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There are too many movies in the 32nd annual Atlanta Film Festival for any one person to see in the next nine days (some 160 films, in fact).

Here are 20 we recommend you simply not miss. (All screen at Landmark's Midtown Art Cinema; www.atlantafilmfestival.com.)

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1. "YOUNG@HEART." I dare you not to smile during this documentary about a chorus of energetic senior citizens who belt out songs by Sonic Youth, Coldplay, the Clash and more. It's an affecting film that can make an audience giddily happy during the group's performances and profoundly sad while witnessing the offstage realities of old age. 2:30 p.m. Saturday (the film is expected to start a theatrical run in metro Atlanta on April 25).

2. "AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR." Co-directors Peter Gilbert and Steven James (the Oscar-nominated "Hoop Dreams") dig deep in this compelling documentary into Texas prison executions, focusing especially on the former death house chaplain in Huntsville who dealt with 95 "dead men walking" and an executed convict who some believe was innocent. 5:15 p.m. Saturday and 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

3. "PRICELESS." An endearing French romantic comedy with the knockout Audrey Tautou and a game —- and smitten —- Gad Elmaleh in a light, cat-and-mouse game of gold-digging and seduction. In French with subtitles. Noon April 19.

4. "AMERICAN TEEN." If TV's drama-heavy "The Hills" is a documentary, then so is this eye-opening exploration of modern high school life in an Indiana town with catty, popular girls, jocks and outright nerds. Clearly, their problems mirror the age-old perpetual anxieties of navigating high school. 7:30 tonight (the film is expected to start a theatrical run in metro Atlanta in August).

5. "TEAM PICTURE." What's a film festival without a definitive, offbeat indie film? Director-actor Kentucker Audley's cinematic tone poem of a Memphis 20-something's blithe existence hardly has a plot. The film's determined elusiveness is initially frustrating, but ultimately its intentional awkwardness says volumes about the difficult path one must take from childhood to adult. 7:10 p.m. Wednesday.

6. "THE BIG QUESTION." A sometimes fascinating documentary on forgiveness and its meaning to those able to look beyond revenge in the face of murder, assault and tragedy. Interviewed is the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who talks about the power of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 7:15 tonight and 12:45 p.m. Monday.

7. "SATURN IN OPPOSITION." Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek scores with this Italian drama set in Rome and involving a group of extended friends dealing with unexpected illness and a string of revealed secrets. In Italian with subtitles. Part of the fest's Out on Film Spotlight Section. 9:20 p.m. Tuesday.

8. "COYOTE." An ambitious illegal-immigration drama about two young men who become "kinder, gentler" human traffickers on the U.S.-Mexican border and are eventually pursued by the law and cutthroat adversaries. 6 p.m. Sunday and 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

9. "DANCE OF THE DEAD." Former Atlanta filmmaker Gregg Bishop's often funny, certainly bloody and intentionally over-the-top prom-night zombie movie was shot in Rome, Ga. The film's coolest moment: Zombies don't just rise from the grave but they are catapulted out and already in full stride. 10 tonight and 2:45 p.m. April 19.

10. "JUMP!" In the past few years, we've had documentaries about spelling bees and crossword puzzles. So why not one on competitive rope jumping? Helen Hood Scheer's film follows several U.S. teams to regional, national and world contests and displays some astonishing tricks. 5:30 p.m. Saturday and 4:45 p.m. Monday.

11. "SPINE TINGLER! THE WILLIAM CASTLE STORY." Illusion-O. Percepto. These were the visual gimmicks from 1950s and early 1960s horror kitschmeister William Castle ("Macabre," "13 Ghosts," "The Tingler"), and they are explored thoroughly in this new, entertaining documentary. 3 p.m. Sunday and 9:45 p.m. Thursday (on a side note: The Plaza is screening "13 Ghosts" with Illusion-O "ghost viewers" on April 26).

12. "THE PROJECT." Though the film gets caught up in an overflow of characters and ideas, this drama about filmmakers following inner-city youth and two police officers in Brooklyn has unexpected verve and some searing performances. 8:30 p.m. Sunday and 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

13. "ON A WING AND A PRAYER." A post-Sept. 11 documentary that follows a Pakistani Muslim, living in America with his wife and kids, who wants to learn how to fly and get a private pilot's license. Enter the FBI, of course. But Monem Salam gets his wish and we get an enjoyable look at a man fulfilling a dream. 7:15 p.m. Thursday.

14. "WHERE THE WATER MEETS THE SKY." Formerly titled "Voices of Samfya," this documentary looks at village women in Zambia who are given digital cameras and who helped develop a film about the real-life story of a teen-age AIDS orphan that's eventually screened before thousands of their countrymen. 9:25 p.m. Wednesday and 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

15. "SON OF RAMBOW." This British comedy features endearing youth, especially a small boy inspired after seeing Sylvester Stallone's "First Blood," to make his own mind-blowing sequel with a bully-turned-friend and a visiting French student. 7 p.m. April 18 (the film is expected to have a theatrical run in metro Atlanta starting May 16).

16. "MONSTER CAMP." The geek inherit not the whole earth but, in effect, a state park in this often amusing documentary about devoted nerds in the Northwest who amass to absorb themselves in medieval dress-up fantasy games of monsters, warriors, vampires, lords and villains. 9:40 p.m. Wednesday.

17. " 'BAMA GIRL." She wants to be homecoming queen at the University of Alabama. She's African-American. And she's not the white sorority girl chosen to win by a closed group of all-white fraternities at the school known as the Machine. Rachel Goslins' documentary follows Jessica Thomas on her quest to turn the tide against tradition at Alabama. 7:15 p.m. Wednesday.

18. "HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT." Nearly wordless, director Mark Street's documentary combines visual vignettes from Santiago, Chile; Hanoi, Vietnam; Dakar, Senegal; and Marseille, France, drawing some connections from street life in very different places. 2:45 p.m. Sunday and 5 p.m. Monday.

19. "THE CAKE EATERS." Oscar nominee Bruce Dern plays the father of two sons still reeling from the death of their mother and their inability to make lasting connections. The younger one, named Beagle, reaches out to a girl struck with a terminal nervous system disease. This drama, directed by Mary Stuart Masterson, contains secrets, twists and an evocative look at small-town life. 7 tonight and 2:30 p.m. Monday.

20. "THE VISITOR." The festival's closing-night film from director Thomas McCarthy ("The Station Agent") explores life-altering relationships born when a closed-minded, tired and uninspired Connecticut college professor (Richard Jenkins of "Six Feet Under") discovers illegal immigrants living in his New York apartment. 7:30 p.m. April 19.