Filled with wonderful performances, especially by Hedaya and Walsh, Blood Simple remains a tight, beautifully ugly, neo-noir classic.

A snappy little heist movie with acting performances both deft and brilliant

A masterfully varied set of images, paces and moods.

Simultaneously modern and yet gorgeously primitive with its budget sets and simple but influential score, this is not just a film re-release but a film event.

A witty, frightening, well-acted picture with near-perfect cinematic timing.

The moments of accidental sweetness that emerge from these odd, ultra-lives are meltingly funny and touching.

Can a film so expertly capture the odious and bitter that it becomes deliciously, disgustingly beautiful? Yes, if that film is 1957's Sweet Smell of Success.

Though Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland appears as gritty as they come, it uncommonly has a romantic heart.

She (Cho) can tell a joke, mimic, offer commentary, play cute, play ugly and be so hilariously absurd that tears will run down your cheeks.

Movies don't get any more real than this.

Not a masterpiece, but still fabulous.

A near-perfect movie.

It's a heap of contradictions that will leave your head spinning.

One of the most joyous, diverting and original mainstream American movies in years.

Unafraid of walking the fine line between the repellent and the human, Shallow Hal is wickedly funny but heartfelt.

The film, built around McKellen's magnificent performance, is a sleek and deceptively artful work, a bio-pic that manages to encompass the whole of a man's rich life by concentrating solely on the final months of it.

Searing, intense and unrelenting, Affliction moves to the deepest centers of experience and desire and brings its characters to unflinching life.

A gorgeous, engrossing, utterly alien and fresh movie that has the human truth and impact of classic Greek myth and the overwhelming beauty and mastery of the greatest epic films.

Utterly thrilling and enthralling, a commercial film that paces itself wonderfully, never allowing the action or romance to outweigh its story and characters. For mainstream adventure fare, that's quite an accomplishment.

Scott superbly re-creates the sense of individuals facing astounding odds, with barely a few minutes' respite over a 12-hour battle.

It's a triumph of the film that it manages to make Jeffrey Dahmer a human being -- at least a member of the species -- without ever bending toward empathy with or excuses for him.

With its eye-popping color, bold personality and snazzy tunes, Chicago is a breathtaking experience.

One of the purest instances of indie cinema this year. "Pure" meaning that in every aspect of filmmaking and intent this picture is peerless, so truly real, funny, poignant and sexy that it almost feels like a watershed cinematic moment.

Audacious, gorgeous and unique.

Daring work of genius.

Isn't just a horror film, but an American classic. Watch again and reflect for days after -- at your own risk.

Almost more valuable as a piece of foreign policy than as the highly accomplished work of cinema it is.

It's a remarkable, thoughtful achievement that will make you want to watch it twice. You should.

The adaptation of "King Lear" to feudal Japan is an extraordinary spectacle.

No matter how many times you've seen it, you marvel at how terrifying, gorgeous and surreal the jungle, the yellow napalm and, finally, the disturbed face of Martin Sheen lying under a swirling fan appear on the large screen. This is indeed, a dream.

Not only does this film make you think, it makes you want to think. Few films -- few works of art of any stripe -- can claim that.

It's a purely winning film.

The animation is even more mind-blowing, if that's possible. The characters and objects seem even more palpable and real than last time. There's a thickness to bodies of the human characters and an amazing attention to detail throughout.

An all-hell-breaks-loose, panicky fever of a story, all of it drenched in grainy, color-saturated cinematography.

But the human elements -- jealousy, anger, weakness, fortitude, loyalty, vengeance and honor, all acted out by a resolutely realistic cast -- make the movie extraordinary.

Like "Amadeus," Shakespeare in Love works splendidly as an appreciation of an artist in the heat of creation, and it breathes life into "Romeo and Juliet."

It easily is the most beautiful picture released in America so far this year, perhaps one of the most beautiful films ever made.

Teems with pot smoke, body parts and profane outbursts -- you ride a giggly wave throughout, jokes and turn-ons and shocking sights alternating in buoyant fashion.

Demanding, harrowing and very, very real. You won't shake its impact easily.

Brimming with bittersweet wit and emotion and built with deceptively fluent craft.

Builds into a moment of such gorgeous rocking that you truly lose yourself in some musical otherworld you never dreamed you'd reach in current films.

It's quite possible that Titanic is one of the greatest romantic epics ever filmed.

The timing and cutting of the film are terrific, the build-up to an absurdly hilarious climax is just right, and the performances are near perfect.

The best-looking, best-scripted and funniest of Smith's pictures, it's also Smith's sharpest.

It's so spry and lively and warm that you want to dance to it.

One of the greatest films about the civilian experience of war ever made anywhere.

A stunning film.

The film reveals itself to be not so much a historical allegory as an Iliad of the heart. It's sad and smart and beautiful and true.

An exhilarating slap in the face, bracing and sexy, smart and visceral, stylish and raw -- the advent of a fabulously exciting new moviemaking talent.

About as good a movie as you could have hoped for. Really good. Hole-in-one good.

One of the best films ever made in this country, filled with our proudest national virtues, cognizant of our deeply rooted human weaknesses and frighteningly able to evoke emotions.

It's hard to recall the last time a big-ticket summer movie delivered so fully on its promise.

