KEY POINTS:
Violent brooding films lead the list of Oscar nominees for the best picture award.
If you want to bet on an oddball, there's 'Juno.' It's the current US box office favorite.
There Will Be Blood
(5/5 stars)
Peter Calder said: "The year's second bona fide masterpiece (after the Coens' No Country For Old Men), it's exhilarating, jaw-dropping and audacious - an instant American classic."
Michael Clayton
(4/5 stars)
Francesca Rudkin said: "Clooney does a sterling job as the conflicted Clayton, a man who is intelligent, charming, convincing and threatening, but also weary and worn down by what life has thrown at him. Though its seven Academy Award nominations might be excessive and the film is too long, Michael Clayton is still a punchy mixture of a corporate drama and action infused with an exploration of individuals in turmoil."
Juno
(4/5 stars)
Francesca Rudkin said: "Juno is outrageously funny, touching, and serious at the same time... Ellen Page gives Juno just the right amount of vulnerability and honesty, ensuring she's not just a cynical motormouth, but there isn't a single dud performance. However, the real star is Diablo's script."
No Country for Old Men
(5/5 stars)
Peter Calder said: "The Coen brothers' newest is their best yet. Adapting the 2005 novel by the master of southwestern gothic, Cormac McCarthy, with considerable reverence, they suppress their characteristic tendency to wild pastiche. Instead they turn in a masterfully controlled piece of genre film-making, a classical formalist masterpiece which is a sustained exercise in suspense."
Atonement
(5/5 stars)
Russell Baillie said: "A dazzling rendition of McEwan's 2001 Booker shortlisted work, widely regarded as his masterpiece for its synthesis of styles, allusions to other literary works, multiple character perspectives and its narrative sleight of hand... It is a movie of rare power which will linger in the mind."
