In this 2006 video documentary, which has been making the rounds in art houses this year, director Bertrand Normand spotlights five Russian ballerinas at various stages in their careers at the Kirov Ballet.

If you can survive the disconcerting first 11 minutes of Joe Swanberg’s fifth feature, then you’ll be rewarded with an intriguing look at how artists struggle to sustain committed relationships, which are complicated by disciplines that allow performers to share intimate experiences with various collaborators.

Bart Got a Room, written and directed by Brian Hecker, is a cautionary tale about high expectations.

Inspired by a set of songs composed by contemporary songwriters Frank Thomas (lyrics) and Reinhardt Wagner (music), Paris 36 is a knowingly old-fashioned French film directed by Christophe Barratier, whose previous effort, The Choir (2004), received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

The 2008 Jury Prize winner in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, Tokyo Sonata is a departure for Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is perhaps best known in the States for his creepy horror films Cure and Pulse.

Max Solomon (Spencer Berger) is such a poor writer that a performance of his play “The Onion Dance” hospitalizes his grandfather.

If Anne Hathaway’s insolent, attention-craving character Kym seems intolerable after only a few scenes, and you begin to question whether you can spend another 100 minutes with her, then screenwriter Jenny Lumet and director Jonathan Demme have you right where they want you.

Australia’s The Black Balloon has its heart in the right place. The film observes autism through the eyes of Thomas, a 15-year-old boy (Rhys Wakefield) who struggles to accept his older brother Charlie’s (Luke Ford) disability, at an age when adolescents’ own self-consciousness becomes magnified.

As a whole, Che, which comprises two Spanish-language films over two hours each, is this decade’s most imposing film by an American director to receive theatrical distribution.