Ill-Informed Gadfly

1. THE NEW WORLD. The fourth film in 32 years from Terrence Malick is a movie to savor and lose yourself in. Interpreting the romance between Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas, Malick visualizes two cultures coming together with mutual respect and tolerance. Reality, however, intrudes, resulting in a gloriously bittersweet end for his heroine. The heart of the movie can be found in the divided loyalties that play across Pocahontas’ face — half in light, half in shadow. This is the work of an artist with a magisterial command of his chosen medium.

2. 2046. When I saw Wong Kar-Wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” I adored it — for the first 20 minutes, the only stretch I didn’t sleep through. But that didn’t prevent me from being swept away by the intoxicating images and exquisite romanticism of this sort-of sequel. “2046” is achingly tender, and Ziyi Zhang, as a call girl in a destructive, push-and-pull relationship with the hero, delivers an unforgettable, emotionally roiling performance. (P.S. I have seen “In the Mood for Love” since writing this. It was lovely but “2046″ was even better.)

3. THE CONSTANT GARDENER. In a year of exemplary political films, this was my favorite. When a movie’s subject is the rape of Africa by Western corporations, you don’t expect it to have room for a stirring love story and a first-rate paranoid thriller, and yet that’s what Fernando Meirelles achieves. The intellectually alive, lived-in performances by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz draw you in and make the movie’s outrage all the more effective.

4. MUNICH. It occurred to me, watching this movie a second time, that this is the most Stanley Kubrick-like film Steven Spielberg has made. It has a stolid lead performance by Eric Bana, and the characters never acquire roundess or fullness: They are pawns in the director’s grand design. Nevertheless, it is a brave, astonishing movie, arguing persuasively for the long-term futility of direct, lethal retribution for terrorist acts, through the eyes of the men who carried it out.

5. KINGS & QUEEN. My wife and I had several promising movies to choose from on a trip to New York, and we were immeasurably glad we chose this fascinating, careening French melodrama. Arnaud Desplechin’s movie is beautifully acted and teeming with energy: You never know where it’s going, and by the end you feel you’ve crawled inside the skin of everyone on screen.

6. MATCH POINT. A bleak and bold thriller from Woody Allen, who embraces his nihilism without offering any redemption in the form of art, beauty or laughter. His opening image of a tennis ball striking a net, poised to fall on either side, and the brilliant way he references it later, punctuates his bitterly ironic examination of the influence luck has on our lives.

7. OLIVER TWIST. My orphan pick of the year is Roman Polanski’s harrowing, plangent and highly personal adaptation of the most celebrated orphan story in literature. Polanski remains a supple, elegant filmmaker, able to summon dread like few others, and his “Twist” captures both the heart and the urgency of the source material. The rooftop climax is so gripping, you understand the breathlessness the novel’s contemporary readers must have felt.

8. CAPOTE. Bennett Miller’s movie is quiet and austere, yet emotionally devastating — as smart and complex a portrait of a writer as you’re ever likely to see. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives you Capote’s wit and fey charisma, but as he confronts his decaying relationships with his friends and journalistic subjects, he turns inward, and his work is harrowing.

9. THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN. One of the funniest movies of the past decade — and my goodness, it not only has a heart but it has something to say, about how the ease of getting laid in today’s world doesn’t necessarily mean we’re less clueless about relationships than a guy who has closed himself off to the possibility of sex. I’m genuinely pleased for Judd Apatow — he has a fertile comic mind and a great ear for dialogue, and he creates vivid, likable characters. And now, after two canceled, cult-favorite TV shows, he has a career.

10. STAR WARS: EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH. George Lucas keeps insisting he wants to make small, experimental films that nobody will want to see. Yet in the final installment of his six-part space opera, he proves again that his crowd-pleasing instincts are nonpareil — that is, when he has a story to tell. It took four hours of tedium to get here, but in this installment, Anakin Skywalker’s transformation into Darth Vader has a rich pop resonance. Immensely satisfying — dark, yet lots of fun.

Honorable Mentions: THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED, BROKEN FLOWERS, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, THE GREAT RAID, IN HER SHOES, LOOK AT ME, MY SUMMER OF LOVE, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, SYRIANA.