Top 10 films

It feels awkward to compare works as disparate as “Borat,” with its sometimes vulgar (but always laugh-out-loud) humor, and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” a darkly serious fairy tale. So take the numerical rankings of the films on my list with a grain of salt. Each one had a very different purpose. Perhaps more important, though, is the dominance of foreign and debut directors on this varied list, which makes me more optimistic about the future of film.

1. The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) — Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s astonishingly accomplished debut is powerful but understated filmmaking. A Stasi officer in 1984 East Berlin gradually gains his humanity through spying on a playwright and his actress girlfriend.

2. Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) — The year’s most imaginative film is a dark fairy tale for adults. With his fantasy set amidst the post-civil war repression of Franco’s Spain, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is set to become a more successful Terry Gilliam.

3. The Departed — Evil comes in many guises. With one of the year’s best casts and his trademark talent for setting a scene, Martin Scorsese took a Hong Kong crime thriller and turned it into a very American tale.

4. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan — Enjoy this audacious, side-splitting window on America — there can never be another movie like this again.

5. Little Miss Sunshine — This more than promising debut rivals “Borat” for the title of funniest film of the year. And like that comedy, it makes us laugh ‘til it hurts while taking on our deepest prejudices. With a 7-year-old in a fat suit (Abigail Breslin), an obscene Alan Arkin and a suicidal Steve Carell, what’s not to love?

6. Thank You for Smoking — With his first effort, Jason Reitman proves he’ll never have to live under his father’s shadow. While Ivan Reitman’s “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” was one of the worst movies of the year, his son’s debut was a sharp satire and an almost perfect film.

7. The History Boys — The cast and makers of the smash stage hit reproduce their success on the big screen. Alan Bennett, adapting his own play, has written one of the year’s wittiest films. His study of the clever but crass boys of Cutlers’ Grammar School is sharp, not sentimental.

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