Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant’s meditation on murder and its after-shocks, proves his best work yet, while Asia Argento takes flight in Olivier Assayas's new thriller.

Michael Madsen and Asia Argento in Boarding Gate.

Paranoid Park is strange fruit, a blend of thriller and coming-of-age story where, of all things, a homicide proves the unusual rite of passage between adolescence and adulthood. It’s also director Gus Van Sant’s masterpiece.

Teenage Alex (Gabe Nevins) does not plan on committing a crime; he’s a feckless suburban cipher faithful to the usual diversions of music, girls, and skateboarding. But one night a train-hopping stunt turns tragic when he accidentally knocks a security guard in front of an oncoming locomotive. Panicked, but not especially guilt-ridden, Alex decides to keep it to himself.

A horror film and a protest documentary exhibit how not to play by the rules.

Naomi Watts in Funny Games.

Funny Games isn’t funny; it’s horrifying in a way that’s likely to induce frustration, nausea, and a significant percentage of walk-outs. This is just what director Michael Haneke is hoping for.

A provocateur to his fans, a misanthrope to his detractors, Haneke has built his career on this kind of paradox. His films are strategically designed to discomfit and unnerve, each an astringent study in such patently unfunny subjects as bourgeois guilt (Caché, Code Unknown), consumerism (The 7th Continent), and violence in media (Benny’s Video). It’s hard to think of a body of work that’s more serious, or farther away from the Hollywood mold.