In the Bedroom: The compelling feature debut of filmmaker Todd Field, based on the short story by Andre Dubus, opens the door on an all-to-rare cinematic triple play: smart directing, great acting and brilliant writing. Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson star in the drama about a Maine couple confronted with the murder of their adult son, showing how different people handle anger and grief.

The movie started the year by winning the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Expect more kudos next year, with a well-deserved sixth Academy Award nomination for Spacek (she won for 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter), a first Oscar nod for Wilkinson, and a chance at a second supporting statuette for Marisa Tomei (she won for 1992’s My Cousin Vinny).

Memento: Director Christopher Nolan has taken the noir thriller and hit the rewind button. Guy Pearce is former insurance investigator Leonard Shelby, who is trying to track down his wife’s killer. Trouble is, he also was a victim of the attack and now suffers from short-term memory loss. The story, which won the writing award at the Sundance Film Festival, unfolds backwards—effectively putting us in Leonard’s shoes. To unscramble all the clues, a second viewing is a must.

The Deep End: Tilda Swinton is an ordinary housewife placed in an extraordinary situation, namely covering the tracks of her son whom she suspects killed a smarmy nightclub owner she wanted him to stay away from. The story, adapted from Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s 1940s crime novel The Blank Wall, finds her getting deeper and deeper into trouble with seemingly no way out. Swinton, a British actress with the little-seen Orlando and The Beach on her resume, turns in one of the five best performances by an actress this year. The brilliantly executed noir thriller recalls Alfred Hitchcock at his best.

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring: Adventure is multiplied to the nth degree in Peter Jackson’s interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novel. Hobbits, elves, gnomes, wizards and dark warriors inhabit the first of three epics that should dominate the next two Christmas seasons at the box office as it already has this one. Elijah Wood is a good choice for Frodo Baggins, but it’s Ian McKellen—as the courageous Gandalf—who’s as watchable as the spectacular New Zealand scenery that doubles for Middle Earth.

Black Hawk Down: On the surface, this wouldn’t seem like the best time to release a war movie based on the botched 1993 U.S. military mission in Somalia. Thankfully, they did anyway—moving it up from a planned March 2002 debut. Director Ridley Scott (Alien, Thelma & Louise and last year’s Oscar-winning best picture Gladiator) has taken the book written Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden and turned out an unflinching look at a peacekeeping mission gone awry. The movie is unrelenting, exhausting and well worth watching—if only for Slawomir Idziak’s cinematography.

Monsters, Inc.: Disney and DreamWorks waged a high-profile battle for the hearts and minds of family moviegoers this year. And while Shrek, the revisionist fairy tale starring a green ogre, may come out on top at the box office, this Pixar Animation Studios creation (released by Disney) is immensely more original, imaginative and funny. It takes place in a universe populated with bizarre creatures—powered by the screams of children. Shrek is equal to Monsters, Inc. when it comes to animation, but it loses points because of its heavy reliance on bathroom humor that really doesn’t take much effort to think up. If the Shrek sequel travels the same path as the original, there’s a 9-year-old at my house who would love to help with the screenplay.

A Beautiful Mind: Ron Howard does it again with this story of mathematician John Nash, starring Russell Crowe in the role of the troubled Nobel laureate. Criticized for playing fast and loose with the facts of Nash’s life (and leaving others out entirely), Howard stands his ground. “In shaping a life into a couple of hours for a movie, you make a lot of choices,” he says. “We did not set out to try to make a biopic or the last word on John Nash. Quite frankly, this is an unauthorized biography.” No matter what it is, the movie adds up to another gem from Howard, who already has given us Apollo 13, Backdraft, Parenthood and Ransom.

The Others: Nicole Kidman stars in this supernatural ghost story as the mother of two children living in a haunted house in the 1940s. Slow pacing works to its benefit, tightening the screws until The Others reaches its chilling climax. Writer-director Alejandro Amenabar has penned what materializes as the best movie of its kind since M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense.

Bridget Jones’s Diary: Renee Zellweger—every bit as adorable as she was in Jerry Maguire, with her girl-next-door good looks—sparkles as a British “singleton” in the film version of Helen Fielding’s best-selling 1996 novel. It chronicles a year in the love life of a slightly overweight lackey for a London publisher. Hugh Grant plays her womanizing boss wonderfully, and Colin Firth adeptly handles the role of the dull family friend.

Moulin Rouge: Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor are star-crossed lovers in Paris at the turn of the century (and we’re not talking about the most recent one) in Baz Luhrmann’s musical. Kidman’s take on “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” alone is worth the price of the DVD, which is now available. The rest is bonus material. As the year wraps up, the 34-year-old actress is left with only one question: “Tom who?”