Jack Mathews

In the year of the animated movie, this one soars above them all.

A great big sloppy kiss of entertainment for audiences weary of explosions, CGI effects and sequels, sequels, sequels.

Though Borat has been likened to "Jackass," there's a huge difference. The "Jackass" movies are about extreme stunts. Borat is about interaction and gullibility, and its success is unique to both Cohen and to this one-time-only movie.

One of the most original and ultimately confounding mind games to reach the screen since "The Usual Suspects."

The best comedy of 2004. In fact, it's so far the best movie of the year.

Levinson is so skillful at developing personalities, even among the story's would-be villains, that by the halfway point of the movie, every gesture and expression has unexpected depth and texture. The performances are across-the-board superb.

The biggest little movie of the year - and one of the best ever about the news media.

A movie-movie of the first rank.

One of the most skillful, mesmerizing, tense and satisfying time-warp thrillers ever made.

The incredibly moving post-9/11 drama Reign Over Me proves that behind the funny guy facades of former standup comedians Mike Binder and Adam Sandler are a pair of very serious talents.

May be the best movie of the year.

The most emotionally satisfying because, in addition to having both more intimate drama and more spectacular battles, it resolves all of the issues raised before.

America's favorite superhero reappears in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, and all we can say is, "Man, oh Man of Steel, it's good to have you back."

For sheer bravura film making, for creating a cartoon world with real air, flesh, blood and the exhilarating cycle of fear and escape, Dinosaur is tops.

What a movie! This is how the medium seduced us originally.

It's an antidote to complacency. The question is, whom is it trying to wake up?

At times, Chicago has the feel of a revue, with the major characters taking turns at their own show-stopping numbers. If it's too much of a good thing, I say, bring it on.

As darkness falls over the movie landscape comes the year's darkest and best movie of them all - Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams.

Don't miss The Fast Runner. If you do, you will deprive yourself of not only one of the most intriguing feature-film projects in decades and enough plain-spoken anthropology for three credits at Harvard, but one of the most flat-out entertaining movies of the year.

Among the funniest and most satisfying films I've seen in years.

A masterpiece? Probably. Ingenious? Absolutely! Unforgettable? I'll see you at the 10th-year anniversary.

Universally appealing story that plays as well now as it did on opening day a half-century ago. Maybe better.

Turns everything we know about the contemporary world on its head, and substitutes it with one in which spirits, monsters, magicians and animals mix it up in a carnival of energy, good humor and freewheeling illusion.

The best movie I've seen this year.

Amadeus is about as close to perfection as movies get. [2002 Director's Cut]

Hudson, taking over the role of Effie played on stage by Jennifer Holliday, is in charge of Dreamgirls from her opening scene, blowing away Grammy-winner Beyoncé Knowles, Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx and anyone else who gets in her way.

The Two Towers moves faster, covers more ground, has more action and -- with the introduction of the marvelous character Gollum -- packs some much-appreciated laughs.

A great movie -- and the best movie ever about the '70s rock era.