Bridesmaids, A Dangerous Method, Warrior Top the NY Times’ Top Ten (more than ten)

1. ‘THE DESCENDANTS’ In Alexander Payne’s second-best movie (after “Election”) George Clooney gives his most complex and compelling screen performance (he even weeps) as Matt King, a wealthy Hawaiian landowner who learns of his wife’s infidelity while she is on life support after a boating accident. With his two daughters in tow he travels from Oahu to Kauai to confront her lover, a married, high-flying real estate broker.

The movie, adapted from a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, is rich with Hawaiian lore as Matt argues with his relatives over whether or not to sell his family’s valuable coastal property. A pitch-perfect study of middle-aged male angst and family conflict, with some sharp comic moments, “The Descendants” is one of the most adult American films ever made about love, money, betrayal and the ties that should bind but sometimes don’t.

2. ‘OF GODS AND MEN’

3. ‘THE TREE OF LIFE’

4. ‘MARGIN CALL’ In J. C. Chandor’s taut, concise corporate thriller, inspired by the fall of Lehman Brothers, a stock analyst discovers information that could destroy the company if it doesn’t act immediately and dump billions of dollars in toxic assets. This devastating portrait of greed, panic and malfeasance in high places has the strongest performances in years by Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey. It offers a grim picture of the ruthless pecking order at an investment bank whose leaders don’t understand the destructive financial instruments they wield with a callous disregard for everyone but themselves.

5. ‘MELANCHOLIA’

6. ‘WE WERE HERE’ 

7. ‘INCENDIES’

8. ‘A DANGEROUS METHOD’

9. ‘CERTIFIED COPY’

10. ‘MONEYBALL’

RUNNERS-UP

1. ‘TAKE SHELTER’

2. ‘YOUNG ADULT’

3. ‘RAPT’

4. ‘POETRY’

5. ‘A SEPARATION’