a

• Recommended
  Amour Love is measured in devotion, and devotion in the minutes and hours of suffering, in this harrowing and moving romance from Austrian master Michael Haneke … Century 12 and CineArts 6 and Landmark's Century Centre
• Any Day Now Set in West Hollywood in the late 70s, this overheated drama centers on a funky drag performer (Alan Cumming), the closeted attorney who loves him … Music Box
• Argo The notion that Ben Affleck might become a major filmmaker, which seemed at least plausible with his morally conflicted directing debut, Gone Baby Gone (2007), … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Crown Village 18, Logan and Webster Place 11

b

• Recommended
  Back to the Future Director Robert Zemeckis confronts the oedipal heart of the time-travel genre with this zestfully tasteless 1985 tale about a teenager (Michael J. Fox) who's projected … Univ. of Chicago Doc Films
• Band of Sisters Nuns are cool! That's the message of this informative and often inspiring documentary by Mary Fishman, who profiles more than a dozen left-leaning sisters across … Beverly Arts Center
• Recommended
  Beasts of the Southern Wild "The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right," declares Hushpuppy, the fierce, nappy-headed girl at the center of this extraordinary southern gothic. Played … Landmark's Century Centre
• Bel Borba Aqui Prolific street artist Bel Borba is the subject of this likable but unremarkable documentary by directors Burt Sun and Andre Costantini. As the self-appointed “People’s … Gene Siskel Film Center
• The Best of RiffTrax Live: Manos, the Hands of Fate Century 12 and CineArts 6, City North 14, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• Recommended Watch on Netflix
  Breaking Away A modest 1979 film about four teenagers (Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Hailey) whose transition to responsible adulthood is impaired by … Portage Theater
• Broken City An ex-cop is double crossed by a corrupt mayor. Allen Hughes directed. With Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Lake, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11

d

• Recommended Watch on Netflix
  Days of Being Wild Wong Kar-wai's idiosyncratic style first became apparent in this gorgeously moody second feature (1991), whose romantic vision of 1960 Hong Kong as a network of … Univ. of Chicago Doc Films
• Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel Fashion journalist Diana Vreeland began her career at Harper's but cemented her status as a harbinger of postwar counterculture as editor of Vogue in the … Gene Siskel Film Center
• Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino follows his head-turning World War II adventure Inglourious Basterds with another exercise in pop-culture provocation, turning the old western hero Django into a … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Davis, Ford City, Lake, Lawndale 10, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11

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• Flight Denzel Washington has fought like hell against the Sidney Poitier syndrome; for every movie in which he's played Mr. Noble (Antwone Fisher, The Great Debaters), … the Vic

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• Gangster Squad This noirish mob actioner from Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) originally included a scene of gangsters firing from behind a silver screen into a movie audience; after … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Lake, Lawndale 10, New 400, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• Recommended
  Generation P In this loopy, phantasmagoric satire, a failed poet enters the burgeoning advertising industry in early-90s Russia, works his way up the corporate ladder, and eventually … Facets Cinematheque
• The Guilt Trip Tailor-made for holiday release, this sweet comedy pairs Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand (whose respective fans are two generations apart) as mother and son on … Lawndale 10
• Recommended
  Gunman's Walk Phil Karlson (The Phenix City Story, Kansas City Confidential) directed this thematically complex Western, about a racist, belligerent cowboy (Tab Hunter) and his tumultuous relationship … Portage Theater

h

• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters City North 14 and Webster Place 11
• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D City North 14, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• A Haunted House The Paranormal Activity movies are so dull and shoddily made that any decent comedian could mock them in his sleep. For the most part, cowriter-coproducer-star … Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Lawndale 10, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings and Showplace ICON
• New
  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- An IMAX 3D Experience Peter Jackson delivers the first installment of his three-part Tolkien adaptation, and it may be the weirdest-looking big-budget movie since Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Like … Crown Village 18
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 3D Peter Jackson delivers the first installment of his three-part Tolkien adaptation, and it may be the weirdest-looking big-budget movie since Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Like … Century 12 and CineArts 6, City North 14, Ford City, River East 21 and Showplace ICON
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Peter Jackson delivers the first installment of his three-part Tolkien adaptation, and it may be the weirdest-looking big-budget movie since Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Like … Century 12 and CineArts 6, Cicero Showplace 14, Ford City, River East 21 and Showplace ICON
• Recommended Member Picks
  The House I Live In No one can accuse Eugene Jarecki of thinking small: his masterful 2005 documentary Why We Fight took on no less than the military-industrial complex, and … Gene Siskel Film Center

i

• The Impossible A Saw movie for middlebrows, this docudrama about the devastating east Asian tsunami of 2004 offers a big, pornographic spectacle of human suffering. J.A. Bayona, … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Crown Village 18 and Landmark's Century Centre
• In Bed With Ulysses Well researched but fairly amateurish in execution, this documentary provides a useful primer on James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, with various scholars explaining the novel’s major … Gene Siskel Film Center

