Josef Krebs

Set in 1978, this entertaining film tells the “some of this actually happened” story of a brilliant grifter (Christian Bale) and his co-conspirator lover (Amy Adams), who, on getting busted in a scam sting, are forced to work for an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) in bringing down four fellow crooks. But the crazily ambitious fed ups the ante to entrapping corrupt politicians willing to accept kickbacks to grease the wheels of the sheik’s scheme to rebuild Atlantic City casinos. But this, of course, will mean mafia involvement and taking down a decent New Jersey mayor (Jeremy Renner) who just wants to help his community. And out of all these fast-talking con artists, who’s really zooming whom?

Based on incidents from writer-director Kenneth Branagh's own childhood in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and set against the outset of the Troubles in 1969, this bloody masterpiece—a joy from beginning to end—is a moving comic-tragedy on both personal and historical levels, one that's filled with warm sentiment, great Irish humor, and a touching sense of loss.

Auteur Michelangelo Antonioni set his story of a photographer who gradually looses perspective in the perfect place—swinging London of 1966. In the course of his jam-packed day, the freewheeling image-obsessed artist goes undercover in a shelter to snap pictures of homeless men, physically invades the spaces of various vacuous fashion models, and stakes out a couple in the park to capture pictures of their private, intimate moments.