A recap of 2001's best movies.

Our Top 10: 'Bedroom'
No Sleeper, 'Lord' Runs
Rings Around 'Harry'
By JOE MORGENSTERN

Those of us who love movies, as opposed to thrill rides, demolition derbies or gross-out guignols, should thank our lucky stars, and writers and directors, that every year comes equipped with 12 months. Back in the slough of despond that was last summer at the multiplex, the movie business seemed to have been almost totally trashed by the entertainment conglomerates, and the prospect of finding enough worthy candidates for a 10-best list struck me as wishful at best. Since then, though, the mad ritual of film distribution -- holding back all of the supposedly good stuff until the holiday-and-award season -- has yielded plenty to fill out my list and buoy up my hopes: With all these exceptions to the rule of mediocrity, maybe the rule itself is starting to bend.

'In the Bedroom'

"In the Bedroom" is the best American film of 2001, and, for my money, the best film period. Narrative drive, visual and musical power, flawless performances (by Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, Marisa Tomei and William Mapother) -- everything comes together, quite slowly at first, then with devastating force, in a drama of parental loss, grief and wrath. I still find it remarkable that "In the Bedroom" is the feature debut of the director, Todd Field, rather than the work of a calmly confident master. Mr. Field also wrote the script, with Rob Festinger, from a short story by the late André Dubus. Short stories, according to conventional wisdom, don't make good movies because they lack density of detail, but conventional wisdom doesn't cover inventive, deeply felt adaptations like this one.

'Gosford Park'

Population density is one of the many distinctions of "Gosford Park," Robert Altman's unexpectedly elegant comedy of manners, set in England in 1932, that's coupled with a murder mystery. (At the age of 76, Mr. Altman is still reinventing himself.) The gilded rooms in the country estate of the title are chockablock with fancy guests -- members, in good or bad standing, of England's aristocracy -- while the mansion itself is fully staffed by fascinating servants. "These people look like Alan Mowbray," says one of two Americans in the group, a philistine producer of Charlie Chan movies. What they look like to me is a vast cast of superb performers at the top of their form.

'Monsters, Inc.'


Pixar's 'Monsters, Inc.' could vie for the new Oscar for best animated feature.
This is the first year in which an Oscar will go to the best animated feature. The new award couldn't be more timely, because feature animation has become a repository of wit and imagination for grown-ups as well as kids; this genre can be as sophisticated, in its way, as the best movie comedies used to be before raunchy 16-year-olds became the target audience. The award is also timely because 2001 was graced with two fine full-length cartoons. The most recently released one is "Monsters, Inc." from Pixar, the big, rich computer-animation studio that behaves like an artists' co-op. The monsters in question inhabit a fantasy world that lurks behind the closet doors in kids' bedrooms; it's their job to scare the little tykes and bottle their screams. Kids don't scare as easily as they used to, so Monsters, Inc. is in a slump, but kids are still open *****rprise and delight, so Pixar is flourishing.

'Shrek'

The other animated treat is "Shrek," from DreamWorks, which opened in May and then stayed around for months without wearing out its welcome. It's easy to understand why. "Shrek" is an endearing film, and endearing counts for a lot these days, when the imperatives of global marketing lead all too often to clockwork entertainments with dead souls. The twin souls of "Shrek," which was based on the children's book by William Steig, are a pair of brilliant vocal performances -- by Mike Myers in the title role of the goodhearted monster, and by Eddie Murphy as a donkey, named Donkey, who talks, and talks, like there's no tomorrow.

'The Lord of the Rings'

It's always hard to explain what's missing in a movie, and especially so with "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" -- because of its staggering success at the box office, and because kids who were delighted by the book generally felt the same way about the screen version. But explanations come more easily thanks to "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Peter Jackson's first installment of the Tolkien trilogy is many things that Chris Columbus's rendering of the first Rowling book was not. "Rings" combines epic sweep with eloquent performances. It uses its long running time -- all right, its overlong running time -- to create and explore quiet moments, to invoke special effects not as stunts but as enhancements of the magic that already dwells in the drama.

