It is hard to think of another film more tightly autobiographical than this one. It's even harder to think of other films that build so gripping a narrative out of a string of comparatively minor and disparate incidents.

Extending the patented Pixar mix of humor and heart, Up is the studio's most deeply emotional and affecting work.

Probably the bleakest, least sentimental study of the Mafia in Italian or American film history.

District 9 proves that genre films, besides being a hell of a lot of fun, can say things you hadn't considered and show stuff you haven't seen.

A near-perfect movie about men in war, men at work. Through sturdy imagery and violent action, it says that even Hell needs heroes.

It's just possible that Tarantino, having played a trick on history, is also fooling his fans. They think they're in for a Hollywood-style war movie starring Brad Pitt. What they're really getting is the cagiest, craziest, grandest European film of the year.

In an amazing year for animation, The Princess and the Frog is up at the top. Go on, give it a big kiss.

Blending plot elements of "Double Indemnity" and "Natural Born Killers" with the ripe sensuality of Francis Coppola's take on "Dracula," the film should make audiences sit up in startled pleasure, as if they'd just received the most luscious neck-bite.

An instant classic.

Reitman's blend of comedy and drama, romance and social observation make Up in the Air the ideal movie --- and maybe even a cure -- for the Great Recession blues.

A kind of mashup of "Our Town" and "Village of the Damned," the film is both draining and enthralling.

For this movie stands to be something its predecessor was not, a megahit. And it deserves to be, for it is a remarkable accomplishment: a sequel that exceeds its predecessor in the reach of its appeal while giving Weaver new emotional dimensions to explore.

M.A.S.H., one of America's funniest bloody films, is also one of its bloodiest funny films.

Inception is precisely the kind of brainy, ambitious, grand-scale adventure Hollywood should be making more of.

His films will never be mainstream fare; audiences who wander into the theater may well find them derisive, needlessly shocking, perhaps unforgivable. But I'd call them, and especially Life During Wartime, unforgettable.

Poignant, troubling and altogether splendid new film.

The rewards for paying attention are mammoth and exhilarating. This is a high-IQ movie that gives viewers an IQ high.

This is more than an Important Documentary: it is engaging and, finally, enraging - as captivating as any "Superman" movie, and as poignant as a child's plea for help.

What explosive mischief might they create? That's the premise of Morris' brilliantly incendiary new comedy Four Lions.

Kidman, in a career-best performance, and Eckhart lend pitch-perfect calibration to the couple's shared and separate agonies. It's as if previous treatments of the subject were a series of failed experiments, and Rabbit Hole is the Eureka! moment.

This is a true-life heist movie, and the thieves not only got away with their billions, they're still doing business. Pay attention and blow a gasket.

It's a cocktail-party movie with a Molotov-cocktail finish: a tribute to the 88-year-old auteur's artistry - and his con artistry as well.

An expensive flop and the latest Iraq movie to be shunned by the mass audience, Green Zone was still the year's most visceral, thrilling entertainment.

No goggles, no gloom. And no competition for the coolest, orneriest, funniest, best-looking movie of early 2011.

The year's most thrilling, FEELING mainstream movie.

As both a simian simile and a wonder of technology, Rise of the Planet of the Apes deserves to be in the company of the great original "Kong." This year's sixth "origins" story of a fantasy franchise (after The Green Hornet, Thor, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger) is also the year's finest action movie.

The movie is not just spectacle; it's got a tender, ultimately tragic love story and enough deadly political scheming to fill a Gaddafi playbook. Indeed, in its narrative cunning, luscious production design and martial-arts balletics, Detective Dee is up there with the first great kung-fu art film, King Hu's 1969 "A Touch of Zen." We'd call it "Crouching Tiger, Freakin' Masterpiece."

Bursting with earned emotion, Hugo is a mechanism that comes to life at the turn of a key in the shape of a heart.