1. Enchanted. A Walt Disney picture that both sends up and celebrates the classic Disney film formula has to be a winner. Amy Adams - who was absolutely robbed of an Oscar nomination - carries this movie and makes it work. No other performance this year - not even Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, which is one of the great movie performances in recent memory - was as essential to a film. And anyone who's ever spent time in Central Park will appreciate the movie's show-stopping "That's How You Know," since you can almost seeing it happening with New Yorkers in a good mood. Any film that lets you see the enchanted village alive in the heart of the Big Apple is deserving of your time. Susan Sarandon plays the wicked queen with glee, and James Marsden lets us see that all those Disney princes are about as exciting as the Flanders kids from The Simpsons. On DVD March 18.2. Zodiac. David Fincher's best film to date. More than a movie about the notorious Zodiac killer from decades past (about whom numerous movies and movie characters have been based), this captures the late 60s-early 70s era and works as a procedural and a thriller. No other images on the big screen this year were as terrifying or as chilling as the scene with broad-daylight murders at the lake. Great work by Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhall. On DVD now.
3. Michael Clayton. The only Best Picture nominee on our list.
The movie develops interesting characters as it tells a larger story about corporate shenanigans. Great performances by George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson highlight a film that seems like a long-lost cousin of the best dramas of the 70s, like Network, Serpico, and All the President's Men. On DVD now.4. Ratatouille. At this point in time, we can still say that Pixar has yet to make a bad movie. In fact, they've made nothing but great movies.
If Brad Bird - director of The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, both classics - can make a concept like this work (a rat makes delicious food), you know there are more great films to come. The animation is brilliant and will look even better when you get it home on those high-def TVs. On DVD now.5. In the Valley of Elah. Much was written this year about how audiences didn't turn out for war-themed pictures, and this one got lost in the bunch. No box office smash, Elah was the best of them. Tommy Lee Jones - in one of the best performances of his career - plays the father of a murdered
Iraq war veteran who decides to uncover what happened to his boy. Charlize Theron continues her streak of choosing great, unconventional parts. The movie's last sequence is the kind of social commentary that has been missing from movies for 30 years. On DVD now.6. The Simpsons Movie.
From the show that premiered nineteen years ago comes a movie that proves dedication to satire and wit can bring longevity. Matt Groening's characters really made the big screen their own, busting out of those tiny boxes in living rooms around the world. The animation is beautiful and way beyond what you're seeing on the small screen. The panoramic views of Alaska are worthy of the best Disney animation, while the satire is worthy of Mel Brooks at his best. On DVD now.7. American Gangster. Ridley Scott's epic put Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe - arguably the best two actors working today - against each other, with great results. A subtle performance from Crowe, and a broad one from Washington, in a true crime story about one of Harlem's biggest drug dealers of the 1970s. On DVD now.
8. Superbad. The best comedy of the year.
The humor was often crude, but the film still managed to pull out a story about friendship and innocence that we never saw in the crude movies of old. This is not a successor to Porky's, but rather is in line with Judd Apatow's great comedies of the past few years, including The 40-Year-Old Virgin and this year's Knocked Up. Michael Cera - also good this year in Juno - and Jonah Hill are the buddies who are trying to - what else? - get beer and meet girls. And if you think that sounds like a movie you've seen a hundred times before, you haven't met McLovin. On DVD now.9. Blades of Glory. One of Will Ferrell's best efforts, and that's saying a lot. Jon Heder co-stars as Ferrell's ice-skating competitor in a comedy that (finally!) doesn't feel like one more Saturday Night Live skit gone too long. Great dialogue, hilarious stunts, and a wicked turn by Amy Poehler and Will Arnet as a slimy brother-and-sister skating team. On DVD now.
10. Live Free Or Die Hard. Who would have thought that the granddaddy of the modern action movie still had it? But Bruce Willis brings John McClane back to life after 12 years, and we can see why he's still welcome. Perhaps of the best of the average-guy characters in action films, McClane once again finds himself in situations worse than anyone could imagine. Justin Long is terrific as a geeky sidekick, with one-liners as funny as McClane. Parts of the film strain credibility even for a Die Hard movie, but this is perhaps the only sequel (in a year bursting at the seams with them) that didn't disappoint. On DVD now.
