Soldiers may enlist for ideological reasons, but, officers say, they actually fight to protect their brothers at their sides. The quiet but intense spy thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy exports this phenomenon to the world of shadow soldiers, spies working in secret during the height of the Cold War.

As The Iron Lady opens, an elderly woman shuffles into the local market. Pushed aside by a self-important businessman and an oblivious youth, she expresses confused surprise at the price of milk. No one recognizes that she is the former co-leader of the free world and bane of dictators, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

It's a poignant moment as the grocer's daughter assesses her country's economic health the same way she did while in office: by keeping track of the price of a pint of milk.

Our society spends a lot of tweets, Facebook posts, and online reading time fretting about the effect of constant virtual connection on the fabric of our souls, so the tween movie quietly released Nov. 11 comes as a bit of fresh air. Whitney, the titular character of The Greening of Whitney Brown, transforms from urban texting maven into country girl with a horse when every means of communication is taken from her.

The Way, a passion project from the father-and-son team of Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, presents the intensely faith-filled practice of pilgrimage in a way that is not heavy-handed or saccharine.

People like Sam Childers do not pop up often on the Hollywood publicity circuit. The subject of the unlikely action movie Machine Gun Preacher sported a leather biker jacket and chewed on a toothpick during our interview in Washington, D.C., looking like a patron of the rougher sort of bar. However, his speech was peppered with words like "born again" and "spirit-filled" and Bible passages.

When A-list actors Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Oscar-winning scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennet Miller of Capote team up to make a movie about America's game, it won't be just another story about life on the baseball field. It will mean something.

Moneyball, based on the 2003 book by Michael Lewis, pits tradition against science and instinct against cold hard facts, chronicling the 2002 Oakland Athletics season that changed the way Major League Baseball is played.

The audience that sits down to see Drive may expect to see a heist movie, but they will quickly become absorbed in a film that has more in common with a classic Western than a high-octane chase film.

Ryan Gosling stars as a character known only as the Driver, a Hollywood stunt man by day and criminal get-away driver by night. He lives alone in a run-down apartment, one of those strong men of few words types that the ladies love. The lady in question is his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), mother to a little boy.