NPR People: David Edelstein

Tim Burton's new special-effects laden adaptation of Alice in Wonderland turns Lewis Carroll's classic into an action-packed, feminist coming-of-age story. Film critic David Edelstein says the movie, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Mia Wasikowska in the title role, is rather wonderful.

In A Prophet, a young Corsican Arab must earn his place in the hierarchy of a French prison by murdering a fellow inmate. Director Jacques Audiard neither victimizes nor glorifies his protagonist, says critic David Edelstein. The result is a gripping, realistic prison drama. (Recommended)

The new releases Shutter Islandand The Ghost Writer both take places on islands off the coast of the Eastern seaboard. Critic David Edelstein explains how the two movies, made by Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski respectively, are a study in contrasts — in directors, plot, and mood.

Luc Besson's latest action fantasy, From Paris With Love, stars John Travolta as an FBI agent and Jonathan Rhys Myers as a diplomat trying to stop a terrorist attack in Paris. The story moves at warp speed — and it doesn't skimp on thrills.

The star seems as angry as ever in Edge of Darkness, a film about a Boston police detective out to uncover the truth behind his daughter's death. Gibson delivers a quality performance — in a film that's in love with its own rage.

On a mission to save his two dying children, a desperate father recruits a cantankerous scientist to discover a method, and means, for a cure. Critic David Edelstein says the film is more than a formulaic weepie — but still an effective tearjerker.

Struggling to find her way in the East End of the British capital, 15-year-old Mia (first-time actress Katie Jarvis) looks to her mother's newfound boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) for friendship and support — but finds his motives aren't what they initially seemed. Critic David Edelstein says Andrea Arnold's second feature film is a bold example of disquieting social realism.

These days, adolescence isn't just awkward, it's surreal. Youth In Revolt may not show you anything you haven't seen before, but critic David Edelstein says, who cares? If you've ever been through puberty, or if you have a thing for the French, you'll find something to laugh (or wince) at here.

Movies you've heard plenty about (Avatar, Where the Wild Things Are) rub elbows with movies you may have missed (Summer Hours, Everlasting Moments) on our critic's list of the finest big-screen features of 2009. Edelstein joins Terry Gross to talk about the year in pictures.

James Cameron's trademark blend of grandiosity, jaw-dropping technology and cornball populism is back — and mightier than ever — in Avatar, a vertigo-inducing sci-fi epic that's as predictable and tin-eared as it is savvy and technically adept.

Critic David Edelstein says the Lord of the Rings director has violated Alice Sebold's celebrated novel with an adaptation marked by tawdry sentimentality and cheap mysticism.

Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal are Sam and Tommy Cahill, one an upright Army captain on his way back to Afghanistan, the other a delinquent, newly paroled after a three-year sentence for robbery. But the real center of Jim Sheridan's movie isn't the brothers, but their whole teetering clan, which will collapse and rebuild itself in complicated new ways.

In an apocalyptic-movie age, The Road is the doomiest. A close translation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, the film tracks a father and son as they fight to survive in an ash-gray world haunted by death and global destruction. Critic David Edelstein says that in its depiction of unbearable extremity, John Hillcoat's film achieves a kind of sublimity. (Recommended)

Stephenie Meyers' four-novel Twilight saga set off a rage for lovelorn teen vampires -—one that only escalated after the release of the first hit movie. The second film, New Moon, set box-office records for advance sales, but critic David Edelstein says it's too turgid for the excitement to last.

Director Wes Anderson's first animated film is based on Roald Dahl's cheerfully wicked children's book about a wily fox who wages war on three farmers. Critic David Edelstein says the film — with its stop-motion animation, big-name voice talent and quirky mannerisms — achieves a degree of realism that isn't always apparent in the cult director's work.