Little Misses

Amid Hollywood's zillion-dollar explosions and computer-enhanced trickery, plenty of quieter, better films sneaked into theaters virtually unnoticed this year. Some of them never made it to local screens, but many have since made it to the video store.

Balzac and the Little Chinese SeamstressThis lyrical film from Chinese director Dai Sijie, who based the drama on his own semi-autobiographical novel, is set in the early 1970s, during the Cultural Revolution. It concerns two university students who are sent to a re-education camp in a remote mountain village. There, both young men fall in love with the tailor's vivacious granddaughter. Discovering a cache of forbidden Western literature — Balzac, Flaubert, Dostoevsky — they introduce her to a world of art, music and literature. With an oddly nostalgic feel that belies the tumultuous period during which it's set, this poetic, bittersweet film extols the importance of ideas and the power of imagination. — Jean Oppenheimer

The Beautiful CountryThe questing hero of this drama of discovery is a slender, big-eyed Vietnamese farmboy (Damien Nguyen) who's outcast in his own land because his father was an American GI. He dreams of freedom, and his harsh journey from home to Ho Chi Minh City to a dirty refugee camp in Malaysia to an overheated kitchen in New York takes on the power of myth. Made by Norwegian Hans Petter Moland, this fearlessly observant film deserves a place of honor among the great movies about emigrant tenacity. By the time its young seeker comes to ground on a windswept Texas prairie, he's liberated us, too.

CSA: Confederate States of AmericaWriter-director Kevin Willmott's picture was bought by IFC Films at the 2004 Sundance Festival . . . and then buried. It saw only limited release this year and spent most of its time cooling its heels on the film-fest circuit — a shame, given its absolute genius. It's a mockumentary dolled up as a made-for-Brit-TV documentary about this country as run by a South that won the Civil War. This is easily the nerviest film about race, religion and U.S. imperialism ever made.

Darwin's NightmareHubert Sauper's outraged but carefully measured documentary begins with the introduction of a predatory food fish, the Nile perch, into Lake Victoria and telescopes into a harrowing meditation on globalization and the new look of colonial cruelty in black Africa. In their filthy work camps, the fishermen subsist without medical care while the boundless greed of European profiteers extends even to abetting African violence by their importation of the deadly weapons used in bloody conflicts nearby. It's as stunning as a punch in the face.

HeightsA contemporary ensemble drama about a group of New York artistic types whose lives intersect over one 24-hour period, this film from director Chris Terrio inexplicably disappeared. Glenn Close gives one of her finest performances to date as a grande dame of the theater whose personal life demands as much pretense as her stage roles. Before the night is over, most of the characters will be forced to face bitter truths about themselves and those they think they know.

KeaneThe protagonist of this moving, intimate film is the captive of demons only he can hear. Played with frightening intensity by Damian Lewis (Major Winters in Band of Brothers), obsessed William Keane is the kind of pariah urban dwellers do anything to avoid: He shuffles foot to foot, screams in strangers' faces and slams his vodka warm. But by the time writer-director Lodge Kerrigan gets done with us, this portrait of mad despair lets us inside the claustrophobic prison of its victim's heart.

Kingdom of HeavenYes, it arrived in theaters with much fanfare, but few people actually saw it. And it's a shame, because everything Ridley Scott got wrong in Gladiator he got right in this, a medieval epic with well-drawn characters and comprehensible battle sequences. Orlando Bloom may not be the ideal action hero for a guy movie like this, and the finale is more of a whimper than a bang, but Kingdom of Heaven still feels more like a true heir to the likes of Spartacus than the pale imitations we've seen from Wolfgang Peterson and Oliver Stone.

KontrollHad this movie been made in English, it would have been a massive hit. Set and shot entirely in the Budapest subway system, Nimrod Antal's energetic feature debut chronicles a night in the life of underground ticket inspectors, with touches of comedy, suspense and allegory. Our heroes might be souls in limbo waiting to ascend to a higher plane, or they could just be fuckups. Antal doesn't give a definite answer, but Kontroll is engaging either way.

Mysterious SkinA change of pace for director Gregg Araki (most recently of the 1999 comedy Splendor), who reins in his flippant, nihilistic tendencies to reveal never-before-expressed sensitivity and depth. In the process, he achieves his most satisfying and involving film. He's aided immeasurably by the performance of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (a giant leap from his days on NBC's Third Rock From the Sun), who plays one of two young men whose lives have been irrevocably damaged by the sexual predator who coached their Little League baseball team.

b>Nobody KnowsThis quietly harrowing Japanese film is all the more unnerving for having been based on actual events. It stars five children, excellent actors all, whose mother abandons them in their small apartment with only a little money. For a long time, the two oldest manage well, cooking and cleaning and entertaining the toddlers. Then, as the money drains, the situation becomes increasingly dire. The pace is slow, with director Hirokazu Koreeda taking time to notice and document incremental changes, such as fraying clothes and smudged faces. What the children learn, and how they cope, is mind-blowing and heartbreaking all at once. — Melissa Levine