The plot is often bewilderingly complex and the dense layers of subterfuge hard to follow, but by the climax the fairy tale has been twisted into a fascist fable of realpolitik mercenary opportunism.

Soars on its purity of form, subdued elegance and tidy professionalism.

There may be no more sensual director in the world today than Hong Kong's Wong Kar-Wai.

A masterpiece.

There's some excellent biological information in this film for preteens and teens -- if they can stop giggling long enough to hear it.

It's a rich work, lush and lovely and bustling with activity but paced at a contemplative stroll, like a time lapse recording in first gear.

Densely layered, demanding and beautiful, Ruiz has found the perfect venue for his passions and created the most cinematically breathtaking film of the new millennium.

It's a magical film -- an exquisitely made and exceedingly wise family drama that communicates a touching sense of the universality of the human condition, and leaves us with the rich emotional satisfaction we just don't seem to get often at the movies anymore.

Achieves its social commentary through passion and poetry.

Vital and alive. Frustration and malaise rumble through every richly textured frame, but behind it all is a restlessness and a desire for something better.

A celebration of the human spirit nothing short of sublime.

Hilarious, near-flawless.

In today's cynical cinematic climate, there's something beautiful in Miller's simple poetic justice.

Sensitive and vivid response to the tangled issues of teen violence, race and self-esteem.

Above all, the film is a classic of "poetic realism," that distinct brand of pessimistic '30s French urban drama that gave lyrical, sometimes even surrealistic, interpretations to working-class romances and underworld characters, settings and dramas.

It rolls in waves over the sedentary crowd until there's not a single soul left who's not keeping the beat.

Some may find it slow. I found it utterly spellbinding.

Aoyama's monochrome images are filled with a simple shadowy beauty and his scenes are rich in tender sensitivity and empathy.

It's a chilly, lonely introduction to a man who has effectively stepped out of the social world of adult responsibility.

The most sensuous and intimate work of cinema of the past few years, a film that luxuriates in the immediacy of the moment. There is no guilt to the act, only exhilaration, joy and freedom. At least for the moment.

Think of easy jazz or soft soul, with Rudolph's cinematic improvisations soaring and circling the melody while adding quirky variations.

In what was indisputably his finest moment as a filmmaker, Forman summoned the absolute best work of his craftsmen -- costumes, makeup, camerawork, production design -- and merged them with his own storytelling sense and his special way with actors to create what has to stand as cinema's most successful musical epic.

Even knowing the happy outcome, Butler masterfully keeps us on the edge of our seats, and communicates the full horror and seeming hopelessness of the crew's situation every step of the way.

A brilliantly conceived, boldly executed, cumulatively thrilling fantasy epic that expands the art of film and is sure to be the middle link of one of the movies' greatest trilogies.

The movie is never mechanical or emotionally contrived, and at its heart is a guileless, enchanting performance by Tautou.

As powerful as the movie remains and as much as I enjoyed this new cut, I have to say that the additional footage -- material that Coppola felt he had to excise 20 years ago to reach a commercial length -- has turned out to be something of a mixed blessing.

No one does this genre better than actor-writer-director Christopher Guest.

People who have seen it seem to be crazy about it.

It's not only the most gentle and effortlessly funny movie so far this year, it's a film with a style and sensibility that wonderfully harkens back to Hollywood's golden age of sophisticated comedy, and in particular to the masterpieces of Crowe's filmmaking idol, Billy Wilder.

It not only pushes the computer-generated film envelope to the very edge, it's every bit as charming, funny and exciting as the original. In fact, I enjoyed it quite a bit more.

Makhmalbaf's astounding and haunting imagery tells a story of devastation, desperation and poverty.

The granddaddy of all caper/heist movies. The work that defined the genre for the subsequent four decades of filmmakers, none of whom was able to surpass it for style or suspense.

This bracing portrait of a woman who painfully accepts her responsibility as a citizen is a revelation.

A vivid, thoughtful, unapologetically raw coming-of-age tale full of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

The total effect is mesmerizing, an eye-opening tour of modern Beijing culture in a journey of rebellion, retreat into oblivion and return.

In the best Altman manner there are no real heroes and villains, only people trapped by their vanity and ambition and the straitjackets of classism.

What's most devastating in Capturing the Friedmans is how Jarecki puts the sureness of justice into doubt as he shows Truth (with a capital T) at the mercy of perspective and perception, context and emotion.

There's not a smarter, more demanding American film from the past year.

Inspiring without sinking into sentimentality or cliche, Hearts of Atlantis is intelligent, heartfelt and genuine, a rare story of childhood for adults.

Together is a likely candidate to become that one foreign-language film that jumps out of the art houses each year to become a mainstream phenomenon.

Commentary from shockingly outspoken Watts residents on topics ranging from revolution to infidelity are a vital part of the documentary.

The Dardennes's masterful casting and austere style amplify this simple but powerful parable.

A dynamite comedy-drama that, unless it stiffs big-time at the box office, should be up for multi-Oscar nominations come February.

It's an extraordinary feat of animation, possibly the most lovingly conceived, uncompromisingly executed and totally successful animated film since "The Lion King."

I haven't been so captivated, chilled and surprised by a movie in years.

There are two kinds of people, my friend. Those who love Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and those who resist the machismo and gallows humor of what is arguably the definitive spaghetti western.

A delicious one-time treat.

From the first voyeuristic peek into the ruthless world to the haunting, accusatory, unforgettable final image, it's a brilliant, stunning piece of work, perhaps not Assayas' best, but certainly his most fearless and impassioned.

