While the vocal performances of Hanks, Allen and company make up a perfect ensemble, and its visual leaps astound, TS3's real power sneaks up on you.

Gyllenhaal is charming and makes unexpected choices in her performance, but this is Bridges' show, and he's as Best Actor-worthy as he's ever been.

These three films (adapted from David Peace's novels by different directors), each a singularly gripping work, together form a towering and emotionally complex achievement.

The new Star Trek is more than a coat of paint on a space-age wagon train. It's an exciting, stellar-yet-earthy blast that successfully blends the hip and the classic.

Mary's search drives The Tillman Story, and throughout this taut, true epic, we see a smart, sometimes angry, always loving family find their destiny: to speak truth to power, to call wartime myths what they are and to show how the American character is not about blind obedience.

Among an excellent cast, Douglas truly is the nexus; he and Stone make this sequel pay off big-time.

A work deeper than its nickname, "The Facebook Movie," hints at - coils around your brain. Weeks after seeing it, moments from it will haunt you.

Despite being about a royal family at a critical moment in history, The King's Speech doesn't shout about its many strengths. Rather, it urges you to lean in close, where its intelligence and heart come through loud and clear.

Halfway into Blue Valentine, a work so beautifully acted and emotionally honest it is my choice for best movie of the year, there's an amazing flashback scene you hope never ends.

Director Werner Herzog's latest cinematic mind trip blows you away with its beauty.

This summer's best popcorn flick.

This heartbreaking and essential look into the lives of those who put so much into educating other people's children ought to be seen by anyone concerned about the fate of the public school system, and the nation as a whole.

As tough-spirited as fans would hope for - and exciting and thought-provoking in a way few adventure dramas ever are.

Chimpanzee lets everyone feel like a mini-Jane Goodall.

Most impressive of all, The Avengers makes superhero movies new again - a colossal task indeed.

Rarely has any film, fictional or documentary, captured the hypnotic effect of voices on the airwaves like this chronicle of Bob Fass.

Argo is movie magic. Ben Affleck's third directorial outing, is an entertaining, real-life, race-the-clock thriller that nabs you at the start and never makes a wrong move.

This amazingly beautiful, and amazingly frightening, documentary captures the immediacy of what climate change is doing to the Arctic landscape.

Crucial viewing for realists and alarmists both.

Small victories that turn into defeats, long walks to gain little ground, little wounds that get deeper every day - growing old is a war, and movies rarely go there. Michael Haneke's amazing, dignified Amour is the exception.

It shows that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. And how, in case we forget, every age can predict the next.

As important and eye-opening a documentary as you’ll see this year, A Place at the Table makes it impossible to think of hunger as merely another symptom of a shredded social safety net.

Boseman is watchful, winning and confident, but never saintly. Yet he keeps Robinson’s moral spine aligned with his skill and self-respect, showing how he needed all of those to succeed.

The result is a stunningly nervy sequel that vaporizes any worries that Abrams’ terrific 2009 reboot was a fluke.

The result is the first comic-book movie in a while that actually feels like a classic comic book: fast, furious and flip. Forget about superheroes with love problems and tortured souls.

Entertaining, inventive and old-fashioned in the best way.

Entertaining, smart and snappy, this terrific doc, a Sundance favorite, digs into the country's use of steroids and how it affects sports, pop culture and the self-image of young men.

Rotates around a rusty little robotic hero who's built, as the movie is, with such emotion, brains and humor that whole universes exist in his whirring tones and binocular eyes.

It was a true media circus, and despite Polanski's work before and since, the film shows how it will forever be his first association in the public consciousness. In the U.S., at least.

History has made his midair stroll meaningful, but the film shows how even then, everyone - from Petit to his accomplices to the cops who were waiting for him atop the North Tower - recognized the stunt's crazy poetry.

What he does do finally in this funny, refreshing movie is assert how unrestrained religiosity could guarantee the "end days" many of his subjects admit to looking forward to.

A fast-moving, rock 'em-sock 'em movie that continues the man-vs.-machines series begun 25 years ago.

