Stephen Rebello, who writes about movies for both Playboy magazine and Playboy.com, has come up with his annual list of the top films of the year:

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
Director Andrew Domanik’s elegiac Western film based on Ron Hansen’s novel is stunningly photographed by Roger Deakins, superbly acted by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, among others, and, as it investigates a troubled, hot-wired kid’s hero worship of an American outlaw, it becomes incredibly sad, moving and timeless.  It’s ambitious, muscular, epic filmmaking of a very high order. Yes, it can sometimes only mosey along at 160 minutes, but what a ride.

Atonement
Atonement is director Joe Wright’s and screenwriter Christopher Hampton’s impeccably made film version of Ian McEwan’s romantic novel about the tragic consequences of a wicked lie told by an precociously imaginative, jealous 13-year-old girl about her sister and the son of her family’s housekeeper.  Set in an English country house in 1935 and continuing during and after WWII, the events unravel at their own leisurely pace and the movie is stunningly made top to bottom with emotional payoffs that pack a quiet wallop.   It’d be a pity if action-addicted audiences don’t know how to sit still anymore for a movie like this, but Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirise Ronan, and (especially) Vanessa Redgrave are terrific and the chaotic and surrealistic Battle of Dunkirk sequence is flat-out astonishing.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Director Julian Schnabel’s ravishingly beautiful-looking film from Ronald Stevenson Harwood’s screenplay of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s mesmerizing memoir sounds like a downer or, worse, another of those relentlessly heart-wrenching tales of the human spirit triumphing over seemingly impossible odds.  True, the facts of the real-life story are dire, considering how Bauby, the womanizing, full of life 40-something editor of Elle magazine, emerged massively paralyzed from a stroke able only to blink an eye to communicate.  Yet, we haven’t had a more powerful and stunningly movie in theaters this year than this one, in which Bauby’s inner life becomes a canvas on which Schnabel paints a parade of the extraordinary, complex women, including the editor’s steadfast wife and mother of his children (Emmanuelle Seigner) and his gorgeous lover (Marina Hinds) who is, well, much less steadfast.  The movie contains a deeply moving, lively central performance from Mathieu Almaric, who communicates with the flick of an eyelid more energy and depth than many actors do using their entire arsenal of weaponry.  A staggeringly good film.

I’m Not There
Writer-director Todd Haynes’ investigation into the many lives of Bob Dylan features six different actors slicing into various eras of the singer’s life and psyche; the strong cast includes Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and a brilliant Cate Blanchett.  Much has been said about Haynes’ defiantly unconventional approach to the Oscar-baiting bio movie of the Ray or Walk the Line variety, but I’m Not There is a whole other animal, a biomovie that taps into a groove, a state of mind, not merely a series of events.  Alternately fantastic, goofy, plodding, wrong-headed, and right on the money, it’s an audacious, risk-taking high-wire act of the kind that radically divides audiences.

Juno
Sharp, smart, modest, and well observed, Juno, directed by Jason Reitman from Diablo Cody’s script, features an astonishingly funny, touching  performance from star-to-be Ellen Page as an off-center teenager who makes a series of unusual decisions when she finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Deadpan dialogue and quirky situations bring out the very best in the supporting cast including Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons and Olivia.  The whole movie radiates a likeable “hip indie” vibe that never feels self-satisfied.    

No Country For Old Men
The Coen brothers have adapted Cormac McCarthy’s novel into a brilliant piece of moviemaking crafted in a lean, rawboned, violent style that feels original yet also manages to recall such wildly different directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Sam Peckinpah, and Don Siegel.  In a slowly evolving narrative soaked in melancholy, regret, and tension, Josh Brolin redefines his career playing a Joe Sixpack who discovers a cache of stolen money and a slew of dead bodies and Tommy Lee Jones creates a masterful portrait of a world-weary sheriff. Javier Bardem is the stuff of nightmares as a philosophical psychopath.   Great, great stuff, beginning to end.

Michael Clayton
A stylish throwback commercial moviemaking with smarts, edge, and appeal to grownups, this directorial debut from screenwriter Tony Gilroy (the Bourne flicks) marks the arrival of moviemaker well worth watching.  George Clooney’s shrewd, understated performance as an up-against-it “fixer” for a high-powered law firm ranks as  one of the best things he’s done so far; his final, wordless scene played over the credits tells you all you need to know about his sad, played-out character.  Intelligent dialogue, elliptical editing, and terrific performances from Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sidney Pollack and Denis O’Hare make this one a treat.  But not for speed freaks.  

Ratatouille
Tune-out a few speed bumps in the storyline and some occasionally clunky one-liners and you have a terrific, beautifully shot, well-acted Pixar film from director Brad Bird that sails along on its  great characters, witty screenplay, jaw-dropping backgrounds, and an unusually touching premise -- a lowly French street rat wants to become the greatest gourmet chef in Paris.  Funny without resorting to smarmy cheapjack pop culture clichés that have become the bane of animated films, touching without being maudlin, Ratatouille is a wonder.  One of the most purely enjoyable films of the year and one of the very few that actually warrant a sequel.  

There Will Be Blood
This loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! is a blistering, towering achievement for writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson and actor Daniel Day Lewis.  A character study of greed, corruption, venality, violence and single-mindedness as seen in a turn-of-the-century Texas oil wildcatter, the film is an audaciously brave, bizarre, defiantly idiosyncratic work of art.  Daniel Day Lewis’ performance is the stuff of acting legend.  Not to everyone’s taste but, then again, what truly extraordinary film could be?  

Zodiac
From screenwriter James Vanderbilt’s script based on Robert Graysmith’s book about the real-life killer who stuck terror in the hearts and minds of San Franciscans in the ‘60s and ’70s, director David Fincher has created one of the most obsessive and relentlessly detailed movies in memory.   Tense, atmospheric, seriously well-acted, gorgeously filmed, and cannily nailing its time and place, Zodiac may have lost audiences hungry for conclusive tidied-up endings, but that doesn’t make it any less haunting and gripping a screen experience.  

Honorable Mention: Control, Killer of Sheep, Superbad, Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.