The movie grabbed me and wouldn't let go during a bravura set piece at a soccer game when Campanella's camera glides into the stadium, finds Benjamin's face in the crowd and doesn't stop moving (with only a couple of edits) for six breathtaking minutes.

Lawrence is in every scene of Winter's Bone, leaving her plenty of opportunity to make false moves. I dare you to find one, in a performance to be remembered during awards season.

Restrepo is about soldiers, not politics. The question of whether U.S. troops belong there isn't posed. Their devotion to duty and each other is unquestioned.

Hands down and body parts floating, the most irresistibly sick movie in years is Piranha 3D, which should be retitled Piranha 3D, Double-D and C for all the topless cuties director Alexandre Aja feeds the fish and audience.

This is a remarkable film for more reasons than its antihero, from the cyberspeed wisdom of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay to Jeff Cronenweth's camera prowling the excesses of youthful genius gone wild.

One of the year's best documentaries.

Like Bertie's struggle, there's so much wonderment to articulate about this film that being mistaken for a stammering idiot is a risk. See it, then say it for yourself: The King's Speech is the best movie of 2010.

Think "Catch Me If You Can" mashed up with "Brokeback Mountain" if Mel Brooks directed and you'll get the idea.

Sounds depressing, although Rabbit Hole isn't, with David Lindsay-Abaire presenting a perceptive, subtly dark-humored adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Sounds depressing, but Blue Valentine is a reminder that well-measured and expertly acted pain is as thrilling to watch as 3-D spectacle.

The soundtrack is a small marvel of music hall tunes and dialogue that is mostly garbled, allowing expressions and body language to be interpreted.

Rango is wild, woolly and weird, and the first movie of 2011 that I must see again.

Bursting with color and rippling with samba rhythms, Rio makes you wonder why animated films haven't spent more time in Brazil.

A movie of here-and-now thrills, goosed by judicious CGI effects that never overpower the humanity of the situation.

Allen eventually gets to the heart of this matter: the allure and danger of nostalgia.

Incendies is a gallery of nightly news atrocities - a bus massacre, rape, children with guns - yet it's made intensely personal under the director's steady hand.

The funniest comedy of degeneracy since "Bad Santa," and a career-changer for Aniston and Farrell if they'll only keep following their perverted muses. Horrible Bosses spins hostile work environments into a movie surpassing "9 to 5" and "Office Space" as the touchstone flick for disenchanted drones.

Buck is a movie to be revisited again and again, like passages from a satisfying self-help book. Riding experience isn't necessary to realize how extraordinary this man and his calling are.

Considering Parts 1 and 2 of Deathly Hallows as a single enterprise, as they should be, this is a rare franchise that just kept getting better.

The weight of Carlos' world shows on his rugged face, even with rare half-smiles. This is a masterfully understated performance that should be remembered during awards season.

It's irreverent about cancer and that could be inspirational. And it's surely one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen all year.

Yes, Kermit does reprise The Rainbow Connection, surely one of the loveliest movie songs ever and, yes, it still brings tears to your eyes. Happy tears, realizing some marvelous things never change.

The Descendants would still be a splendid movie without him; with Clooney, it's one of 2011's very best.

It's the most unsettling nice surprise of 2011.

Hazanavicius crafted more than a replica of the silent era; this feels like a time capsule found 80 years later, right on time to be revolutionary in a louder world. Yet The Artist is a masterwork that likely won't be imitated. How many movies in 2011 can you say that about? Only the best one.

In a movie year of more than two dozen animated films, this and "Rango" tower over all others. Welcome to America, Tintin. It's great getting to know you.

It's a mystery wrapped inside an enigmatic nation, flawlessly acted and difficult to predict. I'm always impressed when a movie informs about a foreign culture while it entertains, and this one is powerful art in that regard.

The Cabin in the Woods isn't merely another "Scream" exercise in self-awareness, or a "Scary Movie" spoof of the same. It's a wickedly smart hybrid mutation, biting the severed hand feeding the genre.

Monsieur Lazhar becomes a deeply affecting film not for pathos but for the way sadness is conveyed so subtly. It's a small triumph of restrained compassion, coaxing throat lumps rather than jerking tears.

It's more amusing than you might expect, and ultimately more touching than an eroding society around them deserves.

Hushpuppy carries a lot of emotional weight on her slender shoulders, and Wallis makes one wish to climb into the screen to lighten the load with an embrace. Do not miss this performance, or this quietly astonishing, life-affirming masterpiece.

This is a rapturous cinematic experience, a spellbinding expression of shrouded ideas and exposed talent, top to bottom.

I adore The Perks of Being a Wallflower for its honest, unsentimental feel, which gets stretched a bit in the revelatory finale, but by then I didn't mind.

Argo works superbly on two levels, first as a white-knuckle re-enactment of events in Iran and scrambling strategies in Washington.

I've watched Sleepwalk With Me twice now, each time impressed with Birbiglia's confidence in revealing so much about his craft and himself, and the freely associated style with which he does it.

