Based on the posthumously published memoir by Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls is artist-director Julian Schnabel's second exercise in artist biography, but where Schnabel's earlier film Basquiat was relatively conventional, this film is bolder in both style and execution. Schnabel is perhaps too enamoured of his subject as a noble martyr, lending the film a somewhat inflated sense of importance. Still, it's rare to see an artist's life and work so elegantly interwoven, and Before Night Falls uses all of Arenas's life as its canvas, from impoverished youth to lively gay freedom in mid-1950's Cuba; imprisonment during Castro's antigay regime; and to New York City in 1980, followed by Arenas's battle with AIDS and subsequent suicide (depicted here as assisted) in 1990. Through these extreme rises and falls, Arenas is always writing; his typewriter his most faithful lover and weapon (by way of smuggled manuscripts) against the dark forces that surround him. As Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, Arenas is "a serious actor's dream role: to be a gay Jesus in a modern Passion Play," and Javier Bardem-the first Spanish actor to receive an Oscar nomination-inhabits the role with subtle ferocity, charting this emotional odyssey with outer reserve but blazing infernos of internal passion. While Schnabel suffers from a hyperactive camera, there's poetry here-visual, dramatic, and literal-and vibrant humour to temper the deep tragedy of Arenas's life. Schnabel also uses his actor friends to good advantage: a nearly unrecognizable Sean Penn adds an ironic touch to his brief appearance as a peasant, and Johnny Depp is both funny and fearsome in dual roles as a drag queen and vicious army interrogator. -Jeff Shannon.

Buster Keaton's 1926 masterpiece The General shows the great stone-faced comedian at the height of his powers. Buster is a train driver from the South who's caught up in the American Civil War. The film is basically an extended chase, with trains pursuing each other up the track. The level of stuntwork (including a huge train wreck) has to be seen to be believed, but it's the deftness and elegance of Keaton's comedy that is ultimately most memorable. For many, Buster Keaton is the greatest comedian of the silent era rated even above Chaplin, and College (1927) is one of his finest films. A poor student who has to work his way through college, Buster is desperate to win the attention of a pretty girl so takes up sports. Through every disaster, the great "stone face" as he was nicknamed betrays not a flicker of emotion, enduring all humiliations with aplomb. College shows Keaton at the top of his form. Steamboat Bill Jr dates from 1928 and is the last great film Buster Keaton made before he gave up his independence. Buster is the rather fey son of an elderly steamboat owner who is being driven out of business by a wealthy competitor. [+]

Marry in haste, repent at leisure, goes the old adage. Certainly, The War Bride sees the chirpy Cockney Lily (Anna Friel) with plenty of time to regret her lot. After a whirlwind romance in wartime Britain she marries her handsome Canadian hunk, Charlie (Aden Young). Finding herself pregnant and alone, Charlie having been sent back to the front, she jumps at the chance of a new life abroad when she receives a one-way ticket to Canada. Unfortunately Charlie's tales of his family ranch in Alberta are more fanciful than factual and when she gets there her natural ebullience is tested to the limit by a crumbling shack and a frostbite-inducing welcome from his widowed mother (Brenda Fricker, superbly dour) and his crippled sister (Molly Parker). They view her townie ways, her penchant for picture houses and scarlet lipstick, with deep suspicion. The only light in these dark days is derived from visits from her longstanding best friend Sophie (who also married a Canadian, but one with rather more to offer) and a burgeoning friendship with Joe, her sister-in-law's boyfriend. The film was inspired by the experiences of screenwriter Angela Workman's mother, one of 48,000 war brides who immigrated to Canada during World War II, and it vividly demonstrates that for the unlucky ones the future was far from rosy. The result could have been mawkish but it's saved by fine performances from Friel-who is increasingly showing herself to be an actress of some versatility-and the always splendid Brenda Fricker. -Harriet Smith.

