Minneapolis Star Tribune I'm tempted to say Tarantino has done it again, but I doubt anyone has ever done anything like his dazzlingly original World War II movie, Inglourious Basterds. . . . It's a war movie without battlefields, a postmodern period picture, a disco and funk soundtrack, an egregiously gory movie that lampoons screen violence. It's classic, quirky, quintessential Quentin. Rolling Stone Tarantino rewrites history with the only authority he has: his sovereignty as a filmmaker. Will Basterds polarize audiences? That's a given. But for anyone professing true movie love, there's no resisting it.

The Philadelphia Inquirer Kathryn Bigelow's riveting and profoundly tense war movie, set in Baghdad in 2004, follows the members of a bomb squad as they go looking for IEDs, looking to stay alive. Far and away one of the strongest of the films to come out of the Iraq conflict - a white-knuckle war movie. Chicago Sun-Times The Hurt Locker is a great film, an intelligent film, a film shot clearly so that we know exactly who everybody is and where they are and what they're doing and why. . . . A leading contender for Academy Awards. Toronto Star Just when you thought the battle of Iraq war dramas had been fought and lost, along comes one that demands to be seen – if you can handle the raging adrenaline.

USA Today . . . proves that sci-fi thrillers don't have to be star-studded or mega-budgeted to be visually compelling and thoroughly entertaining. Los Angeles Times Though the themes are universal, the director's childhood in South Africa clearly informs the film's sensibility, in this case greatly adding to its distinctive look and feel. It's an impressive first feature for the 29-year-old Blomkamp. In a good summer, there's usually a movie that will come out of nowhere and completely wow us. This is a good summer, and that movie is District 9. The New Yorker You don’t feel bamboozled, fooled, or patronized by District 9, as you did by most of the summer blockbusters. You feel winded, shaken, and shamed.

The Detroit News This film is full reminder of why we applaud. Some things just transcend verbal explanation. All you can honestly do is cheer. So let the cheering begin. Pixar has outdone itself again, and considering the animation studio's last two films were the splendid Ratatouille and WALL-E, that's some serious outdoing. The Washington Post Gentle humor abounds in Up, which takes plenty of cues from classic action-adventure movies, sure, but also great book illustrators like Mary Blair and even those tacky dogs-playing-poker wall hangings. . . . Best of all, this stunning, meticulously composed visual world is set to one of the most gorgeous musical scores in recent memory.

Director J.J. Abrams' reboot of the Star Trek franchise boldly went where few Trek films had gone before - courting the crucial teen moviegoer demographic with young, fresh casting. The result is a Trek that buzzes with youthful energy and action and - based on the box office numbers - will likely spawn many sequels. By cleverly using the plot to establish that this is a parallel Trek universe, Abrams has given himself a clean slate for future films that still affords cameo opportunities to fixtures like Leonard Nimoy.

The Denver Post From taxi to touchdown, Reitman knows how to get us to the next destination. Even the credit sequence impresses, with crystalline images of U.S. cities shot from a near perfect-height — the one where the plane hasn't yet reached cruising altitude, in which the towns below looks like a circuit board or a mosaic or a jigsaw puzzle. Los Angeles Times Up in the Air makes it look easy. Not just in its casual and apparently effortless excellence, but in its ability to blend entertainment and insight, comedy and poignancy, even drama and reality, things that are difficult by themselves but a whole lot harder in combination. This film does all that and never seems to break a sweat.

The Newark Star-Ledger The physical comedy is furious, and the pace dizzying. And the surreal is never far off, like the wonderful sight of that trashed hotel room, a panorama inventive enough to include a singed armchair, a blow-up doll floating in the Jacuzzi and a live chicken. Phillips is smart enough not to explain any of it. Chicago Sun-Times Now this is what I'm talkin' about. The Hangover is a funny movie, flat out, all the way through. Its setup is funny. Every situation is funny. Most of the dialogue is funny almost line by line. At some point we actually find ourselves caring a little about what happened to the missing bridegroom - and the fact that we almost care is funny, too.

Marc Webb, recently confirmed to direct the next Spider-Man installment, made his feature debut with this anti-romantic comedy for a generation desperately in need of their own Annie Hall. Through a brilliant non-linear structure, (500) Days of Summer tells a charming and witty story about a boy who doesn't get the girl, played by a hilarious Joseph Gordon-Levitt and an adorable Zooey Deschanel, respectively.

New York Magazine The narrative would be ho-hum without the spectacle. But what spectacle! Avatar is dizzying, enveloping, vertiginous . . . I ran out of adjectives an hour into its 161 minutes. The New York Times Created to conquer hearts, minds, history books and box-office records, the movie — one of the most expensive in history, the jungle drums thump — is glorious and goofy and blissfully deranged. The Wall Street Journal What couldn't be clearer, though, is that Mr. Cameron's singular vision has upped the ante for filmed entertainment, and given us a travelogue unlike any other. I wouldn't want to live on Pandora, mainly because of the bad air, but I'm glad to have paid it a visit.

In lesser hands, Adventureland could have become the sort of reflexively nostalgic dreck that keeps Urban Outfitters afloat. Thankfully, a surprisingly assured performance by Jesse Eisenberg and subtle direction by Greg Mottola (who also penned the remarkably personal script) elevate the eighties-drenched film to something more universal - something about young love and coming-of-age where the perfectly executed "period" aspects are only incidental.

Lush, and super-saturated with every color imaginable, The Brothers Bloom is a gorgeously shot caper film with a remarkably mature obsession with the nature of narrative played out perfectly by an all-star cast including Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, and Robbie Coltrane. This sophomore effort from Brick director Rian Johnson confirmed his status as the young director to watch this decade.

Similarly to how Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove managed to get laughs out of the Cold War, Armando Iannucci's feature debut does the same with the war in Iraq. Based on Ianucci's satirical BBC sitcom The Thick of It, In the Loop comically portrays how easy it is for people in power to stir up an international crisis in just a day or two. It warrants a viewing if only for Peter Capaldi's brilliant, partially-improvised performance as a foulmouthed employee to the British prime minister.

Too much has been made of the fact that Wes Anderson directed this film in absentia - his hands are all over this project. And, in many ways, Anderson has been directing cartoons his entire career; his films are filled with outlandish characters spouting dialogue that's completely removed from the grammar of everyday speech. As such, it should come as no surprise that this 1970s toned, stop-motion adaptation of a Roald Dahl novel stands up perfectly well next to the live-action selections in his oeuvre.