The movie's assured direction by Sam Mendes can't be underestimated.

The Sessions is often brazenly funny, not from shocking dialogue but characters speaking and reacting the way real people do, especially with such a flustering subject as sex.

Silver Linings Playbook is a bracing shaken cocktail of awkward failure and accidental success, with Pat and Tiffany making a refreshing and unlikely couple to root for. We just want them to be abnormal together, share their favorite antidepressants, maybe even dance to Stevie Wonder.

The last thing we see in Zero Dark Thirty is Maya's face and it is also ours, silently crying tears of reflection.

With Amour, it's the rare feeling of watching a masterpiece unfold.

One of the all-time great sports movies — primarily because it's one of the all-time great sports stories.

Yes, this one is even better: funnier, brawnier and ingeniously constructed for appeal to both devoted fans and reluctant converts.

It's a refreshing change from run-of-the-kill horror. Nothing in Splice feels done merely for the moment -- it's to creep you out later.

What's fun is how the new Karate Kid embraces and vastly improves the cliches, keeping the plot cleverly updated for a generation that never heard of Ralph Macchio.

Rapace is a magnetic presence in a far-ranging mystery requiring such a solid character to orbit around.

There's much more to the adventure, a deft balance of fantasy and teen angst that never loses its contemporary sense of humor.

The A-Team is literally a blast, from the opening credits containing more thrills than the average shoot-'em-up (and more laughs than some comedies), to a climactic orgy of CGI destruction.

Quirky to the brink of exhaustion, the latest from Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a live-action Looney Tune complete with Acme contraptions and wily coyotes.

Tangled would be a satisfying adventure on plot and 3D sensations alone.

It's gory and gut-wrenching but strangely life-affirming.

Redford proves that at 75 he can still choose meaningful projects and deliver them with intelligence.

The plot is a piffle but Ozon's presentation is gloriously romantic.

Part two is even more gorgeous to behold, and deeper in substance.

Warrior is a surprising gut punch, a modern-day "Rocky" saga with two mixed martial arts pugs trying to beat, choke and kick the system.

Scott briskly blends the high-minded stuff with impressive boo-and-goo sequences, ratcheting tension in tight spots and dark caverns.

Robot & Frank occasionally strains for emotion and stretches credulity, even for such fantasy circumstances. But it has two hearts - one human, one not - in the right place, and intelligence that is anything but artificial.

Johnson keeps it simple, yet never stupid. Looper is a puzzle engaging your brain, rather than frying it, as one character describes the process. Obviously he has seen enough movies on the subject by 2024 to know how frustrating that is. This one plays fair with the fantasy.

Exhilarating drama, and a triumphant return to glory for both Zemeckis and Washington.

Never has 3-D illusion been used to such pure storytelling effect.

Thanks to Jackson's involvement as a producer, Berg has time and access Berlinger and Sinofsky didn't, allowing expansion of whatever material that's repeated.

It's a story languorously told in three chapters, the first two in the late 1980s and the third 15 years later. Each could be a movie unto themselves. Together they prove Cianfrance to be an effectively unobtrusive storyteller, crafting without artifice what book critics would call a page turner.

A feel-good movie in the most positive meaning of that term, thanks to the Motown music and O'Dowd's cheeky charm.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of the finest installments in the saga. [6 Dec. 1991, p.5]

If he made The Ghost Writer under a pseudonym, it might be roundly hailed as the classy white-knuckler it is. But it's Polanski's name above the title, with his own ghosts haunting each frame.

The Runaways isn't just about rock 'n' roll; it IS rock 'n' roll, as loud, sexy, sometimes sloppy and ultimately exhilarating as the music can be.

This movie is a last chance to save the series, which it does.

A sensory and intellectual overload from start to finish, a brawny, brainy summer movie that may infuriate as many viewers as it enraptures.

There's no way to make this a feel-good movie, and admirably the Duplass brothers don't try. Cyrus finds its humor in dark places, through characters bringing out the worst in each other.

This summer's funniest movie.

The choicest performance in Animal Kingdom is Weaver's sing-song sinister matriarch of the Cody clan, a cheery sort with the benign nickname "Mama Smurf."

This is how a romantic vampire flick should work.

For the initiated, however, Alfredson weaves a tidy web from loose ends left dangling.

Megamind's Kryptonite is a common weakness for any comedy so fast out of the blocks: It simply runs out of surprises.

This is what the holidays need: a good, Swift kick in the funny bone.

True Grit is a very good movie that might be more embraceable if we didn't know who was pulling the trigger.

When she's (Hawkins) on camera, I'd swear the screen bends into a smile.

This is old-school monumental filmmaking, without CGI tricks or many soundstage comforts for a dedicated cast. David Lean would probably approve.

This movie embraces its inner yokel.

For two hours it's a fun head trip.

It's about time that another Scream flick came along to gouge the new cliches out of their sockets. Scream 4 does it in grandly Guignol style.

