Anna Karenina

I had Joe Wright’s “Hanna” on my top-ten list last year, and he’s done all he can to bring visual flair to Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” (by way of Tom Stoppard), imaginatively transposing the Russian love story to an elaborate, ever-shifting, multi-layered stage set. And Keira Knightley, who’s become highly reliable and occasionally (as in last year’s “A Dangerous Method”) quite bold and risk-taking, puts passion into the title role of a government minister’s wife cast out of society by virtue of an injudicious affair before ever really entering it.

Savages

"Savages" is Oliver Stone's best movie in a score. His ham-fisted, too-much-is-never-enough style fits perfectly this brutally violent yet highly entertaining story of two Orange County surfing buddies (hunky Taylor Kitsch and soulful Aaron Johnson, the young John Lennon in "Nowhere Boy") who become legendary moguls of the marijuana trade. Blake Lively narrates their saga as O, short for Ophelia, the sexy blonde they share in their Laguna Niguel beach house. From the first few sentences ("I had orgasms, Chon had war-gasms"; "Ben was Buddhist; Chon was Baddist"), we know we could only be in the hands of Stone.