Isn't about a May-December romance or a brief encounter in a faraway place. It's about being alone in a crowd and the power of unexpected friendships.

Moves along its course and overflows at its climax with that indefinable but unmistakable assurance of a master filmmaker who knows just what he wants to say, is in total command of his medium and is in no mood to make any compromises.

The final scene of Balthazar's demise is one of cinema's most moving and haunting moments.

First and foremost, it soars because its grand design and numerous story problems were worked out half a century ago by a guy named Tolkien, and Jackson was smart enough to realize this.

Like the schoolkids in this adventure, from the opening images to the closing credits, I do, I do, I do believe in fairy tales.

Romantic, real and as generous as it is vulnerable, the art of conversation has rarely been so acute, honest and revealing.

At age 37, she's (Bonnaire) developed into a consummate film actress and a unique star whose enigmatic persona has never had a more exhilarating showcase.

As empowering and triumphant a film as you'll see this or any year.

An extraordinary piece of biography.

It's an emotionally gripping, daringly genre-twisting, consummately crafted piece of filmmaking.

Secret Ballot is an education hiding in a comedy, a parablelike portrait of the irresistible forces of modernization and democracy meeting the immovable inertia of tradition, culture and power relations written in the blood of the past.

Beautiful, elevating and achingly sad.

Giordana's redemptive vision provides a sense of discovery and a well of hope in the most devastating of troubles, and beautiful surprises in love, friendship and family.

While Look at Me at times falls into familiar plotting, it never offers false hope or false characters.

Desplechin fearlessly dives into raw, bitter revelations and surfaces with hope as our heroes try again to get it right.

The movie grabs us from its heart-pounding opening sequence and pulls us inexorably along its trajectory with the grip of the last gruesome act of a Greek tragedy. Its fascination is not what happens but HOW it happens.

Ozon's greatest special effect is holding the camera in tight on the faces of Bruni-Tedeschi (one of the most expressive faces in French cinema) and Freiss.

A suspenseful, elegant entertainment.

The result is rich, lush -- simply exquisite.

It's Treadwell's contradictions and controversies that fascinate Herzog the filmmaker, inspiring him to create this enthralling documentary portrait, his best film in years.

Kurosawa leaves much of the explanation enigmatic but he fills the film with an eerie emptiness, where suicides erupt out of nowhere and mankind dissolves in an oily smudge of hopelessness, adrift between life and death.

It's so fluid and cinematic that it's hard to even envision how the piece worked on stage.

Though he's foggy on the specifics, Angelopoulos makes the tides of history felt through each painterly frame.

The movie is so well-cast, sympathetically acted and delicately directed -- and so genuinely touching and funny -- that it leaps right out of the narrow confines of the family bonding formula.

This beautifully sculpted poetic naturalism has more in common with the expressive use of words in the great screenplays of '40s and '50s than with modern movies.

Confronts the line between the celebration and the exploitation of innocence with an uneasy tension that is discomforting at best.

It captures the heart and spirit of one of the 20th century's most fabled ballet companies, with a history that stretches continents and decades.

Antonioni's moviemaking panache and distinctive narrative rhythm rarely have seemed so enticing and satisfying.

A true gem: perhaps the most thoroughly charming, and completely satisfying, independent film I've seen in the past two or three years.

It's the most intense, unpredictable and thrilling cinematic experience I've had the pleasure to squirm through in ages.

Not only does it recapture -- and enhance -- the subtle emotional core that has made the film so beloved for the past three-quarters of a century, it delivers the most eye-boggling, hair-raising movie thrill ride since 1993's "Jurassic Park."

Tommy Lee Jones steps behind the camera to direct himself in the most impressive directorial debut the American cinema has seen in some time, a contemporary western both rough and poetic, laconic and passionate.

The texture and intensity of the odyssey makes it spellbinding.

A hauntingly poetic triumph.

Cinema does not get much better than this.

A sly, smart and very funny caricature of corporate politics and image culture.

Actors Laia Marull and Luis Tosar explore the intricate details of a relationship based on the laws of attraction and repulsion, in which the intellect is repeatedly devastated by primal passion.

While the significance of the imagery, including the slow disintegration of an immense piece of sculpted petroleum, is elusive, the strangeness of Barney's visual sense never fails to stimulate the senses.

Director Mohammad Rasoulof has fashioned the ultimate metaphor for a society adrift from its culture.

Devastating, uncompromising and riveting.

A film with the epic scale and fearless common-sense vision of Water is a revelation.

The style is pure Hou: richly textured atmosphere, tiptoeing camerawork and long, languorous takes of scenes full of privileged moments of human activity.

The film is a hugely compelling tribute to the French Resistance movement in World War II, staged with a genuine epic flair but in the icy, downbeat, film-noir style of the director's celebrated policiers.

All told, Cars is a knockout.

Absolutely riveting.

Ripe with characters and events reflecting the psychic travails of today's young adults.

Another worthy performance comes from Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.

The language and the landscape is French, but the sensibility and style is unmistakably Eastern European.

It's pretty weird stuff, and filmmakers Keith Fulton and Luis Pepe embrace it with a layer of cinematic gauze that builds a pounding energy to this hypnotic twisting of rock legend.

When Riyadh's family jokes about the purple stain that marks them as resistance targets after they vote, the black humor speaks volumes about them as individuals, as Sunnis and as Iraqis with a dream of a better way.