Even though it was released at the tail end of 2009, it was clearly "Avatar" that defined cinema in 2010. While this critic was lukewarm about it — "Dances With Wolves" in space, basically — plenty of nongeeky people I know truly loved it, so I've begun to reconsider my stance. One convincing argument came from Stuart Klawans of American journal The Nation, who pegged it as "techno-mysticism," and even dared to suggest similarities with Stanley Kubrick's "2001."

While "Avatar" director James Cameron's ex, Kathryn Bigelow, took home the best-picture Oscar for "The Hurt Locker," an intense tale of a bomb disposal team in Baghdad, some have made the argument that "Avatar" is actually the better Iraq War film, for it dared to name the agenda of corporate greed and rapaciousness that drives such neo-imperial expeditions.

The win for "The Hurt Locker," though, was welcome — it was an independent production that, despite liberties taken, depicted an on-the-ground reality in Iraq that rarely made its way into the media. The film also gained some notoriety when its production company filed a lawsuit against 5,000 BitTorrent users who had downloaded copies of the film. While the file-sharers like to justify their actions as a drop in the bucket that won't make any difference to the "big studios," it's worth noting that "The Hurt Locker" is the first best-picture Oscar winner ever to not land in the box-office Top 10. Clearly it could have used more tickets sold and fewer online freeloaders.