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• Jack Reacher Tom Cruise is the title character, a reclusive former military officer who comes out of hiding to help investigate a mysterious mass shooting. Adapted from … Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18 and Ford City

l

• The Last Stand Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a sheriff who sets out to stop a drug ring from passing through his small town in this action thriller directed … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, Lawndale 10, New 400, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• Les Misérables 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Lake, Logan, River East 21, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• Life of Pi Ang Lee's signature style—tasteful, measured, and devoid of personality—translates surprisingly well to 3-D: the unfussy deep-focus compositions draw you into the world of the story, … Century 12 and CineArts 6, Crown Village 18, River East 21 and Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings
• Life of Pi 3D Ang Lee's signature style—tasteful, measured, and devoid of personality—translates surprisingly well to 3-D: the unfussy deep-focus compositions draw you into the world of the story, … Century 12 and CineArts 6, River East 21, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• Recommended
  Lincoln Steven Spielberg's long-gestating drama about the 16th president opens with an atrocious scene in which weary Union soldiers, both white and black, recite the Gettysburg … Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Crown Village 18, Davis, Ford City, Lake, Landmark's Century Centre, Logan, River East 21, Showplace ICON and Wilmette
• Recommended
  The Lion Hunters Ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch, one of the guiding spirits of the French New Wave, directed this classic 1965 account of lion hunting on the border … Gene Siskel Film Center
• The Loneliest Planet For the arresting debut drama Day Night Day Night (2006), filmmaker Julia Loktev patiently trailed a young woman around Manhattan as she prepared to detonate … Facets Cinematheque
• Luv Common plays a Baltimore ex-con struggling to reinvent himself as a restaurateur; to raise money, he agrees to run some dangerous errands for old colleagues … River East 21

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• Recommended Free
  The Maltese Falcon The key film in the Bogart myth (1941). I don't want to knock it, but what John Huston does with Bogart's personality and the hard-boiled … Northbrook Public Library
• Mama Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, The Tree of Life) stars in this supernatural horror about a paranormal entity that torments her and her two nieces. … Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola River East 21
• The Metropolitan Opera: Les Troyens Encore Century 12 and CineArts 6, City North 14, River East 21, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11
• Recommended
  Moi, un Noir Jean Rouch completed this quasi-documentary in 1958, and it still feels ahead of its time. Rather than make his own record of Treichville, a district … Gene Siskel Film Center
• Monsters, Inc. 3D Monsters, Inc., a factory located in the realm behind the bedroom-closet doors of every child, pays its employees to make children scream—screams are the equivalent … Cicero Showplace 14, Ford City and Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings
• Movie 43 Cicero Showplace 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings and Showplace ICON

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• Recommended
  Out of the Past The most delicate and nuanced of film noirs (1947), graced with a reflective lyricism that almost lifts it out of the genre. Robert Mitchum, a … Univ. of Chicago Doc Films

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• Parental Guidance This grating family comedy resembles a sitcom in its flat lighting, patronizing music cues, and frames supplying little visual information apart from the actors' mugging … Century 12 and CineArts 6, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, River East 21 and Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings
• Parker Cicero Showplace 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings and Showplace ICON
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky's best-selling young adult novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower is essentially a neutered Catcher in the Rye: its psychologically fragile teenage hero … the Vic
• Free
  Polisse French actress Maiwenn (High Tension) cowrote and directed this lively ensemble drama about a close-knit team of police officers in Paris’s Child Protection Unit. The … Transistor
• The Professional In his first American picture (1994), clearly a spin-off of La femme Nikita, nihilist French filmmaker Luc Besson raises the stakes of his popular girl-with-a-gun … Alliance Francaise

