Bravura narrative filmmaking on a hugely ambitious scale, Carlos is a spectacular achievement.

Considering Haneke's confrontational past, this poignantly acted, uncommonly tender two-hander makes a doubly powerful statement about man's capacity for dignity and sensitivity when confronted with the inevitable cruelty of nature.

Brilliance of the action and effects are supplemented by a consistently superior and resourceful score by Tan Dun.

Evinces an artistic rigor and unsentimental intelligence unlike anything the world's most successful filmmaker has demonstrated before.

The performances are uniformly excellent. Mastroianni is perfect in the key role of the basically good and honest boy who succumbs to the sweet life. Ekberg is a revelation as the visiting star, while Furneaux almost runs off with the picture as the reporter's instinctive, possessive mistress. (Review of original release)

Those seeking the Bunuel touches of black humor, digs at Church and Establishment, irreverence and criticism, and an overall condemnation of Spanish mores and hypocrisy, will find a modicum of scenes here to titillate their palates. Yet Bunuel, despite occasional digs, has remained more or less respectful.

Loaded with pleasures, the greatest of which derive from the on location filming in Prague, the most 18th century of all European cities.

The alternately playful and elegiac Stories We Tell is wholly of a piece with her fiction work, and just as rewarding.

A dramatically moving and technically breathtaking American art film, one of the great cinematic achievements of the 1970s.

Balkan probably gives her best performance to date to create a woman tormented by instability, sexual drive and psycho demons -- disjointedly portrayed in the script.

Most compelling in its attempts to re-create the experience of paralysis onscreen, gorgeously lensed pic morphs into a dreamlike collage of memories and fantasies, distancing the viewer somewhat from Bauby's consciousness even as it seeks to take one deeper.

Never before has anyone made a documentary like The Act of Killing, and the filmmakers seem at a loss in terms of how to organize the many threads of what they capture...Still, essential and enraging, The Act of Killing is a film that begs to be seen, then never watched again.

Talky in the best sense, the film exhilarates with its lively, authentic classroom banter while its emotional undercurrents build steadily but almost imperceptibly over a swift 129 minutes. One of the most substantive and purely entertaining movies in competition at Cannes this year.

But the boxing sequences are possibly the best ever filmed, and the film captures the intensity of a boxer's life with considerable force.

Claire Denis’ latest may appear whisper-thin on the surface, yet it’s marvelously profound, illuminating the love between a father and daughter but also highlighting the difficulty of relinquishing what most people spend a lifetime putting into place.

The ending is happy, but the general effect of the film is disturbing, so compelling is De Sica's description of a man's solitude.

Boldly and magnificently strange, There Will Be Blood marks a significant departure in the work of Paul Thomas Anderson.

The very good news is that, in addition to stylistic innovation, the film sports a provocative and appealing story that's every bit the equal of this technical achievement.

Looks to please the book's legions of fans with its imaginatively scrupulous rendering of the tome's characters and worlds on the screen, as well as the uninitiated with its uninterrupted flow of incident and spectacle.

A stunning feature -- another hypnotic meditation on popular demagogy and mental manipulation.

This tertiary adventure delivers welcome yet nonessential fun, landing well after its creators have grown up and succeeded toying with more sophisticated stories.

Imamura's square-framed, black-and-white imagery, in all its various stylistic incarnations, proves as compelling through the docu's myriad detours as in any of his better-known psychological thrillers.

This richly textured parable feels every inch the work of a master.

The first-ever screenplay written in the Inuit language, Inuktitut -- and the first time's a charm.

A magnificent film. George Lucas set out to make the biggest possible adventure fantasy out of his memories of serials and older action epics, and he succeeded brilliantly.

Almost completely dialogue-free but graced with terrific sound design and a swell score.

Tradition and informality collide -- and mutually benefit -- in the deliciously written and expertly played The Queen.

Repulsion is a classy, truly horrific psychological drama in which Polish director Roman Polanski draws out a remarkable performance from young French thesp, Catherine Deneuve. (Review of Original Release)