As two 11-year-olds walk home from school, the girl casually bounces a stick along the side of a building. The building ends and, still chatting, she keeps bouncing it along the shields held up by a line of policemen. They pay as little attention to her as she does to them. It is Thatcher-era England, 1984, and the police have come to this small mining town of Durham to keep order during the miners’ strike.

The 11-year-olds are Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) and the daughter of the local ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkenson (Julie Walters). Billy watches the ballet class from his boxing lesson. When Mrs. Wilkenson impulsively pulls him into the class, he discovers that ballet both answers and creates a need in him that he can no more name than he can resist.

Billy lives with his father (Gary Lewis), brother, and grandmother. His mother died the year before, his grandmother is forgetful, and his father and brother are on strike. The adults are busy with their own problems, and no one has time to notice Billy other than to shout at him or swat him out of the way. So for a while he manages to switch from boxing to ballet without anyone finding out. When his father discovers what Billy has been doing, he is furious. He is sure that this means that Billy is going to be gay and sure that this would be the ultimate failure on his part. He forbids Billy to go back.

But Billy has to dance, and he reminds Mrs. Wilkenson of a passion she once had for ballet. She gives him private lessons without charge, to prepare him for an audition with the London Ballet. Billy hides his ballet shoes under the mattress and hopes that no one will pay enough attention to him to figure out what he is doing. But his father does find out about the lessons and the audition.

This movie is well above average, tender, funny, and touching. Bell is extraordinary as Billy, the best child actor performance since Haley Joel Osment in “The Sixth Sense.” Lewis is also first-rate as the father who makes an unbearably painful sacrifice in order to give his son the chance he never had. Director Stephen Daldry has a real gift for visual story-telling. A chase through hanging laundry, dance lessons in a boxing ring, and the opening shot of Billy on a trampoline are images that are fresh and memorable.

Parents should know that everyone in this movie uses terrible language all the time. That is the primary reason for the R-rating, but the movie also includes sexual references, some child sex talk, a brief glimpse of bare buttocks when one character moons another, homophobic comments, and a transvestite character. Some teens may be upset by the way that family members treat each other. They are insulting, neglectful, and cruel. A parent hits a child and threatens another.

Families who see this movie will want to talk about what families should do when one member finds something as vitally important to him as dancing is to Billy. They should also discuss how the stress of painful external circumstances can affect the ability of family members to be kind to each other. Why was the strike so important to Billy’s dad and brother? How was that like and not alike the importance of ballet to Billy? Why did Mrs. Wilkenson want to help Billy? Why did Billy’s interest in ballet make Billy’s dad think he might be gay, and why was that so terrifying to him? What made him change his mind? Why do you think the writer put a gay character who did not have anything to do with ballet into the story? What does it tell us that Billy’s father had never been out of Durham, and that Billy had never been to see Durham’s famous cathedral? What do you think of Billy’s dad’s response when Billy says he is scared?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Educating Rita, in which Julie Walters plays a lower-class university student who studies with a professor played by Michael Caine. Two popular movies with similar themes are Brassed Off (laid-off miners find music and meaning in a brass band competition) and The Full Monty (laid-off workers put on a strip show). The question “Why do you dance?” and Billy’s answer recall a similar scene in that most famous of all ballet movies, the brilliant The Red Shoes.

I may sound like the Movie Grandmom here, but it is a darned shame that this smart and sassy movie has to include unnecessarily raunchy humor. Otherwise, this would be a terrific movie for kids, because it raises some important issues and it is a lot of fun.

Kirsten Dunst plays Torrence, whose whole life revolves around competitive cheerleading. She has just been elected captain of her squad, the five-time national champions, and it seems as though her senior year will be everything she dreamed of. But then one girl on the squad is out with a broken leg. And then real disaster strikes — it turns out that their award-winning routines were stolen from another squad, black cheerleaders who could not afford to go to the national competitions. Torrence has to face challenges of ethics and leadership and romance to sort all of this out before the nationals.

The movie strikes just the right note, respecting Torrence’s commitment and sportsmanship, but not taking any of it too seriously. The opening and closing cheers are the movie’s high point, the first one mocking the cheerleader ideal and the one that accompanies the closing credits to the classic 80’s “Mickey” song by Toni Basil. The issues of the white appropriation of black culture (going back at least to Elvis and Pat Boone) is an important one for kids to understand.

Parents should know, though, that while the behavior of the kids in the movie is mostly unobjectionable, the language and sexual references get pretty raunchy. It isn’t just the four-letter words that are typical these days in movies intended for a high school audience. But a boy jokes about slipping his finger in a girl’s underpants while he is holding her up during a cheer, and the insults are more vulgar than usual. Torrence’s little brother is practically demonic in his behavior. Parents should also know that Torrence’s boyfriend cheats on her (there is a girl in his bed). But Torrence and her new love have just one kiss (and, believe it or not, a very romantic tooth-brushing scene).

