Gomorrah
"Matteo Garrone’s startling film, Gomorrah, about the criminal underworld in Naples, is one of these rare movies that can alter our perception of life" - James Christopher

The Dark Knight
"Heath Ledger’s posthumous Oscar looks in the bag. The film is bleak and brilliant. Batman is Hamlet and Ledger is a sensation as the Joker. The late legend doesn’t just steal the film, he murders it in style" - James Christopher

Man On Wire
"The American director James Marsh has created one of the greatest heist films of all times. Two things make his gripping docudrama so different: it’s all true, and the only thing stolen is air" - Cosmo Landesman

There Will Be Blood
"Paul Thomas Anderson's movie about the scramble for oil is a masterclass in how the West was truly sold. It's a marvellously entertaining soap: a sort Dickens does Dallas, without the sex or swimming pools" - James Christoper

Time and Winds
"The kind of movie that was invented for the word “ineffable”. It is, at a guess, about life’s relentless march, about death, rebirth, and the hollow limits of religion in the face of overwhelming nature. when you’ve got it you’ve got it for good" - Kevin Maher

Slumdog Millionaire
"Danny Boyle’s rags-to-riches story about an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Bombay makes the heart pound" - James Christopher

Hunger
"Turner prize-winning artist Steve McQueen's savage portrait of hunger striker Bobby Sands is a chilling drama, a controversial and provocative act of remembering" - James Christopher

Of Time and the City
"This rich cinematic memoir of Liverpool from Terence Davies is a British gem. Elegant and slightly elegiac, this is a film to be cherished" - Wendy Ide

High School Musical 3
"The third in a series of frothy, phenomenally popular kids’ films is as shiny and polished as newly fitted dental veneers and, like most Disney products, relentlessly family-friendly" - Wendy Ide

Chocolate
"From the director who brought us the stunt-tastic Ong-Bak comes the story of Zen, an autistic girl who learns martial arts by watching them on television in another symphony of exquisitely choreographed carnage" - Wendy Ide

Editor's choice

• The 50 Biggest Movies of 2009
• The other side of Angelina Jolie
• Quantum of Solace