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.