This story could take place anywhere there are families struggling to remake themselves in the aftermath of tragedy; its universality is perhaps the most potent political message of all.

Adventuresome, melancholy and exhilarating.

For a certain brand of film geek, the best news about The Ladykillers is that it isn't a Tom Hanks movie. It's a Coen brothers movie.

This unique cinematic experience is a parable of greed and revenge that could take place anywhere.

If the slightly hurried third act and unlikely conclusion don't quite deliver on the brilliance of the first 75 minutes, it's a forgivable offense. This is a different sort of horror film, where the known is infinitely more frightening than the unknown.

In the annals of monster movies, one name stands above all the rest, way above: Godzilla.

The film has accomplished something few documentaries manage: It's created a stir. It's got people thinking and talking. And avoiding the fries.

As far as a coherent, hilarious story line, as well as sheer blasphemous glee, you can't do much better than "Life of Brian."

Medal prediction: The green guy is golden.

Often-brilliant, often-reverent documentary deconstructs Bukowski's bad-boy literary persona, finds a fascinatingly messed-up guy behind the words.

Mostly this film is a glorious ode to the culture and family bonds that override all else, and to the expressiveness of both the human and animal actors.

A savagely partisan indictment of George W. Bush's presidency.

Spider-Man 2 succeeds in pretty much the same way "Superman II" did -- only more so.

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

Gets under your skin without you quite being able to say when or how. It has the tact to let you draw yourself in to it.

A unique and masterful film, filled with surprises and felicities and moments of transporting visual power.

The Aviator, though, if not prime Scorsese, is the closest thing in a long time to the old Scorsese. What a splendid year-end gift!

An unforgettable movie with a message that is likely to add wrinkles to your conception of what it means to be a good steward of the Earth.

Moves at a stately pace; it's a long film, to boot. But there's real drama and pathos in the story, in the blend of matter-of-factness and potential catastrophe, in the depiction of innocence imperiled.

One of the most alluring and bizarre shapes that Godard's itchy search for truth and meaning took in those heady long-ago days. In comparison, most Hollywood movies are like tiddlywinks.

Some things in Sin City are almost too much to watch: the violence, the cruelty, the irredeemable evil. But it's irresistibly magnetic because it serves as a barely distorted mirror to our world.

This meandering tale of a pack of ticket inspectors working the Hungarian subway system delights in misleading viewers.

It's a visual feast that only a crack director could provide, and it's mounted within a story and setting that, played utterly straight, might still have made a good movie.

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

The darkest, most operatic, and technologically richest "Star Wars" movie to date, "Sith" is grim, stirring entertainment and a nearly complete vindication of everything its creator has been saying for six years about where the series was heading and what its final shape would be.

An unforgettable experience.

It's witty, gripping good fun.

A sort of anti-date movie, a smart but deeply cynical study in failure, with our sense of loss growing in direct proportion to the characters' romantic hopes.

The film that results from Jacquet's application is gorgeous and even inspiring, a tale of loyalty hard-tested and hard-earned, a sumptuous travelogue, and a reminder that some of the critters with whom we share the planet are, in ways, as complex in their feelings as any human being.

Malle, only 25 when the film was released, bounces confidently among several threads -- classic French policier, juvenile delinquent film, doomy tale of tragic love, clock-ticking thriller.

It's as full and rich a portrait of the lives of athletes as we've seen since "Hoop Dreams."

A joy to watch.

It's not orthodox Dahl but it's pure Burton, and, as it's been such a very long time since moviegoers have been afforded that particular treat, it's entirely welcome.

In the wake of everything we've seen on TV and in movies in recent decades, it's amazing that something as harmless as language can still stupefy us. As The Aristocrats demonstrates, there is real humor in the confrontation of taboos.

A haunting, melancholy fable, Tony Takitani is the kind of film that could seem tedious from a mere description. Approached with the right mind-set, however, it's a hypnotic mood piece on love and loss, one that knows -- at 75 minutes -- not to overstay its welcome.

