the past, as horrific as it has been, is holding us back."

A potboiler but entertaining enough to rise above its flaws.

A loose, amiable documentary tracking several decades in the life of this most unusual farmer.

It's an intriguing portrait, but it makes no pretense at objectivity, erring on the side of hero worship.

This documentary about men and women performing brutal work tasks for next to no money is full of arresting and eloquent images. It has little dialogue, and little is needed.

There's an Impressionistic feeling to all this, and sometimes it plays like a travelogue -- Bush is trying to do an awful lot at once. But the material is so compelling that we keep watching.

A moving but flawed premiere feature.

A heartfelt effort, if at times a bit heavy-handed.

This documentary has no bells and whistles; Bill Haney, the director and co-writer (with Peter Rhodes), sticks to the facts.

The character isn't just shtick, though. As Billy, Talen has staged many protests in Times Square and anti-shopping "interventions" at retailers, where the managers, to say nothing of the New York police, often have failed to see the humor - he's been arrested dozens of times.

At first, the technique seems gimmicky, but finally it's as compelling a perspective as any to understand how these men passed through agony to some sort of peace.

What's unforeseen in Unforeseen, a superior documentary by Laura Dunn, are the consequences of a certain mind-set about mankind's relationship to the world and, finally, to itself.

An austere rural landscape, festering hatred, class tensions, terse dialogue - these are common currency in indie movies these days. Shotgun Stories uses them all, but manages to stand out from the crowd.

We're compelled to admire these athletes because, despite their obvious skill, they are in constant danger.

It's a handsome and entertaining small-scale picture with nice acting, some crisp (and some crude) dialogue and effective direction.

Except for Patekar, the main actors are nonprofessionals, which works nicely here.

A remarkable cast for a small, non-mainstream effort.

It's compassionate but unblinking.

Intriguing and educational. For partisans of Bertolt Brecht, it's mandatory.

A compelling documentary.

There so much entertaining information in Art & Copy, a documentary about modern advertising, that it takes a while to realize we are being sold something

Will wring some laughs out of anyone but the most humor-impaired.