Of the 165 movies I screened in 2002, there were plenty that jumpstarted my enthusiasm. It's not just the films that reside in my Top 20, though obviously they cornered the market share of my attention. Rather, this past year was one in which Hollywood demonstrated it had deep pockets, releasing a large number of titles that, while probably not positioned to be long-standing classics, at least offered plenty of laughs or thrills or what-have-you. From 8 Mile to Moonlight Mile, from The Pianist to The Piano Teacher, from Red Dragon to White Oleander, from Nicholas Nickleby to Roger Dodger, 2002 saw a dizzying array of worthwhile efforts from all sorts of genres -- enough solid titles, in fact, that home theater enthusiasts should have an enjoyable 2003 playing catch-up.

Of course, let's not forget that the year also witnessed the usual hefty number of losers: bloated star vehicles (K-19: The Widowmaker, Bad Company), lame TV knockoffs (I Spy), ill-advised remakes (Solaris, Mr. Deeds), tepid thrillers (High Crimes), etc. And then there were the pictures that looked so godawful, I couldn't justify wasting two hours of my life on them (yes, I'm primarily thinking of The Country Bears).

At any rate, here's a look at the best and worst from a better-than-average year. May 2003 follow closely in its footsteps.

THE 10 BEST

1. FAR FROM HEAVEN (Todd Haynes). The best picture of 2002. It's a little frightening to realize exactly what writer-director Todd Haynes has managed to pull off with this audacious endeavor. Channeling the spirit of filmmaker Douglas Sirk (Imitation of Life, All That Heaven Allows), he has replicated the look, the feel, the technique and the simmering subtext of those color-soaked melodramas from the 50s -- and yet not once does his movie even remotely feel like a goofy gimmick, a high-minded stunt meant only to draw attention to its creator's cleverness. Instead, Far From Heaven emerges as the most heartfelt, the most honest, and the most moving motion picture of the past 12 months, and its emotional content is matched by its sumptuous look and its multifaceted characters. As the happy homemaker whose life begins to unravel once her husband steps out of the closet and her black gardener steps into her affections, Julianne Moore delivers a heartbreaking performance that's easily the finest of the year.

2. MINORITY REPORT (Steven Spielberg). Spielberg. Cruise. Science fiction. Summer blockbuster. Sure, it'd be easy to dismiss this expansion of a Philip K. Dick short story as mere popcorn entertainment -- it'd also be completely imbecilic. Even more than The Two Towers or Attack of the Clones, this futuristic stunner creates its own self-contained universe and then invites us to get lost in its synthetic splendor. Yet this isn't simply a triumph of set design; instead, Spielberg and company employ an astonishing and intricate plotline to punch across a treatise on this nation's simultaneous erosions of personal responsibility and individual freedom. It's the year's most topical release -- even if it is set in 2054.

3. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki). The best animated achievement since 1991's Beauty and the Beast hails from Japan but was purchased stateside by Disney, who then buried it alive while promoting the hell out of its own mediocrities, Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet. No matter: This instant masterpiece -- cinema as hallucinatory dream -- will haunt us for years to come.

4. CHICAGO (Rob Marshall). For sheer let-your-hair-down entertainment, it's hard to top this exuberant adaptation of the Broadway hit, a whirlwind of a musical that provides a toe-tapping revitalization of those moldy adages about fleeting fame, media manipulation, and the cult of celebrity. Renee Zellweger, Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta-Jones and John C. Reilly can all sing and dance -- who knew?

5. THE HOURS (Stephen Daldry). A literate motion picture in the best sense of the term, this visualization of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel draws its quiet power from the performances by Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and especially Nicole Kidman, cast as three women from three different eras whose lives manage to intersect in startling and unexpected ways.

6. WE WERE SOLDIERS (Randall Wallace). The best war film since Saving Private Ryan succeeds precisely because it's the only war film since Saving Private Ryan not to slavishly emulate that earlier picture's unique style. Instead, this Vietnam War tale is resolutely old-fashioned in its ideals and characterizations. Often corny? Sure, but no more so than those beloved WWII flicks Hollywood churned out with regularity during the 40s.

7. STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN (Paul Justman). In a decent year for documentaries, the best of the bunch was this joyous celebration of not only the classic sounds that emanated from Detroit between 1959 and 1972 but also of the creative urge that drove the film's subjects, The Funk Brothers (i.e., Motown's "house band"), to ply their trade whenever possible, wherever possible, however possible.