An engaging exercise in mature poignancy, existential consciousness and deadpan drollery, Broken Flowers is a return by Jarmusch to the road movie structure of such films as "Stranger Than Paradise," "Night on Earth" and "Dead Man."

One of those undeniably beautiful things. The film is, in fact, an encyclopedia of beauty -- the beauty of desire, the beauty of nostalgia, the beauty of music and clothing and smoke and pain, and, chiefly, the beauty of women.

Beautifully shot and cut, written with a visceral aversion to cliche, deftly skirting sentimentality, sensationalism and simplicity, it continually surprises, engages and satisfies. For a small, unheralded film, it's a knockout.

De la Iglesia is a mercilessly agile talent.

Reigns as the most assured, provocative film so far this year.

It's Cronenberg's most mainstream work, and yet it has all the power of his creepiest nightmares.

If you think the "Star Wars" prequels are a disease, then Serenity is the cure.

An utterly convincing portrait of the sort of person willing to strap ordnance to himself and decimate scores of strangers in pursuit of his religious and political ideals.

Isn't easy to watch, but it's beautifully written and acted, with a sharp eye for the small embarrassments of divorce.

Powerfully explores the struggles faced by those whom DNA testing has exonerated after years behind bars.

A mature, tense, frightening and altogether masterful film.

[Murphy] makes a thrillingly flesh-and-blood creature of Kitten, with her yearning, her droll, self-deprecating wit, her breathless romanticism and her puckish vibrancy. It's easily the most fun bit of screen acting this year, and as rich and nuanced as the lead in any drama.

A nasty little tube of frozen horror concentrate.

Beautiful, poetic, mournful, at once rich and spare, Brokeback Mountain takes a daring conceit and creates of it an overwhelming work of art that should speak to anyone capable of love.

It's a sexy thriller, tautly constructed, deeply acted and heartfelt, despite a cool and knowing tone.

One of the most vital and strangely gripping films in recent years, a thriller more opaque, involving and realistic than just about anything that Hollywood is capable of.

Coogan makes tremendous sport of himself, taking on a role as an adulterous, vain, anxiety-riddled, alcoholic and truly comic creep. Brydon is exquisitely droll as the straight man to this ugly comedian act.

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.

Throughout, Sophie exhibits the quality common to all of history's great martyrs, a preternatural calmness that perseveres despite (or perhaps because of) the inevitability of her doom.

V for Vendetta puts its ideological intent first, and happens to provide smashing entertainment only as a vehicle for delivering its message.

You're either on the boat or off the boat with something like this. But for those willing to brave the open water, it's an awe-inspiring ride.

This isn't much of a plot, but as in the "Toy Story" films the combination of a varied cast of characters and a vision of the human world from an unlikely perspective make for consistent amusement.

A bright, sexy, globe-trotting and very French romantic comedy.

If you're content to let dream logic take over, a lot can be gleaned from this odd, darkly funny meditation on life, death, love and revenge.

In a film culture in which contrived tomfoolery and overinflated emotions stifle in their effort to provide comedy and romance, something as light and precise as The Puffy Chair feels like more than an exception; it feels like fresh air.

Monster House makes its intentions clear: It wants to wrap you in a thick, warm blanket of 1980s nostalgia.

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

The Queen is all-together remarkable not only for what it is but for what it isn't.

Like "In the Bedroom," the film is studded with brilliant acting, and it's all rendered with gorgeously fluent technique. The result is a film that skirts cruelty and easy satire for deep, troubling realities -- a nearly thorough triumph, in short.

It isn't in the same league as the director's best work, chiefly because it lacks the bravura flourishes of cinematic craft that helped make his name. But it's so vital and bloody and funny and wicked and tense and unapologetic that it feels kin to those films, which little of the director's work of the past decade has managed to pull off.

Like "Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers," it fills in our sketchy impression of that famously reticent generation of ordinary young men who were asked by a frightened world to accomplish an extraordinary feat. In this case, the homage takes the form not of a photograph or a statue but of a deeper, more sympathetic understanding of their experience. A finer tribute is hard to imagine.

A riveting and impeccably researched documentary.

