Ratings and running times are in parentheses; foreign films have English subtitles. Full reviews of all current releases, movie trailers, showtimes and tickets: nytimes.com/movies.

* 'THE ARISTOCRATS' (No rating, 89 minutes) A rigorously scholarly documentary about the theory and practice of joke-telling that also happens to be one of the filthiest, vilest, most extravagantly obscene movies ever made - and one of the funniest. (A. O. Scott)

'ASYLUM' (R, 90 minutes) A dreary, claustrophobic soap, with Natasha Richardson, about a 1950's bored wife and mother victimized by her times and her incredibly bad taste in men; based on Patrick McGrath's novel and directed by David Mackenzie. (Manohla Dargis)

* 'BAD NEWS BEARS' (PG-13, 111 minutes) Filled with small, cute kids and large, goofy laughs, and kept aloft by Billy Bob Thornton's ribald star turn, Richard Linklater's remake of this 1976 sports comedy won't rock your movie world. But the fact that the filmmaker keeps the freak flag flying in the face of our culture of triumphalism is a thing of beauty. (Dargis)

* 'BATMAN BEGINS' (PG-13, 137 minutes) Conceived in the shadow of American pop rather than in its bright light, this tense, effective iteration of Bob Kane's original comic book owes its power and pleasures to a director (Christopher Nolan) who takes his material seriously and to a star (a terrific Christian Bale) who shoulders that seriousness with ease. "Batman Begins" is the seventh live-action film to take on the comic-book legend and the first to usher it into the kingdom of movie myth. (Dargis)

'THE BAXTER' (PG-13, 91 minutes) A "Baxter," in the lingo of this romantic comedy written by, directed by and starring the comedian Michael Showalter, is the safe choice, the also-ran, the guy who is left at the altar when the hero shows up, as Dustin Hoffman did in "The Graduate," to claim his true love. The film's tragic flaw is that Mr. Showalter is miscast - or has miscast himself - in the title role. In the end, "The Baxter" is a Baxter of a movie: well meaning and mildly likable, but unlikely to sweep you off your feet. (Dana Stevens)

* 'BROKEN FLOWERS' (R, 105 minutes) Sweet, funny, sad and meandering, Jim Jarmusch's new film sends Bill Murray's aging Don Juan out in search of a son he never knew he had. He finds four former lovers, including Sharon Stone and Jessica Lange, and reveals once again that he is the quietest and finest comic actor working in movies today. (Scott)

'THE BROTHERS GRIMM' (PG-13, 118 minutes) Despite a few early sparks of promise, Terry Gilliam's big-screen adventure about the brother folklorists (played by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger) sputters and coughs along like an unoiled machine, grinding gears and nerves in equal measure. (Dargis)

'THE CAVE' (PG-13, 97 minutes) In Bruce Hunt's formulaic "Cave," a group of ace cave-divers are flown in to investigate an intricate maze system discovered beneath the ruins of an ancient Romanian abbey, but instead become the prey of mutated demonlike creatures that can fly and see in the dark. Dreadfully dull, muddled and chaotic, with colorless and underdeveloped characters. (Laura Kern)

'CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY' (PG, 116 minutes) Flawed but fascinating. Some of the departures from the book will make Roald Dahl fans roll their eyes, but some of the visuals will make their eyes (and everyone else's) pop. (Scott)

* 'THE CONSTANT GARDENER' (R, 129 minutes) A superior thriller with a conscience, from John le Carré's novel. ( Scott)

'CÔTE D'AZUR (CRUSTACÉS & COQUILLAGES)' (No rating, 90 minutes, in French) This pansexual French sex farce embellished with songs is neither funny nor sexy nor enlightening in the manner of the traditional Gallic sex comedy. (Stephen Holden)