Families who see this movie should talk about the way that Torrence decides what is important to her and shows determination and commitment. At first, she tries a moral compromise in hiring a professional choreographer because “everybody does it,” but she knows it is wrong, and she is scrupulously honest and fair in her preparation for the nationals. She also handles the results with grace, and she believes in herself enough to break up with the boy who does not believe in her. Kids should also talk about the way that Missy and her brother Cliff support each other.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy watching some of the real-life cheerleader competitions on ESPN. They are amazing!

Joline (Heather Graham) is a woman of her word. Her parents “had a way of moving on from things, including each other.” But Joline believes in commitment. When she gets married, she has the ring tattooed on her finger. Less than two years later, when her husband Carl (Luke Wilson) leaves her without telling her where he is going or why he is going, she goes after him.

Joline narrates the story, and she often prefaces her statements with “I read somewhere,” as in “I read somewhere that the reason most relationships break down is that both parties are waiting for the other to fix it.” She also read somewhere that people can find each other just by following their instincts, and sure enough, she somehow tracks down Carl in El Paso, Texas. But she does not let him know she is there. She just parks near his new home and watches him, taking time out to inadvertently disrupt his relationships with Carmen, his new girlfriend (Patricia Velasquez) and his boss (Dylan Baker). Joline and Carmen become friends, and when Joline’s brother, Jay (Casey Affleck) comes after her, he and Carmen become romantically involved. Joline also gets advice from Carmen’s grandfather (Alfonso Arau), who has mystical powers.

Things do not go well, and Joline says, “I had no choice but to get more extreme with my rituals.” She camps out opposite Carl’s apartment, conducting a “spiritual vigil.” Finally, she is “committed” in both senses of the word, and ends up in a mental hospital.

Joline is less committed to Carl than she is to the idea of commitment. Her sense of herself is so deeply tied up in the idea of permanence that she does not stop to think about whether Carl is the one she should be committed to. Carmen’s grandfather explains that she needs to do what he did in exposing himself to a little of the rattlesnake’s poison in order to become immune. She learns that the distinctions between stupid and brave, crazy and lucky, sick and well, committed and uncommitted, are not as clear as she thought. She says, “For a long time I was telling a joke that nobody got.” Finally, she tells Carl that “I’m still committed, but not to you.”

Families should know that the movie is rated R for language and sexual references. Carl’s artist neighbor makes sexual overtures to Joline that include suggestive caressing of a life-size doll he made of Joline. Carmen’s former boyfriend is abusive and threatening. Jay lives with a lesbian couple and occasionally has sex with one of them, which makes the other one jealous and possessive. There is also a brief but weird brother-sister kiss.

Families who see the movie should discuss the challenge of maintaining a balance between supporting the person you love and enabling destructive or self-destructive behavior. They may also want to talk about Joline’s terms, “spiritual wheelchair” and “spiritual coma,” and the metaphor of the rattlesnake poison.

It’s a good thing that the people who will want to see this movie are not too concerned about the plot, dialogue or performances, because the people who made the movie were not too concerned about them either. The plot is predictable, the dialogue is even more predictable, and the performances are barely noticeable. They are just there to give the audience a chance to catch its breath between the scenes that they came for, the scenes with very, very fast cars.

Though it never uses the term, the movie is about Formula One drivers, and the script, by co-star Sylvester Stallone, seems to come from movie script formula one, too, with pieces from the various Rocky films transposed to the world of racecars and himself in the Burgess Meredith/Yoda role. What matters here are the racing scenes, and the racing scenes are worth seeing. Director Renny Harlin (who also directed Stallone in “Cliffhanger”) has a gift for putting the audience in the center of the action, and that is where the movie delivers. When not much is happening on screen, Harlin uses flashy cuts and music-video-style camera tricks with film speed to pump a little more energy into the story.

Kip Pardue (“Sunshine” the quarterback in last year’s “Remember the Titans”) plays Jimmy Blye, a talented young driver who is winning a lot of races and may take the world championship title away from the reigning champ, Beau Brandenberg (Til Schweiger). Beau gets rattled and dumps his girlfriend of three years because she is “a distraction.” Jimmy is coping with another kind of distraction. His ambitious manager/brother (Robert Sean Leonard) is pushing him very hard on and off the racetrack. When Jimmy crashes his car, the team owner (Burt Reynolds) brings in former champ Joe Tanto (Stallone) to provide back up and focus.

There is some story line about which of the drivers the girl really cares about, and something about Tanto’s ex-wife (Gina Gershon, by far the liveliest person on the screen), now married to another driver whom she describes to Tanto as “a younger, better you.” Tanto has to help Jimmy find the part of himself that just loves driving fast (the thing that in “Rocky III” was called “the eye of the tiger” but in this movie is just called “it” or something like that), some choices need to be made, and some old scores need to be settled.