In Volver, the latest marvel to emerge from his sharp and joyful mind, Almodovar blends autobiography, gossip, melodrama, music, the supernatural and the suffocatingly quotidian in a story about a woman -- indeed, a tribe of women -- struggling through a life of pain and disappointment.

Nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature, it's deeply humane and even more deeply unsettling, in a way that most documentaries about Iraq, which tend toward the polemic, never manage.

Letters isn't a fun night at the picture show. It's slow and gloomy and achingly tragic. But it's a truly impressive achievement both in moviemaking and in its understanding of history.

It's the type of film that may be forgiven its imperfections when they are compared with the vastness of its accomplishments.

A man can be a treasure just as a work of art can be, and O'Toole is one of the handful of living film actors worthy of a museum of his own. Venus would make a brilliant final exhibit.

Oacks more heat, acid, danger and drama into its brief running time than most films of nearly double the length.

The film combines farcical and sinister tones, as well as textures of high polish and captured-in-the-raw neorealism, and it simply brims with energy and surprises.

You might not be able to picture yourself in such a life, but you'll be glad that it persists.

It's a riveting character study/soap opera.

It's a wonderful debut, despite all the pain you may feel watching it.

Weaver is hilarious and horrifying.

Music aside, what finally puts Once over and makes it a film you can watch more than once is its slight but thoroughly credible realism.

The first of von Trier's efforts to be certifiably farcical.

As writer/director, he manages to make both Morrison and the period seem real without being self-conscious, an observed milieu rather than a film set. [01 Mar 1991]

Hilarious. And more proof that Pixar is in a class of its own.

So good at what it does that it can exhaust you: In the later going, one big number follows on the heels of another so quickly that it feels more like an opera than a regular musical.

It's a relentless finale to the "Bourne" movie trilogy that raises the stakes, pumps up the action and develops old characters while introducing new villains

A dry, vicious and deeply moving little comedy that sort of takes the structure of a teen sports movie, then undermines that structure at every turn.

This was a story that made front pages in its day but has been largely lost to history, and now is brought bracingly and compellingly back to life.

Funny and weird and surprising and action-packed and genuinely beautiful.

Cronenberg has, as Guillermo del Toro did in "Pan's Labyrinth," crafted both a drama and a fairy tale -- and he's done it in an entertainment as cracking as you could wish for.

At once spare and dense, chilly and thrilling, literate and visceral, it feeds in gray areas, teasing ambiguities and conundrums out of shadows and making strengths of inconclusiveness and uncertainty.

Emotionally brutal, ferociously acted, crafted with unflagging expertise and relentlessly locked in its vision of human darkness, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is as grim and despairing as any tragedy by Sophocles or Shakespeare.

That rarest of movie biographies: a warts-and-all exploration of the life and times of its subject.

In the main this is a muscular, exact and thrillingly cool movie.

This film insists on being taken on its own terms -- the sort of demand, in other words, that defines the best art.

Mathieu Amalric, best known as an arms dealer in "Munich." In a role that strips him entirely of vanity and denies him virtually every expressive tool, Amalric makes a genuinely touching impression.

It's first-rank filmmaking, through and through, even if it struggles to find closure.

Reaches truly terrifying heights as it becomes clear how possible the worst outcome can be. Like "Pan's Labyrinth," this is a movie about children made very much for adults.

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 result feels less like selling out than growing up.

An altogether astounding testimony to the band's longevity, vitality and verve.

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."

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

By an order of magnitude --- the strongest (or at least the most mature, subtle and emotional) entry in the series thus far.

It's one of the great horror films of recent years -- and a welcome antidote to the in-your-face sonic assaults that all too often pass for genre fare.

In effect, Caden's life passes before his eyes while he is living it. And Kaufman shares this effect with us through a strange process he achieves with invisible strings; it's a knockout.

The film is exquisitely realized, with a tremendous, naturalistic performance by Michelle Williams at its heart and a pervasive, assuring sense that Reichardt and Raymond have distilled everything nonessential from their story and imparted exactly the impact they wished.