* 'EL CRIMEN PERFECTO' (No rating, 105 minutes, in Spanish) In this antic and outrageous black comedy, Rafael González (Guillermo Toledo) is a salesman in the women's section of a Madrid department store. Rafael's fondest dream is to be floor manager; when his archrival for the position, Don Antonio (Luis Varela), is accidentally killed in a scuffle in the dressing room, Rafael's world begins to unravel. Like the Ferris wheel that serves as the setting for one of its climactic scenes, "El Crimen Perfecto" is a bright, gaudy and tremendously satisfying ride. (Stevens)

'THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE' (PG-13, 114 minutes) If you must see only one demonic-possession courtroom drama this year, wait for the next one. (Scott)

* 'THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN' (R, 111 minutes) A sex comedy turned romantic bliss-out, with Steve Carell, in which the sound of one prophylactic snapping is just a single sweet note in the glorious symphony of love. (Dargis)

'FOUR BROTHERS' (R, 148 minutes) In John Singleton's slick hybrid of urban western and modern blaxploitation movie, four young men, two black and two white, reunite in Detroit to avenge the shooting death of their saintly adoptive mother. Preposterous, amoral and exciting. (Holden)

'GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS' (R, 109 minutes) A feature-length folly about the terrors and self-affirming joys of football (that is, soccer) hooliganism. (Dargis)

* 'GRIZZLY MAN' (R, 103 minutes) Werner Herzog's bold, enthralling documentary about one man's journey into the heart of darkness (and the belly of the beast) traces the life and strange times of the self-anointed grizzly expert Timothy Treadwell. (Dargis)

'HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER' (No rating, 113 minutes, in Greek) Penny Panayotopoulou's emotionally charged drama, set in Athens in 1969, focuses on a mother and her two sons learning to cope with the sudden death of their husband/father, a traveling salesman who wasn't even a solid presence in the first place. The exceptionally bright and somewhat peculiar 10-year-old Elias, living in a fantasy world, adamantly refuses to believe that his father won't return. (Kern)

'HELLBENT' (No rating, 85 minutes) Out for a night of Halloween fun, four hunky friends are stalked by a totally buff masked killer, a cross between Batman and the Grim Reaper, who with a menacing, scythelike knife, slices his victims' heads cleanly off and keeps them as souvenirs. A compulsively watchable chiller that may just be the first entry in the gay slasher genre. (Kern)

'HUSTLE & FLOW' (R, 114 minutes) Terrence Howard is superb as a Memphis pimp chasing his dream of hip-hop stardom in a movie that is an awkward mix of realism, misogyny and Hollywood hokum. (Scott) 'JUNEBUG' (R, 107 minutes) A Southern "Five Easy Pieces," this deep, bittersweet comedy about a young man's return from Chicago to his family's North Carolina home envelops us in the texture of a culture the movies seldom visit. Amy Adams gives an incandescent portrayal of the man's pregnant, childlike sister-in-law. (Holden)

* 'KAMIKAZE GIRLS' (No rating, 102 minutes, in Japanese) The girls of the film's title mostly just want to have fun (as does the director, Tetsuya Nakashima), which doesn't mean that their pretty little heads are empty. It's just that thinking seems more agreeable when you're wearing a frilly bonnet and peek-a-boo knee socks that make grown men cry. (Dargis)

* 'KEANE' (R, 93 minutes) A man goes searching for his lost daughter - or does he? The irony of this very fine film is that while the director Lodge Kerrigan's approach can verge on the entomological, he grants this troubled, difficult character the full measure of his humanity. (Dargis)

'MAD HOT BALLROOM' (PG, 105 minutes) This documentary follows fifth graders from three very different New York City public schools as they prepare to compete in a ballroom dancing tournament. The sight of 10-year-olds trying to master the graceful, grown-up motions of the fox trot and the tango is charming, and the glimpses of their lives in and outside of school are fascinating, though unfortunately the film offers little more than glimpses. (Scott)

'THE MAN' (PG-13, 83 minutes) Angry black man and nerdy white guy ride around the streets of Detroit looking for criminals. Nothing to see here. (Scott)

* 'MARCH OF THE PENGUINS' (G, 80 minutes) This sentimental but riveting documentary follows the one-year mating cycle of emperor penguins in Antarctica when they leave the ocean and march inland to breed and lay eggs. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the film has no qualms about playing on our emotions. (Holden)

