The usually quiet Zellweger is the revelation: Like her character, the actress seems happily amazed to find herself crossing a polished dance floor, sheathed in silk and diamonds, having the naughty, self-glorifying time of her life.

Classically scary.

A spruced-up version has been re-released after 22 years, and the addition of 43 minutes means the story really has room to breathe.

For a movie that ends in the profoundest depths of sadness, Boys Don't Cry contains one of the year's purest moments of joy.

Just as moving, uplifting and funny as ever in its slightly modified form.

The most atmospheric thing in the movie is Farnsworth's face.

A dark comedy that's as emotionally honest as any picture of 2002.

Jackson surpasses the expectations anyone might have had for him with The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment of his trilogy devoted to J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork.

One of the most uncompromisingly bleak films I've ever seen.

Yet its visual surrealism, identity-bending and strong social/ecological message make it as much an allegory as a fable.

Pixar's employees, masters of computer-generated animation, capture the look of the ocean like no artists before.

Pearce, who's in every scene except the Sammy flashbacks, dominates the picture through his feral performance.

Watching it again reminded me how remarkably the sound engineers did their jobs. Listen to the subtly amplified heartbeat - Ripley's? the ship's? - that pulses under the soundtrack through the last 15 minutes.

Its uniqueness lies in its juxtaposition of happy faces and unhappy realities, of fleeting expressions of art and culture undone by daily brutality.

Jackson had the vision, persistence, insight and patience for this mighty job, plus the smarts to shape stage veterans and overlooked film actors into a seamless cast. He's made himself as immortal as a movie director can be.

The film's proudest boast is that nary a frame comes from documentary footage...Every riot, every explosion, every seemingly spontaneous gundown in the streets of Algiers was staged, then shot in black-and-white stock that intentionally echoes newsreel footage.

Warms the heart while chilling the bones.

This meditation on spirituality, loneliness and accountability could touch your heart's core.

Breathtaking masterpiece.

U.S. geography doesn't matter to Payne. He always charts the terrain of the human heart, and he's among the wisest of mapmakers.

He's (Yimou) like a painter combining bloody reds, sunshine yellows and pale blues in the harmony of a masterpiece.

Reveals the drama and degredation so powerfully that it ranks among the all-time heavyweights of sports movies.

What surprises us most is the picture's topicality, and not just because terrorists crashed a plane into the Pentagon three years ago.

One of the most heartbreaking, unforgettable dramas in years.

For the first time since "X-Men," I was on the edge of my seat anticipating a sequel, wondering who'd play the Joker and how quickly Nolan - it must be Nolan! - can bring the next chapter of this story to the screen.

A picture from an old man working at the top of his game.

Squid keeps you on your toes, but payoffs will have you smiling - maybe in rueful recognition of the truth - in scene after scene.

It'll preach mainly to the choir - lazy thinkers won't attend, despite George Clooney's attachment as director and actor - but maybe it'll wake a few sleepers.

The giddiest and funniest animated film of the year.

An experience as tender and troubling as any you're likely to get - or not likely, if this subject puts you off.

To talk more about the movie's layers is to risk giving away too much. I'll say only that this film confirms Nolan's status as the director whose work I look forward to more than any other.

We don't find out until the last scene how reality and fantasy intersect, when the meaning of the first shot of the film gets driven home. How many movies have you seen with a payoff like that?

The title comes from the memoir by Mariane Pearl, wife of kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. It applies equally to Winterbottom, who has made the rarest movie among this summer's releases: a taut police procedural that examines all sides of an issue and forces us to re-think our own.

The most difficult task in Pixar's 20-year history: to make an un-Mickey-like rodent appealing enough to admire.

Moviegoers are turned off by depressing topics, yet "Diving Bell" supplies something film fans claim they want: pure escapism, the chance to experience extreme sensations virtually none of us will ever have.

The result is a film that has "Masterpiece Theatre" production values but not an ounce of dust upon it.

succeeds as an action film, character study and metaphor for our own terrorism-obsessed time.

Langella has always been a cerebral actor, one who never gives away all he's thinking. What comes through in this portrayal is how smart Nixon was, whether he's cunningly probing Frost's weaknesses or pitching himself to TV viewers as an avuncular, misunderstood Cold Warrior.

It's encouraging to see a nation so aware of its public image and defensive about its military decisions examine a dark day in its history.

Selick's fantastical adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel will be too dazzlingly rich for many; it'll be like "caviare to the general," as Hamlet said of a complex play enacted for a public with lazy minds.

When was the last time you had to wait until the final sentence of a film to understand all the details? When was the last time you went to a genre movie – or what looked like one in spooky trailers – and realized the director had fulfilled that promise and meditated on his favorite topic? Shutter Island does just that.

To call it a masterpiece is premature: That's a title to be earned only in retrospect. But I've seen it twice now and can't imagine what I would change. It fits together tightly as a suspenseful puzzle, yet it's also emotionally rewarding and sardonically funny.

David Fincher obsesses about obsessive people.

I can't recall the last film that so wholly, honestly and movingly explained what it means to be a Christian.

Writer Steve Kloves, who adapted all of J.K. Rowling's novels except "Order of the Phoenix" over the last 11 years, neither wastes a word nor leaves out any essentials.

Most documentaries put us inside people's heads. The dazzling, experimental Pina puts us inside people's feet.

It's freakishly funny, suddenly tender, gleefully macabre, genuinely scary, and full of a moral – fear turns weak people into bullies – which is dosed out so gently that it never tastes like medicine.