It's a raw and honest film, and it keeps its feet firmly on the ground, even as The Ram flies through the air to deliver -- or receive -- another beating in the squared circle of life.

The film ends on an absolutely sick-making note, with live-action footage of the massacre and its aftermath.

A hilarious, touching, profound and inspiring film about art and dreams and self-belief and the goggle-eyed hope that you can will a miracle into reality through sheer effort and desire.

The film continually explores surprising, rewarding territory; even an erotically charged subplot dovetails nicely with themes of vengeance, mortality and renewal.

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

This is a delicious premise, and Blomkamp, who first played with it in a 2005 short called "Alive in Joburg," has magnified and improved it with ferocious energy, wit and style.

Among the best of its kind, thanks in no small part to the utterly believable, vanity-free performance of Yolande Moreau in the title role.

Its got a deliciously audacious and cheeky tenor.

Precious can’t be endorsed as entertainment: the circumstances and incidents and emotions in the film are far too dark and painful. But there is exhilaration in its daring, in its craft and in the powerhouse work of its principal actresses.

It’s a story that begins in an ancient riddle and ends, perfectly, in the rumble of an oncoming storm. It’s about life, A Serious Man is, and it’s as close, I think, as any American narrative movie of recent vintage has come to touching on the uncanniness of it.

As someone new to the material, I found Jackson’s film soulful, respectful, masterful, horrifying, rending and emotionally true. It may not be the Lovely Bones that you have in mind, but it’s a fine and powerful one.

To follow up his superb "The Host," director Joon-ho Bong has crafted a remarkable film about love, faith, determination, guilt, and honor, a full-blooded, constantly inventive movie that enthralls, entertains, horrifies and never lets go its grip.

It’s a fascinating story about ambition and vanity and pride, and in Sheen’s performance and the atmosphere capture by Hooper it contains truly fine and rare things.

In Almodóvar and Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time.

Delirious. Hilarious. Absolutely one-of-a-kind.

Paley's production shines with brilliance and great humor.

The film is all the more remarkable because its actors are untrained and their lines are improvised. Clearly, they've lived this.

Long and sometimes grueling, but it never feels indulgent or excessive. In order to be subtle about the horrifying transformation he records, Audiard needs to let it unfold slowly, so that only when we reach the end can we see Malik as a new man who has come unimaginably -- and terribly -- far.

The whole thing unfolds with sadistic precision, but Edgerton's expert manipulation makes it a fun ride nonetheless.

Babies will capture your eye -- and, probably, your fancy.

Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney takes a labyrinthine, detail-laden story and crafts an attention-holding film, polemical without ranting.

Full of life, wit, smarts, thrills and sheer gratifying entertainment that it launches the mind on a stream of merry somersaults.

Amir Bar-Lev shows in the absorbing, eye-opening and sometimes enraging film The Tillman Story, if there was one thing that you could count on Pat Tillman to do it was speak his mind: loudly, intelligently, and often in salty, pointed language.

Down Terrace is so intimate and hilariously offhanded (a hit man shows up for a job pushing his 3-year-old in a stroller) that it is all the more shocking when murderous violence finally erupts about halfway through.

Whether your tastes are delicate or coarse, whether you prefer the ballet or horror movies, there is plenty in the film for you.

The result is somewhat elliptical but also thoroughly engrossing and propulsive. Compared to Denis' earlier work, it's practically an action movie.

It's a film possessed of its own force, wit and style, and it builds to a rousing climax that absolutely pays off in crowd-pleasing fashion. It knows what it is, doesn't try to be what it's not, and hits you with drop-dead force. In short, it's terrific.

While the film is no groundbreaker, it is a paragon of elegance without austerity, and there's nothing like being in the confident hands of a master filmmaker.

Simple enough for children, deep enough for adults, clever enough for cynics.

This is hair-raising, clever and winning entertainment. Even if his protagonists aren't entirely what they seem to be or think they are, Mr. Jones is, it's increasingly clear, the real thing.

The combination of immediacy and intimacy in Armadillo is exceedingly rare.

