Machan

Uberto Pasolini, a producer of The Full Monty, makes directorial debut with another story of men hatching an unusual plan

A Serious Man

This film from Coen brothers Joel and Ethan plays out like one of those smart, offbeat and funny HBO television series

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

In Stephenie Meyer’s saga Bella (Kristen Stewart) looses Edward (Robert Pattinson), but is comforted by a 'werewolf'

The Sea Wall

This drama is based on the memoir by Marguerite Duras. Huppert has a thankless role, but she plays it unapologetically

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Chris Weitz attacks the source material with verve; his evocation of teen heartbreak is brilliantly, wittily done

Glorious 39

Stephen Poliakoff’s weakness for tawdry melodrama and cliché does the already hokey screenplay no favours at all

The Informant!

Soderbergh’s latest plays out in airless conference rooms, and yet retains the giddy pace of a 1960s caper

Ulysses

This beguiling 1967 adaptation is an accessible primer for those without the nerve to tackle James Joyce’s Ulysses

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

This award-winning saga is an affectionate yet never saccharine portrait of one dysfunctional Parisian family

Examined Life

Nine philosophers discuss ethics, anxiety and revolution in a film that is a little too disparate, and relaxed

A Serious Man

This is probably one of the most personal films yet for the Coen brothers, and is certainly one of their best

Christmas in Wonderland

A cynical attempt to cash in on the death of Patrick Swayze with a tawdry seasonal pic set in a huge shopping mall

Machan

Funny and tragic, Machan follows a bunch of Sri Lankan men who form a false sports team to try to flee from their country

Examined Life

A compendium of "walkie-talkie" interviews with contemporary thinkers, who discuss the nature of modern existence

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Time passes easily enough in this soapy French family drama that sprawls through a decade in the lives of the Duval clan

The Informant!

Director Stephen Soderbergh and actor Matt Damon have crafted a skittish caper movie with a pyrotechnical flourish

Glorious 39

For all its sumptuous production design, Steven Poliakoff’s tale of glamorous toffs and treason is laboured and slow

Southern Softies

Comedian John Shuttleworth attempts to test his thesis that southerners are 'softer' than people from the North

The Sea Wall

Isabelle Huppert shines as the eccentric, scheming mother of two selfish children living in 1931 in French Indochina

We Live in Public

Before Big Brother, documentary film-maker Ondi Timoner (Dig!) traces the rise and fall of internet prophet Josh Harris