An Education (2009)

An Education (2009)

[6] Carey Mulligan gives an outstanding performance in this adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir. Mulligan plays a sixteen-year-old in 1960s London, pushed by her father to study hard so she can get into Oxford. When she falls in love with…
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

[5] Forces conspire to keep Harry Potter from returning to his second year at the Hogwarts wizarding school. Apparently, the big bad Voldemoort (who we still don't see but hear about all the time) put a monster in a mysterious…
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

[5] You know the story. Poor orphaned boy gets invited to a magical wizarding school and is destined to be the main adversary for a big bad meanie who is slowly manifesting (over, like, three or four movies). What I…
The Invasion (2007)

The Invasion (2007)

[4] Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig star in this latest re-telling of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Kidman is a psychiatrist whose husband starts acting peculiarly. She also recognizes strange behavior in her patients and the people on the street.…
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

[7] Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck star in Andrew Dominik's dramatization of the last months of famous outlaw Jesse James' life. Pitt plays James and Affleck plays his admirer-turned-assassin, Robert Ford. The young Ford character is smitten from the outset,…
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

[4] About two minutes into Punch-Drunk Love, an absurdist romance from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia), you learn the movie doesn't really take place in the real world and none of the characters are real, either. It's all... some…
Frozen River (2008)

Frozen River (2008)

[7] Melissa Leo turns in a fierce, memorable performance in writer/director Courtney Hunt's story of two women who strike up an unlikely partnership smuggling illegal immigrants to make ends meet. After a Mohawk woman from a nearby reservation steals her…
The Reader (2008)

The Reader (2008)

[8] A young German man (an award-worthy David Kross) has an affair with an older woman (Kate Winslet), only to discover many years after the affair ends that she was a guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp. After she is…
On the Edge (2001)

On the Edge (2001)

[6] Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Sunshine) stars as a troubled teen sent to a group therapy clinic after intentionally driving his car off a cliff. If I'd never seen Girl, Interrupted, this movie might resonate more with me. But…
Dirty Pictures (2000)

Dirty Pictures (2000)

[6] James Woods stars as the museum director taken to court when photographs from Robert Mapplethorpe's 1990 exhibit were accused of being obscene in Cincinnati, Ohio. Diana Scarwid and Craig T. Nelson also star in this made-for-cable movie that incorporates…