The Orphanage Thirty years after her adoption, Laura (Belén Rueda) has returned to the creepy seaside orphanage where she grew up. With the help of her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and her seven-year-old son, Simón (Roger Príncep), she plans to re-open the abandoned mansion as a center for sick and disabled children. But soon after the family's arrival, things begin to get spooky. After a visit from a strange old woman, Simón makes a new imaginary friend named Tómas, and as their relationship develops, Simón's behavior grows increasingly bizarre and menacing. When Simón disappears during the opening day celebration, Laura must confront the house's haunted past in order to solve the mystery.

Though it's not really a horror film (save one unforgettably gruesome shot), this Spanish-language ghost story is thoroughly creepy and genuinely tense. While most modern thrillers attempt to cram cheap scares down their audience's collective throats, The Orphanage earns its creepy gravity slowly and deliberately. Thick with suspense and eerily mesmerizing, The Orphanage is the kind of chiller that plays on our inherent fear of the unknown, and its foreboding mood stuck with us long after the credits rolled.

First-time director Juan Antonio Bayona has done a fair job living up to the "Guillermo Del Toro Presents" billing--the art direction and cinematography are as rich and dark and detailed as that of Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, and both films are equal parts dramatic mystery and supernatural nightmare. In most ways, though, that's where the similarities end, and if you're expecting to see "this year's Pan's Labyrinth", you'll probably walk away disappointed. Instead, The Orphanage plays more like Alejandro Amenábar's The Others--with an equal number of successes and missteps. Make no mistake though, it's one of the best ghost stories we've seen in a while, and if you're a fan of the genre, it's cartainly worth seeing.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story After young Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) accidentally chops his brother in half with a machete, he promises to be "double great for the both of them" to atone for his mistake. During the course of the hugely successful musical career that follows, Cox sleeps with countless women, fathers an inordinate number of children, stars in his own 70s TV show, marries his backup singer Darlene (Jenna Fischer), and lives up to every biopic cliché imaginable.

As Director Jake Kasdan puts it, Walk Hard isn't so much a fake biopic as it is a "real biopic about a fake guy." The production is as glossy and ambitious as any Hollywood biography, but its characters are utterly, unfailingly ridiculous. And in a lot of ways, this is the movie's most important joke--that we tend to sanitize and mythologize our heroes' lives in predictable, dishonest ways, and before you know it, they all begin to look the same.

Walk Hard has more in common with Naked Gun than with Spinal Tap, but unlike the usual Hollywood parody flick, it actually has a beating heart, and a keen (sometimes jaw-droppingly accurate) sense of its source material. In particular, the film's soundtrack is so genuinely good that most songs come off more like paean than parody. Cox goes through myriad musical phases, from Dylan-esque folk to "Pet Sounds" era psychedelia, and every single one is marked by a song that's so close to genuine it could almost be mistaken for a lost classic--a problem that Christopher Guest's A Mighty Wind couldn't seem to overcome, but that Walk Hard wears like a badge of honor.

A relentlessly silly, over-the-top comedy, Walk Hard isn't perfect--it lobs quite a few eye-rolling duds along the way--but its non-stop barrage of bizarre cameos, hilarious gags and brilliant songs will definitely leave you smiling.

Juno After a one-time sexual encounter with her sorta boyfriend Paulie Bleeker (Micheal Cera), teenage sassypants Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) becomes pregnant. But rather than have an abortion, Juno decides to adopt the baby to a successful young couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) she found through a local classified ad. During the course of her pregnancy, Juno gets to know the couple, and eventually, gets to know herself.

Juno was a hot ticket at pretty much every festival it played this year--including the Austin Film Festival--and for good reason. It's a sharp, funny movie with some fantastic performances, and it successfully avoids most of the cutesy garbage that normally sinks this kind of movie. In fact, it's not really a movie about pregnancy at all.

We're actually really surprised that more people aren't comparing Juno to Amy Palladino's long-running TV comedy "Gilmore Girls". Though the two have completely different plotlines, their tone and style and pacing are virtually identical, right down to the fast-talking, whip-smart, pop culture-referencing female leads. Read our full review here.

Charlie Wilson's War
Based on the true story of Texas congressman Charlie Wilson who supplied money and weapons to the Mujahedin of Afghanistan during the Russian occupation. This was one of the big surprises at this year's Butt-numb-a-thon, and early word from attendees seems positive.

Sweeney Todd
Tim Burton's adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical stars Johnny Depp as the titular, murderous barber who returns to seek revenge after being unfairly sentenced to life in prison. We're super-excited about this one. In fact, we're going to see it right now.

The Kite Runner
The story of an unlikely friendship between a wealthy Afghani boy and the son of his servant. This Hollywood adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's acclaimed novel is, by all accounts, everything you'd expect from a Hollywood adaptation of an acclaimed novel: dull, predictable and overly glossy.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The sequel to the 2004 blockbuster National Treasure, Book of Secrets follows the continuing adventures of treasure hunter Benjamin Gates. Nicolas Cage plus Jerry Bruckheimer rarely equals good. But hey, if you're into this kind of thing, who knows? Could be fun.