British director Ken Loach illuminates the real-world complications in a romantic story set in Glasgow, about star-crossed lovers, a young Irish music teacher in a Catholic school and the only son of a tightly knit Pakistani family.

This thoughtful film from writer Hanif Kareishi tells a complex story of a Pakistani taxi-driver in a northern British city, whose settled life comes apart as his only son rebels against his father's secular life and takes up with a cell of young Muslim fundamentalists.

This film by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar is set in Madrid and portrays another of his women on the verge of a nervous breakdown - several, in fact - and follows them through a series of life crises to a happily bittersweet ending.

Set in 1973 in the months leading up to the military takeover of Allende's democratically elected socialist government in Chile, this film looks back 35 years to offer a picture of social and political conflict.

Danish film director Bille August describes this film as a love story, although viewers are more likely to see it as a portrayal of the terrible toll of Alzheimer's disease on a spouse who is a survivor and caregiver.

In this film that begins with the murder of a young girl, French director Claude Chabrol explores the lies and half-truths that hold people together, even while they hide from each other what's really on their minds.

In this gentle French drama set in 1949, a music teacher takes a job at a boarding school and turns an unruly bunch of delinquents and orphans into a sweetly singing boys chorus.

This Russian road movie finds a down-on-their-luck father and his 11-year-old son traveling hundreds of miles on foot from Moscow to a village on the Black Sea.

This heart-felt, brave Italian film is built on a simple premise - after 15 years, a runaway father reenters the life of his disabled son and begins an attempt to make amends for his abandonment.

This German film revisits war-time Berlin and tells the fact-based story of non-Jewish women married to Jewish men, who are separated from their wives and detained in a building on the Rosenstrasse of the film's title.

For something way out of the ordinary (with a glimpse of pre-hurricane Gulf coast) and a quirky portrayal of pursuing an elusive dream that takes a retirement-age accordianist far off the beaten track, this German film is a pleaser.

Set in Scotland, this is a story of a single mother, on the run from an abusive husband, who keeps alive her nine-year-old son's wish for a loving father by writing him letters from what he's led to believe is a sailor aboard a cargo ship sailing the high seas.

This comic British mockumentary portrays the conflicts and potential mayhem inherent in the run-up to any wedding and multiplies it by about ten, as a wedding magazine launches a self-promoting competition among three couples for the most unusual marriage ceremony.

A modern movie musical set in Ireland, as a street musician befriends a Czech immigrant. Shot on a shoe string with a hand-held digital camera, the film has the look and feel of documentary, while telling a simple story about music's ability to heal and inspire.

A woman working at a video-surveillance firm in a rough part of Glasgow gets more than a little interested in a man she sees on her monitor and begins to stalk him. Stark and compelling.

Grimly realistic film about an Israeli teenager attempting to help her mother give up a life of prostitution.

Set in post-WWII Macedonia (former Yugoslavia), this film tells the story of two boys in an "orphanage" for the children of those who have opposed Stalin. Here they are subjected to political indoctrination and other cruelties, yet with a spirit of rebelliousness, they survive. Not all grim; there are some laughs, too.

This deeply felt and beautifully photographed film tells the story of three pre-adolescent friends coming of age in a remote Turkish mountain village.

This film about a family of Orthodox Jews living in Paris is concerned with freedom - especially freedom for women in a highly regulated and constricted culture - and what it means to live by the rule of law.

Set in Paris in 1970-71, this is a film about 9-year-old Anna, growing up in the home of leftist political activists. Directed by Julie Gavras, daughter herself of political filmmaker Costa-Gavras, the film represents the sometimes comic attempts of a child to make sense of the turmoil that has upset her previously untroubled middle-class life.