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.

This is the kind of film that benefits from being experienced with as little prior knowledge as possible. As one watches it, certain questions may arise. But don’t worry — the answers are fascinating.

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.

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.

Yes, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is often hard to follow, perhaps overestimating the audience's ability to keep track of what's going on and why. But it's a well-crafted film that wears its old-fashionedness with pride.

Vincere, which translates as the battle cry "Win!" is like invisible ink on the ledger of war, a secret record of love and loss.

There are no false Hollywood dramatics, no musical cues telling us how we should feel about this boy's battle for dignity and a place in the world. The director lets complex emotions flow naturally out of believable action and dialogue in this very faithful adaptation of a fascinating memoir. [20 August 1993, p.3F]

Shannon's powerfully imploded performance ignites one of the best films of the year.

If you're looking for a political message, either for or against U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, this is not your movie. The directors were satisfied with telling us about a group of courageous, honorable young soldiers - a salute these men richly deserve.

The Tree of Life is a religious experience. Overtly. Audaciously. Unashamedly. No film has ever reached as high toward the face of God and, in our commodified future, few are likely to try.

Notwithstanding exquisite images that evoke Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven," city-slicker audiences may find themselves getting saddle sore. But those with the courage to explore uncharted territory will be rewarded with a rough gem of a movie.

It sustains a palpable fatalism in such recurring details as a whirring buzz saw and the cry of a loon, while the static camera and lack of musical cues enable some unforeseeable plot twists.

The best film of the year and perhaps the purest love story in cinematic history.

With exquisitely simple images and minimal dialogue, Seraphine is both haunting and humane.

An Oscar-ready collaboration between a great director and a star at the peak of his powers, but at its heart is a message in a bottle reading: "Trapped in paradise. Please send help."

Most of all, it’s a magical feat, one that turns puppets into personalities and an English meadow into Anderson’s world.

Until a devastatingly effective finale, Monsieur Lazhar is an exercise in delicacy, carried by Fallag's gentle performance and a fine cast of kid actors.

There's so much higher intelligence in Project Nim that simply digesting it feels like evolutionary progress.

The result, Pina, is the most spirited and spectacular film about dance since Robert Altman's "The Company."

All of the performances are skilled, and yet it's Weaver (a veteran screen, television and stage actress in Australia) who, in a smaller role, creates the character who stays with you.

For cinematic sojourners, Hugo is a trip to the moon.

Up in the Air may not end up as the best picture -- that will be decided by the Academy -- but it has landed in the middle of the discussion because it's laser-focused and right on time.

Ajami is neither a puzzle nor a polemic. It's an admirably even-handed portrait of life in an occupied ghetto that is bounded by checkpoints. Everyone we meet is a more or less honorably motivated victim of circumstance. That the circumstances were inscribed centuries ago makes Ajami a tragedy of biblical proportions.

The Illusionist has surprises up its sleeve that are unusually nuanced for an animated movie.

When the two men compare impersonations of Michael Caine or Sean Connery, Brydon's version is always slightly better - and Coogan knows it.

A stark, contemplative and hauntingly brilliant film.

It's true that the movie is both emotionally violent and sexually explicit. Yet these scenes from a marriage are crafted with such attention to detail and overarching honesty that Blue Valentine touches the heart.

Unhurried in its storytelling but unshakable in its impact.

A lovably quirky comedy-drama with a rhythm all its own.

Anyone suggesting that an Italian film could rival the style and grandeur of "The Godfather" might end up sleeping with the fishes. But Il Divo delivers.

The Oscar-nominated No has the gritty feel of a foreign film from the 1970s. As such, it may take a few minutes for most moviegoers to adjust to its rhythms. Ironically for a film about advertising, there’s nothing slick about it — and therein lies much of its greatness.

Although it's sly and sardonic, Police, Adjective is as rigorous as a tea ceremony -- or a Stalinist re-education camp.

With a fearless director and his mighty pen freeing a talented cast to attack a vital theme, Django Unchained is damnation unleashed.

Ultimately Skyfall is rooted in tradition - and in British soil. A pastoral drive to Bond's boyhood home (in a kind of car that will delight purists) opens the gates to some psychological background, and given the true-love subtext of "Casino Royale," it's not surprising that there's an emotional payoff here.

This is Daisy's story, and Hoke's story. It's a beautiful story, filled with warmth and compassion. It was a glorious evening of theater when I saw it, and it's just as glorious on the screen. [12 Jan. 1990, p.3F]

Hogancamp's alliance with director Jeff Malmberg in this artful and poignant film marks a victory in the war against the self.

