I can't speak of ambition without laying kudos at the feet of Spike Jonze and what he managed to accomplish with the unenviable task of bringing Where the Wild Things Are to the screen.  Like Wes Anderson with The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Henry Selick with Coraline, Spike Jonze didn't make a "kids film", instead he stayed true to his own vision and ended up making a PG rated Spike Jonze film. Perhaps some years down the line someone could make a successfully cheerier, more kid friendly version of Maurice Sendak's slim bedtime story but I wouldn't trade Jonze's introspective version for a lighter tone. What we have, what Jonze has given us, is nothing short of amazing -- a rabbit hole of a movie into the subconscious of a fatherless latch-key kid trying to come to terms with what it means to be part of a family.

No other film resonated as strong and instantaneously for me as Where the Wild Things Are. The further we got into Max's world, the more my inner 10 year-old was dusted off and awoken. It wasn't without heartache and tears, but seeing this film was truly witnessing the unveiling of an enduring, timeless classic. 

3. Let the Right One In
dir. Tomas Alfredson
This is the first of my cheats. I know most were able to see this one in 2008 but I have to put this film on one list or another so here it is: the best love story I first saw back in January and one of the few movies from this year that I will happily watch again and again and never get tired of. Simply beautiful from the first frame on and its power is so strong due to its innocence and how direct the story is. There's a lot to be said for this adaptation and the many ways it could have gone wrong (and still could due to a thoroughly unnecessary American remake in the works) but refuses to. How the film is able to craft a love story between a 10 year old and a weary vampire trapped in a 10 year old's body is a work of magic that defies cinematic logic and proves that anything really is possible in the world of film if the people behind it believe in it strong enough.

4. A Serious Man
dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
How Joel and Ethan Coen can still manage to surprise and bewilder is one of the current delights in modern cinema. I'd call bluff on anyone who claims to have thought in 1999 that by the end of this decade these guys would still be spinning tales so diverse and fun that you wonder if there's any peak for them to hit or if they'll simply continue to up their game or die trying. The first reason A Serious Man is up at #4 on this list is because it's the funniest movie I've seen this year. The other reasons are why most of the movies the Coens make end up on the best-of lists every year -- they simply embody everything you want from your American auteur. They're masters of the telling visual story and it all feels so effortless that they could be called out for being cold and mechanical if it weren't for the strengths of the stories they tell and this time if feels more personal than ever. A story of spiritual bankruptcy; a man being hung out to dry, flapping in the wind that just gets stronger and stronger and trying to hold on to his slim tether. Watching a man hit brick walls in a struggle to find sense and direction in an unkind world has never been this fun.

5. Antichrist
dir. Lars von Trier
There wasn't a film this year that was more fun to pick apart than Lars von Trier's disturbing, graphic depiction of a woman's decent into homicidal madness. von Trier racks up the tension to unbearable levels as we're left to watch choices are made and actions taken to ensure the inevitable bloody climax (ok, pun kind of intended). A remarkable Wilem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg are He and She, fulfilling prophecy and ending up more as pawns than actual human beings -- letting nature take its course. Defoe's coldly rational psychologist doesn't realize that by using the tricks of his trade he's actually ensuring all the pieces will in place for Gainsbourg's demise. Sometimes the best intentions can kill.

There's a dozen different ways you can go with this one, and that's part of the beauty of it -- a dozen different red herrings. Is it a hate letter to modern therapy? A feminist allegory? Or simply an audacious horror movie with a brain? It's a flawed movie - it tends to be equal parts on-the-nose and inscrutable - but nothing else I watched this year rewarded analysis quite like Antichrist.

6. Hausu
dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi
Here's the second cheat of the list. Obayashi's 1977 logic and reason defying brain bender of a haunted house film is something that has to be seen to be believed. For the lucky folk that gathered together to see a screening at this year's getting-better-every-year Boston Underground Film Festival, we were treated to a great print of this film that time forgot. Obayashi blends together every technical trick at his disposal and employs enough tonal jumps to cause viewer whiplash but added up it equals one of the most original and bizarre movie experiences you can have. There's enough playful energy in Hausu for ten movies -- it's bursting at the seams with ideas. You wouldn't think that the story of a group of girls getting picked off one by one by a cursed house would result in something so unique and yet there hasn't been and will never be another film like Hausu. It starts out like some technicolor musical and ends like a morbid melodrama and hits just about everything in between. Where else will you see death by carnivorous piano?

7. Up
dir. Pete Doctor & Bob Peterson
I don't recall a better year for animated film. Up, Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox all provided unique personal visions of timeless stories. Both Up and Coraline expertly utilized 3-D to enhance their stories and Coraline may have done a better job at using this technology, but Up is an example of superior storytelling. The "life with Ellie" montage has been talked about all year, and rightfully so. It's a beautifully devastating piece of filmmaking that is one of the best 5 minutes of any movie this year. It also happens to be surrounded by some pretty great stuff. There's perverse pleasure in having the best adventure story of the year star Ed Asner -- even if it is just his voice. Up proves a movie can be inspirational, uplifting, heartwarming and even cute and not be the least bit corny or pandering. It can still be one of the best movies of the year.  It also happens to be the best Blu-ray I've come across -- a two disc affair that really puts all the possibilities of the format to use.