A spell-binding, engaging and often breathtaking work in which exquisite sets, costumes, photography and music combine with top-notch acting and out-of-this-world fighting scenes.

Miyazaki is a genius, and this film is a masterpiece; go see it.

Fight Club -- cue the blurb machine -- is a knockout.

The result is a film that outrages and fills the viewer with poetry that's at once epic and intimate, scandalizing and life-affirming -- a real work of art.

Far From Heaven would have been one of the great American films of the '50s; it is certainly the finest American melodrama of our time.

There are levels of complexity and nuance and intellectual rigor in The Hours -- it's clearly a film into which you could gain continued insight after several viewings.

It's a bento box of shifts, feints, hints and small, sharp insights, built around a surprisingly deep core of feeling. And it confirms Coppola as an artist to watch and relish.

Eastwood has crafted one of the most powerful American dramas in years.

This edition -- clean and tight as Scott would have it -- presents a strong case for Alien as both the greatest horror film and the greatest science-fiction film ever made.

It is a pure, streamlined delight, the advent of a talent with no exact equal in modern film.

From the acting to the special effects to the landscapes to the cinematography, editing and music, to the details of decor, wardrobe and armaments, we never once feel that we are in anything but the hands of an absolute master of the medium.

While Tarantino's famous fight sequences are grisly, funny and genuinely entertaining, his love scenes are so tender, so fraught, you fear for the safety of your own heart.

Films don't get more essential than this.

Like dark chocolate -- not semi-sweet, but the exotic, nearly black stuff -- Coffee and Cigarettes won't appeal to everyone. Jarmusch is the 70 percent cacao of contemporary filmmakers, and people who love this kind of chocolate swear by it.

Powerful, subtle, quietly terrifying film about the consequences of a widow's stab at a May-December romance.

Hawke is not a brilliant actor, but here he rises to the occasion: Every inch of him registers the weight of this moment.

The miracle of Some Kind of Monster is Berlinger and Sinofsky's ability to make us root for these self-absorbed man-children.

A more sober, less in-your-face documentary than Peralta's great skateboarding flick.

Astonishes on many levels.

Neither the social commentary nor the story ever overpower the other, a feat that allows this remake to stand proudly alongside the original, its equal in every way.

Innocence revisits imagery from the first film. But this time computer animation pumps everything up to epic proportions. The results are overwhelming.

The result is a rare and precious work. The Motorcycle Diaries is an epic road movie with everything you'd want from such a film: laughs, kicks, adventures, pathos, poetry, natural beauty, strange encounters and friendship tested and strengthened.

It's a teeming, steaming, bubbling stew, a tremendous good time, a rich entertainment and a heck of a lesson in music, human etiquette and the politics of making it (or not) in show biz.

In absorbing drama and staggering emotions, it renders an issue too often seen as black or white in heartbreaking gray.

Bad Education, in this light, is Almodovar's "8-1/2" or "Day for Night," a lens through which all of his movies appear as a seamless whole. It's not the story of his actual life but, more excitingly, the deft, witty, bittersweet story of the life of his art.

It's hilarious, thrilling and filled with "life-truth" -- but it also conceals its effort under a layer of great writing and subtle craftsmanship.

A truly powerful, masterful work.

One of the great marvels of the medium, a film that you cannot miss if you hope to be literate in cinema -- or, indeed, if you seek acquaintance with the great works of modern times.

This deadpan ode to living life to its fullest could be the ultimate crowd-pleaser at this year's PIFF.

In exchange for a small piece of your life, you receive an infinity.

In "Upside" Allen's marble face acts as the pressure-cooker lid on a hilarious hissy fit.

Startling and amazing -- a cinematic hammer to the skull.

It's one of the best and strangest films of Miyazaki's career.

Unpretentiously fantastic.

The writing, acting and filmmaking make Hustle & Flow nothing short of amazing.

This is an awesome performance in an outstanding film, a film worthy, if you can imagine, of the book at its heart.

It has the feel of something slaved over lovingly in merry isolation, and it is virtually the only thing I've seen this year that conveys in the viewing the obvious enjoyment its makers had in whipping it up.

This is one of Downey's most enjoyable performances, and one of Kilmer's funniest. It's a relationship comedy wrapped in sharp talk and gunplay, a triumphant comeback for Black, and one of the year's best movies.

Thirty-five years since its debut, The Conformist is still a stunning, challenging, transporting film.

The Boys of Baraka leaves you outraged in the way only the best documentaries can.

We've seen documentaries with more daring themes, greater drama, sharper craft and timelier subject matter. But few have been as affecting as The Real Dirt on Farmer John.

Heart of Gold feels like an ample slice of the real America, the one truly worth caring for. And it's such a rare thing in this benighted age that the simple clarity with which it's presented feels like nothing less than a miracle.

It's the best kind of complaint. You can see why the $50 million man refers to something he gave away as "the best single day of my career."

By presenting murderers as actors and then filming those actors discussing their sins, the line between performance and soul-searching blurs in unnerving ways.

The teachers have moxie. The students have courage. Mermin's warm, funny, beautiful and deeply humane documentary certainly honors the latter.

I am here to tell you that Greengrass has fashioned one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, and that watching it makes you value your loved ones and your privileges more, perhaps, than you ever have. He has made a film that makes you feel, makes you think and makes you want to connect. And that, finally, might be the greatest thing that art can do.