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Once a year, the world comes to Chicago in the guise of the Chicago International Film Festival. With 111 feature films from 44 different countries--including places like Morocco, Bosnia, and Brazil--the festival provides a wealth of perspectives, with movies for everyone. This year is its 40th edition, which makes it the oldest competitive film festival in North America, and it seems to only be getting better with age.

My two favorite movies of the fest aren't necessarily going to be for all tastes. Tropical Malady, the third feature from up-and-coming Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, won a major prize at this year's Cannes festival. The narrative is broken into two parts, with the first half dwelling on the growing relationship between two young men. The second half is less of a story and more of a myth-turned-meditation. Weerasethakul, who made the beautiful Blissfully Yours, has a master's eye for the small detail, and his sound design is hypnotic. It's not clear how the movie's two halves work together, but I was absolutely mesmerized by its images and conjuring up of a mythical environment.

The Harvest Time is a much more grounded film (pun intended). Set in the Soviet Union right after WWII, it tells the story of a young wife whose husband comes home from the war. Though he's lost both legs, the couple are still happy living on a collective farm and raising two boys. But when the wife wins an award for being the best combine driver, things don't work out like she'd hoped. The story is a simple one, and the film is wonderfully naturalistic in its approach. Little things like dust in sunlight or a goose drinking water are revelations, and the family's small home provides a rich mise en scene. Director Marina Razbezhkina also eschews the widescreen aspect ratio and instead films the gorgeous farmland with depth. And when she brings the story into the present day, the movie becomes a profound treatise on the nature of history and youth.

Iranian cinema continues to shine in this year's lineup, with three of my favorite films. The most accessible is the neo-realist work Stray Dogs. Directed by Marziyeh Meshkini (The Day I Became a Woman), it features two Afghani children whose parents are both in prison. At first, the brother and sister able to stay with their mother, but then they're forced on to the street. While the film paints a grim picture of post-war Afghanistan, the movie is also light on its feet, with some hilarious scenes as well as a gorgeous homage to The Bicycle Thief. Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses) is also concerned with how children are faring during war times, but his focus is on the Kurdish areas of Iraq. With his powerful Turtles Can Fly, he portrays a village of refugees, where children clear farmland of minefields so they can have money to eat. Into this world come three characters: a teen boy with no arms, a younger girl who's suicidal, and a toddler who's going blind. In Toronto, Ghobadi described his film as an attempt to reverse the propaganda of the news--to make the regular people the stars and reduce the dictators (the plural is his) to mere extras. The final Iranian film is also concerned with death but with a more comic touch. Bitter Dream, Mohsen Amiryoussefi's fantastic debut, focuses on a group of people who work at a cemetery. An old man who washes the dead starts to think Death might be coming for him soon. His clumsy attempts to reconcile his accounts make for some marvelous situations.

I can also recommend a number of other foreign films. Nobody Knows is a gripping story about four children in Japan who have to learn to survive when their mother abandons them. Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene brings his Cannes favorite Moolaade to the festival. Though the movie revolves around the hot-button issue of female circumcision, it's actually a broader look at how globalization and modernism are affecting African villagers. Four Shades of Brown starts off as a hilarious portrait of lovable losers in Sweden and then transforms itself into something much fuller. Speaking of hilarious, my favorite character from two festivals ago returns in the animated feature McDull, Prince de la Bun. You might remember McDull was a little pig living in Hong Kong and wrestling with the big issues of life. In his newest adventure, his mother tells a confusing story but one that wraps up with great tenderness. More importantly, the film is filled with eye-popping animation and some fantastic gags. And then there's the Hungarian movie Kontroll. Set in the subway system of Budapest, it's a dark thriller filled with some of the coolest cinematography you'll see all festival.

