Joe Williams

Even as it looks to the heavens, Gravity is bound to earth, where the beauty is in the details.

Although it's slow to unfold, this courtroom drama is so timelessly humane and even-handed it feels like it came from the dockets of Solomon - by way of Sidney Lumet.

For modern moviegoers, the earthy Mr. Turner may seem like slowly steeped tea with an unpleasant aftertaste. But while some are impatiently waiting for the paint to dry, astute viewers will see a cinematic landscape bloom.

The movie Timbuktu is as fresh as today’s headlines, but it’s paced and photographed like a timeless slice of life. It’s an exquisite, wise and even funny film, easily the best of the year.

It's a well-earned curtain call for some of the most beloved characters in one of the best-sustained feats of recent cinema.

Her may be the most technologically astute movie since Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: a Space Odyssey.” And as the friendly ghost in the machine, Samantha is a more inviting companion for the great leap forward than HAL9000 could ever dream of being.

This is analog filmmaking at its most daring.

Winter's Bone is the best film of the year.

One of the best films of the year, Gett: the Trial of Viviane Amsalem is bound to be compared to the Oscar-winning Iranian drama “A Separation”; but if anything, Gett is an even more artful evocation of a bureaucratic nightmare.

I’m pretty sure it would still be one of the best films of the year if the explicit lesbian sex scenes were censored, but it wouldn’t earn a penny in Peoria.

As much as anything, the wildly entertaining ’70s flashback American Hustle is a triumph of style.

A miniaturist's masterpiece, the ebb and flow of familial love distilled to its essence.

The movie is more of a character study than a biography, as Bernstein dispenses his gentle wit and wisdom for the camera and for an elite class of student.

May be too cute to qualify as high art, but it's highly entertaining.

A passable popcorn movie, but fans of the first film who expect lightning to strike twice are liable to get burned.

After feeding on this sweet buffet, sated cinephiles will want to call the front desk to extend their stay.

The message of the movie is as clear as Siberian ice: Whether you’re a Tea Partier, an Occupier or just an ordinary Joe, you might be the next citizen who’s stranded in limbo.

The King's Speech is the epitome of prestige cinema, an impeccably crafted and emotionally compelling drama that deserves the many laurels it surely will receive.

The Hefner we meet here is the likable rogue we already know.

Beauty comes to us unexpectedly. That's the message of Poetry, a Korean movie about an aging housemaid that turns out to be one of the best films of the year.

For his complex portrayal, Day-Lewis is likely to have roses thrown at his feet, but for the dreadful film in which he's enslaved, emancipated onlookers will reach for the grapes of wrath.

This very male and methodical movie is like the anti-“Gravity,” as the un-moored hero is quietly in control of his options and at peace with his possible failure.

Directed by Steve James, whose “Hoop Dreams” Ebert hailed as the best film of the 1990s, it’s the kind of documentary the dying man wanted — honest, humane and inclusive.

Although you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it, Moneyball is one of the best baseball movies imaginable.

A co-star deserving special mention is Nebraska itself, which Payne films in black-and-white to mirror the austerity of life on the de-populated prairie. These corners of the Cornhusker State are as empty as the promise of a sweepstakes prize. In this land of ghosts, one old pioneer tries to grab his stake before he becomes another windblown husk.

Imagine an opulent movie palace that was 30,000 years old, with posters preserved on the curving walls and the bones of the Stone Age patrons peacefully sleeping in the fairy dust. That's essentially what archeologists found in a French canyon in 1994 and what Werner Herzog brings back to life in the extraordinary documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

For the many mavens who aren't familiar with Varda, this autobiographical documentary will be puzzling, in the best and most literal sense.

Before it turns into a great escape flick, Argo is an amusing spoof of the movie biz.

The Master is not a schematic attack on a particular religion. It is a brilliantly conceived and powerfully realized work of art, with complex characters, exquisite images and ambiguously big ideas.

This hand-drawn French import is fresh evidence that you don’t need computers and singing princesses to make a charming animated movie.

Like the previous seven movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 obliviates the line between art and craft, but the witchcraft conjured for this satisfying finale is uniquely generous.

Shannon's powerfully imploded performance ignites one of the best films of the year.

Both arduous and artful, City of Life and Death is the best imaginable movie about the genocidal siege that's now called the Rape of Nanking. Anything more explicit would be unwatchable; anything more contemplative would be a betrayal of the sustained suffering.