8. Life During Wartime
dir. Todd Solondz
The distribution for Solondz's last couple films have been lacking at best. It would be a shame if his most mature and accomplished film would end up unceremoniously dumped on DVD. Life During Wartime is an accumulation of everything Solondz has done leading up to it. He proves that his experiment with re-casting characters can work wonders and actually contribute to his story rather than distract. Ciaran Hinds, Ally Sheedy, Paul Reubens and Allison Janney all pick up where the other actors in Happiness left off and each one does some of the best work of their careers. Especially effective is Hinds, an unknown to me who creates his own damaged version of Bill (originally played by Dylan Baker in Happiness), who goes looking for his son upon getting released from prison -- worried that his now college aged boy may have inherited some of his worst qualities. It's a profound examination of forgiveness, family and those dark corners of the human psyche that no one finds humor and humanity in quite like Solondz. And if anything proves Solondz's growth as a writer/director it is that humanity -- there's more peace love and understanding to Life During Wartime than his previous work. Plus, the film looks better than anything he's done.

9. White Stripes Under the Great Norther Lights
dir. Emmett Malloy
Speaking of looking great, the black and white (and sometimes color) footage of the White Stripes let's-hit-all-the-Canadian-territories tour of 2007 is gorgeous stuff to soak in. But what comes as a surprise is how meditative the film is on the integral relationship between Jack and Meg White. The live footage, which there is plenty of, sounds great and carries a fantastic intensity and impressively enough the footage of their seemingly subliminal conversations carry a certain intensity as well. It's a one-of-a-kind musical relationship these two have and you realize that their chemistry is what drives the music and each member is of equal importance in its success. There's a tender exploration of the Meg/Jack dynamic throughout the film that culminates in a final tune played by Jack at the piano, with Meg at his side. Meg is moved to tears and so was I.

10. Inglorious Basterds
dir. Quentin Tarantino
This one knocked socks off in the theater. Watching it at home, the power of the individual scenes still hold up even if it doesn't all gel together as best as it should. Christoph Waltz deserves the accolades and his likely Oscar for his performance as The Jew Hunter, Hans Landa. The film is a great success for Tarantino -- a confident step forward and a helluva fun love note to the power of cinema.

11. The Brothers Bloom
dir. Rian Johnson
It wasn't the follow-up to Brick that everyone was hoping for, but I loved Johnson's con men fable. It's clear Johnson is in love with the art of directing and that love has found its way into every inch of this film. One brother setting up the long-con to end all long-cons, a game that ends up with the other brother finding love, is all an ode to the most romantic aspects of cinema -- of making dreams come alive and making sure the actors hit their mark.

12. Timecrimes
dir. Nacho Vigalondo
My last cheat of the list is this Rod-Serling-on-a-speed-binge piece of time traveling madness. Officially released in 2007 or 2008, this one finally made an appearance in the Boston area at the very beginning of the year. Eleven months later it remains one of the most entertaining 90 minutes I spent in a theater. Like an awesome microscopic version of Back to the Future Part 2, Timecrimes piles on every time-travel related paradox you can fit into a story and somehow manages, unlike BTTF2, to wrap it all up and an extremely satisfying way. It's the rare movie that rewards your attention to detail and even if you can predict some of the twists before they happen you'll still love it when it does. 

13. World's Greatest Dad
dir. Bob Goldthwait
If comedy got any darker than the kind that Goldthwait serves up, it would be the bleakest, most pathos filled material this side of Mike Leigh. How World's Greatest Dad gets filled with some rather despicable characters and still manages to avoid being mean or nasty is a testament to Goldthwait's skills at creating his own off-beat tone and sticking with it and making it ring so wonderfully honest. Goldthwait has yet to get his proper dues but if he keeps making movies as good as this, he won't be ignored for much longer. Sure the film is about the death of a fuck-up of a kid which is played more or less for laughs, but World's Greatest Dad has more of a social conscious than most of the movies that came out this year.

14. Chocolate
dir. Prachya Pinkaew
Just when I though the kung-fu movie may have nowhere else to go but downward in quality, Chocolate comes around a sets a new standard for ass-kicking set pieces and death defying stunts. The plot is little more than an excuse for these amazing fight sequences and the first ten minutes is misleadingly crappy but making a hero out of an autistic tomboy beanpole is a stroke of genius. Pinkaew has raised the bar so high with Chocolate that Tony Jaa's Ong Bak 2 (the first Ong Bak was directed by Pinkaew) paled a bit in comparison.

15. Symbol
dir. Hitoshi Matsumoto
[Spoilers follow] Symbol is a great example of a follow-up gone right. Matsumoto's Big Man Japan was full of promise and with Symbol he delivers on all that and ups his own ante. More imaginative, funnier and more unpredictable than Big Man Japan, Symbol offers up a bizarre premise on who controls the universe and how that person gets picked for the job it involves cherub penises being used like light-switches, naturally). It's mostly hilarious and Matsumoto proves to be in league with the great physical comedians of our time. He still has a tendency to get repetitious but with Symbol you're too busy enjoying the ride and wondering what's going to happen next to complaint.

So there you have it.  In the spirit of full disclosure, here's my list of shame -- films unforgivably left unwatched by the time of this posting: The Hurt Locker, Moon, Julia, The Headless Woman, In the Loop, District 9. Don't worry, I feel suitably full of guilt.