Israel has quickly become an entertainment powerhouse that has given us In Treatment and the original Homeland, along with the two marvelous films that made the NYFF. We eagerly await the latest from Ari Folman. His Waltz with Bashir was also distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.

For its 50th edition, the New York Film Festival has pulled out all the stops with an array of films that highlight the enormous range and versatility of cinema. Here's a list of must-sees from among films I've viewed so far.

For the lonesome movie fan, the journey through Lincoln Center's DeChirico-scape posits one in a series of cinematic transports...crossing this vast, bright, cement desert, a triptych of stately, enigmatic and sadly forbidding modern construction emerges as a heat-buckled mirage.

If the end of the world or your final film? is when you say what you really mean, perhaps with The Turin Horse, Béla Tarr is giving the last laugh to the Gypsies of his state-seized debut film (shot at age 16) and delivering a stone-cold classic.

In anticipation of 12/21/12, this past year saw a return of the doomsday film. Melancholia was an okay end-of-the-world movie, but for this fan, it was not a very good Lars Von Trier film. Perhaps a third viewing is in order.

It's no surprise that British actress Helen Mirren has played royalty, especially Queens -- she's played monarchs six times. But that doesn't mean that this stage and screen doyen behaves in a haughty, doyen-ish manner.