Film

The flashy Denzel Washington thriller Safe House will probably gross in a few hours what Steven Soderbergh's Haywire has made in several weeks. But if you like action films, you should watch these two together, says critic David Edelstein.

Producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan take us inside the world of Smash, the new NBC musical drama about the people putting together a Broadway musical.

Both Close and co-star Janet McTeer have received Academy Award nominations for their roles in the period drama. Set in Dublin before World War I, it centers on a woman who finds more freedom by living life as a men.

Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut adapts Shakespeare's Coriolanus, about a Roman general with his eye on political office. Critic David Edelstein says that in Fiennes' hands, the modern-day update makes for thrilling moviegoing.

Gerardo Naranjo's gripping film about the Mexican drug war is Mexico's submission this year for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Critic John Powers says it deftly illuminates a society plagued with fear.

In the past year, actor Michael Fassbender has played a mutant villain in X-Men: First Class, psychoanalyst Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and a sex addict in Shame. He discusses several of those roles, as well as his part in Inglorious Basterds.

The Iranian film A Separation won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film on Sunday. Critic John Powers says the remarkable film takes viewers inside a country that is far more complicated and fascinating than news headlines indicate.

Meryl Streep stars as Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's biopic about the former prime minister of the United Kingdom. Film critic David Edelstein applauds her performance, calling it "one of the greatest impersonations I'd ever seen."

The actor is so good at what he does, you might not recognize him from role to role. He's played everyone from Sid Vicious and Dracula, to Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, and now George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

The orphaned German shepherd was found in the wreckage of a kennel during World War I. Writer Susan Orlean details how he became one of the biggest film stars of the silent era in Rin Tin Tin: The Life and Legend.

Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has been adapted into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Critic David Edelstein says the end result doesn't fully mesh with the story it is trying to tell.

From a white-knuckle Wall Street chronicle to a modernized Shakespearean war story, the films on David Edelstein's best-of-the-year list tell solid stories new and old.

Director Brad Bird makes his live-action debut with Ghost Protocol, the latest film in the Mission: Impossible franchise starring Tom Cruise. Critic David Edelstein says the movie is "wonderful fun" and "in a different league than its predecessors."

For more than 20 years, puppeteer Kevin Clash has been the voice behind the lovable red monster on Sesame Street. Both Clash "and" Elmo talk with Terry Gross about performing with Jim Henson, and creating a fun, educational experience for preschool-aged children.

Set in the Cold War era, the espionage thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy spotlights a retired security agent's mission to uncover a Russian spy within Britain's MI6. David Edelstein says the movie is thrilling, creepy and full of "faces you'll love to study."

A new DVD set catches a rare solo Monk gig, plus sets by John Coltrane, Johnny Griffin and others.

The recent film portrays former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as a man who had to keep his sexual orientation a secret — while collecting other people's secrets to use against them. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black explains how he researched the film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio.

Critic David Edelstein looks at two current films starring the actor Michael Fassbender — the anti-erotic drama Shame and the biographical drama A Dangerous Method, both of which grapple with the dangers of desire.