Director Francis Lawrence (I AM LEGEND) and writer Richard LaGravenese (THE FISHER KING) do a rare cinematic achievement when having a book as the source material — they make the story better. They made all the right choices in what to cut, keep and change. The changes make the film more dramatic, but not in a maudlin way. Everything that happens is more immediate. The Depression-era setting only reminds us of the melodramas of that age, which this film fits in with surprisingly well.

Jacob (Robert Pattinson, TWILIGHT) was taking his last final in veterinary sciences at Cornell when he gets word that his parents have died in a car accident. They had mortgaged their house and business to pay for his education, so the bank takes everything. Now orphaned, he decides to jump a train. Luckily, he ends up on a circus train in the car of Camel (Jim Norton, STRAW DOGS), a friendly, drunk roustabout who helps him get work. When it’s found that he is an Ivy League vet, he is taken before the boss, August (Christoph Waltz, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), an intimidating man who isn’t unfamiliar with violence as a way of making people do what he wants.

It's hard to not think of the Oscar-nominated SEABISCUIT when thinking about this film. The comparison doesn't help this film about the 1970s Triple Crown winner. It has less ambition than the film about the Depression era underdog. But it does fit nicely into the canon of Disney's inspirational sports films.

Penny Chenery (Diane Lane, THE PERFECT STORM) was a housewife before inheriting the  horse farm of her father Chris (Scott Glenn, THE RIGHT STUFF). She was determined to honor her dad's legacy by racing their latest filly to the Triple Crown. Going against the wishes of her husband Jack Tweedy (Dylan Walsh, TV's NIP/TUCK) and brother Hollis (Dylan Baker, HAPPINESS), she risked everything on Secretariat, a horse that critics didn't think had the stamina to win the longer races.

This animated feature from Sylvain Chomet, the director of THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, is an unsettling experience. To understand why I say this there is some background that must be known. It is based on an unfilmed script from famed comedian Jacques Tati animated in the French icon’s style. When I think of Tati, I think of the charming Mr. Hulot, a hapless Buster Keaton-like everyman. I think of sly humor in a light comedy. The sly humor is there, but there is nothing light about it.

Known to us only as The Illusionist (Jean-Claude Donda, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE), the main character is a vaudeville magician trying to continue performing his art well into the 1960s. Rock ‘n roll has replaced his kind of entertainment in the minds of the people. He gets a gig at a bar in a way off village where he meets the young maid Alice (Eilidh Rankin), who is captivated with his magic. He sees that the poor girl’s shoes are much worn, so he kindly buys her a new pair. When he leaves, she follows him back to Edinburgh. So what is this man supposed to do with this girl?

Albert was not born with a stammer, but developed one around four or five. He was born a prince. The former creates a great problem for the latter when public speaking is key to the job he was born to do. Making matters worse, he was prince during the boom of wireless radio and disturbing times with an older brother that had little interest in being king. He would become King George VI.

Colin Firth plays Albert, or Bertie as his family knew him. Inside Bertie was very capable of being a great king, but the stutter made him sound like a fool. His father King George V (Michael Gambon, HARRY POTTER) lorded over him with an iron fist and had no time for his "problems." His brother Edward (Guy Pearce, MEMENTO) was a globetrotting party boy right up until the moment his father died. He was not capable of being a great king. He wanted what he wanted and gave up the crown to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson (Eve Best, TV's NURSE BETTY). Now Bertie wasn't just a stammering prince, but a stammering king, the only king to ever take the thrown with the previous king still alive and well. This kind of pressure didn't help his stutter.

Of all the sports to grace the screen, boxing has easily inspired the greatest films. Now director David O. Russell has added another to the ranks of RAGING BULL, ROCKY and MILLION DOLLAR BABY. But like all of those films, the reason this film is great is not because it’s a boxing movie. This is a story of family and how for some they can either help them raise their arms in victory or punch them below the belt.

Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg, THE DEPARTED) has been a promising boxer for years, but always staying at the promising level. Some have started to believe he’s simply a stepping stone for other boxers to fight in order to move up the ranks. He learned everything he knows about boxing from his older brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale, THE MACHINIST), who at one time knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard. Now he’s an unpredictable crack addict. Micky’s career has always been a family affair. His mother Alice (Melissa Leo, FROZEN RIVER) is his manager, but Micky begins to wonder if they have his best interests in mind after they put him up against a boxer 20 pounds heavier.

While in many ways FANTASIA/2000 tries to catch lightning in a bottle and doesn't catch a full bolt, but it does catch a great deal of sparks. The film works as an homage to the 1940 masterpiece rather than a companion. Many of the sequences seem to be a reflection of one from the original. While it doesn't feel as revolutionary as FANTASIA, the follow-up touches on the same animation magic.

Like the original, this film begins with an abstract piece; this time set to Ludwig van Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5 in C minor-I. Allegro con brio." Shapes similar to butterflies and bats represent the battle between light and dark or good versus evil. The lofty themes are presented in a complexly animated way.

Darren Aronofsky has made a darker version of THE RED SHOES. From a screenplay by Andres Heinz, Mark Heyman and John McLaughlin, he takes the basic premise of the famed ballet Swan Lake and brings it to this psychological thriller. In trying to become the White Swan, a ballerina becomes the Black Swan.

That ballerina is Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman, CLOSER), a naive and insecure dancer who dances with perfection, but lacks that passionate spark. Her company's impresario Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel, READ MY LIPS) is casting a new version of Swan Lake and is looking to replace the aging prima ballerina Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS). Nina desperately wants the role, but Thomas doesn't think she has what it takes to play the sensual side of the Black Swan. Could that be the new tattooed tough girl Lily (Mila Kunis, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL)?

This true-life survival story makes you wonder how you would handle the same situation. If you were trapped in a remote canyon could you cut off your own arm with a dull blade? Danny Boyle's film puts the viewer in that situation with all its physical and mental challenges. This is the rare thriller with an existential thread.

James Franco plays Aron Ralston, an experienced hiker, who took off by himself to hike Blue John Canyon in Utah. Even though he was a member of the search and rescue team, he told no one where he was going. While climbing down he canyon, a boulder broke loose and crushed his right forearm, pinning him between the rock and canyon wall. Chipping away at or trying to move the rock quickly proved futile. The title tells us how long he was stuck there with little food and water. His multi-tool was dull and could barely scratch his skin, so when he got desperate enough he broke the bones in his arm and used the pliers to snap the stronger tendons.

For this film, 80-year-old Clint Eastwood looks at death. Based on a script from Peter Morgan (FROST/NIXON), the film weaves together three different experiences with death — a near death experience, the loss of a loved one and a metaphysical look at the issue. Each is told on a haunting emotional level. No matter what your own personal beliefs are about the afterlife, this film actually reinforces the most important part of life.

Marie LeLay (Cecile De France, HIGH TENSION) is a famous French newscaster. On vacation with her boyfriend/producer Didier (Thierry Neuvic, TELL NO ONE), she goes out to a street market to buy gifts and is swept away as a sudden tsunami strikes. She is pulled from the water, but not before experiencing the classic near death experience of the bright white light and sense of weightlessness.

Due to its subject matter, this film should be called sci-fi. But its tone is far closer to a somber period piece. Mark Romanek, whose only other feature film was the sad thriller ONE HOUR PHOTO, has kept the same straightforward tone of the book from Kazuo Ishiguro, whose novel REMAINS OF THE DAY was adapted into a somber film as well. Romanek never sensationalizes the material into some kind of conspiracy thriller. He asks one philosophical question and spends the film answering that question in an emotionally powerful way.

Kathy (Carey Mulligan, AN EDUCATION), Tommy (Andrew Garfield, RED RIDING TRILOGY) and Ruth (Keira Knightley, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) have grown up together at the highly controlled boarding school Hailsham. The headmistress Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling, SWIMMING POOL) does not stand for anyone breaking the rules. The children were told stories that if they left the grounds even for a second they might be savagely murdered. They wear wristbands to make sure they are all accounted for. The new teacher Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY) begins to question the morality of how the children are being treated, but her views are seen as subversion.