The Widow of Saint-Pierre

Remarkable movie.

A beautiful and haunting film that tells this story, and then tells another subterranean story about the seasons of a marriage. Read full review

A grand, dark, grave, severe piece of first-rate cinema.

The subtle selectivity of Leconte's eye, how he moves with great control from gesture to gesture, is matched by the disciplined intensity of the performances. Read full review

Leconte's signature on the film alone makes it worth seeing.

It's a kind of 18th-century "Dead Man Walking" but with that earlier film's foreground arguments against capital punishment pushed to the background here. Read full review

Has the resonance, eloquence and formal rigor of a piece of great literature. Read full review

Binoche is especially subtle and radiant in another splendid drama from Leconte. Read full review

Mr. Leconte seems at last to have anchored his cinematic gifts to a story worth caring about. Read full review

Faraldo's most engrossing and inventive script, alternately serious and comic, is beautifully realized by Binoche, Auteuil and Kusturica, all of whom reveal a nobility of spirit and stylish gallantry so cherished by the French. Read full review

Bosnian-born director Emir Kusturica delivers a superb performance as the prisoner, a brutish cipher who gradually reveals his humanity, and the delicate lighting often produces silhouetted faces that evoke the ultimate incomprehensibility of human emotion. Read full review

Definitely worth a chance: although everyone in this fog-shrouded setting makes grand sacrifices, all you'll lose are a few tears. Read full review

For the director, Mr. Leconte, and for the usually volcanic Mr. Auteuil, the quiet, cumulative power of this film is a striking departure from the dazzling energy of their previous collaboration in "Girl on the Bridge."

A compelling French Canadian drama. Read full review

The director has concocted a tragedy that actually feels tragic. Read full review

It doesn't get much more romantic than this. Read full review

Has its sluggish stretches, but the superb level of acting is more than ample compensation.

Leconte reconfirms his growing importance to French cinema with this precisely crafted, marvelously acted drama, which makes a powerful statement on capital punishment. Read full review

Celebrates a larger-than-life heroism that is, sadly, all too rare.

A genuinely heartbreaking, romantic film based on a true story; frankly, if it doesn't make you cry, we don't want to know you. Read full review

Ppaque and not hugely satisfying. Read full review

Accomplished, middlebrow costume-drama entertainment. It's not so simple that it could be mistaken for the work of, say, Lasse Hallström, and yet it's not so sophisticated that audiences of "Chocolat" would be mystified. Read full review