| 1. |
no country for old men
the good guy (josh brolin) steals $2 million in drug money. the implacably, mesmerizingly, astonishingly bad guy (javier bardem) tries to get it back. and a west texas sheriff (tommy lee jones) tracks their discursive trails. adapting cormac mccarthy's novel, joel and ethan coen have fashioned a nea
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| 2. |
the lives of others
in a communist dictatorship, the government spies on its own citizens. an east german official (the late, great ulrich mü) is assigned to bug the home of some theater people and in the process gets a dose of conscience. in february, florian henckel von donnersmarck's poignant, unsettling thrill
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| 3. |
killer of sheep
completed in 1977 and virtually unseen since, charles burnett's poetic document of family life in a los angeles ghetto finally got a decent release, and is now out on dvd. in sympathetic, unsentimental vignettes, we meet a slaughterhouse worker (henry gayle sanders), his wife (kaycee jones) and two
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| 4. |
atonement
poaching in merchant-ivory territory, director joe wright did right by jane austen's pride and prejudice two years ago. he reunites with leading lady keira knightley in this ian mcewan story about the naive perniciousness of youth. saoirse ronan is terrific as the confused 12-year-old, and as the ta
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| 5. |
sweeney todd
adapting the 1979 musical about a barber driven mad by lost love and revenge, tim burton finds a pulsing, mournful heart inside stephen sondheim's cold-steel lyrics — and then he rips it out. he applies the desaturated color scheme of sleepy hollow to the streets of 18th century london, where virtua
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| 6. |
persepolis
marjane satrapi grew up in iran, first under the shah, then in the more repressive shadow of the ayatollah. she moved to paris and sketched her early life into a graphic-novel memoir. now, with co-director vincent paronnaud (known in comics circles as winshluss), satrapi has created something unusua
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| 7. |
no end in sight
in a strong year for political docs, charles ferguson's study of the iraq morass stands out for its comprehensive take on how we got there, why we can't get out. stubbornness is one reason, lack of intellectual curiosity another. as one ex-bush official notes, when the president was presented with a
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| 8. |
in the valley of elah
a soldier back from iraq is found dead, his body hacked to pieces. his father (tommy lee jones) wants to know what happens, and enlists the help of a smart police detective (charlize theron). paul haggis' drama, based on a true case, is a big improvement on his oscar-winning crash: strong in the sle
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| 9. |
waitress
nothing makes a critic feel worse than the emotional badgering of self-styled "feel-good" comedies. but this one i found pretty darned lovable. keri russell is the pregnant piemaker who is abused by her husband and attracted to her mcdreamy ob-gyn. writer-director adrienne shelly (who was
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| 10. |
beowulf
robert zemeckis' version of the old saga announces the instant maturity of motion-capture animation (where actors perform their scenes and computer whizzes basically paint over them). writers roger avary and neil gaiman have given the story a weird twist about halfbreed offspring and the need to kil
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