Since Moses brought the tablets down from the mountain, lists have come in 10s, not that we couldn't have done with several more commandments. Who says a year has 10 best films, anyway? Nobody but readers, editors and most other movie critics. There was hell to pay last year when I published my list of 20 best. You'd have thought I belched at a funeral. So on this list I have devoutly limited myself to exactly 10 films. On each of two lists.

The lists are divided into mainstream films and independent films. This neatly sidesteps two frequent complaints: (1) ``You name all these little films most people have never heard of,' and (2) ``You pick all blockbusters and ignore the indie pictures.' Which is my official Top 10? They both are equal, and every film here is entitled to name itself ``One of the Year's 10 Best!' Alphabetically:

The Top 10 Mainstream Films

``Bad Lieutenant'

Werner Herzog's edgy noir fed off Nicolas Cage's flywheel intensity in a portrait of a cokehead cop out of control in post-Katrina New Orleans. He starts out bad and, driven by a painful back and pain meds, goes crazy and gets away with it because of the badge. Herzog paints the storied city in dark shadows and a notable lack of glamour, and when he involves Cage in a stare-down with an iguana, it somehow needs no explanation. I predict they'll work together again. They probably got along as well as Herzog and Klaus Kinski.

``Crazy Heart'

This year's late-opening sleeper, built on a probable Oscar-winning performance by Jeff Bridges. He plays a nearly forgotten country & western singer, touring nasty dives and smoky honky-tonks for a few dollars and change. He had hits, but alcoholism eroded him. Maggie Gyllenhaal is inspired as the woman who cares for him but doubts his newfound sobriety -- and no, this isn't a cornball story about romantic redemption. After the screening a critic said: ``This year's 'Wrestler.'' That sounded about right. Astonishing debut direction by Scott Cooper.

``An Education'

A star is born with Carey Mulligan's performance as a 16-year-old schoolgirl who is flattered and romanced, along with her protective parents, by an attractive, mysterious man in his mid-30s (Peter Sarsgaard). He's sophisticated, she's not; she sees him as a way out of London suburbia and into the circles she dreams of entering. He's not a molester but an opportunist and role-player, and Lone Scherfig's film is wise about what people want in a relationship and what they get. Faithfully adapted by Nick Hornby from the memoirs of the well-known British journalist Lynn Barber.

``The Hurt Locker'

``War is a drug,' the opening title informs us, and in one of the best war movies ever, Jeremy Renner plays an expert member of an elite bomb disposal unit in Iraq. Somewhat guarded by a protective suit, he handles delicate mechanisms designed to outwit him. It's like chess. He's very good at his job, but is that what drives him to put his life on the line hundreds of times? Not pro-war, not anti- war, not about the war in Iraq, but about the minds of dedicated combat soldiers. Directed flawlessly by Kathryn Bigelow; as one critic's group after another honored it in their year-end awards, it became a sure thing for picture, actor and director nominations.

``Inglourious Basterds'

Quentin Tarantino is a natural and joyous filmmaker who feeds off genres. Here he takes the richness of World War II films and molds it into a flamboyant, melodramatic story that fearlessly rewrites history. It finally comes down to a conflict between a fatuous Nazi monster (Christoph Waltz) and a fearless French Jewish heroine (Melanie Laurent), with Brad Pitt as a knife-wielding American commando leader. Waltz won best actor at Cannes 2009, has swept the critic's awards, is a shoo-in as best supporting actor.

``Knowing'

Among the best of science fiction films -- frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome. In its very different way it's comparable to the great ``Dark City,' by the same director, Alex Proyas. That film was about the hidden nature of the world men think they inhabit, and so is this one. I loved the film's extravagance of energy, and the hard-charging Nicolas Cage performance (so different from ``Bad Lieutenant'). My praise stirred up a fierce pro and con debate among readers: http://j.mp/4MmMss.

``Precious'

The heart-rending story of an overweight, abused young teenager and the support she finds from a teacher and a social worker, who both glimpse her potential. Harrowing, depressing and yet uplifting, as director Lee Daniels uses her fantasies to show the dreams inside. What a sure and brave lead performance by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, and what a powerful one by Mo'Nique, as her heartless mother. She, Mariah Carey, Paula Patton and Sherri Shepherd are all but unrecognizable as they disappear into key supporting roles.

``A Serious Man'

Another great film the Coen brothers, returning to their homeland of the Minneapolis suburbs to tell the story of a modern-day Job who strives to be a good man, a ``serious man,' and finds everything -- but everything -- going wrong. Michael Stuhlbarg gives a virtuoso lead performance as the suffering man, who earnestly tries to do the right thing. Fred Melamed is brilliant as his best friend, who, he discovers, is having an affair with his wife. The friend tries to console him; he is grief and grief counselor at once.

