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Cold Mountain is a Civil War Odyssey that drenches the South in blood and beauty. Lord of the Rings restores our faith in trilogies.

Even in a comic cop-out like Something’s Gotta Give, Diane Keaton proves she’s not too old to be a star (or to bed Jack Nicholson).

Director Edward Zwick gives The Last Samurai a coat of deep-thought spirituality—and turns Tom Cruise into a haunted swordsman.

The Triplets of Belleville is a jazzy celebration of animated action. Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett enliven a generic Wild West in The Missing.

In the winning Master and Commander, Peter Weir and Russell Crowe keep the action contemplative. The Matrix Revolutions goes boom.

Love Actually drenches British wit in Hollywood treacle. Elf is a Hallmark card, too—but at least it has the dependably funny Will Ferrell.

In The Human Stain—adapted from Philip Roth’s book—Anthony Hopkins plays a professor who has hidden his race from his family and peers.

In Elephant, Gus Van Sant aims for an objective look at teen shootings in America, but his art-house approach is way too cool for school.

Pieces of April, about a dysfunctional family that reconciles over Thanksgiving dinner, breathes life into a tired premise.

Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River is suffused with lives ruined by violence; in Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino looks violence in the eye—and cackles.