The Lives of Others

There's not much that I can say about this movie that hasn't been said by someone else. It beat out Pan's Labyrinth for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award, and deservedly so. I actually think that it should have been nominated for and won Best Picture. None of the nominated films are even close to the Lives of Others.

As an aside, I'm still shocked that Scorcese won Best Director for the Departed. If anything, he ruined that movie. He uses violent imagery as a crutch, oftentimes to the detriment of story. He never won an Oscar before because he never did the best job in a given year, with the possible exeption being Raging Bull.