It's deja vu all over again in The Hangover Part II, only dirtier and more dangerous, if you can imagine that.

Like the genre's top filmmakers - the Coens, Polanski, Hitchcock - Capotondi builds dread with wicked winks at the audience, dropping subtle surprises along the way.

It works because Timberlake and Kunis are totally in control of their damaged characters without winking at the audience, as if to say: "Aren't we cute, behaving so naughty?" Their sex is amusingly awkward, and their repressed longings more so. It's the kind of chemistry that comes along once in a generation.

This movie, saddle sores and all, is a lot of fun.

Another Earth is stealthily effective, with silences often counting more than words.

In addition to being one of the finest golf movies ever, this film raises the bar on faith-based cinema.

Christensen plays him with Lecter-like intensity; the unsettling calmness of someone capable of anything.

Director Charles Martin Smith presents the kind of movie that gives squeaky-clean a good name.

As a director, Clooney makes his most straightforward movie yet, although it's static at times due to the stage origins of Willimon's material.

Wormald won't make anyone forget Bacon, but he dances better, and without a stand-in. Hough's dance ability is well-known, but she also displays flashes of acting skill.

Frankel's movie is as refreshing as a walk in the woods and surprising as a chance encounter with the best that nature can offer.

They're an entertaining foursome, and Estevez guides them through lovely scenery, clever sight gags and personal confessions with leisurely skill.

Thompson's fans will embrace its twisted verbal dexterity, romantically imagining the author feverishly pulling strings from the beyond.

Hugo is Scorsese's most personal film, from the standpoint of both an artist and a grandfather. He is as interested in Melies' posterity as in making a movie that his descendants can see before they're adults.

Ritchie stages plenty of gunfights and beatdowns to satisfy action fans, pausing to consider the beauty of violence before resuming speed and piling on more.

War Horse takes time reaching its full emotional gallop with a late sequence combining man, beast and barbed wire. Yet it remains a technically magnificent ride throughout, and a checklist of visual influences from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "Gone with the Wind."

This is a slight movie, but it's Williams' all the way (possibly to an Oscar nod) while the rest of the cast supports her well.

Carnage gives Polanski the best opportunity to express his devilish sense of humor in decades, proving again that comedy really is tragedy happening to someone else.

A Dangerous Method is a movie believing the most formidable sex organ really is the brain.

Chronicle is so clever about the absurd, and so much fun to watch, that I'm almost disappointed the ending doesn't leave room for a sequel.

This movie embraces everything that should make it lousy, calling out itself for aping the source's bad ideas then flipping the script with meta precision.

Leaner than "Harry Potter's" adventures, meaner than the "Twilight" saga, The Hunger Games lives up to its source if not entirely the hype.

Remember that ultra-violent scene in "Old Boy" when the dude plowed through a subway platform of bad guys and was the only one left standing? Multiply it by four or five and that's The Raid: Redemption.

The Avengers is as brawny and lamebrainy as any comic book movie deserves to be, capped by a 40-minute assault pummeling senses as few action sequences ever have.

Director John Madden and an ensemble of polished actors in their second primes make this a constant amusement and a nice alternative at the movies.

While the result isn't the greatest show on Earth, it certainly is a lot of fun.

Even when Magic Mike is skimpier than a g-string it soars on daring, as if Soderbergh asked himself who could possibly make a good movie from such offbeat material, answered "I can," and did.

These characters don't realize they're funny, and the actors are determined not to push it. Willis fares best, playing against in-control type; Murray fans expecting a comedy explosion won't find it here.

It's often convulsively funny.

Farrell's diction is a noticeable upgrade from Schwarzenegger's but there's also his superior portrayal of sweaty apprehension and killer instinct.

Working in tandem they (Gordon-Levitt/Shannon) make Premium Rush a movie that's off the chain, as the kids say.

Arbitrage is a classy soap opera with a charismatic louse at its center, without "Margin Call" didactics, or the misplaced empathy of "The Company Men."

Frankenweenie is stitched together with love and a bit raggedy, like Sparky the dog in question.

The movie's first half is its funniest, as Moore sets up this alternate low-resolution universe.

How many surprises and peaks can Walken possibly have left, after so many movies and memorable roles? Well, there's this one.

Snitch is grittily streetwise, and until its last 20 minutes fairly credible compared to other movies "inspired by" true stories.

Stoker operates in a perpetual state of dread, a sophisticated Southern gothic that starts out confusing and winds up as a perversely humorous coming-of-age yarn.

Tampa Bay wears fringe nihilism well, including wet-fever dreams of trigger-happy angels floating on cannabis clouds and dusted with cocaine like beignets waiting to be licked clean. Or drug gangstas sporting cornrows and gold-grill teeth, living large and thinking three-ways. Film as a fetish tool, that's what Spring Breakers is all about, y'all.

As a purely sensory experience at the movies you're hard-pressed to find anything more dazzling than the first 90 minutes of The Great Gatsby, when Luhrmann's riotous amusements make anything possible.