Although Stepmom was dismissed as a contender in the 1998 Oscar race, it's worth giving a second chance to this rather cogent, sharp-tongued look at second chances. Susan Sarandon's performance as a mum about to be replaced by her ex-husband's new girlfriend (played by Julia Roberts) has a lot of bite, and it's a shame the script opted to trivialise her plight in its final reel. Initially, the rancour that passes between divorced mum Jackie (Sarandon) and trendy fashion photographer Isabel (Roberts) rings true, aided by the sincerity of Jackie's ex-husband Luke (Ed Harris) and the emotional plight of their children, who have the most to lose in their parents' divorce. As the drama makes clear, the children are the real victims in the agony that ensues between old and new love. Director Chris Columbus, who is adept at showing familial chaos (he directed Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) with a sanitised minimum of lingering emotional damage, actually manages to dig a trifle deeper than usual in exploring the jealousy and hurt that occur when the baton is passed between a birth mum and the younger wife who steps into her shoes. Stepmom fortunately manages to touch on that chord-showing how an ambitious woman might feel hampered by the responsibility of children just because she's fallen in love with their dad-as well as the haunting grief that it causes their birth mum. It's an issue that haunts millions of second wives everywhere, and while Roberts conveys the confusion of being taken for granted in the melee that follows, it's Sarandon who walks off with the film. She's relentless in her fury, and everyone else in the film-the generally excellent Harris included-is sideswiped. It's just a shame that Hollywood once again wimps out in the end, solving the problem by giving Sarandon a terminal illness. [+]

Despite making many other distinguished films in his long, wandering career, Francis Ford Coppola will always be known as the man who directed The Godfather trilogy, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga. The films are an Italian-American Shakespearian cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business. The first film remains a towering achievement, brilliantly cast and conceived. The entry of Michael Corleone into the family business, the transition of power from his father, the ruthless dispatch of his enemies-all this is told with an assurance that is breathtaking to behold. And it turned out to be merely prologue; two years later The Godfather, Part II balanced Michael's ever-greater acquisition of power and influence during the fall of Cuba with the story of his father's own youthful rise from immigrant slums. The stakes were higher, the story's construction more elaborate and the isolated despair at the end wholly earned. (Has there ever been a cinematic performance greater than Al Pacino's Michael, so smart and ambitious, marching through the years into what he knows is his own doom with eyes open and hungry?) The Godfather, Part III was mostly written off as an attempted cash-in but it is a wholly worthy conclusion, less slow than autumnally patient and almost merciless in the way it brings Michael's past sins crashing down around him even as he tries to redeem himself. -Bruce Reid, Amazon. [+]

Molly Ringwald established herself as the teen queen of the '80s in this fresh comedy. The movie is a day in the life of Samantha, whose 16th birthday is turning out to be anything but sweet. All the traumas of teendom come down on one long day, which sees Samantha surrounded by dithery relatives, mooning over a high school hunk, and pursued by a sawed-off Lothario. Sixteen Candles marked the directing debut of John Hughes, and its goofy energy displayed a promising talent with a great ear for high school lingo. a promise neglected since Hughes became, after Home Alone, a one-man entertainment industry. There are some pretty crass moments (Why the stereotype of the foreign-exchange student from Asia?), but Ringwald's steady appeal smoothes over the rough spots. As the pubescent, self-styled lady-killer, Anthony Michael Hall turns in a hilarious portrait of a young swinger; he and Ringwald would reteam with Hughes for The Breakfast Club, another key teen picture of the decade. -Robert Horton.

Solaris is a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's Russian film (often called the "Soviet 2001"), itself an adaptation of the Polish Stanislaw Lem's novel, and is anything but a typical American science fiction film. Psychologist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney, playing it very cool and introverted) is sent to a space station orbiting the perhaps-living planet Solaris to investigate a loss of communication with Earth, and finds only two survivors: a free-associating neurotic (Jeremy Davies) and a control freak (Viola Davis), along with several corpses and evidence of recent violence. Kelvin is shocked to wake up next to his wife Rhea (Natascha McElhone), who committed suicide back on Earth years ago, and treats her like a body-snatched alien, disposing of the creature by jettisoning her into space. But she comes back again, and Kelvin realises she isn't a soulless monster out to get him but a genuinely self-aware construct built from his own memories. Though warned against getting involved, Kelvin tries to maintain a relationship with the non-human woman, hoping to avoid this time the mistakes he made that led to Rhea's death. Steven Soderbergh, the most versatile and unpredictable director in Hollywood, stages a few big space moments, fascinated by the red and stringy ball of Solaris itself, but mostly sticks to interiors that have a Bergman-esque austerity, with Clooney and McElhone inhabiting their own room and going through deep emotional traumas while avoiding actual outbursts. It may be too interior a film for mainstream audiences, though at a clipped hour-and-a-half it isn't as hard going for non-devotees as the three-hour Tarkovsky version, but there is a lot of real meat here none the less. -Kim Newman.