8. GANGS OF NEW YORK (Martin Scorsese). Yes, it may not have been the total knockout everyone had hoped for, but Scorsese's rowdy epic still reigns as one of the movie year's most impressive undertakings, a compelling revenge yarn splashed across the screen with enough of a historical backdrop to provide it with additional heft.

9. ONE HOUR PHOTO (Mark Romanek). After years of audience pandering with one wretched film after another, Robin Williams finally reclaimed his early promise with his dark turns in Death to Smoochy, Insomnia and, most notably, this unsettling thriller about a twisted man whose loneliness leads him to attempt to insinuate himself into what he perceives to be the "perfect" family.

10. ROAD TO PERDITION (Sam Mendes). For this final slot, it was a toss-up between three "road" movies: Tom Hanks on the lam in Perdition, horny teens heading for the beach in Mexico's Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Michael Moore searching for America's conscience in the documentary Bowling for Columbine. I'm going with Mendes' film simply because after years of generic gangster flicks, here's one whose humanist approach caught me by surprise.

The Next 10 (Honorable Mentions):
Y Tu Mama Tambien; Bowling For Columbine; Monsoon Wedding; About Schmidt; The Good Girl; Lagaan: Once Upon a Time In India; Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner); The Quiet American; Sunshine State; Spider-Man

Best Actor:
Michael Caine (The Quiet American); Robin Williams (One Hour Photo); Al Pacino (Insomnia); Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of New York); Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt)

Best Actress:
Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven); Diane Lane (Unfaithful); Renee Zellweger (Chicago); Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding); Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary)

Best Supporting Actor:
John C. Reilly (Chicago & The Good Girl); Jude Law (Road to Perdition); Richard Gere (Chicago & Unfaithful); Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven); Vijay Raaz (Monsoon Wedding)

Best Supporting Actress:
Samantha Morton (Minority Report); Michelle Pfeiffer (White Oleander); Edie Falco (Sunshine State); Ellen Pompeo (Moonlight Mile); Emily Morton (Lovely & Amazing)

THE 10 WORST

1. PINOCCHIO Here's one for the ages, folks, an instant classic of Turkey Cinema that will be the featured attraction in Hell's multiplexes for centuries to come. And the punchline? This Roberto Benigni bomb is Italy's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award!

2. ROLLERBALL Norman Jewison's 1975 original was second-rate at best, but this mind-numbing remake, apparently written on scraps of paper as filming proceeded, may well lead to a critical reevaluation of its snooze-inducing predecessor.

3. ENOUGH Between Maid In Manhattan and this sensationalist sewage, Jennifer Lopez may have exhibited the feeblest one-two punch since John Travolta appeared in both Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers in the same calendar year.

4. THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH Eddie Murphy's long-on-the-shelf stinker cost $100 million and grossed $4 million -- and it probably only made that much because the studio's refusal to screen it for critics meant they had to shell out their own dough to catch it during its blink-and-you'll- miss-it run.

5. BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER Among other dishonors, the simplistic Ballistic, as inept an action film as I've seen in some time, earns the distinction of bearing the worst title of the year.

6. RESIDENT EVIL In the tradition of Mortal Kombat and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider comes yet another dull feature based on a video game -- and one that makes those inane earlier efforts seem almost Kubrickian by comparison.

7. EXTREME OPS Extreme Oops is more like it. Why anyone thought that turning a Mountain Dew commercial into a 90-minute feature (with some idiotic terrorists thrown in for good measure) would attract anyone besides unemployable mallrats remains a head-scratching puzzler.

8. THE RULES OF ATTRACTION This obnoxious adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel makes the startling claim that many college students like to get drunk, get high, and get laid. Geez, I had no idea...

9. SNOW DOGS Cuba Gooding Jr., continually picking more rancid projects than any other Oscar winner in recent memory, finds himself mugging his way through a dorky Disney comedy whose anthropomorphizing effects render the title canines more creepy than cuddly.

10. ANALYZE THAT It used to be Robin Williams and Bruce Willis making this list year after year, but following on the heels of 2000's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and 2001's 15 Minutes, it appears that Robert DeNiro has become Hollywood's newest A-list bottom-feeder.