An extraordinary thing, and one that I shall likely esteem for a long time. Philosophically, though, it's still mired in the primordial ooze in a way that will, I suspect, forever make me hold it at arm's length.

The result is as much a revelation of the artist's craft as it is of the man's heart and mind.

It gives you all that you could ask for when you buy a ticket to a thrill ride.

It's one of those works that presents the deeds of both humans and animals and leaves you wondering which is the more civilized.

The film has visual and verbal flair, spry energy and deep wit.

A staggering movie about a reality so dark and painful and real that it almost crushes the mind to think about it.

Genuinely breathtaking.

It's a horrific tale, filled with fear, confusion, anger, disfigurement, and loss. Weissman and Weber don't milk the pathos and they don't have to. Their interview subjects are brilliantly chosen, not only for their specific vantage points on the events but for their eloquence and depth of feeling. Time and again, the spoken and visual record of what happened overwhelms you.

It's a topic that's been handled in films before, perhaps most notably in Jane Campion's "Holy Smoke," but Durkin offers the most persuasively believable peek into the psyche of such a character I've ever seen.

And while it may be true that Almodóvar doesn't have Hitchcock's way with terror, it's not clear that Hitchcock could leave the real world behind so wholly and convincingly as Almodóvar does here.

The performances are universally good, the 3-D is utterly gorgeous, and the nutshell history of the early days of movies is inspiring.

There are ample opportunities for the film to soak in pathos, righteousness, farce, or pictorialism, and Payne manages to nod at those pitfalls without falling into them. In a way, it's just like Matt King's world: enviably plush but filled with the real pain of real life.

It's a bit precious, yes, but its earnestness and joy carry you along, and its climax simply delights.

It happens to be splendidly acted and to be poised, as a narrative, on a knife's edge (the final shot, at a great moment of indecision, is utterly haunting). But, chiefly, it's a portrait of an essential and sympathetic human dilemma, and in that it's both real and timeless in ways that transcend borders, cultures and languages.

It's an ending that may alienate some viewers, but will jolt others out of their comfort zones and into an appreciation of genuinely brave storytelling.

Watching it isn't easy, but it is definitely worth having waited for.

Undefeated puts us inside his locker room, and you simply cannot fail to be moved by the human affection, commitment and passion you feel there.

It's hot and sweet and made with inspiration and cheek. And it is not your children's animated fare -- which, in this case, is a recommendation.

This is the sort of film for which the phrase 'movie-movie' was coined -- and coined as a term of highest praise.

Slight but terrific. The intertwining of the sharply tuned actors and the guileless (and often hilarious) townspeople is seamless, the tale is sometimes despairing but never heavy, and the blend of drama, comedy and music is brisk and fresh.

Predictable, contrived, sappy and, ultimately, against all odds, remarkably fulfilling.

Brings you into a world you didn't know existed with a closeness that the movies almost never achieve. If that constitutes exploitation, then it's a crime which all works of art should aspire to commit.

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.

It has laser gun fights, forbidden love, and a rollicking group breakout from a fascistic old folks' home. What more could anyone want?

This film could serve as a potent tool for those trying to change 40 years of public policy.

John Hawkes has, until now, been known primarily as the skilled character actor who brought an earthy authenticity to roles on TV's "Deadwood" and the Oscar-nominated "Winter's Bone." With The Sessions, he makes his mark as a bona fide member of screen acting's elite. And he does it while barely moving a muscle.

A funny, believable film about the ability of even the damaged and imperfect to earn a little happiness.

Django doesn't have the razor-sharp chronological complexity of "Pulp Fiction," but it's ably paced. A very funny scene involving a proto-Ku Klux Klan lynch mob and their poorly made hoods nevertheless seems a bit out of place, but there's plenty of well-timed suspense.

An extraordinarily gut-wrenching, intense story of survival against all odds.

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

By the time the satisfying conclusion rolls around, though, it proves to be much more about the ability of a world-class director to induce such willing suspension of disbelief that even the loopiest narrative developments seem like the most natural thing in the world.

