For your consideration

BEST PICTURE

"Babel"

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga ("Amores Perros" and "21 Grams") are back with an even more ambitious tale of human disconnectedness. Four globe-spanning stories (one of which stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) are slowly revealed to be linked. Like "Crash," it's a movie you know is Important because it never stops telling you so. Also earned best supporting actress nominations for Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi. In English, Spanish, Berber, Japanese, Arabic, and sign language, with subtitles. (143 min., R; Boston Common, Kendall Square, and suburbs) (Ty Burr)

"The Departed"

A relentlessly violent, breathtakingly assured piece of mean-streets filmmaking, and damned close to the Great Boston Movie. Martin Scorsese returns to form with this complicated cops-and-Irish mafia saga (based on a 2002 Hong Kong action flick); Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and best supporting actor nominee Mark Wahlberg all do quality work, but Jack Nicholson steals the film as, essentially, Whitey Bulger's evil twin. Local boy William Monahan scripted. (145 min., R; Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs) (Ty Burr)

"Letters From Iwo Jima"

Clint Eastwood's other Iwo Jima movie is the keeper: an eloquent, bloody, and profound dissection of the folly of war. Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai") and Kazunari Ninomiya play a general and a grunt, respectively, two pragmatists trying to survive their nation's collective death wish. Eastwood's filmmaking is pared to a breathtaking simplicity here; the movie, full of ghosts, haunts. In Japanese, with subtitles. (142 min., R; Boston Common, Fenway, Kendall Square, suburbs) (Ty Burr)

"Little Miss Sunshine"

Only a churl could resist this sunny, prefabricated charmer of a character comedy, a Sundance "indie" hit that's really the sort of entertainment the studios have forgotten how to make. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette head up a fractious clan en route to a kiddie beauty pageant; Steve Carell -- sublimely funny as a suicidal Proust scholar -- is along for the ride, as well as nominees Alan Arkin (best supporting actor) and Abigail Breslin (best supporting actress). (101 min., R; no longer in theaters, but available on DVD) (Ty Burr)

"The Queen"

Best actress nominee Helen Mirren gives a tour-de-force performance as Queen Elizabeth II, wondering why her people are so terribly upset over Princess Di's death. Writer Peter Morgan and director Stephen Frears have fashioned a subtle, funny, ultimately touching tragedy of royal manners; the guilty pleasures of behind-palace-doors drama are balanced by empathy and insight. With Michael Sheen as Tony Blair. (97 min., PG-13; Boston Common, suburbs) (Ty Burr)

BEST ACTOR

"Blood Diamond" The latest advocacy-entertainment movie exposes the global trade in "conflict diamonds." Best supporting actor nominee Djimon Hounsou is a Sierra Leone fisherman caught in the country's civil war, best actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio is an ex-mercenary jewel smuggler, and Jennifer Connelly is an idealistic reporter. The movie wears its conscience and its Hollywood calculation on its sleeve -- it wants to rouse you to action while narcotizing you with Connelly's bottomless green eyes. (143 min., R; Boston Common, Harvard Square, suburbs) (Ty Burr)

"Half Nelson"

Nominee Ryan Gosling plays a committed inner-city teacher who numbs himself with crack. Writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden have made a terrifically moving human drama that, in its quiet way, is about the failure of the American left to change the world. Gosling lives up to his next-big-thing rep, and Shareeka Epps is terse and winning as the student who learns his secret. (107 min., R; no longer in theaters, but DVD available on Feb. 13) (Ty Burr)

"The Last King of Scotland"

This fictionalized account of a young Scottish medic (James McAvoy) and his early 1970s stint as Idi Amin's personal physician turns a gruesome chapter in recent African history into a trashy potboiler. For a cautionary tale, the movie, like the doctor, is a little too enamored with its dictator. And best actor nominee Forest Whitaker's charismatic work as Amin has everything but a psychology. (121 min., R; Boston Common, Kendall Square, Embassy Cinema) (Wesley Morris)

" Pursuit of Happyness"

Nominee Will Smith plays a single dad in Reagan-era San Francisco, working a brokerage internship by day, shuttling his son to homeless shelters by night. A fine drama that takes place in the crack between the American dream and its shadow, with a portrait of fatherhood that feels scuffed and driven and real. Smith's son Jaden plays the kid; Gabriele Muccino directs. (117 min., PG-13; Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs) (Ty Burr)

"Venus"

Nominee Peter O'Toole gives one of the all-time great limelight performances as a fading London stage actor and lifelong womanizer who falls for a not especially impressive 22-year-old (played by the very impressive Jodie Whittaker). As written by Hanif Kureishi and directed by Roger Michell, the movie manages to be creepy, heartbreaking, funny, shallow, and smart. Vanessa Redgrave and Leslie Phillips offer fine support, but it's O'Toole's show all the way. (95 min., R; Harvard Square, West Newton) (Ty Burr)

BEST ACTRESS

"The Devil Wears Prada"

A crisp improvement over Lauren Weisberger's bestseller about a recent grad who takes a job toiling for the domineering editrix of a New York fashion magazine. Anne Hathaway has an earthbound goodness as the girl. Best actress nominee Meryl Streep is the titular Satan, although her integrity really makes something less evil of the part. While the picture isn't brilliant, it is, at its most entertaining, a kicky, surprisingly astute throwback to bygone Hollywood social comedies. With tangy support from Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt as Satan's other little helper. (118 min., PG-13; no longer in theaters, but available on DVD) (Wesley Morris)

"Little Children" Todd Field's keenly acted adaptation of Tom Perrotta's dark-comic novel comes tantalizingly close to greatness. Set in suburban Massachusetts, two married stay-at-home parents (nominee Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson) have an affair, while a pedophile (best supporting actor nominee Jackie Earle Haley) is back in the neighborhood. The script's strained mechanics take over near the end, but the film understands the kind of parental existentialism that hits 30-somethings with kids: How does having children make you such a less interesting adult? (130 min., R; Arlington Capitol, West Newton) (Wesley Morris)

"Notes on a Scandal" Best actress nominee Judi Dench and best supporting actress nominee Cate Blanchett play teachers at a rough-and-tumble London school; one gets involved with a student, the other blackmails herself into the seducer's daily life. The movie's about discreet obsessions spiraling out of control, and it's an oddly satisfying hybrid -- a highbrow suspense freak-out. Blanchett is very good, Dench astounding. Directed by Richard Eyre ("Iris"). (91 min., R; Boston Common, Kendall Square, Coolidge Corner, suburbs) (Ty Burr)

"Volver" Pedro Almodovar's 14th picture is a melodrama loosely about two sisters and the return of their long-dead mother. It's not as great as the director's greatest, but what the movie lacks in formal ambition it more than makes up for in pure romanticism. As one of the sisters, nominee Penelope Cruz's emotional force is nothing short of a miracle. (121 min., PG-13; Kendall Square, Coolidge Corner, West Newton, Revere) (Wesley Morris)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR AND BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

"Dreamgirls"

For five minutes this musical, inspired by the rise of Diana Ross and the Supremes, is something to see. All of them belong to nominee Jennifer Hudson, who turns the showstopping midpoint number into a sweaty tour-de-force. Otherwise, director Bill Condon relies on frantic editing and a parade of costume changes to cover up the fact that he has no feel for musicals. Beyoncé Knowles and Jamie Foxx, both dishwater dull, also star; nominee Eddie Murphy, as a James Brown figure, is electric. (131 min., PG-13; Boston Common, Fenway, Harvard Square, suburbs) (Wesley Morris)