The Lives of Others

If you haven't seen this movie, put it on your list. Wow. What an all around well-made film. Writing, directing and acting are all top top notch. It's set in East Berlin in 1984, a time and place when the work of artists---something we take so much for granted---was under intense scrutiny by the state and punishable by interrogation, blacklisting and imprisonment.

But it's not really a statement about artists or oppressive regimes, it's a statement about human potential and a brilliant one at that. It won the Oscar for best Foreign Language Film---it's easily one of the best I've seen in any language.