This humane movie is an ode to joy, albeit of the mature sort.

If you require a plot, look elsewhere.

With such supercharged material under the hood, a magnetic man behind the wheel and a nimble director manning the pits, Senna is simply the greatest sports film I have ever seen.

It’s an enigmatic and austere film from a region where political, sexual and religious repression are as stifling as the sooty air.

Few mainstream movies, let alone disability dramas, are so frank about sexual mechanics, yet notwithstanding the nudity, The Sessions isn't voyeuristic or sleazy.

Like Elizabeth Olsen in "Martha Marcy May Marlene," Oduye brilliantly slips inside the skin of a sensitive young woman who's having trouble finding her place in the world.

Although Precious is based on a novel, it's an act of truth-telling on behalf of a character in hellish enslavement.

The most provocative thing in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is the moment during the opening credits when we glimpse the comedy legend without makeup.

That action is bloody, but Fiennes' choices as director are unassailably apt and artful. Coriolanus is a triumph.

A comedy of discomfort -- and one of their (Coen brothers) best, most insightful and most provocative films.

Director David O. Russell ("Three Kings") delivers a film of staggering impact.

As Refn is riffing on thriller cliches, he gets solid support from the ensemble. Brooks, a comedic standout since the '70s, makes a sympathetic villain, and Gosling stokes the young-Brando comparisons - instead of settling for Richard Gere.

As enchanting as it is ambitious.

With its mix of true-blood romance and full-moon madness, Let Me In should hasten the twilight of the twerpy pretenders.

The performances are first-rate, with Lindhardt particularly moving as a guy who's in deep denial about just how much he can expect from a relationship with an addict.

I Am Love is easy to savor but tough to swallow.

It starts as a bittersweet parable about the cruelty of commerce, but the wonder of Searching for Sugar Man will not soon slip away.

Black Swan is ridiculously over the top, but in a way that makes it fascinating to watch.

Sophisticated comedies have gone out of fashion, largely because Hollywood finds it easier and more profitable to simply gross out moviegoers. But Please Give has real class -- and for that it deserves our gratitude.

The conclusion of Christopher Nolan's superhero trilogy is a hugely ambitious mix of eye candy and brain food. If it doesn't have the haunting aftertaste of the previous serving, that's only because Nolan couldn't clone Heath Ledger. But beefy substitute Tom Hardy is a hell of a villain.

Like its neo-noir kin across the pond, The Guard is violent, profane and funny. But McDonagh is interested in more than mockery.

Superbly acted, and a return to form for Tavernier, who guided jazz legend Dexter Gordon to an Oscar nomination for "'Round Midnight" (1986).

While we await the definitive documentary about the glut of garbage, Waste Land reduces this global catastrophe to touchingly human scale.

Of all the films to come out the conflict, Afghan Star is the most provocative, because its message that people are essentially the same is a dubious, double-edge sword.

In recording the timeless traditions of Jewry, he created a new one: the identity crisis that rides on the back of laughter.

The success of the three, separately screened films -- the first set in 1974, the second in 1980 and the concluding segment in 1983 -- depends not on their specifics, but on their ability to sustain an atmosphere that's appropriate to the dark but haunting story.

As an exercise in craft, it's surprisingly successful, thanks to the strong cast and the vivid depiction of a modern leader's security apparatus. But as a political statement or personal drama, The Ghost Writer is nearly invisible.

One of the best films of the year.