Film

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, a new film about a young woman's illegal abortion in Ceausescu's Romania, won the top prize at Cannes and has just opened in the U.S. It's a fierce and unsentimental film; Terry Gross talks to Mungiu about growing up in a totalitarian state, and why he wanted to make the movie.

In Paul Thomas Anderson's new film There Will Be Blood, the young actor Paul Dano plays a rural preacher at odds with the oilman (Daniel Day-Lewis) at the center of the story. Dano previously appeared in Little Miss Sunshine, playing the teen who was an elective mute.

Twenty-five years after its debut, the dystopian-future classic Blade Runner has been released on DVD in a re-edited version called Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Director Ridley Scott talks about that release, as well as about his most recent film, American Gangster.

Based on an Upton Sinclair novel, Paul Thomas Anderson's new film There Will Be Blood stars Daniel Day-Lewis as an oil prospector in the earliest days of the industry. Anderson's other films are the Oscar-nominated Boogie Nights and Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love, starring Adam Sandler.

Fresh Air's arbiter of things filmic offers his annual year-end movies wrap-up.

This time, his Top 10 list has 11 entries, as the number-nine slot features a tie. Edelstein tells Terry Gross why he needed an extra spot — and why some films that drew praise from other quarters didn't make his cut. Here's the list, with links to previously published reviews and features by Edelstein as well as by All Things Considered's Bob Mondello, Morning Edition contributor Kenneth Turan, and other NPR voices:

Richard Zanuck grew up on movies — literally. The son of legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck, who founded and ran Twentieth Century Fox studios in Hollywood's golden era, he became an Oscar-winning producer himself. His latest project: Sweeney Todd, the big-screen version of the legendary Stephen Sondheim musical. Zanuck's credits include Driving Miss Daisy, Jaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict Rules of Engagement, and many more. Besides which, "I can mention a lot of pictures I'm unhappy about," he tells Terry Gross.

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody are the director-screenwriter team behind the new film Juno, about a tough, sardonic 16-year-old girl; when she gets pregnant, she gives the baby up for adoption to a couple she finds through the PennySaver. New York Times critic A.O. Scott describes Juno as a "feminist, girl-powered rejoinder and complement to [the film] Knocked Up." Reitman also directed the satire Thank You For Smoking. Cody is the author of the memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.

A couple of years ago, director Jake Kasdan woke up in the middle of the night, knowing suddenly that his next film would be a fake music biopic called Walk Hard. He went on to cast John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, the putative legend at the heart of the story, who has trouble with women and drugs and who tries on a multitude of musical personalities. Walk Hard, due out Dec. 21, also features Jenna Fischer from NBC's The Office; it was co-written and produced by Judd Apatow. Apatow and Kasdan worked together previously on the critically acclaimed TV show Freaks and Geeks.

In Tamara Jenkins' new film The Savages, two 40-something siblings have to put their lives on hold while they learn how to deal with their elderly father, who's slipping slowly into dementia.

The film — it's a comedy — stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney, plus Broadway veteran Philip Bosco as their ailling dad. (Watch a clip.)

Jenkins' previous film work includes The Slums of Beverly Hills.

Say "Christopher Plummer," and some people automatically think of The Sound of Music, in which he played the Baron von Trapp.

But that's just one of about 100 films Plummer has been in; recent highlights from his big-screen career include Syriana, The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, and Inside Man. He's also had long stage career, won two Tony Awards, and performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company.