r

• Race 2 River East 21
• La Rafle This French historical drama (2010) depicts the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup, in which French police, under Nazi orders, imprisoned more than 13,000 Jews, the majority of … Gene Siskel Film Center
• Rise of the Guardians Peter Ramsey directed this animated feature about a group of mythological icons—including Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the tooth fairy—who protect the world's children … Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings
• Rock 'n' Roll High School P.J. Soles and the Ramones lead off in this amiable, rambunctious New World production (1979), aimed ostensibly at the teen trade but more obliquely and … Delilah's
• Recommended
  Rust and Bone The masterful writer-director Jacques Audiard draws vivid performances from Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises) and Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead) for this gripping French romance about … Landmark's Century Centre

s

• Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu River East 21
• The Sessions Character actor John Hawkes is often cast as a frightening rustic (Winter's Bone, Martha Marcy May Marlene), but he gives a tender and witty performance … Tivoli
• Sexy Baby First-time documentarians Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus interweave profiles of a former porn actress trying to start a family, a shy young teaching assistant obsessed … Columbia College, Hokin Hall
• Recommended
  Silver Linings Playbook Following a detour into heavy drama with The Fighter, David O. Russell returns to his distinctive brand of neurotic screwball comedy, and like his early … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, Crown Village 18, Davis, Ford City, Lake, New 400, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON, Webster Place 11 and Wilmette
• Sister Twelve-year-old Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein) haunts a Swiss ski chalet, ripping off skis and accessories to sell to his friends; with the cash he supports … Music Box
• Recommended
  Skyfall The James Bond franchise turns 50 with a stellar entry that fires on all cylinders as an action picture but also casts a modest glance … Crown Village 18, Logan, River East 21 and Showplace ICON
• Somewhere Between According to a title card at the beginning of this documentary, roughly 80,000 Chinese adoptees live in the United States; the movie profiles four of … Music Box
• Recommended Free
  The Squid and the Whale This big step forward by comic writer-director Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming, Mr. Jealousy) is a tragicomic autobiographical account of the breakup of his parents' … Transistor

t

• Texas Chainsaw Chatham 14 and Lawndale 10
• Texas Chainsaw 3D The seventh entry in the long-running franchise, this 3-D shocker picks up the story where the 1974 original left off. John Luessenhop directed. Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Ford City, River East 21 and Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings
• This Is 40 As the most successful comedy producer in Hollywood, Judd Apatow has always coached people to mine their own lives for laughs, and for his fourth … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Crown Village 18 and River East 21
• Recommended
  To Catch a Thief Cary Grant is a retired cat burglar on the Riviera and Grace Kelly is the spoiled American rich girl who seems to have the perpetual … Century 12 and CineArts 6
• Tommy Boy Jerky in both senses of the term, this slapdash comedy follows the efforts of the half-wit son (Chris Farley) of a midwestern auto parts manufacturer … Logan
• Recommended
  The Trouble With Harry Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 comedy has long been overshadowed by the masterworks that surround it (Rear Window on one side, Vertigo on the other), but it's … Univ. of Chicago Doc Films
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 The final installment of the popular film franchise about a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire. Bill Condon directed. With Kristen … the Vic

w

• Recommended
  West of Memphis The case of the West Memphis Three—the teenage boys convicted on shaky evidence for the 1993 murders of three eight-year-olds—has already been covered in a … Music Box
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Sinister 1971 children's film, taken from a book by Roald Dahl. Gene Wilder, a candy magnate, takes a group of kids on a tour of … Logan
• Wreck-It Ralph Rich Moore directed this animated feature about a video game villain who sets out become a good guy. With the voices of John C. Reilly, … Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, Crown Village 18, Lake, Lawndale 10, Logan, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings and Showplace ICON

z

• Recommended
  Zazie in the Metro Arguably Louis Malle's best work (1960). Based on Raymond Queneau's farcical novel about a little girl (Catherine Demongeot) left in Paris for a weekend with … Univ. of Chicago Doc Films
• Recommended New
  Zero Dark Thirty Kathryn Bigelow follows her Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker with this gripping account of the search for Osama bin Laden, focusing on bureaucratic infighting at the … 600 N. Michigan, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, Cicero Showplace 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Davis, Ford City, Lake, New 400, River East 21, Showplace 14 Galewood Crossings, Showplace ICON and Webster Place 11