In resourceful orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield, an Oliver Twist-like charmer), Martin Scorsese finds the perfect vessel for his silver-screen passion: this is a movie about movies (fittingly, the 3-D effects are spectacular). After his clockmaker father (Jude Law) perishes in a museum fire, Hugo goes to live with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), a drunkard who maintains the clocks at a Paris train station. When Claude disappears, Hugo carries on his work and fends for himself by stealing food from area merchants. In his free time, he attempts to repair an automaton his father rescued from the museum, while trying to evade the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), a World War I veteran with no sympathy for lawbreakers. When Georges (Ben Kingsley), a toymaker, catches Hugo stealing parts for his mechanical man, he recruits him as an assistant to repay his debt. If Georges is guarded, his open-hearted ward, Isabelle (Chloë Moretz), introduces Hugo to a kindly bookseller (Christopher Lee), who directs them to a motion-picture museum, where they meet film scholar René (Boardwalk Empire's Michael Stuhlbarg). In helping unlock the secret of the automaton, they learn about the roots of cinema, starting with the Lumière brothers, and give a forgotten movie pioneer his due, thus illustrating the importance of film preservation, a cause to which the director has dedicated his life. If Scorsese's adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn't his most autobiographical work, it just may be his most personal. —Kathleen C. Fennessy

An affectionate, extremely knowing spoof that also manages to be a full-blooded, rip-snorting scary movie, this Joss Whedon production should have horror fans levitating off of their seats with bliss. Kicking off with the best title card of the year, the film follows a standard assortment of college kids (jock, stoner, cheerleader, bookish Final Girl, etc.) as they head to the creepy, cobwebby location of the title. Meanwhile, a pair of blas� white-collar drones (the wonderful Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) trudge through what appears to be just another day in the office. These plotlines are not altogether unrelated. Those averse to spoilers can be forgiven for applying earmuffs from here on out, but one of the beauties of Whedon and Drew Goddard's script is how it manages to continually up the ante, revealing the basics of its plot in the very first scene and then proceeding to run amuck within the boundaries it so gleefully establishes. (If you think you've got it figured out, just wait five minutes.) Although scoring major points for ambition, debuting director Goddard does occasionally struggle with the film's swings between laughs and screams, with a couple of promisingly scary scenes blunted by badly cued punch lines. In addition, as with many Whedon projects, some viewers may find this teetering on the edge of glibness, with every character sporting a full arsenal of almost too-clever wisecracks at the ready. Any such nitpicking, however, should be obliterated by Cabin's completely hellzapoppin' final act, which mashes-up seemingly every supernatural trope in existence into a coherent, outrageously plasma-soaked validation of the genre. In conclusion, if you have any interest in horror movies at all, you gotta see this. —Andrew Wright

The clarity of the Blu-ray format heightens the power and beauty of Hayao Miyazaki's striking ecological fable. A notable extra is "Behind the Studio," a short documentary that features composer Joe Hisaishi, studio executive Toshio Suzuki, and director Miyazaki (as well as this writer) discussing the making and significance of Nausicaä. "Enter the Lands" offers trailers of some of the Ghibli films and short descriptions of the main characters, but the map is rather tricky to navigate. Miyazaki's storyboards, timed to the soundtrack, were included in the previous release. Fans of Miyazaki's extraordinary films will want this Blu-ray for their libraries. (Rated PG: some scary imagery) —Charles Solomon

Is fate really predetermined, or can people change their destiny? Scottish princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) certainly believes that a teenager should have control over her own life. She has little patience with the conservative ideas her mother (Emma Thompson) holds about proper etiquette for girls, and even less tolerance for her kingdom's traditions regarding the marriage of a princess. An impulsive young woman with impressive archery skills and a no-nonsense attitude, Merida throws her realm into chaos when she disregards the customary procedure for finding a suitor and then disappears into the forest in defiance of her mother's unbending ways. In the forest, will-o'-the-wisps appear and, since Scottish legend suggests that these unearthly spirits might lead one to his or her destiny, Merida follows them to the house of a strange witch (Julie Walters) who grants her wish to change her mother. The witch's spell takes a most unexpected form, one that promises to test not only the bond between mother and daughter, but the bonds and bravery of the entire family and kingdom. What eventually becomes clear is that fate lies within, if only one is brave enough to see it. This collaborative Pixar-Disney film features stunning animation, an engaging story, plenty of laughs, effective music, and a one-of-a-kind princess. At times, the film feels almost Ghibli-esque, especially with its floating wisps, frightening creatures, and the stark conflict between the mystical and traditional. Brave is frightening (probably too frightening for those under 10 years), fascinating, and quite compelling. —Tami Horiuchi