``Up in the Air'

George Clooney plays a man for the first decade of this uncertain century. ``Where do you live?' he's asked while seated in a first-class airplane seat. ``Here.' He wants no home, no wife, no family, and says he is happy. His job is depriving others of theirs; he's a termination facilitator. He fires people for a living. Vera Farmiga plays his friendly fellow road warrior who sleeps with him on the road. Anna Kendrick is the sincere young college grad whose first job is terminating others. The third wonderful film by Jason Reitman, after ``Thank You for Smoking' and ``Juno.'

``White Ribbon'

The subterranean and labyrinthine secret history of a German village in the years before World War I. A mysterious series of deaths descends like a vengeance. Michael Haneke's elegant black-and-white photography etches the rural community in striking portraits of sinister normality. We become familiar with the important villagers, we follow their stories, we comprehend everything that happens -- but something else is happening, something unspoken, kept secret from them, among them, and from us. Infinitely tantalizing.

The Top Ten Independent Films

``Departures'

In Japan, a young man apprentices to the trade of ``encoffinment,' the preparation of corpses before their cremation. It is the only employment he can find, after he loses his job as a cellist in an orchestra that goes broke. The company owner approaches the job as a sacred vocation, and although the hero and his wife find the task unsettling, he slowly learns a new respect for himself through respect for the dead. A visually beautiful and poetic film by Yojiro Takita.

``Disgrace'

A masterful performance by John Malkovich as a disgraced Cape Town English professor, forced to resign during the first years of Mandela's administration. He goes to live with his daughter (Jessica Haines) on her remote farm, where the manager (Eriq Ebouaney) seems to be establishing an independence of his own. The hard, ambiguous issues of the new South African world are squarely engaged in Steve Jacobs' film, based on the novel by Nobel winner J.M. Coetzee.

``Everlasting Moments'

The great Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell (``The Emigrants' and ``The New Land') tells the story of the wife of an alcoholic dock worker in Malmo in 1911. He's not a bad man, except when he drinks. She wins a camera in a lottery and tries to pawn it, but the camera store owner tells her to keep taking pictures. Her inner life is transformed by discovering that she has an artistic talent. A luminous performance by Maria Heiskanen.

``The Girlfriend Experience'

One of Steven Soderbergh's best films, about a New York call girl and her clients. Not a recycling of countless other such stories, but a perceptive observation of the human dynamics involved. The porn star Sasha Grey proves herself a surprisingly good actress in a role with only fleeting nudity. You wonder how a person could look another in the eye and conceal everything they're really thinking. But the financial traders who are her clients do it every day.

``Goodbye Solo'

The third remarkable film by Ramin Bahrani, after ``Man Push Cart' and ``Chop Shop.' In Winston-Salem, N.C., a white man around 70 (onetime Elvis bodyguard Red West) gets into the taxi of an African immigrant (Souleymane Sy Savane, from the Ivory Coast). For $1,000, paid immediately, he wants to be driven in 10 days to the top of a mountain in Blowing Rock National Park, to a place so windy that the snow falls up. He says nothing about a return trip. As a friendship develops between them, the days tick inexorably away.

``Julia'

The most striking performance in Tilda Swinton's exciting career. Only poor marketing prevented this from succeeding as the thriller of the year. Swinton plays an alcoholic slut who agrees to help kidnap a child and ends up with him on an odyssey in Mexico through a thorn thicket of people you do not want to meet. If there's one thing consistent about her behavior, it's how she lies to all of them. Directed by Erick Zonca.

``Silent Light'

A story of romance and conscience set among the Mennonites of Mexico. A happy married man falls in love with a single woman, and she with him, and they are both haunted by guilt. Their gravitas is a stark contrast to the casual attitude toward sex in most films; they are violating rules they respect, hurting people they love. Carlos Reygadas tells his story with a clarity and attention worthy of a Bresson.

``Sin Nombre'

Up through Mexico, those hopeful of entering the U.S. ride the top of a freight train. We meet a girl from Honduras with her father and uncle, and a young gang member fleeing for his life. The journey is difficult and dangerous, but also oddly lovely and epic. A parallel story involves a gang set up to rob the would-be immigrants, who often carry all their wealth. Written and directed by Cary Fukunaga, another of this year's remarkable debut filmmakers.

``Skin'

The Sandra Laing story obsessed South Africans in 1965. She was the daughter of white Afrikaners. She didn't look white. Her father fights to the Supreme Court to have her reclassified as white, and then when she falls in love with a black man, she tries to have her classification changed. A wrenching dilemma, starring Sophie Okonedo (``Dirty Pretty Things') in a tricky and compelling role, and Sam Neill as her deeply conflicted father.

``Trucker'

Michelle Monaghan is remarkable as a truck driver who has just paid off her own rig. She's 30ish, hard-drinking, promiscuous, estranged from the father (Benjamin Bratt) of her 12-year-old son. In an emergency she has to take the boy back, and that leads from an arm's-length relationship to difficult personal discoveries. A powerful debut by writer- director James Mottern.