The reason District 9 reverberates so loudly is because its moral indignation is cranked to 11.

When films are good, actors and directors get a lot of the credit that should go to the screenwriters. In the case of Silver Linings Playbook, which is one of the best films of the year, there is a popcorn bowl of glory to go around.

Although it's a guilty pleasure, The Queen of Versailles is artful enough that both the prosecution and the defense could invoke it when the peasants cry "Off with their heads!"

True Grit is just a couple bloody gunfights removed from an old-fashioned Disney yarn. Yet it's still unmistakably a Coen brothers movie, from the stray weirdness of a bearskin-clad dentist to the bulls-eye delights of the dialogue.

You might expect a cartoon about a man and his dog to be strictly for kids, but My Dog Tulip, based on a memoir by J.R. Ackerley, has a psychological richness and anatomical explicitness that is very grown-up.

An art-history lesson and a spiritual exercise disguised as a movie.

This humane movie is an ode to joy, albeit of the mature sort.

With such supercharged material under the hood, a magnetic man behind the wheel and a nimble director manning the pits, Senna is simply the greatest sports film I have ever seen.

Like Elizabeth Olsen in "Martha Marcy May Marlene," Oduye brilliantly slips inside the skin of a sensitive young woman who's having trouble finding her place in the world.

Although Precious is based on a novel, it's an act of truth-telling on behalf of a character in hellish enslavement.

That action is bloody, but Fiennes' choices as director are unassailably apt and artful. Coriolanus is a triumph.

A comedy of discomfort -- and one of their (Coen brothers) best, most insightful and most provocative films.

Director David O. Russell ("Three Kings") delivers a film of staggering impact.

As enchanting as it is ambitious.

The performances are first-rate, with Lindhardt particularly moving as a guy who's in deep denial about just how much he can expect from a relationship with an addict.

It starts as a bittersweet parable about the cruelty of commerce, but the wonder of Searching for Sugar Man will not soon slip away.

Black Swan is ridiculously over the top, but in a way that makes it fascinating to watch.

Sophisticated comedies have gone out of fashion, largely because Hollywood finds it easier and more profitable to simply gross out moviegoers. But Please Give has real class -- and for that it deserves our gratitude.

The conclusion of Christopher Nolan's superhero trilogy is a hugely ambitious mix of eye candy and brain food. If it doesn't have the haunting aftertaste of the previous serving, that's only because Nolan couldn't clone Heath Ledger. But beefy substitute Tom Hardy is a hell of a villain.

The success of the three, separately screened films -- the first set in 1974, the second in 1980 and the concluding segment in 1983 -- depends not on their specifics, but on their ability to sustain an atmosphere that's appropriate to the dark but haunting story.

One of the best films of the year.

An artfully observant and unexpectedly moving documentary.

When a place and its people are this stylish, we can't help but be drawn to them.

Beautifully but simply wrought by director Cindy Meehl, this deft documentary is a poignant reappraisal of what it means to be human.

Has been criticized as endorsing or condoning violence, but that assessment is unfair and inaccurate. If terrorism is to be eliminated, it must be understood, not oversimplified.

We can quibble about the punitive punchline of John Gatins' script, but keeping complexity aloft for so long makes Flight a miraculous feat.

Soul Power is both a funk-tastic time capsule and a timeless celebration of the human spirit.

As they build up steam, two powerful actors keep us wondering whether this train is bound for war or peace.

A movie that will be discovered, embraced and shared with friends like a favorite record album.

Might be mistaken for a mere soap opera. But it's actually an emotional symphony.

A provocative mood piece. Nichols, who had an art-house hit in 2011 with “Take Shelter,” has a gift for creating characters of unusual depth, and for eliciting performances of emotional resonance. With Mud, he seems to be edging closer to the mainstream, but his skills are as sharp as ever.

As an homage to an influential director, Submarine blows "Super 8" out of the water.

The film is so masterfully controlled, we feel like we’ve eavesdropped on something like life.

Rango is iconic like a spaghetti Western, smart like a '70s conspiracy thriller and lively like a Coen brothers comedy.

An exciting cloak-and-dagger thriller.

It's an original that plays as if it were based on a novel.

Bernie could easily have gone horribly wrong. But Black and Linklater finesse this tricky material with as much virtuosity as Bernie brings to that broccoli.

Kristen Wiig is the best sketch comic alive, and Bridesmaids should finally make her a movie star.