Nick's Pick's

“Juno” is the antidote to inane Hollywood product aimed at the teenage set: it’s a whip-smart, genuinely funny, refreshingly honest look at a teen pregnancy that manages to be steadfastly apolitical but altogether timely. After a shaky start laden with American-indie stylings and hipper-than-thou repartee, “Juno” transforms itself, maturing into a thoughtful drama as its young heroine (the remarkable Ellen Page) comes of age during her pregnancy.

One of the best of the year and a triumph for painter-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” turns a potentially grueling sob story into an achingly beautiful, wonderfully imaginative look at an indomitable human spirit. The film is the incredible story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of the French Elle magazine who in 1995 suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed head-to-toe with only the use of his left eye to communicate. By blinking one letter at a time to a transcriber, he created a stirring memoir, and Schnabel’s account of the process frees Bauby from his “diving bell” as he sweeps us along in this visually sumptuous drama.

Marjane Satrapi’s tumultuous upbringing in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution has been brilliantly transported from graphic novel to the screen in “Persepolis,” an inventively animated film that effortlessly merges the sweep of history with a personal coming of age tale. The movie version, directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, is by turns harrowing, touching, and laugh-out-loud funny. Let’s hope Satrapi, whose outlook is both morally compelling and politically relevant, has more to say in future films.

Noah Baumbach, the Brooklyn-born filmmaker whose last film, the autobiographical “The Squid and the Whale” was released to much acclaim, has crafted another stinging and painfully funny comedy-drama with “Margot at the Wedding.” Nicole Kidman is pitch-perfect as the monstrous Margot, a vain, egotistical writer who takes her emotionally troubled son to Long Island to see her sister (Jennifer Jason-Leigh) marry an out-of-work schlub (the always hilarious Jack Black). Baumbach achieves Bergman-esque iciness in his darkly hilarious view of fractured families.

“Best actor of his generation” seems to be an accolade that has been tossed around a lot, but in Paul Thomas Anderson’s staggering drama “There Will Be Blood,” Daniel Day Lewis takes his place not only as the finest actor of his age group but as one of the all-time great movie actors. He commands the screen for two-and-a-half hours as Daniel Plainview, a cruel and covetous turn-of-the-century oil prospector in southern California. Loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil!” P.T. Anderson (director of “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love”) uses the source as a template to burrow deep into the psyche of a violent egomaniac, in the midst of a beautifully realized period piece. The film also explores what happens when capitalist greed and religious faith collide head-on in a lawless boomtown (not to give too much away, but the title offers a hint). Featuring impeccable set design and cinematography and a stunning, anachronistic score by Jonny Greenwood (who plays guitar for Radiohead as a day job), “There Will Be Blood” is my unequivocal pick for the best film of 2007.