Syriana is an American movie that reaches out beyond itself. Watching it made me feel hopeful -- a rare sensation in a cinema.

... If you can avoid getting too hung up on the details, Syriana is a brave attempt to blitz the goody-baddy dynamics of cold-war film-making and concentrate on the ambiguities of modern geopolitics.

This is intelligent, committed, and politically provocative, though its narrative puzzle box may prompt you to throw up your hands and let ExxonMobil go on running the world.

Twenty years later, Syriana and its exploration of oil, politics, and the human cost behind global power remains as relevant today as it was in 2005.