10)Bubba Ho-Tep- Low budget filmmaking was never cooler or wittier in 2003 than Bubba. Superficially a B-level horror picture, but really a touching and almost heartbreaking look at mortality and fading celebrity, Bubba gives horror icon Bruce Campbell a role worthy of his underrated chops in an aging Elvis (or is he an Elvis look alike?) trapped and forgotten at an old folks’ home where other geriatrics are being killed by a redneck, soulsucking mummy. “Don’t make me use my stuff on ya baby!” declares Elvis in one of strangest badass moments in movie history. When his stuff turns up in movies equally fun and profound like this one, you sorta wish someone would make him use his stuff more often.

9)The Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King- A great conclusion to a great film series. People are already predicting how well these films will age, but I don’t know how true that is; with special effects improving all the time, who knows what the heart of Mount Doom is going to look like to us in twenty years. For now though, the trilogy stands as a testament to big risks and bigger success. And to the talents of Peter Jackson, whose career would never have suggested he was capable of such a success. Thank goodness, he proved everyone wrong.

8)Kill Bill Vol. 1- It still stands as a crappy move, breaking a movie in half, but man, what a great half of a movie Kill Bill Vol. 1 was. Uma Thurman stars as The Bride, kicking ass and looking obscenely hot while Quentin Tarantino shows that despite an immeasurable number of embarrassing talk show appearances, he still is every bit the master director. His power seems to be in drawing directly from the great beyond of cool. His formula for cool is a mix of the best of chop-sockey, grindhouse, exploitation, and Troma-style gore. Put it this way; who saw Volume 1 that wasn’t dying to see part two as soon as the credits came up?

7)American Splendor- In a year where outside of X2, larger-than-life comic book adaptations ranged from mildly entertaining (Hulk) to offensively bad (LXG, Bulletproof Monk), American Splendor proved exactly what its hero Harvey Pekar has been saying all along: real life is pretty complicated, fascinating stuff. In what I think is the best performance of 2003, Paul Giamatti plays Pekar like a man literally possessed; though the real Pekar appears in interview sequences sprinkled throughout, we forget quickly that Giamatti is acting at all; his performance and really the whole film is bathed in an aura of reality caught on film. I also admired Splendor’s versatility: the courtship sequence between Harvey and eventual wife Joyce (the adorable Hope Davis) is hilariously funny; the portion about Harvey’s battle with cancer, heartbreakingly intense.

6)Finding Nemo- An audience can make or break a film. Watching a comedy with an audience that’s laughing can make you think it’s funny, just as watching the same movie with a dead audience might make you second guess your judgment. For a movie to break that mold, to make you bust out laughing when no one else in the room agrees, means the movie has to flat out great (or that you’re a lunatic, but we’ll ignore that possibility here). I saw Finding Nemo crammed into the corner of a small theater packed with obnoxious kids who could not sit still or shut up throughout the film. But because Nemo was so delightful, so funny and charming, I barely heard them. In under ten years, Pixar has made Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., and now Nemo. That’s a decade of moviemaking that would probably stand up, both fiscally and creatively, against any studio at any time. And I’ll be first in line next year for The Incredibles.

5)Mystic River- Of all the really Oscar-hyped movies I’ve seen this year, the one that really matched and even exceeded the talk about it was Mystic River. Great performances? Check. Superb character drama? Check. Outstanding complex cop drama? Big check. Really, it’s just a totally solid movie from top to bottom; even the real Boston locations are fabulous. Only a strange, unfitting ending upsets what could otherwise be the best film of the year.

4)City of God- In year when Tarantino gave it his all, there was still a more visually exciting, densely plotted film about criminals and that was Brazil's City of God a remarkable piece of cinema verite posing as a hyperkinetic thriller. Equally uplifting and depressing, City of God was 2003's best balancing act: all things to all people in all genres without sacrificing any of its impact.

3)Bad Santa- Far and away the crudest, sickest, most demented, un-politically correct, and flat-out, cry-your-eyes-out, soil yourself hilarious film of 2003. Whether the rumors about angry Disney executives were true or not, director Terry Zwigoff pulled a fast one in getting something so vile, so obnoxious, and yes, so damn funny released into theaters. With all the bloodsucking relationships and terrible country rock albums, it was easy to forget that Billy Bob Thorton is a great actor, comedic or otherwise. After Bad Santa, it’ll be very hard to forget that again.

2)Shattered Glass- Along with Bubba Ho-Tep this is probably the least seen film on my list, but it was so good, I have to insist that if you ever have the opportunity, you seek it out. Stephen Glass, a writer for the New Republic, fabricated something like half of the articles he ever wrote for the prestigious magazine (years before Jayson Blair, I hasten to add). His editor, an unliked but dedicated man named Chuck Lane (the highly Oscar-nominatable Peter Sarsgaard) has to decide what to do: support his writer as his job title suggests, or go with his instincts that suggest something is wrong with Glass (played by Hayden Christensen, redeeming his performance in Episode II with a single role). It’s a subtle piece of work from director Billy Ray, but deeply effective, and highly entertaining.