Voyage to Italy is the kind of movie that makes those unhappily in love feel understood. And even if that’s not you (congratulations), it’s still possible to groove on Rossellini’s stranger-in-a-strange-land psychodrama.

Shoah's ultimate legacy, however, is being the final word on the Final Solution-one that renders every well-intentioned dramatic re-creation of such horrors into repulsive Ausch-kitsch by comparison.

Even this early in his career, Godard knew how to make audiences viscerally experience and contemplate things they might otherwise not have wanted to.

The meanings of Close-Up shift, subtly and profoundly, with every viewing; the only certainty is that its rewards are boundless.

It's a grandly entertaining reminder of everything we used to go to the movies for (and still can't get online): sparkling dialogue, thorny situations, soulful performances, and an unusually open-ended and relevant engagement with a major social issue of the day: how we (dis)connect.

The details are gripping, presented with respect for an audience's intelligence.

The drama it might remind you most of, oddly enough, is "Six Degrees of Separation," also about the snowballing connections between unlikely people. And as in that urban clash, the bedrock of it all is social responsibility, ever crumbling and rebuilding. A total triumph.

This colorful, cranium-bursting film isn’t about one specific tale so much as the endless ways you can present narratives; it’s nothing less than a kitchen-sink deconstruction on the art of storytelling.

It's far from a definitive statement-why does ACT UP, a seminal presence in SF, get such short shrift? - but this oral history provides a righteous cri de coeur for those who perished in the precocktail era.

Though it runs an epic five-and-a-half hours (it was made for French TV), Carlos books like no film since "Goodfellas." You will not be bored, ever.

It's not an easy sit; we're never let off the hook with golden-hued memories or belated bits of wisdom. Maybe this is love after all.

Polley has gone further into the thorny subject of forgiveness than any of her peers. Her movies ache with ethical quandary; Stories We Tell aches the most.

A paranoid police procedural, a perverse parable about the corrupting elements of power, and a candidate for the greatest predated Patriot Act movie ever, Elio Petri's stunning thriller makes no attempt to hide the culprit behind the film's grisly murder.

To fall in love with it, viewers only have to be receptive to a movie that examines the ties that bind with grace, wit and depth.

It is the richly evocative performances of Marion (aggressive yet enticing) and Merhar (wearing world-weariness like an aged suit) that cut deepest.

Clearly, Pixar’s genius for adventurous storytelling continues unabated.

Remains a primo example that cinema actually traffics in truthiness 24 frames per second.

Watching the first hour of I Was Born, But… (unspooling with a bright, new piano score by Donald Sosin) might remind you of a subdued “Our Gang” skit, and not unpleasantly.

You'll be arguing with your friends about the ethics of secrecy and defense for hours; that's what makes these exit interviews so essential. They come late to the spy game, but are welcome regardless.

There's influential, and then there's this 1953 microbudgeted beauty, one that's made its way into the DNA of everything from cinema vérité to the French New Wave.

Why do we care? Because never before have the steps to thugdom, as depressing as that destination may be, been so rigorously detailed, neither romanticized nor negated. Don’t miss.

Again, Granik has foregrounded a bold woman, expertly balanced between fearlessness and Ree's own private nervousness.

Thus comes My Perestroika's most sophisticated idea: Day-to-day family struggles have a way of trumping even the most profound political change. Don't miss this.

Sure it is - and a great one at that.

We are in the presence of a new classic.

Yun is quite simply spectacular as a woman who holds steadfastly on to her dignity and empathy, even in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

A fascinating experiment is about to happen, and who doesn't want to be part of a little fun? That rarest of birds - a b&w silent film - is set to swoop into multiplexes. Trust us, it won't bite.

The Arbor's pummeling second half begins with the collapse of its celebrity subject; the following spirals of self-destruction make you suspect that some childhoods are simply too hard to escape. Tough, worthy stuff.