Attack the Block

No movie this year had a clearer sense of self than British director Joe Cornish's debut feature, which went over what the hell happens when man-scarfing aliens crash-land in the London ghetto and begin terrorizing a scruffy tween street gang equally adept at the whole terrorizing thing. Sci-fi without the genre gloating and action without the arrogance, Attack the Block begins and ends with startling precision, the in-between making heroes out of kids who would quickly jack your wallet any other day. —Drew Lazor

Bombay Beach

Philadelphians never got the chance to see this spellbinding documentary (available On Demand) about three very different men living in an impoverished community on the edge of California's Salton Sea. Alma Har'el's film contains many indelible images — including the love-struck subjects doing interpretive dances. While Bombay Beach eschews traditional approaches to filmmaking, its themes about humanity — at turns poignant, haunting, celebratory and heartbreaking — are universal, and ultimately unforgettable. —Gary M. Kramer

Bridesmaids

Melissa McCarthy, who plays overweight-for-laughs sexual predator Megan in Paul Feig's comedy about grown women fighting like little girls once a white dress enters the arena, gets all the daps, but Bridesmaids is Kristen Wiig's movie — she used it to prove that she's capable of cracking that SNL Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time ceiling. Wiig's got the game to be line leader, as evidenced by her perma-frowning Annie, a neurotic unemployed baker blown into a tailspin by the nuptials of her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph). It's the best ensemble comedy of 2011, but don't shortchange it by overstressing the patronizing "girl power!" storyline — it's just a funny-ass flick, period. —D.L.

Certified Copy

A Zen koan in the guise of a relationship two-hander, Abbas Kiarostami's first European feature explores the ever-shifting connection between an art historian and an antiques dealer, each professionally and personally invested in distinguishing real from fake. Throughout the course of a single encounter, Juliette Binoche and William Shimell serve as intellectual antagonists, ex-lovers, even a former husband and wife, though which and when are subject to endless debate. There's no definitive answer to the movie's are-they-or-aren't-they puzzle, but pondering it is a true joy. —Sam Adams

Drive

Beginning with titles lifted from Risky Business and neon-lit streets transplanted from Miami Vice, Nicolas Winding Refn's terse action thriller streamlines the genre to its glossiest and most violent extremes. Ryan Gosling's blank-eyed hero is McQueen-as-sociopath, but Albert Brooks' atypical turn as a vicious gangster is especially memorable. —Shaun Brady

The Future

Miranda July uses naÏveté as a weapon, forcing the audience to lay down its defenses and revisit the phenomenon of grown men and women shirking adult responsibility without cynicism or glib moralizing. Rather than offering an easy out, The Future takes stock of the profound consequences of failing to grow up, while demonstrating its creator's rapidly advancing maturity. —S.A.

Hanna

Joe Wright's odd choice of heroine, a ruthless, fragile 16-year-old assassin (Saoirse Ronan) trained to kill by her rogue-spy father (Eric Bana) in an isolated arctic cabin, is obviously what makes Hanna's clock tick, but it's far from the only appealing aspect of the strangest, coolest mainstream release this year. There's also the throbbing, super-rad Chemical Brothers score, Cate Blanchett's turn as a sharp-dressed villainess obsessed with oral hygiene and Wright's stagecrafty treatment of location, from dusty Moroccan oases to unsettling Grimm-themed fun parks in Berlin. It's a remarkably unsubtle movie and the world is better and weirder for it. —D.L.

Higher Ground

Vera Farmiga's first feature is an elegant exploration of religious faith and its discontents, based on the real-life experience of a former Jesus freak. Although the film doesn't shy from depicting the misogyny inherent in the hippie evangelism of the 1970s, it doesn't demonize its believers, either (or at least not all of them). It's rare that any director, let alone a novice, navigates such a complex subject so deftly. —S.A.

Hugo

Martin Scorsese's spectacular kids' film celebrates the power and possibility of cinema. More than just sweeping camerawork, exceptional editing and memorable performances, this captivating story — about a son discovering a message from his deceased inventor dad — gets at the force and myths of moviemaking. Scorsese wants viewers to feel and discover his love of cinema; Hugo may be for kids, but it's not kid stuff. —G.M.K.

The Interrupters

Seeking to make a difference in a brutal world, Ameena Matthews works with the Chicago group CeaseFire, whose efforts are at the center of Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz's magnificent documentary. How do they stop retaliations rather than engaging wrongdoers in endless punishment? Despite missteps and steps back, despite the many times the Interrupters attend funerals and console grieving parents, they try again and again. If they can stop one act of violence, they might stop another. —Cindy Fuchs

Meek's Cutoff

Kelly Reichardt's near-silent Western is as sere as the desert in which its party of settlers finds itself lost. The politics of the story, about grand notions of new-world empire and the stark realities of the unfriendly terrain, are obvious just under what little surface there is, but Reichardt's insistence on lingering over monotonous toil and tedious hardship make for a grueling sort of allegory. —S.B.

Mysteries of Lisbon

Raúl Ruiz's final film is fully possessed of an effortless mastery that only comes with a sense of the valedictory. Sprawling over four and a half hours, the narrative takes in flashbacks within flashbacks within tall tales, playfully luxuriating in the joy of storytelling. These interwoven melodramatic yarns are by turns compelling and ridiculous, but the director conducts their retelling symphonically, with a floating camera that eavesdrops like a ghost in the room. —S.B.

Project Nim

"Wouldn't it be exciting to communicate with a chimp and learn what it was thinking?" Professor Herb Terrace's question is an enduring one. But if it once impelled the sorts of "experiments" conducted on subjects like Nim Chimpsky during the 1970s, now it also raises moral and political concerns — for instance, how does "science" work, to whose benefit and to whose irreparable detriment? Antic and profound, James Marsh's documentary exposes the intersections of human ambition and failure, insight and arrogance, regret and ignorance. —C.F.

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

In Philly, there is no urban puzzle more pervasive than the Toynbee tiles, penetrating our streets with their creepy, seemingly nonsensical cosmic message. The subjects of Jon Foy's little doc that could are responsible for teeing up the As to all those underfoot Qs, and Foy does an exceptional job warming us up to them. Centered on Justin Duerr, whose dogged fascination with the Toynbee mystery doubles as a looking-glass peek into the local artist and musician's tough childhood, Resurrect Dead is so much more personal than a doc of its nature should be — and that's a compliment. Of course, Duerr and his cohorts cracking the case once and for all is exhilarating on its own. —D.L.

The Skin I Live In

Pedro Almodóvar's best since All About My Mother entwines its parallel narratives with a master's grace, circling back and reconfiguring incidents in ways that profoundly change our understanding of them. He forces us to look beneath the surface, perfectly encapsulating the film's theme that things, and people, are often not as they seem. —S.A.