Incredible showings

It was a contrary year marked by underwhelming epics, dull entertainments and untrustworthy documentaries. Usually dependable directors couldn’t deliver. The Coen brothers gave us the unfunny “The Ladykillers.” Steven Spielberg gave us the boring “The Terminal.” Oliver Stone gave us the nearly unwatchable “Alexander.”

But if you entered movie theaters with an open mind and a slightly charitable disposition, there were good movies to be found, and some brilliant performances on display, often in pictures (“Ray,” “Being Julia,” “Birth”) that didn’t really deserve them.

Enjoying yourself at the movies wasn’t so much a question of lowering standards, but of forgiving a few small flaws and looking in a few new places.

Delights among the year’s many imports included Bernardo Bertolucci’s passionately radical “The Dreamers” and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s grimly fatalistic “The Return.” Kim Ki-Duk’s “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … And Spring” was layered with beautiful Buddhist imagery, and Ousmane Sembene’s grim “Moolade” told a horrifying African story in plain, direct language.

Indie directors continued to push boundaries. Nicole Kassell’s “The Woodsman” cast genuine light on the life of a sex offender (and featured a truly brave performance by Kevin Bacon). Robert Greenwald’s “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” avoided Michael Moore’s emotionalism (and shaky reporting) to present an icily intelligent argument for peace, while Jim Jarmusch’s scattershot “Coffee and Cigarettes” sparked great, bizarre flashes of comedy from Cate Blanchett and Steve Coogan.

Yes, you could find pleasures if you looked, and sometimes from the most unlikely sources. Chris Kentis’ shark tale “Open Water” delivered imaginative shocks on a rock-bottom budget. Nick Willing’s “Close Your Eyes” (aka “Doctor Sleep” and “Hypnotic”) couldn’t decide on a title, but still provided quietly creepy thrills. And Tina Fey’s script for Mark Waters’ “Mean Girls” snuck social satire and witty feminism into, of all things, a Lindsay Lohan picture.

They were all interesting films, spiced with occasional surprises, and they comprise a 10-strong list of honorable mentions.

Here are the films that went a little further to be the best, and provided the year’s most lasting delights.

“The Aviator” – Who could turn the life of manic, obsessive, visionary Howard Hughes into an entertaining movie? Perhaps only manic, obsessive, visionary Martin Scorsese, whose truly epic movie combines an auteur’s intellectual games (movie in-jokes and film-stock experiments) with hugely emotional performances (Leonardo DiCaprio’s paranoid billionaire, Cate Blanchett’s larger-than-life Katharine Hepburn). Not top-quality Scorsese — for that, we’re already anticipating his upcoming DiCaprio/Matt Damon cops-and-robbers thriller — but still overwhelming.

“Bad Education” – Pedro Almodovar is one of cinema’s great storytellers. In his latest, most challenging film, he spins a tale about storytelling itself, as several narratives cross, collide and contradict each other. Drenched in typically saturated Almodovar colors, the movie combines film-noir mood, drag-queen characters and some frankly autobiographical elements to create a dazzling, dizzying surprise. (Not least among the revelations: Who knew that in a wig and high heels, Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal looks so much like Julia Roberts?)

“Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” – Charlie Kaufman’s scripts (“Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation”) could regularly make Top 10 lists on sheer novelty alone, and this film, about lovers paying a company to purge their memories, surely qualifies on that level. But there is something more here, something often missed in his previous stories: a bittersweet sense of loss, of regret, of fragile romance. Director Michael Gondry was heavy-handed with the whimsy, but the movie’s nightmare visuals are striking, and the actors – particularly Kate Winslet, as quirky Clementine — a delight.

“Hotel Rwanda” – There are too many stories in the world of evil triumphing while good men do next to nothing. So what a moving change of pace to have this true-life tale of a mild-mannered hotel manager who selflessly chose to act, and saved more than 1,200 people from tribal genocide? This is no “Schindler’s List,” because director Terry George is no Steven Spielberg. Yet the impact of this story’s horror is undeniable, and longtime supporting star Don Cheadle finally gets a lead worthy of his steady, sober intelligence and quietly commanding talent.

“The Incredibles” – This cartoon provides laughs and more, including characters whose superpowers match their personal lives (what mother doesn’t feel pulled in four directions at once?) and some sly swipes at America’s everyone-is-special culture. A terrific film from Brad Bird, whose underrated “The Iron Giant” was another winner. Highlights include a marvelous vocal performance by Holly Hunter, art direction straight out of “You Only Live Twice” and one character who looks like a cross between Linda Hunt and Edith Head.

“Kinsey” – With “Gods and Monsters,” the literate Bill Condon proved he had a feeling for outsiders and a talent for directing clever, unusual biographies. Both served him brilliantly in this, the story of “sexologist” Alfred Kinsey and the smartest of the year’s many biographies. Attention has focused on Liam Neeson’s masterful performance in the demanding title role, but Lynn Redgrave is even better in a single touching scene near the film’s end. The witty script’s careful structure is concise. An intelligent exploration of a complicated man.

“The Mother” – A newly widowed retiree takes a lover, her daughter’s hunky boyfriend. It isn’t the sort of story most directors would see as anything but a low, oddball farce. But Roger Michell, who previously showed real curiosity and talent in “Changing Lanes,” treats the story as the true drama it is (and then-68-year-old star Anne Reid as the fully sexual being that seniors can be). Michell’s stark and uncompromising movie follows its premise to a difficult, disturbing and yet inexorably logical conclusion.

“Sideways” – A backlash has been brewing since this picture first won wild raves at the Toronto Film Festival. So if you haven’t seen this acclaimed comedy yet, try to go without blockbuster expectations and let yourself be surprised by its small delights – including a bright script by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, a wicked performance by Thomas Haden Church as a self-loving actor and a warmly human one by Paul Giamatti as his self-loathing friend. Hilarious and yet – for Payne, at least – oddly, sweetly hopeful.

“Tarnation” – He was born to a mentally ill mother, deserted by his father, bounced around abusive foster homes and drifted through a troubled, druggy adolescence. Jonathan Caouette not only survived this life, he documented it – and somehow wove all those home movies, taped diaries and snippets of late-night TV into this amazingly singular and shockingly affecting non-fiction film (and all for less money than most directors spend having their Hummers detailed). Decidedly avant-garde, yet undeniably real and moving and true. This is one moviemaking experiment that worked.

“We Don’t Live Here Anymore” – “Closer,” “The Door in the Floor,” even “Spanglish” – it’s been a year of spiteful adultery and dysfunctional marriage at the movies. The best and most believable story, though, came in this low-profile drama from John Curran, with a ferocious performance by Laura Dern as a wronged wife and a tense and tricky one by Mark Ruffalo as her errant husband. Based on stories by Andre Dubus (“In the Bedroom”), its literary feel evokes John Updike or “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” A fine film and, be warned, a lousy date movie.