A film adaptation of Dito Montiel's memoir of the same name, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is a compelling, thoughtful movie based on Montiel's childhood growing up in 1980s Queens. A writer and director who understands his limitations, Montiel wisely left the acting to the pros. Shia LaBeouf (Holes) plays him during his adolescence, while Robert Downey Jr. (Good Night, and Good Luck, Wonder Boys) portrays the grown-up Dito. Never mind that there is absolutely no physical resemblance between the two actors; LaBeouf and Downey are so convincing in their roles it doesn't matter. Switching effortlessly from present day (where Dito is a successful author) to the past (where he is a tough little kid trying to figure out if there is life beyond New York), A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints tackles Dito's complicated relationship with his parents (Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest), as well as the friends he left behind. Eric Roberts is magnificent in a small role as one of Dito's tough, childhood buddies. His powerful performance makes viewers remember there was a time when Roberts was better known for his acting skills than for being Julia's big brother. Montiel-a first-time filmmaker-won the Director's Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival for his autobiographical movie. Raw, gritty, and honest, Saints makes a strong impact and leaves the viewer curious as to how the rest of Montiel's life will work out. [+]

Twin brother codirectors Albert and Alan Hughes planned their first film, the 1991 ghetto crime drama Menace II Society as a response to John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, which they considered wimpy and moralistic. They set their sights on The Deer Hunter in this ambitious follow-up, and they just about pull it off. Larenz Tate (from Why Do Fools Fall in Love) plays Anthony Curtis, an open-hearted African American teenager who gets shipped out to Vietnam with several of his pals, witnesses unspeakable horrors and then struggles to readjust to civilian life. The evolving textures of life in a declining inner-city neighbourhood over a period of a decade are seamlessly evoked and there's enough nuanced character development and personal interaction for a seven-hour miniseries. Still in their early 20s, the Hughes brothers are already poised and masterful movie makers; they cover an enormous amount of historical and emotional ground and every twist and turn is crystal clear. They betray their inexperience only at the very end, in an elaborately staged heist sequence that, while stunningly executed, feels a bit desperate, as if they were reaching blindly for a big pay off. Chris Tucker (Rush Hour) has a startling supporting role as a kid who becomes a junkie during the war and never quite recovers. -David Chute.

A potboiler featuring a demented caretaker and a seemingly hapless suburban family, this is The Nanny of the 1990s. However, it is much more predictable than that 1965 Bette Davis psychodrama, and more graphic. It works only because Rebecca De Mornay makes us intensely uncomfortable as the disturbed au pair who wants to take care of much more than her employer's well-being. Annabella Sciorra plays the perfect mother of a flawless family. Her obstetrician, however, is less than wonderful, having enjoyed her examination much more than he should have. When she files sexual harassment charges against the repugnant doctor, he loses face-literally-after shooting himself in the head. Several months later, an ideal nanny shows up at her home. You guessed it-she's the doc's widow. The movie follows a tried and trusted formula, with the audience in on everything. However, the story does surprise us in intense and intimate ways. [+]

3:10 to Yuma is a tight, taut Western in the High Noon tradition. Struggling rancher and family man Van Heflin sneaks captured outlaw Glenn Ford out from under the eyes of his gang and nervously awaits the prison train. Adapted from an Elmore Leonard story, this tense thriller is boiled down to its essential elements: a charming and cunning criminal, an initially reluctant hero whose courage and resolution hardens along the way and a waiting game that pits them in a battle of wills and wits. Glenn Ford practically steals the film in one of his best performances ever: calm, cool and confident, he's a ruthless killer with polite manners and an honourable streak. Director Delmer Daves (Broken Arrow) sets it all in a harsh, parched frontier of empty landscapes, deserted towns and dust, creating a brittle quiet that threatens to snap into violence at any moment. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

Sherlock Holmes gets the Gothic treatment in Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles, a typical mix of mystery and supernatural horror from the famous studio. Peter Cushing is perfectly cast as the great detective, the very embodiment of science and reason (which also made him a great Van Helsing in the Dracula series) in a case wound around a legacy of aristocratic cruelty and a devilish dog wandering the swampy moors. Christopher Lee is a less satisfying fit as the last of the Baskervilles, as he waffles between fear and apathetic disregard, but Andre Morell is a fine Dr Watson and a far cry from Nigel Bruce's sweet bumbler from the Hollywood incarnation of the 1940s. Director Terence Fisher was Hammer's top stylist and the film drips with the mood of the moors, mist hanging in the air, the dying vegetation itself threatening to come to life and trap the next unwary traveller. -Sean Axmaker.