Swimming against the tide The ten best films of 2003 BY PETER KEOUGH

1) Irréversible

One of the properties of film is the capacity to reverse time — just run the reel in reverse and every unhappy ending is undone. Gaspar Noé transforms this trick into a brilliant, brutal assault that builds from simpleminded sensationalism to profound formal beauty. Contradicting the title, Irréversible tells its tale of violation and revenge backward. Like a diabolical fusion of Straw Dogs and Memento, the film retreats, scene by scene, from a hideous act of revenge to the crime that incited it. Is it just an exploitative gimmick? Despite the extreme material, Irréversible strives to comprehend time and to transcend it.

2) Mystic River

Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s bestseller equals his Unforgiven in its uncompromising look at matters of good and evil, guilt and innocence, revenge and redemption. A grotesque crime against a child resurfaces 20 years later as the victim and his childhood friends become involved in a murder investigation in an eerily authentic Boston neighborhood. With flawless performances by Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins and with Eastwood’s quiet mastery of narrative and tone, it’s both a tense mystery and a classical tragedy, a feel-bad movie you can feel good about.

3) Spellbound

Real life imitates a Christopher Guest mockumentary in Jeff Blitz’s account of the agony and the ecstasy of eight young contestants in the 1999 National Spelling Bee. But Spellbound offers something Guest can’t — the pathos, the dignity, and the hilarity of real human beings. Far more than an oddball bit of Americana, the Spelling Bee is a microcosm of the American Dream, and Spellbound is a miniature portrait of America.

4) American Splendor

To judge from the success of reality TV, people crave the real thing. Whether or not they can still recognize it is another matter. Adapted by documentary filmmakers Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman from Harvey Pekar’s autobiographical comic book, American Splendor feels like the real thing — banal, repetitive, pointless, squalid, ennobling, and far from pure and simple. Neither is its approach to fiction and documentary straightforward: it straddles both in a manner that is provocative and enlightening.

5) Shattered Glass

We’ve come a long way in the 27 years since All the President’s Men. Back then, journalists uncovered the lies of the powerful; now, they uncover the lies of other journalists. But they’re heroes just the same, as Billy Ray’s ambiguous account of journalistic fabricator Stephen Glass proves. Hayden Christensen shows a rare gift for sniveling as Glass, but it’s the quiet intensity of Peter Sarsgaard as whistle-blowing editor Chuck Lane that steals the show. Although a flashback structure obscures the truth, Sarsgaard guarantees that we see through this Glass clearly.

6) Lost in Translation

Francis Ford Coppola perfected a style of moody, existential filmmaking in his 1974 masterpiece The Conversation. His daughter Sofia continues the tradition with Lost in Translation and makes it damned funny as well. Which it would have to be with Bill Murray in the cast, apparently extemporizing at will as a waning Hollywood film star who’s in Tokyo to shoot a Suntory whiskey ad. Murray’s melancholy whimsy complements Scarlett Johansson’s very serious romanticism; their innocents-abroad idyll is erotic, not sexual, a tour de force for both the actors and the director.

7) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

This film from Peter Weir is the best Star Trek movie ever made, just with the franchise switched from the 24th to the 19th century. Russell Crowe has it all over William Shatner as Jack Aubrey, captain of the H.M.S. Surprise. So does Paul Bettany over Leonard Nimoy as Jack’s pal Dr. Stephen Maturin. Their mission to hunt down a French raider while exploring such new worlds as the Galápagos Islands makes for the most satisfying action adventure movie in years.

8) School of Rock

The schoolroom is a microcosm of an oppressive society — which is why it works so well as a film setting. Richard Linklater’s School of Rock joins the ranks of such classics as Zéro de conduite, Blackboard Jungle, and If . . . in its tale of a slacker musician posing as a substitute teacher who transforms a snooty private-school class into a pre-teen heavy-metal band. Jack Black’s feckless anarchy turns this Disney-like premise into a subversive film for the whole family.

9) The Station Agent

A dwarf with a thing about trains inherits an abandoned railway depot and makes friends with a food vendor and a grieving artist. Where do they get these ideas? Better yet, where did they get such a cast? The superb Patricia Clarkson shines again as the artist, Bobby Cannavale cuts up as the vendor, and Peter Dinklage as the diminutive hero is a revelation. Director Tom McCarthy is a filmmaker of the long-take, little-dialogue school, and sparked by Dinklage’s performance, his realism restores humanity to stereotypes.

10) Finding Nemo

Although it’s G-rated, Andrew Stanton’s Pixar animation opens up Disney-style with the death of the hero’s mother and 399 siblings. Little Nemo’s dad, Marlin (Albert Brooks), a clownfish who has trouble telling jokes, raises him on a secluded coral reef. Marlin is overprotective, of course, and Nemo rebels by swimming into the net of a diver who puts him in an aquarium. Nemo tries to escape the artificial environment, which is kind of like The Matrix with fish, and Marlin tries to rescue him, which is kind of like The Wizard of Oz except that Oz is a dentist’s office in Sydney. Among those Marlin meets on the way is a blue tang voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. She’s hilarious, vulnerable, and tough: who knew the best female role of year would be an animated fish?