At the movies, a year of comebacks and throwbacks

'Breach'

This first-rate thriller about the undoing of FBI operative Robert Hanssen came out early in the year but who can forget Chris Cooper's performance? He accomplishes the near impossible – he gets inside the skin of a man for whom facade is all.

'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'

Director Julien Schnabel and screenwriter Ronald Harwood's slashingly original movie dramatizes the locked-in life of a paralyzed man, Mathieu Amalric's Jean-Dominique Bauby, whose only method of communicating with the outside world is the blinking of his left eye.

'4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days'

This is the masterpiece I warned you about in my little preamble to this list. It may seem perverse to cheer a Romanian movie about the horrible intricacies of obtaining an abortion in the waning days of Communism, but make no mistake: Director Cristian Mungiu and his extraordinary cast have made the film of the year. (See story on Romanian cinema.) Or next year, to be precise, but who's counting? It had a December Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles and will be released nationwide beginning in late January.

'Hairspray'

Your smile muscles will get a good workout just sitting through this blissfully good-natured spectacular directed by Adam Shankman and starring peppy newcomer Nikki Blonsky and John Travolta in the most convincing fat suit I've ever seen.

'Into Great Silence'

Documentarian Philip Gröning lived for six months with the monks of the Grand Chartreuse in the French Alps who live and worship in near silence. His record of their rituals is a transcendent and trancelike experience.

'The Namesake'

Mira Nair's uneven but extraordinarily affecting movie about the relocation of an Indian family from Calcutta to New York is based on the Jhumpa Lahiri novel and has a marvelous cast led by Irrfan Khan and Kal Penn, who will make you forget all about him (almost) in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle."

'No Country For Old Men'

This Coen Brothers' instant classic, derived from Cormac McCarthy's novel, is the best and most chilling American movie of the year – an Old School meets Old Testament western.

'No End in Sight'

Charles Ferguson's rigorously fair documentary exposes step by step the disastrous planning that brought us into Iraq. This cautionary tale is required viewing regardless of your political stance.

'Offside'

Jafar Panahi's movie is ostensibly about Iranian girls attempting to overturn a ban to watch a live soccer match but in reality it lays bare an entire society for us.

'Persepolis'

Marjane Satrapi codirected this one-of-a-kind animated movie inspired by her graphic novel about growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution of the 1970s. Proof again – if proof were needed – that animation can be just as personal an arena for filmmakers as live action.

A few other films, among many, that also gave me lots to like: "There Will Be Blood," "Zodiac," "Paris je t'aime," "In the Shadow of the Moon," "Waitress," "Superbad," and "Starting Out in the Evening."

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