But it is the racing that matters, and that is terrific. Jimmy and Tanto attend a black tie party in Chicago where their cars are on display. In one delirious scene, they impulsively drive the racecars off onto the city streets, slamming around corners, screeching through underpasses, and leaving chaos and admiring onlookers in their wake. The scenes on the track are bone-crunching, heart-thumping, you-are-in-the-driver’s-seat exciting and the crashes are heartbreaking.

Parents should know that the movie has some strong language, smoking and drinking, and tense and scary accident scenes. A character is badly hurt, and another character has been disabled as a result of a racing accident. A character betrays a member of his family and there are other tense confrontations. There are also a lot of girls in revealing outfits, with tiny t-shirts promoting various racing sponsors.

Families who see this movie should talk about how teammates decide when to help each other and when to compete against each other and how to maintain focus on what really matters. They should also talk about the choices made by Jimmy and Beau when one of the other drivers is injured and about why Jimmy’s brother behaves the way he does. They may also want to discuss why people continue to compete in and buy tickets for such dangerous sports, given tragic losses like champion Dale Earnhardt.

Viewers who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Cliffhanger” and two other racing movies, “Days of Thunder” with Tom Cruise and “Winning,” with Paul Newman and Robert Wagner.

Has there ever been a life as blessed as that of the wealthy English country house owner of the 1930’s?

Imagine being able to toss off casual commands to a huge staff who are there to anticipate every thing the master wants and have it ready before he realizes he wants it. And imagine living in a magnificent house with a safe full of silver and jewels, breakfast in bed, and lots of room for everyone you know to come and spend the weekend.

Pretty good, as long as you’re on the upstairs side of the equation. This movie, a cross between “Upstairs Downstairs,” an Agatha Christie murder mystery, and a game of Clue, uses the pre-WWII country house as an ideal setting for intrigue, romance, ambition, betrayal, and revenge. And it is also a cautionary tale about class, secrets, money, sex, and love.

Lady Constance (Maggie Smith) represents the last of the old way. She unhesitatingly accepts her position in the class hierarchy, despite the minor inconvenience of having to humble herself by asking for more money from a cousin who represents the new. He is a relative by marriage named Sir William(Michael Gambon). His money may be vulgar because it is newly made and his manners may be vulgar because his wealth permits them to be, but just about everyone in the house wants something from him.

The servants, so regimented that they are called by the names of their masters and seated according to the ranks of those they serve, also show the range from those too bound by respect for tradition or lack of imagination to think of something else, to those who cling to the structure so that they do not have to think about anything else, and those who are just beginning to be aware that the world is going to present them with alternatives they could never have dreamed of.

The household includes Sir William’s bored and bitter wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), their daughter, with eyes like sqashed poppies, terrified of having a secret discovered and with no one to confide in but her maid, a brother-in-law desperate for Sir William to back a business deal, and a distant relative who is the only real-life historical character in the movie, early screen idol Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), who brings a Hollywood producer to take notes on the place for a Charlie Chan movie. As Novello literally sings for his supper, entertaining the guests one evening, you can see the future. Those who ignore him (most of the guests) will soon fade, but those who love his music (most of the household staff) will soon take over when World War II transforms the economy and class system of Britain more radically than any event of the previous 300 years.

When asked about his relatives, Novello says that he “earns (his) living by impersonating them.” He is only one of many characters who explore the divide between upstairs and downstairs. There are sexual encounters, largely enjoyed by both parties. And a character who arrives in one category is revealed to be in the other.

As in his best movies, Altman masterfully handles a dozen overlapping and intersecting storylines. Somewhere in the midst, there is a murder, but its resolution is incidental to the many other revelations and confrontations.

The Oscar-winning script is superb, but the movie is mostly a banquet of magnificent performances by most of England’s finest performers. It is worth watching a second or third time, just to enjoy Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Emily Watson, Alan Bates, Scott Thomas, Gambon, and Northam. Ryan Phillipe and Bob Balaban (who co-produced) do very well as the Americans.

Parents should know that the movie has sexual references and situations (briefly graphic), including adultery and homosexuality, and an attempted molestation. There is some strong language and a character is murdered.

Families who see this movie should talk about how each of the different characters fits into the overall story. Which do they sympathize with the most? Which do they dislike the most? Who in the film actually cares about Sir William? Why? Why was it so important for Mrs. Wilson to be the “perfect servant?” What will happen to each of the characters in 10 years?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Altman’s M*A*S*H and Nashville. They may also want to try Masterpiece Theater’s Upstairs Downstairs.”

DVD note: The Collector’s edition DVD has outstanding extras, including commentary by the director, production designer, producer, and screenwriter, deleted scenes and a Q&A session with the film-makers. Strongly recommended.