Steven Spielberg’s thrilling Minority Report – about a “precrime” law-enforcement officer (Tom Cruise) framed for a future murder – is worth seeing for its vision of the future alone, in which the Gap is manned by hologram salespeople who can instantaneously access your purchase history by scanning your eyeballs. At a time when we debated

Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City turns Frank Miller’s extremely graphic graphic novels into a grisly, galvanizing update of film noir fatalism. What happens in Sin City – encompassed in three intertwining stories populated by shady cops, cruel murderers and vengeful hookers – feels like what might have been going on in those 1940s and ’50s crime

The first true comic-book movie, even though it is based on an original story, this wildly inventive adventure from novice writer-director Kerry Conran captures the way that adolescent art form looks and, especially, feels. The actors – including Jude Law as a pilot battling giant robots circa 1939 and Gwyneth Paltrow as a plucky reporter

If you see this latest take on the Jesse James legend, starring Colin Farrell, Scott Caan and Ali Larter, let me know what it’s like. American Outlaws was so generic and inconsequential the first time I sat through it, I can barely recall what happened.

That Hollywood staple – the undercover cop picture – gets an Asian spin with Infernal Affairs, an import that elevates such genre concerns to the near-mythic. The sinuous story pits a cop posing as a gangster (Tony Leung, Hero) against a mole in the police department (Andy Lau, House of Flying Daggers). Their taciturn showdowns

Stars Ice Cube and Mike Epps – playing a bounty hunter and a con man, respectively, who partner to thwart a diamond heist – riff on familiar genre notes here with the skills of a polished comic team. Their spirited chemistry turns what could have been another contemporary blaxploitation picture into a guilty pleasure you

There is a good reason we see a lot of Tobey Maguire’s face in Spider-Man 2 – why even during the action scenes his mask has been shredded. Peter Parker’s high-flying alter ego may get top billing, but it’s the conflicted kid beneath the tights who is the focus of this character-driven sequel from returning

This is straightforward but gripping adventure material about a U.S. Navy crew posing as German sailors in order to take over a Nazi submarine. The action scenes invigorate submarine thriller cliches, and Matthew McConaughey lends some depth as an executive officer struggling with the responsibilities of military leadership.

How much room does a blockbuster have? X2 tests the limit – there are so many mutant humans running around in spandex and capes this Marvel sequel resembles a costume ball – and for the most part it passes. Careful character development in a few cases – notably Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine – makes up for