1. In The Bedroom. Todd Field’s heart-wrenching masterpiece is 2001’s perfect film. It is, above all, a work of misdirection. Initially appearing as a love story, it suddenly shifts gears to focus on a couple coping with grief, and finally becomes an open-ended exploration of revenge.

2. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Director Peter Jackson creates a thrilling world of fascinating creatures, monumental battles, breathtaking sights and unrestrained imagination. Indeed, comparisons to Star Wars are well-earned.

3. Moulin Rouge. In an extreme mix of comedy and tragedy, director Baz Luhrmann creates a fascinating success — one that both mocks and celebrates the notion of love, leaves the audience both euphoric and drained. It may go down as one of the great musicals.

4. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Steven Spielberg’s epic is not so much about a robot boy as it is about the reality of humanity, love and scientific ethics. It features a haunting third act that was perhaps the most
misunderstood moment in film this year.

5. Waking Life. Not only does this movie boast an animation style that is accessible to any filmmaker, it revels in an open-ended intellectual discourse that could only exist in independent films.

6. Memento. Christopher Nolan’s indie hit is told backwards, as the audience is put in the same shoes as the film’s main character, who has no short term memory and wants nothing more than to understand who killed his wife and why.

7. Amelie. You could not see Amelie and leave the theater without smiling.

8. Ghost World. Based on the comic book, this film is a scathing indictment of the losers in this world from an elitist’s point of view who we watch mature.

9. Shrek. This animated film was one of the funniest of the year, filled with lovable
characters, in-jokes galore and an abundant sense of humanity.

10. The Tailor of Panama This film is one long joke. On the surface a spy film, it is a
perfectly cynical portrait of an intelligence community with no more wars to fight and an innocent tailor paid to shake things up.