A measured and thoughtful meditation on a leader who, this terrific movie believes, inadvertently made the world as roiling as his soul.

As a whole, Sam Mendes' film of Revolutionary Road comes close but falls short of capturing Richard Yates' terrific novel.

Benjamin never questions his fate and ­never actually gets to enjoy being a kid. At least there's a thoughtful middle part, where the enigmatic Blanchett comes alive and Benjamin seems haunted by life -- someone we recognize, and not just a vessel tossed about by time.

This is a role that the Julia Roberts of 1999 couldn't have played, and that's fine. The one we have here is much better.

A memorable, monstrous fable that's consistently gripping.

A romantic comedy that feels like real life.

The film treats kids' inner lives as more than a fantasy, which is a rare and beautiful thing.

A fast and relentless hostage thriller that never stops.

One of the best indie films of the year, Humpday is a lighter descendant of "sex lies and videotape," yet burrows just as deep into the male psyche and the human capacity for self-deceit.

Intense and, yes, depressing - and earns every minute that it rattles inside your head.

Downey has a winning take on Holmes: He's always on.

Has a mature tapestry of characters, a welcome sense of humor and, most crucially, a lovely Juliette Binoche.

Watch Mulligan's face as she goes from weary to awakened, and see it all come together.

The late King of Pop delivers.

The cast is strong, and Damon is a dependable center for all this, a classic American good guy wanting to know what's rotten and why.

Here, the actor (Di Niro) dials it down and wins us over.

Arnold generally steers clear of cinematic melodrama, and Jarvis infuses the entire film with the sort of kinetic spirit that heralds a new talent.

At its best, this beautiful, off-the-cuff comedy-drama recalls John Cassavetes' shaggiest, most honest work.

This quietly poetic little gem contains many beautiful things, not least of which is leading lady Zoe Kazan, who lets every scene billow and swirl around her effortlessly.

In Rob Corddry's hilariously manic turn, it has the most memorable showcase for a goofball co-star since Michael Keaton in 1981's "Night Shift."

This macabre-yet-moving Argentinian drama from director Juan Jose Campanella is nuanced and full of intelligence and emotion; just when you think you have a bead on it, it gently swerves into richer places.

Perfect for families and exquisitely shot, this entry from the Disneynature division is even better and fresher than last year's "Earth."

Iron Man 2 sets gold standard for sequels thanks to Robert Downey Jr.'s Stark performance.

The comedy of discomfort that runs through Cyrus is often about several things at once. But the most prevalent emotion in this quirky yet genuine movie is the awkwardness that comes with trying to fit into someone else's life.

For the uninitiated, this fun French documentary detailing the camaraderie and division between filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard reveals a time when "the cinema" was something to get excited about and literally fight over.

Every parent in New York should see this movie and then ask why, when solutions exist, our woefully broken school system has yet to be fixed.

Fast-moving, exciting and contains more twists than a tunnel under Checkpoint Charlie.

To eavesdrop on Bernardo Bertolucci, Stephen Frears, Ken Loach and John Sayles, as they talk politics; David Lynch and Todd Haynes, discussing inspiration; and Catherine Breillat, Agnès Varda, Richard Linklater and Liliana Cavani as they riff on controversy and aspiration, even for a little while, is a real treat.

There are suggestions to help us sleep more easily, but the point is to wake us up.

Moving, intelligent documentary.

A kind of historical detective story made up of haunting montages, including a theater performance featuring a heartbroken musician that's absolutely chilling.

The American, a movie as coiled as a snake and as still as a sleepy villa, is the rare grownup thriller that knows the link between peace and danger and the tension that comes from both.

Affleck keeps the film as fluid as the "Mystic River," and never forgets that Renner is his ace in the hole. The "Hurt Locker" star charges up every scene he's in with feral power, and is rewarded with one of the most exciting sequences seen in any action movie this decade.

Ferguson doesn't aim to entertain; he wants answers, and talks to many of the enabling weasels.

