Love Actually (2003)
[8] A bunch of British people fall in love, out of love, and do lovey-dovey things in the month leading up to Christmas. Now, if you're like me, that's a description that will keep you from ever wanting to watch…
Antichrist (2009)
[8] Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg star as a man and woman who retreat to their cabin in the woods to grieve the death of their young son. Dafoe's character is a therapist and tries to offer techniques to help…
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
[7] Camp counselors engage in all kinds of shenanigans on the last day of summer camp in August, 1981. Wet Hot American Summer is a throwback to raunchy, sexy comedies of the early '80s, elevated by a charismatic ensemble cast…
An Education (2009)
[6] Carey Mulligan gives an outstanding performance in this adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir. Mulligan plays a sixteen-year-old in 1960s London, pushed by her father to study hard so she can get into Oxford. When she falls in love with…
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
[5] Forces conspire to keep Harry Potter from returning to his second year at the Hogwarts wizarding school. Apparently, the big bad Voldemoort (who we still don't see but hear about all the time) put a monster in a mysterious…
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
[5] You know the story. Poor orphaned boy gets invited to a magical wizarding school and is destined to be the main adversary for a big bad meanie who is slowly manifesting (over, like, three or four movies). What I…
The Invasion (2007)
[4] Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig star in this latest re-telling of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Kidman is a psychiatrist whose husband starts acting peculiarly. She also recognizes strange behavior in her patients and the people on the street.…
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
[7] Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck star in Andrew Dominik's dramatization of the last months of famous outlaw Jesse James' life. Pitt plays James and Affleck plays his admirer-turned-assassin, Robert Ford. The young Ford character is smitten from the outset,…
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
[4] About two minutes into Punch-Drunk Love, an absurdist romance from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia), you learn the movie doesn't really take place in the real world and none of the characters are real, either. It's all... some…
Frozen River (2008)
[7] Melissa Leo turns in a fierce, memorable performance in writer/director Courtney Hunt's story of two women who strike up an unlikely partnership smuggling illegal immigrants to make ends meet. After a Mohawk woman from a nearby reservation steals her…