The combination of a literate script, an adroit cast and an economical style is simple addition that achieves an alchemical feat: the best film of the year.

For a public that's been bullied by the tastemakers, the mystery is a gift. Once we exit this fun house, the only giant left to obey is ourselves.

Vincere, which translates as the battle cry "Win!" is like invisible ink on the ledger of war, a secret record of love and loss.

There are a few beguiling moments in Holy Motors, particularly a martial-arts sequence and an erotic dance while Mr. Oscar is dressed in a motion-capture body suit, but the road between those moments is so strewn with stalled ideas that audiences who care about character and plot are liable to take the exit to a movie that makes sense.

The Tree of Life is a religious experience. Overtly. Audaciously. Unashamedly. No film has ever reached as high toward the face of God and, in our commodified future, few are likely to try.

Notwithstanding exquisite images that evoke Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven," city-slicker audiences may find themselves getting saddle sore. But those with the courage to explore uncharted territory will be rewarded with a rough gem of a movie.

It sustains a palpable fatalism in such recurring details as a whirring buzz saw and the cry of a loon, while the static camera and lack of musical cues enable some unforeseeable plot twists.

The best film of the year and perhaps the purest love story in cinematic history.

With exquisitely simple images and minimal dialogue, Seraphine is both haunting and humane.

While Looper lacks the heft of a classic, this wayback machine is worth taking for a spin.

An Oscar-ready collaboration between a great director and a star at the peak of his powers, but at its heart is a message in a bottle reading: "Trapped in paradise. Please send help."

With such a thin excuse for a leading man, Arthur is a dud.

If what you seek from a samurai film is the friction between communal duty and personal honor, join the orderly queue to see 13 Assassins. But if what you seek is action, spend the talky first hour at a sushi bar before barging into the theater for the bloody good finale.

What makes this low-key movie memorable are the pitch-perfect performances.

There's a running joke that this epic of also-ran heroism is set in eternally modest Toronto; but its real locale is an alternate universe without parents or the unhip.

Hitchcock is an amusing lark, but the clumsy way it dissects the director is for the birds.

Typically lovely to look at, with big-eyed young people espousing high ideals amid natural splendor. But outside of their bubble, a prickly history looms, and Miyazaki’s dubious attitude toward the wartime role of his hero makes the movie a mixed blessing.

It's often obscenely funny, but it tickles more than it stings.

There's so much higher intelligence in Project Nim that simply digesting it feels like evolutionary progress.

For better or worse, this is a straightforward performance film.

Titanic technical achievement.

For cinematic sojourners, Hugo is a trip to the moon.

A marvelous piece of work.

Garcia’s performance, which won the best actress award at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival, is a marvel of self-effacing artistry.

Up in the Air may not end up as the best picture -- that will be decided by the Academy -- but it has landed in the middle of the discussion because it's laser-focused and right on time.

The Holocaust must never be forgotten, but like many well-intentioned documentaries, The Flat derives more power from the implicit strength of the subject than from the explicit choices of the director.

Footnote is faintly comic, and director Joseph Cedar mines dark humor from the humiliations of identity checks and pecking orders.

Until a devastatingly effective finale, Monsieur Lazhar is an exercise in delicacy, carried by Fallag's gentle performance and a fine cast of kid actors.

Ajami is neither a puzzle nor a polemic. It's an admirably even-handed portrait of life in an occupied ghetto that is bounded by checkpoints. Everyone we meet is a more or less honorably motivated victim of circumstance. That the circumstances were inscribed centuries ago makes Ajami a tragedy of biblical proportions.

The Illusionist has surprises up its sleeve that are unusually nuanced for an animated movie.

Because Short Term 12 is a small movie about a challenging subject, you may have to accept my word that actress Brie Larson and director Destin Cretton are bright discoveries, but it shouldn’t be long before the wider world can see these talents with the naked eye.

Hogancamp's alliance with director Jeff Malmberg in this artful and poignant film marks a victory in the war against the self.

Gerwig makes us want to believe that in a city where anything is possible, Francis Ha has the last laugh.

Director Lindholm is a graduate of the Dogma school, and he is able to maintain tension with a documentary camera technique, virtually no music and minimal on-screen theatrics.

