The New World

The legend of Pocahontas and John Smith receives a luminous and essential retelling by maverick filmmaker Terrence Malick. The facts of Virginia's first white settlers, circa 1607, have been told for eons and fortified by Disney's animated films: explorer Smith (Colin Farrell) and the Native American princess (newcomer Q'orianka Kilcher) bond when the two cultures meet, a flashpoint of curiosity and war lapping interchangeably at the shores of the new continent. Malick, who took a twenty year break between his second and third films (Days of Heaven and the Thin Red Line), is a master of film poetry; the film washes over you, with minimal dialogue (you see characters speak on camera for less than a quarter of the film). The rest of the words are a stream-of-consciousness narration-a technique Malick has used before but never to such degree, creating a movie you feel more than watch.

Director: Terrence Malick
Producer: Sarah Green
Actor: August Schellenberg
Actor: Christopher Plummer
Actor: Q'orianka Kilcher
Actor: Wes Studi
Actor: Colin Farrell
Actor: Christian Bale