Drama

As the evil Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, Forest Whitaker gives an unforgettable performance in The Last King of Scotland. Powerfully illustrating the terrible truth that absolute power corrupts absolutely, this fictionalized chronicle of Amin's rise and fall is based on the acclaimed novel by Giles Foden, in which Amin's despotic reign of terror is viewed through the eyes of Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a Scottish doctor who arrives in Uganda in the early 1970s to serve as Amin's personal physician.

Chen Kaige's ambitious historical epic is more diorama than drama. The film re-creates the rise to power of Ying Zheng, the warlord who in 221 B.C. united China and became its first emperor. Chen wants to show us the violent, decisive acts that shape history, and the plot eventually sets Zheng (Li Xuejian) against his childhood lover, Lady Zhao (Gong Li, who retains her beauty even after her character's face is branded), and Jing Ke (Zhang Fengyi), the reluctant assassin she sends to kill him.

Political movies about backroom negotiations need not be dry or heavy-handed, as Charlie Wilson's War delightfully proves. Based on the true story of playboy congressman Wilson's efforts to fund Afghanistan's defense against the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, the film is borne along on breezy attitude and a peppery script by West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin.

Life is a complicated journey in which right and wrong are sometimes indistinct and where the things that really matter are often unclear. Bella is a powerful, leisurely-paced film in which Jose (Eduardo Verastegui) and Nina (Tammy Blanchard) struggle to do what's right while seeking meaning in their lives. A quiet, brooding man with a dark past, Jose works as a chef in his brother Manny's (Manny Perez) restaurant where he mostly keeps to himself until young waitress Nina is fired.

American Pastime views a dark slice of American history--the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II--affectingly through the prism of the all-American game of baseball. The film shines the light of hope through some of the bleakest moments in the lives of the relocated families, as baseball becomes a way to cope with the unmanageable. The stars, especially Masatoshi Nakamura, Judy Ongg, and Leonardo Nam, give hushed, affecting performances, allowing the story almost to unfold around them.

The second and last of Anthony Mann's historical epics is a smart, handsome spectacle of the decadence, corruption, and intrigue that tears apart the greatest empire the world has seen. The sprawling story spreads itself thin over a number of characters and stories.

Before Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, before Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull, there was Maurice "Rocket" Richard, the first player to score 50 goals in 50 games and the man generally regarded as the Babe Ruth of the National Hockey League (he was a member of the Montreal Canadiens, the hockey equivalent of the New York Yankees).

Directed by a prince and financed by a queen, The Legend of Suriyothai is a sprawling Thai epic in the tradition of Hollywood's biblical extravaganzas of the 1950s.

Catherine Deneuve stars in this Oscar-winning (Best Foreign Language Film, 1992) tale of passion and revolution in colonial Veitnam. Deneuve stars as Elaine Devries, the seemingly repressed owner of a prosperous rubber plantation in French Indochina. Her steely exterior, however, is only a mask intended to hide her torrid love affairs from upperclass society. But when her adopted Indochinese daughter innocently falls in love with Elaine's secret lover, the scandalous lover's triangle threatens to destroy their entire family.

Walt Disney Pictures scored a surprise box-office hit with Invincible, and the movie deserved its good reviews as a fine example of how above-average writing, direction, and casting can turn formulaic material into something special. And make no mistake, this is a formulaic movie, with its real-life story embellished with Rocky-like enthusiasm, and lovingly crafted with the same quality of working-class humanism that made The Rookie a similarly popular Disney hit.