Zombie movie 28 Weeks Later offers flesh-eaters and gore with a side of some unsettling sociopolitical commentary. Jeremy Renner and Rose Byrne star.
Ingmar Bergman’s sumptuous big-screen swan song, the 1982 period family drama Fanny and Alexander is even more engrossing in its longer form.
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s 2007 action comedy Hot Fuzz is a riotously funny and unusually creative spoof of Hollywood’s buddy movies.
Meet the Robinsons’ eccentric characters are key a reason for the enjoyment of Disney’s (Pixar-influenced) futuristic family adventure comedy.
Ryan Phillippe and Chris Cooper deliver first-rate performances in Billy Ray’s mature spy thriller Breach, based on the FBI’s infamous Robert Hanssen case.
Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well deserves to be as well known as Rashomon and Seven Samurai. Toshiro Mifune stars.
Released 9 years after atomic bombs were dropped on 2 Japanese cities, the 1954 classic Godzilla / Gojira features 1 of cinema’s greatest monsters.
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s brilliant Three Colors: Red features Jean-Louis Trintignant in a career-capping star turn and Irène Jacob in a career-making one.
In his 1966 ‘Swinging London’ masterwork Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni questions the perception of reality. David Hemmings + Vanessa Redgrave star.
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s weakest entry in his Three Colors trilogy, White is still better than most Hollywood comedies. Julie Delpy stars.
Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 action classic Seven Samurai is one of those rare films that get better and better with each new viewing. Toshiro Mifune stars.
Seijun Suzuki’s challenging but noteworthy musical Princess Raccoon mixes various cinematic genres and styles. Zhang Ziyi and Joe Odagiri star.
Set in Brazil’s impoverished and semi-arid northeastern hinterlands, the road movie Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures offers more than big-screen ‘exoticism.’
Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Frot are in top form as psychotic siblings in Alexandra Leclère’s humorous and unsettling Paris-set family movie Me and My Sister.
Lior Ashkenazi is perfect as a guilt-ridden Mossad hitman in Eytan Fox’s flawed but gripping (gay-ish) political-psychological drama Walk on Water.
Darrell Roodt’s Oscar-nominated Zululand-set AIDS drama Yesterday is a must-see partly thanks to a sensational central performance by Leleti Khumalo.
As a 1930s London stage diva, Annette Bening has a fantastic time in István Szabó’s All About Eve-ish period comedy Being Julia.
Daniel Day-Lewis is the sensationally cruel heart of Martin Scorsese’s generally engrossing sociopolitical + historical drama Gangs of New York.
Sean Penn embodies the antithesis of the ‘American Dream’ in Niels Mueller’s nightmarish social critique The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Stephen Daldry’s uneven drama The Hours is immensely helped by the performances of Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman + Philip Glass’ haunting score.
Imelda Staunton delivers a superb performance as a mid-1950s abortionist in Mike Leigh’s socially conscious family drama Vera Drake.
In a difficult role, Oscar nominee Joan Allen delivers a masterful performance in Rod Lurie’s engrossing but unconvincing 2000 political drama The Contender.
Oliver Stone opts to ignore the facts in his brazenly dishonest yet engrossing political thriller JFK, an account of the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination.
Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga’s overreaching psychological drama 21 Grams is immensely helped by 5 stellar performances.
Naomi Watts delivers an exceptional performance - or rather, two of them - in David Lynch’s unsettling Hollywood horror tale Mulholland Dr..
Rancher Billy Bob Thornton follows his unusual space dream in Michael and Mark Polish’s folksy The Astronaut Farmer. Virginia Madsen costars.
Luchino Visconti’s White Nights has the look – but not the feel – of a Hollywood production. Great cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Maria Schell and Jean Marais.
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s sublime 1993 psychological drama Three Colors: Blue provides Juliette Binoche with one of the best roles of her career.
Starring a fantastically off-kilter Kristoffer Joner, Pål Sletaune’s thriller Next Door ventures into territory that remained off-limits to Alfred Hitchcock.
Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace greatly assist Paul Weitz’s timid socially conscious comedy In Good Company. Also in the cast: Scarlett Johansson.
Personal and political realms are inexorably intertwined in the Chilean coming-of-age drama Machuca, set at the time of that country’s 1973 military coup.
The Oscar-nominated The Grandfather works both as a Fernando Fernán Gómez showcase and as an irresistible message movie.