The best reason to wade into this (let's be honest) challenging but hugely rewarding film is Quvenzhané Wallis.

Christopher Nolan's dramatically and emotionally satisfying wrap-up to the Dark Knight trilogy adroitly avoids clichés and gleefully subverts your expectations at every turn.

The actors in Compliance perform with thorough and chilling sincerity.

A blue-chip Oscar contender that's also a rousing popcorn movie, Ben Affleck's Argo offers plenty of nail-biting thrills as well as funnier scenes than you'd ever imagine possible in the grim context of the Iran hostage crisis.

The very sex-positive The Sessions treats intimacy with an explicitness and honesty that's very rare in movies. It may be the first film that doesn't turn premature ejaculation into a punch line.

Like the fictional Clarice Starling in "The Silence of the Lambs,'' Maya is a consummate professional who brilliantly performs her job in an often hostile work environment.

All great films have imagination; this one also has the sense of experience.

Petzold raises questions of honor and builds the romance with an absolutely rigorous lack of sentiment, moving Barbara to a sweeping finish as emotionally satisfying as any this year.

56 Up is as good a point as any to get hooked on the magnificent half-century series of documentaries, beginning in 1964 with "7 Up."

Such is literature’s power that the cast is more at ease portraying ancient Romans than speaking as versions of themselves.

Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves is the purest, boldest re-imagining of silent cinema yet.

Powerful, provocative and often surprisingly funny, this may be the year's outstanding documentary.

This wonderful party of a movie, as totally original as its hero, stamps on a smiley face that will linger for hours.

Not a film for all tastes, but it's a considerable artistic achievement.

This is a beautifully acted chamber piece --especially by the magnificent Blake, who is married to Norris in real life.

Polarized world views from the mouths of babes -- unfortunately does little to mitigate this depressing image, but much to humanize both sides.

Altman and Rapp skirt the fine line between satire and caricature, stopping just short of ridiculing the women who pack Dr. T's office.

The marvelous Burtonic gothic/nightmare production design -- scenery, weaponry, costumes, etc. constantly pleases the eye without ever distracting you from the plot.

The kind of stand-up-and-cheer movie Hollywood is supposed to have forgotten how to make.

Uses the compelling true story of the triumph of the Enigma code-breakers as background for an invented but believable story of love, betrayal and heroism.

Packs a dramatic wallop that makes it one of the year's best movies.

Refreshing and surprising, the way independent movies are supposed to be.

Cannily weaving cross-cultural comedy with we-can-do-it humor in the spirit of "The Full Monty," the film builds to a rousing climax.

Revels in the sensual pleasure of music while capturing brilliantly the tension that grips any theater company before the curtain goes up.

Rarely since the tale of the Corleones has a movie presented such a compelling, sympathetic portrait of a criminal lowlife.

An ideal antidote to the big-budget bores that studios put out in late summer, The Tao of Steve is a charming, funny and refreshingly smart Gen-X romantic comedy in the tradition of "When Harry Met Sally" - with the bonus of an engagingly laid-back Southwestern flavor.

A real high in a season filled with unfunny comedies.

More than lives up to its clever positioning as the first movie of the new millennium.