In a year of so many retreads and also-rans, where much of what’s hit the multiplex looks exactly like what was there just a month ago, The Prestige offers entertainment and wonderment unlike anything else currently in theatres, and that might be Nolan’s greatest magic trick of them all.

I can’t help but think that the vibe Elizabethtown generates and the mood it creates are both only going to get better with time.

Good Night, and Good Luck. is the must-see event picture of the Fall. It is breathlessly exciting, reexamining with acute detail a moment in our nation’s history that should not, cannot, be forgotten.

Cronenberg is a filmmaker willing to push boundaries and ask tough questions others don’t just shy away from, they sprint in the opposite direction in total fear. A History of Violence is no different.

Junebug is the type of movie you want to see twice in quick succession.

Always an astonishing visual craftsman, House of Flying Daggers is as impressive as anything Yimou’s ever done. The shifting colors and landscapes flow in and out of one another like a dreamy netherworld, while the tiniest woodland sounds sparkle and hum with the majesty of a symphonic orchestra.

Bad Education is a brazen, ambisexual noir that embraces the conventions of the genre while at the same time shattering them with explicit wickedness.

While this The Manchurian Candidate doesn’t leave the same chilling residue as Frankenheimer’s opus, this version is still a surprisingly unnerving procedural.

It’s a beautiful screenplay overflowing with moments of such sudden, tight-fisted insanity that frequently knocked my socks off, all of its coupled with a poignant purity that’s beyond terrific. As early-year movies go, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn’t just a surprise, it’s a bona fide cinematic miracle I’m not ever going to forget.