Among many things that make the taut thriller Argo remarkable is this one: It depicts a 1980 rescue of American hostages from Iran yet begins by pointing out that the United States was partly responsible for the situation.

Spielberg has never made a more sophisticated and less sentimental picture. He and writer Tony Kushner craft it like a historical thriller.

Why on earth didn't Warner Bros. release this movie in time for Oscar consideration? Sure, it's bleak, depressing, sometimes painful to watch. But it would have been one of the best pictures of the year, and Nicholson (who hasn't done work of this caliber since "The Crossing Guard") might have been on the podium again.

The effect is as potent as a straight right to the solar plexus.

Few white directors depict racial interaction in a thoughtful, non-exploitative way, but Sayles has always been one of them.

(The Coens have) never again achieved the one-two punch of Blood Simple and "Raising Arizona" - the first darkly cynical, the second light-headedly comical.

A love story more involved than I can easily explain.

Picks up steam from the ominous opening scene and ends as a quietly suspenseful thriller.

To adapt it for a 130-minute movie, Irving ruthlessly cut away subplots, eliminated supporting characters and pared down the traits of the ones that remain.

Best of all, Billy (Jamie Bell) is that rarity in a film distributed by Hollywood: a real boy, confused at 11 about almost everything.

Charming Stuart Little improves on original tale.

The coolest film in town offers industrial espionage, power struggles, thwarted romance, betrayal and suspense - and best of all, it's true.

Yi Yi is an intimate movie, for all its length and complexity.

A taut, consistently surprising political thriller with a sting in its tail.

Can be unbearably moving or annoyingly mawkish, sometimes in the same scene.

Hank Greenberg was to Jews what Jackie Robinson was to African Americans: a great athlete, handsome and hard-working, who took the first line of abuse from bigots and proved that his people belonged at the highest level of professional sports.

The director lingers over images, watching builders at work or Baran at her chores; the camera often seems to daydream, like Lateef. No grand climax caps the film, but the small incidents have a cumulative effect.

Shows the fate of Sicilians who moved to the Italian industrial city of Turin 40-plus years ago, and it suggests that the experience of relocation is universal.

A horror film that doesn't wear out a moment of its welcome.

If you're put off by deliberate filmmaking (or subtitles, though the movie doesn't have much dialogue), you're in the wrong spot. If not, you'll see why voters gave "Atanarjuat," as it's officially called, a 2002 Oscar nomination for best foreign film.

Director Stephen Frears...drops down to the underclass in "DPT," examining the ways in which educated illegals fight off despair, poverty and extradition.

A feature film as odd, personal and sometimes mundane as his (Pekar) comics.

It comes from Pixar, the animation studio that scored with the "Toy Story" series and "A Bug's Life," and it has more zip and a tad less soul than those predecessors.

Evans makes a terrific raconteur, imitating voices and putting us behind the scenes.

Despite Hunter's terrific acting, the mom seems too unaware.

The songs are pure joy, for them and for us.

Disney's updated, animated version respects its source material while aiming at kids who grew up with extreme sports and edgy music.

Begins and ends quietly, like stirrings of thunder from a distant storm. In between comes a tragedy that rolls over us like a compact hurricane.

After an hour, The Pianist stops being the Holocaust movie and becomes a Holocaust movie.

If this new film doesn't quite go to 11, it's a healthy 8½.

Keeps its sense of humor while dealing with serious issues.

Crowe gave Kate Hudson one pointer while making Almost Famous: Her character simply had to light up every room as soon as she walked into it.

The sequel is faster, funnier and wilder, with more cunningly contrived computer effects.

Kandahar found itself in real-life controversy last December, when one of its actors was accused of murder.

Menno Meyjes' provocative film might be called an example of the haphazardness of evil.

His (LaBute) observation of human nature is keener than before, his dialogue more attuned to ambiguities.

Doesn't have the daring lunacy of "Chuck and Buck," the previous collaboration by director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White. Yet it gets closer to the troubled, lonely soul of its main character.

The film offers an unusually rounded picture of a Latino family. All the men work, getting up early to do blue-collar jobs that demand dedication and responsible behavior. (We don't see much of them, but they have a strong presence in the household.)

Field does what most American directors don't: He shows people at work, in the day-to-day activity unmarked by excitement.

Almodovar still populates his work with characters you'll see nowhere else in movies.

Betty moves into Coen Brothers territory, a land so unreal that horrific behavior wrings laughter from a disbelieving audience.

Balances brains, brawn and heart in ideal proportions. The actors - some first-rate, all enjoyable - never get overshadowed by the special effects, which dazzle us without gory excess.

The film's full of in-jokes, from the Spanish-language billboards to the name of Banderas' character.

This superficial plot, almost devoid of characterization or weighty emotions, is an excuse for ferocious, fast and frequent combat.

Can there be higher praise for a motion picture designed to capture a beloved book with fidelity, thoroughness and affection? Only this: They made it better.

(Cusack) has never been more effective onscreen.

The final drum-off (c'mon, you knew it would come down to that) resembles a combination of music, gymnastics and martial arts, and I don't think I've seen a more pulse-pounding scene this year.

The saga regains its grandeur with a complicated but easy-to-follow story. The characters are as satisfying as the effects.

A follow-up with as much artistic integrity, complexity, humor and well-designed action as the original.

The film moves swiftly and unerringly to its conclusion. Spielberg remains under Stanley Kubrick's directorial spell.

Though the writing isn't always specific, Williams is. He differentiates between the murderer in "Insomnia," who wants a cop to understand his motives, and Sy, who realizes no one ever could.