* 'THE MEMORY OF A KILLER' (R, 120 minutes, in Flemish and French) Directed by Erik Van Looy, this nicely kinked Belgian thriller features a range of good guys and bad, including one whose sense of morality and world-weariness seem straight out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film. (Dargis)

* 'MURDERBALL' (R, 86 minutes) The brutal, highly competitive sport of wheelchair rugby is the subject of this exciting and uplifting (but never mawkish) documentary about the redemptive power of fierce athletic competition. (Holden)

* 'MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT' (No rating, 90 minutes) Daniel Anker's profound and genuinely moving documentary "Music From the Inside Out" skillfully assembles insightful interviews with members of the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra with snippets of an eclectic variety of music genres, including classical, bluegrass, jazz and world beats, capturing the power of the creative process in an uncommonly perceptive and inspiring way. (Kern)

'PIGGIE' (No rating, 90 minutes) Monotonous female coming-of-age story about a simple-minded teenager in upstate New York who becomes infatuated with a Ratso-like drifter. Aiming for documentary-style realism, the filmmakers achieve only badly lighted, awkwardly acted scenes that wobble as if captured from atop a mound of Jell-O. (Jeannette Catsoulis)

* 'PRETTY PERSUASION' (No rating, 104 minutes) In this go-for-broke satire, Evan Rachel Wood plays a toxic 15-year-old alpha girl who joins with two sidekicks from her private Beverly Hills high school to falsely accuse their English and drama teacher of sexual harassment. Very funny and very nasty. (Holden)

* 'RED EYE' (PG-13, 85 minutes) The sights and sounds of two people talking become a nerve-jangling duet for cat and mouse, hunter and prey in Wes Craven's nifty, tense thriller. (Dargis)

* 'SKY HIGH' (PG, 102 minutes) This witty Disney adventure comedy imagines a high school for superheroes, hidden above the clouds, where the students are divided into Heroes and Sidekicks. The movie poses the age-old question "Is there life after high school?" and with a cheerful wink answers, "No, not really." (Holden)

* 'TONY TAKITANI' (No rating, 75 minutes, in Japanese) In this delicate wisp of a film with a surprisingly sharp sting, a lonely man awakens to life for the first time at 37 during a brief idyll. Directed by Jun Ichikawa, from a short story by Haruki Murakami. (Dargis)

* 'TOUCH THE SOUND' (No rating, 99 minutes) As Thomas Riedelsheimer's enlightening, mystical documentary follows the deaf Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie around the globe, it illustrates her understanding that sound is a physical sensation experienced throughout the body, as well as an auditory one. (Holden)

'TRANSPORTER 2' (PG-13, 88 minutes) Ex-Special Forces operative Frank Martin (Jason Statham), the blank-faced professional driver with more tricks - and lives - than James Bond, is back in this purely shallow, but never dull, sequel to "The Transporter." This time, he's in Miami and will do whatever it takes to save the life of a young boy who's been kidnapped and injected with a deadly contagious virus. (Kern)

* '2046' (R, 129 minutes) An ecstatically beautiful story in which time is marked not by the hands of a clock, but by the women who pass through one man's life, "2046" is the eighth feature film from the Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai and the long-awaited follow-up to his art-house favorite "In the Mood for Love." A film about longing, loss and the delicate curve of a woman's back, it is also an unqualified triumph. (Dargis)

'AN UNFINISHED LIFE' (PG-13, 108 minutes) This contemporary Western starring Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez and Morgan Freeman is a solemn, sentimental bore that suffocates in its own predictability and watered-down psychobabble. All three stars recycle stereotypes they've played before. (Holden)

'VALIANT' (G, 80 minutes) Homing pigeons versus falcons are the combatants in this shoddily made animated movie about heroes and villains in World War II. The talents of many fine British actors are squandered in the voice-overs. (Holden)