When the two men compare impersonations of Michael Caine or Sean Connery, Brydon's version is always slightly better - and Coogan knows it.

Killer Joe is one of the most repugnant parodies of small-town stupidity that you will ever see, and Friedkin amplifies the shrill obscenities with blaring cartoon and kung-fu footage from his art director's fever dreams.

There’s much to appreciate here. Like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” which had a stronger sense of its place in the world, this coming-of-age movie should appeal to smart, sensitive young people who haven’t been exposed to the better examples of the genre.

Kids are too smart to fall for it, and any grown-up who thinks that The Odd Life of Timothy Green is funny or heartwarming has a head made out of cabbage.

Although the film has elements of a puzzler by Michelangelo Antonioni and a psychodrama by Ingmar Bergman, it never becomes compellingly intellectual or unnervingly emotional.

Marley is thus a valuable history project but not a definitive or analytical one. For that, we await a film that's less "One Love" and more "Stir It Up."

Starved of sufficient comedy or drama, The Age of Adaline is a pipsqueak.

What makes Love Is Strange so special is that the challenges the couple face are more mundane than menacing.

Despite the obvious mismatches involved, this isn’t a simplistic smackdown. Freighted with weighty issues, Captain Phillips is a film worth debating.

The verdict on Snitch is that Johnson has attempted a career detour on a street marked Do Not Enter.

The kind of working-class, character-driven drama that few American directors would dare to make. It's tough and unsentimental, with a documentary aesthetic that belies the craft of the calibrated tension.

This humane movie is an ode to joy, albeit of the mature sort.

Two things that the British know that most Americans don't: Michael Sheen is the best actor in the English-speaking world; and soccer is the only football that matters.

It's true that the movie is both emotionally violent and sexually explicit. Yet these scenes from a marriage are crafted with such attention to detail and overarching honesty that Blue Valentine touches the heart.

Like a train, I Wish is slow to build momentum, then it carries us away in a wondrous rush.

If you don’t know the true story, we won’t spoil it for you except to say that it’s not the expected outcome. But if you’re willing to be thrown for a loop, you’re in good hands with this medal-worthy cast and crew.

What animates this dramatically constrained film are the lively words and the vitality of nature. An image of butterflies blooming in a bedroom is Keats' worldview in miniature.

What enriches the recipe is that no one is quite as cagey as they seem. Colin is officially thuggish, but he's a blinkered romantic. Archie is a mama's boy, Meredith is gay, Mal is impotent, and Peanut wears dentures.

The virtue of Inherent Vice is that we can stop chasing the tale and just enjoy the sunset of the ’60s dream.

Anyone suggesting that an Italian film could rival the style and grandeur of "The Godfather" might end up sleeping with the fishes. But Il Divo delivers.

Fortunately, Fish Tank feeds us more than crumbs and leaves us feeling like we've come up for air.

Although it's sly and sardonic, Police, Adjective is as rigorous as a tea ceremony -- or a Stalinist re-education camp.

With a fearless director and his mighty pen freeing a talented cast to attack a vital theme, Django Unchained is damnation unleashed.

The movie is an eyeful, especially in 3-D, but even with humans at the helms of the machines, it’s a hollow exercise in homage.

Ultimately Skyfall is rooted in tradition - and in British soil. A pastoral drive to Bond's boyhood home (in a kind of car that will delight purists) opens the gates to some psychological background, and given the true-love subtext of "Casino Royale," it's not surprising that there's an emotional payoff here.

Like a newborn planet, Melancholia is magnetically beautiful, but it's also an unformed mass of hot air.

It's more like a shelved episode of "Touched by An Angel." The sappy script is a disservice to the naturally effervescent Efron, whose character is so mopey he makes Robert Pattinson seem like a song-and-dance man.

A fanciful French cousin to Allen's "Zelig" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo," yet the fulfilled wish for a better life is high-concept absurdity without high-anxiety guffaws.

Until the sci-fi switcheroo, the versatile supporting cast puts Gary in such a ridiculous light that we can’t help laughing at him. Then suddenly this subversive movie challenges us to laugh at our own assumptions.

The reason District 9 reverberates so loudly is because its moral indignation is cranked to 11.

We can quibble about the punitive punchline of John Gatins' script, but keeping complexity aloft for so long makes Flight a miraculous feat.