A seductive, fascinating tapestry of small-town life.

Toy Story 2 is to "Toy Story" what "The Empire Strikes Back" was to its predecessor, a richer, more satisfying film in every respect.

As a precise observation of British types and a virtuoso piece of carefully observed ensemble playing, the film would be hard to beat.

This handsomely produced period piece is easily the most emotionally effective bigscreen melodrama since "The Joy Luck Club," as well as the most intelligent.

Exquisitely acted, tightly directed and impressively assembled.

Utterly unpretentious and deeply touching.

A concise overview's clarity and an epic narrative shape, with a happy ending to boot.

Perhaps the best film made during the 30-year partnership of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory.

A wise and impeccably controlled drama that finds Russian helmer Andrei Zvyagintsev in outstanding form.

A frank, intimate look at a phenomenal popular artist and his extraordinarily dysfunctional family, Crumb is an excellent countercultural documentary.

Exquisitely modulated and superbly mounted, the directing debut of skilled cinematographer Lajos Koltai went through an extended, unpredictable production history to emerge as a genuinely new way of looking at the Holocaust that is markedly different in tone from other such stories including "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist."

Errol Morris delivers a compelling, thoughtful and entirely involving documentary in The Fog of War.

Remarkably funny and entirely convincing, film pulls off the rare accomplishment of being an in-drag comedy which also emerges with three-dimensional characters.

Animism, apparitions, out-of-body experiences, sex with a catfish -- there's all that and more in Apichatpong Weerasethakul's wonderfully nutty Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

An unconventional biopic about a brilliant young pianist.

A brilliant portrait of adventure, activism, obsession and potential madness that ranks among helmer Werner Herzog's strongest work.

While a hopelessly awkward-looking Hill provides fish-out-of-water laughs, Pitt gives a genuinely soul-searching performance.

Brief Encounters reps a must-see for art lovers.

This at first slow-moving and then wildly kinetic actioner possesses a cool classicism that will appeal to offshore audiences as well as those at home.

Takes the refined work of Iranian helmer Abbas Kiarostami up another notch to ever more metaphoric ground.

A sexy, nuanced, beautifully controlled examination of how a quartet of people are defined by their erotic impulses and inhibitions.

Performances by the entire cast, and particularly William Holden and Gloria Swanson, are exceptionally fine.

A major artistic asset to the film - besides script, direction and the top performances - is supervising editor Walter Murch's sound collage and re-recording.

A riveting account of how a soldier's death in Afghanistan was spun into a web of public lies.

Driven by fantastic energy and a torrent of vivid images of India old and new, Slumdog Millionaire is a blast.

Wickedly funny.

Staying at the top of his game when most of his contemporaries have long since hung up their gloves, Clint Eastwood delivers another knockout punch with Million Dollar Baby.

Any negative stereotypes viewers might harbor about education in rural communities are sent packing by this magnificently lensed and cumulatively touching account from documaker Nicolas Philibert.