What I'm describing isn't quite old-school art film, with its embittered ideological opposition to Hollywood's aesthetics and methods; as the case of Steven Soderbergh has demonstrated, Hollywood's borders aren't what they used to be. Some of these filmmakers, like Lee or David O. Russell ("Three Kings") have at least one foot in the Hollywood system, while others, like Kiarostami or Dumont, belong almost exclusively to the cinephile world of film festivals, art museums and eccentric big-city video stores. (Be still my heart!)

After the indie resurgence of '99 and the foreign gems of 2000, this year has turned out to be an embarrassment of riches, to the total surprise of almost everyone. I suspect that most critics (again, not excepting myself) have become so conditioned to the idea that art cinema is dead and that reaching a mass audience is the only acceptable goal that we haven't quite noticed how amazing 2001 has been so far.

We've seen remarkable debuts, films from rising (if eccentric) stars and unexpected sleight-of-hand from established masters. We've seen ghost stories, love stories, tales of crime and fables about the pain of growing up. We've seen stories that twist time to their own purposes, that collapse history and geography, that tiptoe into the murky realms where reality, fantasy and psychosis come together. We've seen rapturous movie-movies in love with the world of the screen and works that create a highly disciplined illusion of reality. Most of all, we've seen highly individual films made by people who assume a community of viewers smart enough and open-minded enough to ride along on their idiosyncratic journeys.

In other words, we've seen art movies. If you want to resist the term, I sympathize. You think it makes you a snob, an elitist, someone who can't appreciate the juvenile catharsis of fucking and explosions (but mostly just explosions) provided by Hollywood films. Well, relax. These are art movies that speak the language of pop and understand its sensibility. Their visual and narrative daring go hand in hand with an appreciation of fashion and rock and roll, with humor, terror and violence. Their beauty and passion are not primarily intellectual; they don't depend on your knowledge of Schubert or Tintoretto. We're not talking obscure Continental angst or Maoist monologues here. Anyway, it's the only term I can think of that covers the range of adventurous visions that seem to be blossoming around us.

So unbutton your inner elitist, pour yourself an espresso and enjoy. Weird is back, perhaps more than at any time since the 1970s (and I couldn't be happier about it). Maybe new technologies in filmmaking have something to do with this, although that whole argument is so boring I refuse to take it seriously. Maybe it's part of the resistance to global corporate capitalism, and its creeping campaign to erase all difference and individuality everywhere from Vancouver to Singapore. (Operations in the Middle East are on hold for the time being.) Maybe the intellectual, emotional and financial bankruptcy of Hollywood has opened the minds of filmmakers, distributors and viewers alike. Maybe it's just one of those cultural currents or viral memes that can't be explained.

Entirely discounting Hollywood's abysmal summer (and what should be a boffo, Frodo-fueled holiday season), here are my personal selections from the best weird-movie year I can remember. Many worthy contenders were left out for a variety of reasons; when you've exhausted this list, consider such slightly less weird but highly honorable also-rans as "Signs and Wonders," "Ginger Snaps," "The Anniversary Party," "Under the Sand," "Eureka," "The King Is Alive," "The Deep End," "Rape Me," "The Princess and the Warrior," "Hedwig & the Angry Inch," "Lisa Picard Is Famous," "Our Lady of the Assassins," "Haiku Tunnel," "Fat Girl" and "Va Savoir."

Recent Stories