Goya’s Ghosts

Philip French: A most engaging, thoughtful, beautifully mounted film.

Dans Paris

Peter Bradshaw: Fantastically annoying new wave homage.

Black Book

Rental and retail: With more nudity that is strictly necessary, Paul Verhoeven's return to his native Holland results in a rolicking movie, full or passion and suspense.

DVD releases

Black Book | Le Jour Se Lève & Le Quai Des Brumes | London To Brighton | Harsh Times | Little Children | It's Winter | Le Sang D'Un Poète & Testament D'Orphée

Curse of the Golden Flower

Philip French: Zhang's wonderful way with colour was a significant part of the drama in such exquisite pictures as Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern. Here, it is at the service of hollow spectacle.

The Lives of Others

Philip French: ... a suspenseful thriller with a complex and powerful moral drive

The Page Turner

Retail and rental: A taut and chilly revenge tale which will appeal to Chabrol fans in particular - it's the kind of cultured suspense thriller he has turned out so often down the decades.

The Lives of Others

Peter Bradshaw: This fierce and gloomy drama ... was a notable winner of this year's best foreign film Oscar.

Lights in the Dusk

Philip French: It's handsomely shot and composed like the work of a Scandinavian Edward Hopper and leaves one feeling as numb and glum as its characters.

Requiem

Retail: A sombre and serious film that goes out of its way to underplay its sensational story.

Days of Glory

Philip French: Rachid Bouchareb's superb movie tells the shameful story of the African colonial soldiers who fought in the Second World War and were then cruelly betrayed.

The Namesake

Philip French: Though full of incident and sharp observation and extremely well-acted, this elliptical movie constantly jumps several years in a single cut and the characters are on the thin side.

The Namesake

Steve Rose: It's difficult to ever completely escape the feeling that you're watching a film of a novel.

After the Wedding

Peter Bradshaw: Another elegant and well-turned piece of work, perhaps Bier's most persuasive movie yet.