There could have been more side trips on the road to self-discovery, but the plentiful lessons and derring-'do make Tangled a lock for playground pastimes. And maybe even some knotty parent-kid chats about finding your part in life.

By far the most rousing, expertly cast movie this year, David O. Russell's movie takes a roundabout way of telling its true story.

Gibney puts mystery back into a story we thought we knew.

A wonderfully entertaining, beautiful Western drama that lets the quirks of the genre gallop freely as it keeps a tight rein throughout.

By the time Barney gets one final, heartbreaking chance to screw things up, this rich, satisfying film has you hooked.

The man-versus-the-natural world story is in Weir's wheelhouse, and Harris and Farrell get into a scene-stealing duel. Worth the trek.

Quiet, soulful and wrenching.

There's a wonderfully steely spine inside of Tom McCarthy'sWin Win," but it's hard to see at first because it's inside the doughy, everyman person of Paul Giamatti.

The first film in a while to have a decent heart while quickening your pulse.

World is grounded, offering up a rare case of well-earned hopefulness.

A twisty Italian thriller that takes some liberties with its now-you-see-'em/now-you-don't plot points, but no matter; the way director Giuseppe Capotondi keeps us guessing is deliciously, maliciously deft.

Filled with striking images and the ghosts of lives lived in hardship and war, Incendies is tough but impactful.

Murphy also reveals one more gem when she interviews the New York couple who gave their friend Nell Harper Lee a financial gift in the '50s that allowed her to quit her job and finish the book, an act of generosity that is also one more kindness surrounding this most humane of artworks.

As in "Purple Rose," the film works best when tweaking the disparate worlds thrown together, though "Midnight" is frothier, and so Wilson shines.

Kung Fu Panda 2 plunks down squarely in the spot marked for "chop-socky action with heart."

Like so much in this astounding, consistently beautiful and challenging movie, the answer depends on what you bring to it. Think of it as the Ultimate Anti-Summer-Blockbuster.

Beginners is filled with crises of identity, but underneath it all is a beautifully humane, sweet and intelligent movie that knows exactly what it is at every moment.

A charming indie that combines dreamy aspiration with mucky, hilarious reality.

A young Aussie actress who seems as all-American as a Magic 8 ball, successfully walks the tightrope from precocious to exuberant, never once falling into obnoxiousness. That could describe this crackerjack of a kids' movie as well.

A gripping documentary about how unnecesary real estate development can change the soul of New York, brings us inside the lives it touches.

Emphasizing the importance of new media, Stelter is ready to bring the paper back to the future, though this terrific tale of an establishment in transition ultimately plays like "All the President's Men," with the intrigue coming from inside the building.

Even those who never joined the cult of A Tribe Called Quest will find this clear-eyed chronicle of their career irresistible.

If only this were a media-fueled tall tale and not one poor creature's lifelong nightmare.

There's no bells and whistles here, no 3-D or useless grey fluff, just Pooh as he's always been, silly and true.

This muscular, red-blooded adventure has a decent heart and the stuff of Saturday afternoon serials running through its veins.

This is crucial work, evidenced by a line on a wall of R.I.P. graffiti that reads simply, "I am next." This film of common folks fighting the seemingly inevitable is just as moving.

Cooper, Torre and Dane DeHaan, as a soldier smitten with a local girl, stand out among a strong cast. With its big ideas on an intimate scale, this is Sayles' best in a decade.

This incredibly moving, touchingly honest and transcendent chronicle of how a handful of people coped after Sept. 11 is not only one of the best distillations of that day, but a monument to humanity lost and gained.

For all the movement in Drive, the quiet, deathly still moments are the ones that count.

This extraordinary hybrid of a movie lives and breathes the game, yet its achievement is bigger than that. There's a touch of old-fashioned romanticism here, but more crucially there's strategy going on inside Bennett Miller's movie that turns it into something cool and special.

Warm memories of one school under a groove and a moving ending that no screenwriter could improve upon.

50/50 pulls no punches in its depiction of living day-to-day with illness. There's pain and fear, no question. But this dramatic comedy is also warm, honest and, most especially, funny.