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November 15, 2012 Todd Kellstein's documentary follows two 8-year-old Muay Thai boxers, providing insight into the lives of Thailand's 30,000 child fighters. Critic Mark Jenkins says the adults surrounding them — and the film itself — take an apathetic view of the issue.

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November 15, 2012 Alex Gibney's Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God literally gives voice to four of the voiceless victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. As Mark Jenkins explains, the film delves more deeply into the issue than other documentaries before it. (Recommended)

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November 8, 2012 With an eye on an international audience, this Shanghai-set adaptation of the 18th-century French novel focuses most of its energy on being visually appealing. Critic Mark Jenkins says the setting of the film isn't entirely justified — but it does serve as a glossily seductive distraction.

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November 8, 2012 Photographer James Balog set up dozens of cameras around the world, hoping to compile a visual record of glacier melt. Jeff Orlowski's documentary is a striking chronicle of the results. (Recommended)

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November 1, 2012 Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's first English-language film, This Must Be the Place, stars Sean Penn as a Goth rocker trying to settle his dead father's scores. Critic Mark Jenkins says the film is an eccentric showcase for the idea that even adults have a lot of growing up to do.

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October 25, 2012 The Loneliest Planet explores the line between romantic playfulness and the maturity fostered by shared crisis. As Mark Jenkins explains, the film's subtle approach to themes of trust and masculinity lend it ambiguity and quiet power.

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October 25, 2012 Josh Aronson's exhaustive documentary Orchestra of Exiles follows a violinist in the 1930s who moved more than 1,000 Jews to Palestine to start an orchestra. However, as Mark Jenkins explains, the film favors the stodgy over the colorful, dragging the audience through an ossified history lesson.

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October 18, 2012 In the latest outing for James Patterson's detective hero, Alex Cross reintroduces the titular character in the body of Tyler Perry. Critic Mark Jenkins says it's an odd hybrid of the goofy and the gruesome.

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October 18, 2012 Stephen Fung's steampunk kung fu action film Tai Chi Zero is every bit as playful as it is stylized. The plot, involving a fight against industrial expansion, is nothing new, but critic Mark Jenkins says it's a story purposefully told.

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October 11, 2012 Eric Lartigau's French psychological drama follows an aspiring photographer who assumes another man's identity. While the plot may lend itself to the tropes of a thriller, critic Mark Jenkins says it is more focused on the quiet, internal mechanisms of the protagonist's mind.

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October 4, 2012 Eugene Jarecki's The House I Live In paints a contemporary portrait of the "war on drugs." Critic Mark Jenkins says the film excels at portraying the personal through firsthand accounts and commentary but leaves some questions untouched.

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October 4, 2012 Ursula Meier's film about Swiss siblings trying to make ends meet explores themes seen in her earlier work. As critic Mark Jenkins explains, the performances in the film help deliver a portrait of the challenges facing those in poverty, struggling to survive while others live in excess.

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September 27, 2012 Hong Kong cinema's wild man, director Pang Ho-Cheung, brings his eye for the unconventional to his movie-biz satire. Critic Mark Jenkins explains that while some of the Cantonese slang may be lost on an American audience, bawdy jokes share a universal language.

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September 20, 2012 Robert Lorenz's directorial debut, Trouble with the Curve, pits new against old on the most American of battlegrounds: the baseball field. Critic Mark Jenkins says the film's unfussy sensibility does justice to its exploration of family, purpose and love of the game.

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September 20, 2012 Writer-director Stephen Chbosky adapts his 1999 novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, into a film about loss, friendship and sexuality. Critic Mark Jenkins says that the film conveys the realization that being an outcast doesn't mean being alone.

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