Desson Thomson's Top 10 Films

1. "City of God." Yes, it's a foreign film. There are no cultural borders when it comes to this list. Fernando Mereilles and Katia Lund's movie is a brutal experience at times, and it's about a world that is, pretty much, hell on earth: the Brazilian ghettos and kids who turn into gangsters simply to survive. But it's a powerful film, a sort of Brazilian "Goodfellas" that nails its pain into your head and heart.

2. "Capturing the Friedmans." Andrew Jarecki's documentary about a father and son who were convicted of child molestation has held me in its grip all year. It's about so many things, ranging from America's cultural mind-set in the late 1970s and 1980s to the strong possibility of a miscarriage of justice that remains unresolved. And it shows, palpably, that truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's more powerful.

3. "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World." Oh, what a sea-swept joy this is. It's the kind of big-picture movie you worry is long past: an epic in the spirit of the old days that doesn't need spaceships or animatronic beings to blow you away. Not only has Peter Weir made one of the all-time great sea movies, he's crafted a superb relationship drama about the friendship between a warlike captain and a peace-minded, botany-crazy ship's surgeon.

4. "Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara." Errol Morris, maker of "The Thin Blue Line" and other mesmeric documentaries, takes on Robert S. McNamara, the former secretary of defense under Kennedy and Johnson who presided over much of the Vietnam War. The result is a fascinating soliloquy-cum-conversation as McNamara takes a revisionist look at himself and the 20th-century world he helped create. Morris, who says very little, has created a remarkable portrait of an enigmatic man.

5. "Kill Bill, Vol. 1." Quentin Tarantino's bloodbath of a mini masterpiece could have been the film of the year if not for its bloodless underpinnings. You can't warm to the characters like you could in "Pulp Fiction." But Tarantino is a master of the set-piece scene. Watch and marvel.

6. "Dirty Pretty Things." Stephen Frears and Steve Knight's film about an underworld of illegal immigrants, black-market body-part merchants and souls desperate for love is deft, delicate and piercing, all at once. It's about an entire society of people who live and operate under everyone's noses. It also introduces a fantastic actor -- Chiwetel Ejiofor -- to the movies. Long may he prosper.

7. "Lost in Translation." This is Bill Murray's finest screen performance and a story about one of the most unusual relationships in recent years: between a washed-up movie star (Murray) and the bored, unappreciated young wife (Scarlett Johansson) of a fashion photographer who find themselves cooling listless heels in a Tokyo hotel. Forget the snotty backlash to Sofia Coppola's charmingly offbeat film. It's wonderful.

8. "American Splendor." Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have assembled a marvelous, intelligent hybrid of documentary, comic book graphics and straight-ahead drama in this romance between despondent, pudgy file clerk and comic book raconteur Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti) and the ultra-neurotic Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis). And these fictional characters share screen time with real-life counterparts Pekar and Brabner. So many quirky delights in this movie.

9. "Thirteen." Catherine Hardwicke's disturbing, moving character drama gets inside the soul of a young girl (a superb Evan Rachel Wood) on the verge of womanhood who becomes infected by the commercial Babylon of Los Angeles. Wood's evolution from sweet little daughter to a drug-taking, accessorizing monster is truly terrifying and realistic. Holly Hunter deserves an Oscar nod for her role as the mother.

10. "Mondays in the Sun." This Spanish film by Fernando Leon de Aranoa didn't get much publicity, but Javier Bardem's big-hearted performance is so good, you'd be remiss not to see it. He puts blood, sweat and presence into this leisurely episodic drama about unemployed dockworkers who have no money and little else to live for. This was the film that Spain submitted for Best Foreign Picture at the Oscars last year over Pedro Almodovar's wonderful "Talk to Her." That should tell you something.