The transformation Imelda Staunton undergoes in this period drama is astounding – all the more so because it doesn’t involve tricks such as makeup or weight loss. From British realist Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies), Vera Drake follows a prim and proper housecleaner in 1950s England who performs abortions for poor women on the side

A straightforward adaptation of Billie Letts’ popular novel that unfortunately retains all of the book’s emotional manipulation, forced quirkiness and out-of-place brutality. Natalie Portman stars as a pregnant 17-year-old who lives in an Oklahoma Wal-Mart; Ashley Judd is on hand as her long-suffering friend, whose abuse mostly comes at the hands of stereotypical men.

How do you turn historical theology into gripping cinema? According to Luther, haul out the fancy clothes. A biopic about the life of Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes) – the 16th-century monk who split apart the Catholic church by arguing Christians earned salvation by faith, not works – Luther is a staid, somber costume epic whose

A genial if syrupy crowd pleaser from China, Together follows a rural father (Liu Peiqi) and son (Tang Yun) who move to Beijing to further the boy’s violin education. Much of this is broad, from the father’s clownish behavior to a finale that overflows with tears. Yet director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) manages some

Director Ron Howard adds to his eclectic filmography with this mystical Western, in which a 19th-century single mother (Cate Blanchett) reluctantly teams up with a man from her past (Tommy Lee Jones) to retrieve her kidnapped daughter. Blanchett goes beyond the cliche of the hardy pioneer woman to create a fierce, survivalist heroine. Jones may

White Oleander features another Oprah’s Book Club heroine, the kind who earns nobility and respect through contrived suffering. In this adaptation of Janet Fitch’s novel, a 15-year-old girl (Alison Lohman) is shuttled among a series of foster homes where she survives shootings, beatings and suicides, among other traumas. What doesn’t kill you may make you

City by the Sea does with artful subtlety what the similarly themed Road to Perdition did with artsy pretension: Both movies explore the way legacies of violence are passed down from fathers to sons. Robert DeNiro plays a New York City detective who discovers the prime suspect in his latest murder investigation is his estranged,

A movie that’s less about drama than the possibility of drama, Distant is one of those imports built on silent passages and prevailing ambiguity. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan matches such art-film cliches with his theme: the emotional distance between people that can be so difficult to bridge. Set in Istanbul, the movie follows a

The question of why anyone would bother to make another film version of Oliver Twist is not answered by director Roman Polanski. This works just fine as one of those tony, well-mounted adaptations destined to be shown in high school English classes, yet whatever the reason for tackling the picture (some have pointed to the