And there's another lesson here, one that I sometimes forget in my dismay at the worst of the studios' output. Entertainment conglomerates aren't monoliths. Their component companies sometimes behave in markedly different ways, as witness the safe and disappointingly predictable approach that AOL Time Warner took to "Harry Potter," in contrast to the artistic crapshoot that its New Line Cinema unit took, and evidently won, with "The Lord of the Rings." Here's to ever more gambles by big players.

'Ghost World'

"Ghost World" is a wonderfully strange, distinctively funny and deeply affecting first fiction feature by Terry Zwigoff, who did the unsettling 1994 documentary "Crumb." It's the odyssey of a smart, alienated kid, Enid, who is searching for authenticity in the junk pile of her suburban teenage life. Enid is played by Thora Birch, who can make a slow, droll blink stand for withering disapproval. The poor girl is a self-sabotaging mess, but we get many glimpses of the strong and beautiful self she's bound to discover. Ironically, and sadly, the teenage audience that should have made "Ghost World" a hit has had its brains scrambled, in ways that Enid would know all too well, by whole summers of terrible movies.

'Amélie'

The romantic fable "Amélie" ticks off the likes and dislikes of almost every character. Its elfin heroine likes, among other things, looking back at people's faces in the dark of movie theaters. (She even turns away from the screen during "Jules and Jim," which raises questions about her priorities.) I liked watching Amélie's face and I rarely turned away, because she's played by a sweetly wistful actress named Audrey Tautou. The intricate style of the director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, ticks off some people, who see it as precious. I found his work refreshingly inventive, and welcomed the whimsical wit and visual variety of this French-language film about a fragile young woman who rearranges other people's lives, mostly for the better, even though she's afraid to live her own.

'Amores Perros'

If the true measure of a movie's worth were its grosses, "Amores Perros" would be at the bottom of everyone's list. This debut feature by the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu was a tough sell from the start, since the director and his writer, Guillermo Arriaga, use dog fighting as their master metaphor for the savagery of modern life. In this vast panorama of urban life, Emilio Echevarría gives an astonishing performance as El Chivo, a street person and sometime hit man whose redemption is linked to the vicious behavior of a rottweiler named Cofi.

'In the Mood for Love'


Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in Wong Kar wai's seductive 'In the Mood for Love.'
No one has ever made a film quite like the Chinese-language "In the Mood for Love," Wong Kar-wai's implicitly erotic and elaborately allusive celebration of romantic longing. Whatever may be lacking in conventional action -- and an almost total absence of conventional action is the point here -- there's a wellspring of passion beneath the movie's seductive surface. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, next-door neighbors in a crowded Hong Kong apartment building in 1962, are attracted to each other even before they realize that their (unseen) spouses are having an affair. To feel such a pull and watch this beautiful couple resist it is an exotic pleasure laced with melancholy.

'The Deep End'

Some movies grab you right away, while others grow on you. I was appreciative, though in retrospect insufficiently so, of "The Deep End," a thriller starring Tilda Swinton as a single mother, Margaret, who will do whatever it takes to protect her children. (Her role and Sissy Spacek's in "In the Bedroom" complement each other eerily well.) Margaret takes her own plunge off the deep end after the body of her older son's gay lover washes up on the beach in front of her lakefront house. Ms. Swinton's stunning performance in this unusual film, which was directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, is a study in ferociously focused energy.

Runners-Up

Ten is a lonely number for a best-movies list, even in an indifferent year like the one that just ended. Other films worthy of your attention and respect include, in no particular order: "Memento," "Lantana," "Together," "Divided We Fall," "No Man's Land," "Legally Blonde," "The Dish," "Startup.Com," "The Devil's Backbone," "Fat Girl," "Our Song," "With a Friend Like Harry," "Last Resort," "The Road Home," "The Princess and the Warrior," "The Circle," "The Taste of Others" and "Happy Accidents." They may not leap out from multiplex marquees or video-store racks, but seek and ye shall find.

Despair is not Hopeless!​

is the best American film of 2001, and, for my money, the best film period. Narrative drive, visual and musical power, flawless performances (by Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, Marisa Tomei and William Mapother) -- everything comes together, quite slowly at first, then with devastating force, in a drama of parental loss, grief and wrath