If your tastes run more towards Hollywood, the festival hasn't left you out. There's Opening Night, of course, with the bio-pic Kinsey, starring Liam Neeson as the famous sex researcher and Laura Linney as his wife. Regular readers will know that I'm not a fan of bio-pics, and this one did nothing to change my mind. But I also found its obvious agenda to be a little too obvious. As my friend Garth pointed out, maybe we all need to watch The Ice Storm again. I'm also sad to say that I didn't much enjoy Undertow, the new movie from David Gordon Green (George Washington). This Southern gothic tale cribs too much from Terrence Malick and Night of the Hunter, and doesn't find enough of its own reason to exist. On the other hand, I have nothing but good words for Finding Neverland, a bio-pic about Peter Pan author James M. Barrie. This one makes the wise decision to concentrate on only one small part of Barrie's life. Furthermore, Johnny Depp makes a compelling lead, the child actors who play Barrie's muses are charming, and Kate Winslet is her usual marvelous self as their mother. Finally, I haven't seen Sideways, the new film from Alexander Payne (About Schmidt), but the early word is that it's Payne's best work yet.

Documentaries are a staple of any festival. Checkpoint takes us to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by focusing on the checkpoints Israel has set up throughout the West Bank and Gaza. The movie is just a series of various encounters between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians trying to move from town to town. This creates an immediacy that is compelling but also cuts us off from any larger context. The same is true for The 10th District Court, which documents various court cases that come before a French judge. Her demeanor will remind some of Judge Judy, but director Raymond Depardon has more on his mind than just a French "People's Court." Film buffs won't want to miss Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinematheque. Langlois was one of the 20th century's most important film personalities, as he founded and ran the famous Cinematheque in Paris. This doc might be 210 minutes long, but it's a treasure trove of personalities and film history. I've also heard great things about Born into Brothels, an inspiring documentary in which the filmmakers went into Calcutta's red light district and started teaching photography to children.

Not everything at the festival can be great. Buffalo Boy, a Vietnamese film set in the rural 1940s, is trite and unfocused. Les Choristes, a French dramedy about a schoolteacher who reaches juvenile delinquents through the power of music, reminds us that Hollywood doesn't have a corner on cliche. And as much as I wanted to like Theo Angelopoulos's latest epic Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow, its slow-moving tale of Greek suffering wore me out well before its three-hour running time was up.

I have fonder things to say about a number of films that might interest you if you're in the right mood. _The Lost Embrace_ is an Argentinean film that's much more compelling when it portrays the culture of a Jewish-run shopping mall than when it shifts to the familiar narrative of a son searching for his long-lost father. Two films from China might fit the bill. _The Foliage_ is a love story about young intellectuals sent off to re-education camps in the early '70s, while _South of the Clouds_ is about an older man who wonders what could've been. On the other end of the age spectrum, _The Wooden Camera_ is about a South African boy who finds himself in possession of a video camera, another boy who finds a gun, and the white girl they're both interested in. _Right Now_, from French director Benoit Jacquot, takes the New Wave theme of young people lost in romance and crime and turns it on its head. Finally, _Schizo_ is a well-written crime drama from the far-off country of Kazakhstan.

In celebration of its 40 years, the festival is bringing back eleven prize winners from past years, with most of the directors present to talk about their work. This includes Istvan Szabo with his early movie Father, Liv Ullmann with her '92 film Sofie, and Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui with The Cow. Three of the city's leading film critics will also be offering their own "Critic's Choice": Roger Ebert with Martin Scorsese's debut Who's That Knocking at My Door?, Michael Wilmington with the classic Soviet war movie Come and See, and Jonathan Rosenbaum with Sam Fuller's own war epic The Big Red One. After the movie, Rosenbaum will interview Time film critic Richard Schickel, who was instrumental in helping restore Fuller's film.

Of course, there are another 80 movies that might be just what you're looking for. So pick up a schedule or go online at chicagofilmfestival.com. This chance only comes once a year. Opening Night is Thurs., Oct. 7, and the festival runs through Oct. 21. Tickets range from $6 to $25 for Opening Night, but most films are $11.