'WAR OF THE WORLDS' (PG-13, 117 minutes) The aliens invade (again). Effectively scary and visually impressive. (Scott)

'WEDDING CRASHERS' (R, 113 minutes) A wink-wink, nudge-nudge Trojan horse of a story, this amiably raunchy sex comedy pivots on two Lotharios persuasively inhabited by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. They love the ladies but really and truly, cross their cheating hearts, just want a nice girl to call wife. Credited to the screenwriters Steve Faber and Bob Fisher. (Dargis)

Film Series

CMJ FILMFEST (Through Sept. 17) Advance screenings of fall 2005 films, held in tandem with the CMJ Music Marathon, conclude today with six movies. They include Martin Scorsese's "No Direction Home," about Bob Dylan's life and music in the early 1960's; "Domino," Tony Scott's action thriller about a movie star's daughter; and "Brick," a film noir murder mystery set in a 21st-century high school. Loews State Theater, 1540 Broadway, at 45th Street, (212) 258-0890, free with CMJ Music Marathon pass ($445). (Anita Gates)

FOREVER GARBO: A RETROSPECTIVE (Through Dec. 17) The American-Scandinavian Foundation is sponsoring this 14-film program, which includes early Swedish and silent films as well as Garbo's Hollywood work. The first film, to be shown tomorrow, Wednesday and Sept. 24, is George Cukor's "Camille" (1937), in which she played Dumas's tragic courtesan with a cough. Garbo, who died in 1990, would have turned 100 on Sunday. Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, between 37th and 38th Streets, (212) 879-9779; $8. (Gates)

FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT (Through Nov. 27) The IFC Center's Weekend Classics program is presenting a dozen Truffaut features and two shorts. This weekend's film, to be screened at noon today, tomorrow and Sunday, is "Shoot the Piano Player" (1960), Truffaut's romantic thriller about a bar musician (Charles Aznavour) with a secret past. 323 Avenue of the Americas, at West Third Street, (212) 924-7771; $10.75. (Gates)

REPERTORY NIGHTS (Through Nov. 6) The Museum of the Moving Image continues its annual film series with "Vertigo" (1958), Alfred Hitchcock's stylish study of obsession, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. It will be screened tonight, tomorrow and Sunday. Other auteurs represented in the festival include Akira Kurosawa, F. W. Murnau, Stanley Kubrick and François Truffaut. 35th Avenue at 36th Street, Astoria, Queens, (718) 784-0077; $10. (Gates)

RESFEST (Through Sunday) Films in this year's program include "Infamy," Doug Pray's documentary about graffiti artists, and Fernando Meirelles's documentary "Ginga: The Soul of Brazilian Football," which is not just about sports. TriBeCa Performing Arts Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers Street, (212) 220-1460; $10. (Gates)

SHOAH (Sunday and Sept. 25) On the 20th anniversary of Claude Lanzmann's unparalleled Holocaust documentary "Shoah," the Museum of Jewish Heritage is screening this nine-and-a-half-hour documentary, which won Bafta, César, Berlin Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Society of Film Critics and New York Film Critics Circle awards. Mr. Lanzmann will hold a series of discussions at the screenings. 36 Battery Place, Battery Park City, Lower Manhattan, (646) 437-4202; $15 ($10 to see Part 1 or Part 2 alone). (Gates)

SOME LIKE IT WILDER: THE COMPLETE BILLY WILDER (Through Nov. 13) The Museum of the Moving Image is sponsoring a 26-film retrospective of Wilder, the Austrian-born director-writer who gave the world "Sunset Boulevard" and "Double Indemnity." This weekend's features are "Kiss Me, Stupid" (1964), a sex farce with Dean Martin and Kim Novak; "The Lost Weekend" (1955), the Oscar-winning drama starring Ray Milland as an alcoholic writer on a binge; and "The Seven Year Itch" (1945), the comedy in which Marilyn Monroe tempts a weak married man (Tom Ewell) during a sultry New York heat wave. 35th Avenue at 36th Street, Astoria, Queens, (718) 784-0077; $10. (Gates)