Nitpicking in Reverse

8. Longing Lovers: Waking the Dead and Wonderland (romantic runners-up: The Closer You Get, Beautiful People, East Is East)

It was a great year for love stories, especially unlikely ones like Keith Gordon's solemn, intense portrait of loss, and Michael Winterbottom's blithe romp with lovelorn Londoners. Since this category was unusually rich, do yourself the favor of checking out the lovely honorable mentions.

Dirck Halstead

Samuel L. Jackson got the Shaft

Dirck Halstead

Samuel L. Jackson got the Shaft

Related Content

• Cannes: Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra Is a Delightful Little Curio
  May 23, 2013
• Cannes: Not Even the Gifted Emma Watson Can Raise The Bling Ring
  May 16, 2013
• Side Effects May Induce Queasy Pleasure
  February 7, 2013
• Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns Talk Side Effects and Collaboration
  February 7, 2013
• Ten Movies to Watch in 2013
  December 27, 2012

More About

• Billy Elliot
• Michael Douglas
• Steven Soderbergh
• Movie Stars
• Celebrity News

9. Mortal Missions: Himalaya and Pitch Black

Director Eric Valli's powerful mythic journey through the mountains of Nepal bowed last year as an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film. This year, it's received scanty viewings in this country, but it is well worth seeking out. Vin Diesel battling a bunch of yucky aliens may seem more like guilty pleasure, but a surprising morality play twists this quest into a level high above B.

10. Yearning Youths: Almost Famous and Billy Elliot

"Rock stars have kidnapped my son!" declares Frances McDormand in Cameron Crowe's semiautobiographical story of his curiously spent youth as a teenage music critic, and the journey offers more human insight from tour buses and hotel suites than seems possible. Pretty much the year's brightest star, however, was Jamie Bell transforming his little cosmic dancer into a global beacon. Enormous kudos to Stephen Daldry for his fine film.