The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: There may not have been a big demand to see the Holocaust through the eyes of a child, but that's exactly what we get in Mark Herman's faithful adaptation of John Boyne's heart-warming, bone-chilling young-adult novel. With crystal-blue eyes that take in everything around him, Asa Butterfield plays Bruno, the Auschwitz commandant's son who befriends a sad-eyed youngster (Jack Scanlon) on the other side of the barbed-wire fence.
Milk: As Harvey Milk, one of the first gay people ever elected to major public office, Sean Penn does an amazing job of leaving his own tight-lipped masculinity behind; he holds nothing back, following Milk's lead wherever the charismatic imp takes him. The movie is less a personal biography than a political biography, showing us the formation of the gay movement from the ground up, followed by an assassination that Milk always feared was coming.