Shortland, whose only previous feature was 2004's coming-of-age drama "Somersault," creates a visceral, immersive environment and draws a very impressive performance from newcomer Saskia Rosendahl.

It's quietly brutal stuff, beautifully acted by Fanning, Englert, Christina Hendricks and a word-twisting Alessandro Nivola.

West of Memphis does nothing to displace its predecessor films as masterpieces of investigative filmmaking, but complements them as a riveting capstone to an epic and tragic tale.

Upstream Color culminates in a wordless final act that is among the most transcendent passages of pure cinema in memory.

Freeman and Tandy are the whole film, and their interplay is marvelous to watch and hear. [12 Jan. 1990, p.G7]

Richard Linklater's ingenious social comedy is a tour de force, at least in a minor way. [25 Oct. 1991, p.19]

At the end, you're refreshed, like Pauline after she swallows an entire soft drink in one gulp, and it feels terrific.

Quiet, sexual, disturbing, often beautifully melancholic, Rain, as seen through the eyes of a precocious girl, recalls a parental split-up with sobering accuracy. It reminds us why so many teen-agers go through a sullen phase -- and sometimes never shake it off.

Wilson's account is enormously self-serving and self-aggrandizing, but the film makes his ego a virtue and a running joke.

Icy and elegant, complex and gripping.

The film's soldiers are more the mom-and-apple-pie, God-fearing lads of World War II movies than the cynical grunts of "Platoon" (1986) and "Full Metal Jacket" (1987).

Both deeply weird and charmingly dear.

If dissonance is your dish, you'll find Beautiful People tempting indeed.

Rodriguez, who never acted before auditioning for the director, is utterly convincing, fluid and determined and jaded and wild like any teen-ager, but with a bracing spirit and a shocking store of ferocity.

The Legend of 1900 is still fresh; like the dawning of a new age, it feels like an awakening.

Moves with terrific energy, alternating riveting action sequences with intimate material in a manner that's pure Woo.

The newest, and probably first, true cheerleading movie.

Appropriate music, lovely cinematography and stellar performances by both a subtly moving Neill and a likable, barrel-chested super-American Warburton.

The film is still a wonderful lark filled with an ingredient most summer blockbusters lack -- likability.

Although some of the secondary roles are awkwardly acted, the leads are impressive.

The story is ingeniously intricate but never gimmicky or implausible. As it develops, the suspense grows about what direction the story could possibly take next.

Piquant, playful, and, in many ways, just as appealing as blockbusters such as "Pride and Prejudice."

In this film, shadowy seams of brutality, loss and grief are traced beneath bright layers of tree boughs, children's laughter and high, empty windows.

A smart study of the identity-shredding inherent in so much dissatisfaction and relocation.

Frighteningly, grippingly real.

The star, though, is the script, a rare enough occurrence in Hollywood that it merits special note.

Offers a lot of laughs, a heartwarming core.

Panic never lets you forget that Donald Sutherland can be one of America's greatest actors.

If the result doesn't make dazzling watching, it nonetheless has the power to haunt.

Perhaps the most disturbing fact in the film comes in the text at the end: Paragraph 175 remained on the books in both halves of postwar Germany until the late 1960s.

Long and slow, granted, but it's so peppered with moments of realism and nuanced craft that it continually rewards careful viewing.

Little spectacle but much bittersweet sensitivity.

The chief problem with Shadow Boxers is that it's too short.

A treat for the eyes and the heart.

Possesses the open-ended, continual off-kilterness of Shepard theater.

With no easy heroes or villains, Startup.com can be a Rorschach test for viewers.

Waddington's wonderfully textured film is an unforced work of naturalism.

It's a film with a silly story, and it's been dubbed laughably into English. Yet it's a transporting bit of fluff, full of zest, miraculous physicality and cheeky humor.

A tough picture to wrap your brain around.

Seems deeply influenced by American film noir, the Western fairy tale (in this case, mermaids) and the works of Alfred Hitchcock in particular.

It's a lovely film that suffers from an overdetermined structure and a reliance on a sensationalized plot line that, quixotically, is ignored for long periods of time.