"Affliction"

This independent drama about a small-town cop in the midst of a nervous breakdown has already won its star, Nick Nolte, a best actor award from the New York Film Critics. Based on a novel by Russell Banks, Nolte plays a policeman whose short temper and battles with alcoholism mirror his father's.

Edward Norton plays swastika-tattooed racist Derek Vinyard, a young man who commits crimes of hate, gets caught, and goes to jail. After reforming his attitudes, he comes back home, only to realize that his younger brother (played by Edward Furlong) is following in his ghoulish footsteps. Despite its controversial topic, Norton said when the film came out that viewers were unlikely to misinterpret the film's message: "I think it's pretty unequivocal, this character does not get off the hook for his actions on any level."

This satirical look at politics in the '90s follows fictional California politician Sen. Jay Bulworth (Warren Beatty) through the course of a mental meltdown that catches his staff and his constituency off-guard: after he arranges for his own murder by a hitman, he becomes a dead man walking, freeing him to say what he really thinks about race, politics and money.

Making a neo-realist bow to 1940s Italian directors like Roberto Rosellini and Luchina Visconti, Portuguese director Walter Salles tells the story of a mean old woman (Fernanda Montenegro) who makes money writing letters for local illiterates, but experiences a slow change of heart when she's suddenly saddled with a little orphan boy.

"A Civil Action"

Not the first movie in recent memory to find "one good man" who breaks from his mean and greedy compatriots to take on corporate America, but probably one of the better ones. John Travolta portrays an attorney who helps the residents of a small town take on a civil action against a major corporation. The residents believe polluted drinking water in their town is killing their children. The story is based on a case taken on by lawyer Jan Schlichtmann.

Cate Blanchett carries the memorably charismatic part of young Elizabeth I (also known as the Virgin Queen), as the newly-appointed monarch is forced to grow up fast, both politically and emotionally, in the public spotlight.

Pioneering filmmaker James Whale brought classics like "Frankenstein" to the screen, but he is perhaps better remembered as the first filmmaker to lead an openly gay lifestyle. Sir Ian McKellen plays the lead, with Brendan Fraser as the handyman Whale befriends, and Lynn Redgrave as Whale's long-suffering German housekeeper.

Although the title rings of American first ladies, "Hilary & Jackie" is really a tale of British music royalty, namely cellist Jacqueline du Pré and her sister, Hilary, an also-talented musician who gave up her career as a flautist to have a normal family life -- at least, as normal as it gets in this family. The movie traces Jackie and Hilary's intertwined lives as Jackie hits the heights of the music world, then plunges into a slow downward spiral after contracting multiple sclerosis.

"Life Is Beautful"

Roberto Benigni starred in and directed this Italian comedy set during the Holocaust, which has won rave reviews and accolades internationally, not the least significant of which was a prize at Jerusalem's film festival. In the movie, a Jewish-Italian father shields his son from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp by pretending that they're in a contest to win a tank.

Best known in the United States for her role as airheaded secretary Bubble in "Absolutely Fabulous," British actress Jane Horrocks has an extraordinary talent: she is able to perfectly imitate the singing and speaking voices of Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Shirley Bassey and Judy Garland. "Little Voice," a film in which a nearly mute girl with Horrocks' talents is forced to perform in public by an unscrupulous agent, was created almost exclusively for the sake of showcasing Horrocks' voice.

As our own reviewer Paul Clinton said, Meryl Streep plays "a Martha Stewart clone with cancer" in this film, "and you're going to cry, cry, cry." Plenty of people did, finding emotional catharsis through Streep's performance as a Supermom who has to step back from holding her family together when she gets sick. William Hurt plays her husband, and Renee Zellwegger is the career-oriented daughter who finally learns to understand her mom.

"Out of Sight"

Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank adapted Elmore Leonard's cult novel for "Out of Sight," which many initially wrote off as another lame George Clooney vehicle. That was before the action film started racking up the screenplay awards. Clooney's character is an escaped bank robber eluding authorities while trying to hook up with Jennifer Lopez's character, a U.S. Marshal. If you perused your local paper around Christmastime, you might have noticed that nearly every critic had this one somewhere on their best-of-the-year lists.

This fictional, albeit thinly-veiled look at then-Gov. Clinton's 1992 presidential run is based on the best-selling novel of the same name. Although furor over the novel cost its "Anonymous" author, Newsweek columnist Joe Klein, his job, when it came time to make the movie he was nearly able to handpick the cast and crew. John Travolta plays Gov. Jack Stanton, with Emma Thompson as his wife Susan and Kathy Bates as driven, cynical White House troubleshooter Libby Holden.

The roster of big names involved in this World War II combat drama was certainly enough to draw everyone's attention: Steven Spielberg directed, while stars included Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Tom Sizemore. The story: After three Iowa brothers are killed in combat, Hanks leads a rescue team to pluck the family's only living son from a French battlefield. The scene that everyone applauded: The first 25 minutes of the film, depicting a staggering, hellish, bloody invasion by U.S. troops at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

"Shakespeare in Love"

A more different film than "Saving Private Ryan" can scarcely be imagined, but many critics feel it has as much right to be nominated for best film as its war-bound competitor. Joseph Fiennes plays young Will Shakespeare, and Gwyneth Paltrow is Lady Viola, the blue-blooded theater groupie who breaks his writer's block as he pens "Romeo and Juliet" -- or, as he originally believes it will be called, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter." The couple's forbidden love is doomed, and so are Viola's dreams of performing on stage, in this comedy penned by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman.

Sam Raimi, the mastermind behind the hallucinatory cult films "Evil Dead" and "Evil Dead II," breaks through into the commercial mainstream with this dark tale: While strolling through the woods, Bill Paxton and two of his buddies find a crashed airplane and a suitcase full of money. Once they decide to keep the cash, they have to figure out how to keep it a secret. Bridget Fonda plays Paxton's very pregnant wife.

Acclaimed director Terrence Malick's first movie in 20 years, the World War II combat film comes, coincidentally, in the same year as the Spielberg epic "Saving Private Ryan." Based on the autobiographical novel by James Jones, "Line" tells the story of the men of Company "C," who fought and died during the fierce battle of Guadalcanal.

Much has been made of the fact that Jim Carrey, who won a Golden Globe for his clueless-guy-on-camera role in this film, was overlooked by the Academy. In Carrey's first real dramatic role, he plays a guy whose purpose in life, from conception on, has been to play the lead in a 24-hour-a-day TV show about his life -- only, he doesn't realize that until he grows up, when a series of strange events finally starts to tip him off.