Unlike too many films these days, Zero Dark Thirty dares to embrace complexity. And that makes it not just state-of-the-art entertainment, but a great film.

Although it's slow to unfold, this courtroom drama is so timelessly humane and even-handed it feels like it came from the dockets of Solomon - by way of Sidney Lumet.

At once an unforgettable war film and a brilliant character study.

The story is so masterfully told that one can't help but be enthralled.

Involves the gradual revelation of the hopes, fears and insecurities of well-observed characters.

It's a well-earned curtain call for some of the most beloved characters in one of the best-sustained feats of recent cinema.

Although The Gatekeepers lacks the stylistic inventiveness of “Fog,” it is nonetheless a compelling account of what can go wrong when power is unrestrained.

Essential viewing for art-film buffs and crime-flick fans, but also for anyone who's looking for a great story, terrific acting and masterful filmmaking.

Winter's Bone is the best film of the year.

A miniaturist's masterpiece, the ebb and flow of familial love distilled to its essence.

Beauty comes to us unexpectedly. That's the message of Poetry, a Korean movie about an aging housemaid that turns out to be one of the best films of the year.

May be too cute to qualify as high art, but it's highly entertaining.

The King's Speech is the epitome of prestige cinema, an impeccably crafted and emotionally compelling drama that deserves the many laurels it surely will receive.

This is a film that's not always easy to watch, but just about impossible to forget.

Like the previous seven movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 obliviates the line between art and craft, but the witchcraft conjured for this satisfying finale is uniquely generous.

Although you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it, Moneyball is one of the best baseball movies imaginable.

For his complex portrayal, Day-Lewis is likely to have roses thrown at his feet, but for the dreadful film in which he's enslaved, emancipated onlookers will reach for the grapes of wrath.

The Kids Are All Right probably could have used a few more scenes to come to an even more satisfying conclusion. But it's a terrific film anyway.

Imagine an opulent movie palace that was 30,000 years old, with posters preserved on the curving walls and the bones of the Stone Age patrons peacefully sleeping in the fairy dust. That's essentially what archeologists found in a French canyon in 1994 and what Werner Herzog brings back to life in the extraordinary documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

For the many mavens who aren't familiar with Varda, this autobiographical documentary will be puzzling, in the best and most literal sense.

Before it turns into a great escape flick, Argo is an amusing spoof of the movie biz.

The Master is not a schematic attack on a particular religion. It is a brilliantly conceived and powerfully realized work of art, with complex characters, exquisite images and ambiguously big ideas.

Traditional in the best sense.

A cinematic miracle, a film that carves out a vivid space that has nothing to do with wizards or extraterrestrials, but quite a lot to say about the fantastical creatures that roam through the humanity in us all.

Both arduous and artful, City of Life and Death is the best imaginable movie about the genocidal siege that's now called the Rape of Nanking. Anything more explicit would be unwatchable; anything more contemplative would be a betrayal of the sustained suffering.

Although Lebanon is to be congratulated for its bold visual strategy and strong antiwar stance, the film becomes claustrophobic after a while.

For a public that's been bullied by the tastemakers, the mystery is a gift. Once we exit this fun house, the only giant left to obey is ourselves.

The combination of a literate script, an adroit cast and an economical style is simple addition that achieves an alchemical feat: the best film of the year.