The exhileration and the agony: this week's top picks include Fernando Meirelles' stylized, captivating slum epic "City of God" and Clint Eastwood's tearjerking melodrama "Mystic River."
1. City of God
An exhilerating film from Brazil. Director Fernando Meirelles, nominated for an Academy Award, marries Tarantino-style spectacle with a social consciousness. Alexandre Rodrigues stars as Rocket, the little brother of a local hood who finds his future through the viewfinder of a camera and narrates the violent rise of a psychopathic drug lord.
2. Mystic River
Tragic childhood events catch up with a group of former friends when violence erupts in a working-class Boston neighborhood in Clint Eastwood's adaptation of Denis Lehane's novel. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins won Academy Awards for their performances. Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, and Laurence Fishburne also star. The two-disc edition is loaded with special features including commentary, a bonus CD soundtrack, and an original documentary about the making of the movie.
3. In July
A multi-cultural German road movie slash romantic comedy sounds like it could lead to a serious accident, but Fatih Akin's film, starring Lola's boyfriend Moritz Bleibtreu, is fresh Euro fun.4. The Leopard
Luchino Visconti’s "The Leopard" is an epic on the grandest possible scale. The film recreates the tumultuous years of Italy's Risorgimento—when the aristocracy lost its grip and the middle classes rose and formed a unified, democratic Italy. Burt Lancaster stars as the aging prince watching his culture and fortune wane in the face of a new generation.
5. Swann in Love
Jeremy Irons is a man hopelessly in love with a beautiful courtesan (Ornella Muti) in Volker Schlondorff's adaptation of the first book in Marcel Proust's epic Remembrances of Things Past. Shot by the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist, this elegant production co-stars Alain Delon, Fanny Ardant, and Marie-Christine Barrault.