Thou shalt not kill, yet sometimes it seems as though every other work of fiction revolveth around the simple art of murder. It usually makes for a grippingly interactive time as we amateur sleuths (and all-too-willing voyeurs) try to figure out the whys and hows of who did what in the conservatory with a lead pipe. But the emotional periphery of such a brutal act rarely gets explored, and writer-director Karen Moncrieff's The Dead Girl restores some much-needed humanity to the science of homicide through five affecting vignettes focusing on various lives upended by one killing.

The Dead Girl opens with "The Stranger," in which a sad, haunted woman (Toni Collette, In Her Shoes) discovers a mutilated corpse on her family's land, a fact of keen interest to a weird grocery store clerk (the perpetually underused Giovanni Ribisi) who regales her with serial killer facts and then indulges her fetishes. "The Sister" touches upon the clinically depressed forensics student (Rose Byrne, Marie Antoinette) who examines the body and comes to believe that it may be her long-missing sibling. And in "The Wife," a nagging spouse (Mary Beth Hurt, in a fearless performance) realizes that the notion of her husband having an affair might be the best-case scenario.

"The Mother" is The Dead Girl's strongest, most heartwrenching interlude, and it stars Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock) as a grieving woman uncovering some truths, both bitter and bittersweet, about the daughter she lost long before her remains were found. The film's final chapter showcases Brittany Murphy as "The Dead Girl," a prostitute who crosses paths with the wrong man as she undertakes the process of reordering her life so she can reclaim her own daughter.

2003's Blue Car was Moncrieff's acclaimed debut film, and she follows it up with a beautifully written piece about how easy it is to die and how difficult it is to go on living. Moncrieff elicits some stunning work from her actors, with a supporting cast that includes Kerry Washington, Mary Steenburgen, Piper Laurie, Bruce Davison, and a beefy, menacing Josh Brolin. The only false note gets struck by the always-annoying Murphy, whose harsh look and shrill delivery do very little to command sympathy. That's OK, though, because despite its title, The Dead Girl doesn't really concern the dead girl; it has to do with the pain of those left in her wake. Truthfully, death never is about the actual deceased, who absolutely do not care whether you attend their funerals. Their troubles are over.

Berlin, 1984. The Wall still stands strong and the East German secret police are running the show, spying on those not totally on board with the German Democratic Republic's Communist ideology, or anyone dating the woman that the boss wants to screw. This age-old rivals plotline sets into motion a chain of events that will shake the faith of two men in writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's character study The Lives of Others, Germany's Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Stasi likely have few operatives as dedicated as Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), and he doesn't question the decision to run surveillance on Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a handsome writer involved with an actress (Martina Gedeck) that the Culture Minister is eyeing for himself. But as Wiesler shadows Dreyman, we observe the eyes of this lonely party pawn being slowly opened to Western dogma. Dreyman has no idea he's being watched, and it isn't until he becomes aware of his girlfriend's soul-selling that he will give them a reason to do so and unknowingly jeopardize the increasingly kindhearted Wiesler.

The exhaustingly named von Donnersmarck shoots his film in drab Eastern Bloc beiges and greys, and his style is equally bland, to be quite honest, though at 33 years old, it's possible he's still finding one. The insightful script and deft performances are the reasons for this film's accolades, as illustrated by the two lead roles. Koch's charming ease as Dreyman conveys a comfortable man whose fear of upsetting the status quo stems from the prices the GDR's perceived enemies have paid before him, and Mühe's Wiesler expresses his awakening through the most austere of gestures, especially the looks of ecstasy that flood his face upon reading the Brecht he stole or hearing his quarry play the piano, his arrogance giving way to compassion as he experiences the lives of... you know.

The Dead Girl (R), written and directed by Karen Moncrieff, opens Friday, February 23, at the Little Theatres | The Lives of Others (R), written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, opens Friday, March 2, at the Little Theatres.