Spaced revolves around two idle twentysomething flatmates - immature skateboarding would-be comic artist Tim (Simon Pegg), and moody, responsibility-shy Daisy (Jessica Stevenson), and their self-induced lack of success in employment, relationships and life in general. Together with their oddball assortment of friends and neighbors, Marsha, Brian, Mike and Twist, they exist in a world perched precariously on the edge of normality.

The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the film all Harry Potter fans have waited 10 years to see, and the good news is that it's worth the hype—visually stunning, action packed, faithful to the book, and mature not just in its themes and emotion but in the acting by its cast, some of whom had spent half their lives making Harry Potter movies. Part 2 cuts right to the chase: Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has stolen the Elder Wand, one of the three objects required to give someone power over death (a.k.a. the Deathly Hallows), with the intent to hunt and kill Harry. Meanwhile, Harry's quest to destroy the rest of the Horcruxes (each containing a bit of Voldemort's soul) leads him first to a thrilling (and hilarious—love that Polyjuice Potion!) trip to Gringotts Bank, then back to Hogwarts, where a spectacular battle pitting the young students and professors (a showcase of the British thesps who have stolen every scene of the series: Maggie Smith's McGonagall, Jim Broadbent's Slughorn, David Thewlis's Lupin) against a dark army of Dementors, ogres, and Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter, with far less crazy eyes to make this round). As predicted all throughout the saga, Harry also has his final showdown with Voldemort—neither can live while the other survives—though the physics of that predicament might need a set of crib notes to explain. But while each installment has become progressively grimmer, this finale is the most balanced between light and dark (the dark is quite dark—several familiar characters die, with one significant death particularly grisly); the humor is sprinkled in at the most welcome times, thanks to the deft adaptation by Steve Kloves (who scribed all but one of the films from J.K. Rowling's books) and direction by four-time Potter director David Yates. The climactic kiss between Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), capping off a decade of romantic tension, is perfectly tuned to their idiosyncratic relationship, and Daniel Radcliffe has, over the last decade, certainly proven he was the right kid for the job all along. As Prof. Snape, the most perfect of casting choices in the best-cast franchise of all time, Alan Rickman breaks your heart. Only the epilogue (and the lack of chemistry between Harry and love Ginny Weasley, barely present here) stand a little shaky, but no matter: the most lucrative franchise in movie history to date has just reached its conclusion, and it's done so without losing its soul. —Ellen A. Kim

The title credit for Delicatessen reads "Presented by Terry Gilliam," and it's easy to understand why the director of Brazil was so supportive of this outrageously black French comedy from 1991. Like Gilliam, French codirectors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro have wildly inventive imaginations that gravitate to the darker absurdities of human behavior, and their visual extravagance is matched by impressive technical skill. Here, making their feature debut, Jeunet and Caro present a postapocalyptic scenario set entirely in a dank and gloomy building where the landlord operates a delicatessen on the ground floor. But this is an altogether meatless world, so the butcher-landlord keeps his customers happy by chopping unsuspecting victims into cutlets, and he's sharpening his knife for a new tenant (French comic actor Dominque Pinon) who's got the hots for the butcher's nearsighted daughter! Delicatessen is a feast (if you will) of hilarious vignettes, slapstick gags, and sweetly eccentric characters, including a man in a swampy room full of frogs, a woman doggedly determined to commit suicide (she never gets its right), and a pair of brothers who make toy sound boxes that "moo" like cows. It doesn't amount to much as a story, but that hardly matters; this is the kind of comedy that springs from a unique wellspring of imagination and inspiration, and it's handled with such visual virtuosity that you can't help but be mesmerized. There's some priceless comedy happening here, some of which is so inventive that you may feel the urge to stand up and cheer. —Jeff Shannon