The best indie movies of 2007

1. "Bamako" -- African director Abderrahmane Sissako returned to the courtyard of the house where he grew up in Bamako, Mali, to film this extraordinary, unclassifiable docudrama that addresses the driest and least dramatic material possible -- the debt crisis that has devastated Africa's economies in the post-colonial period. Sounds great, right? You're so there! Look, just give it a try; although "Bamako" played only in a few big-city theaters and college campuses, it sparked intense discussion everywhere it went, and it's a weird, wonderful, constantly surprising film. It focuses on a show trial, held in that Bamako courtyard -- and occasionally interrupted by goats, chickens, washerwomen and wedding parties -- pitting the international financial institutions against African society (with both sides represented by pompous, white-wigged Caucasian attorneys). It also includes a mock western called "Death in Timbuktu" starring Danny Glover, philosophical conversations about death, and a haunting subplot about a crumbling marriage and a beautiful, self-destructive nightclub singer. Sure, on one level "Bamako" is an intellectual film that shows the influence of Jean-Luc Godard and Ousmane Sembène, but if you're willing to ride with it, it's also a wry, witty and tragic experience with a dynamite emotional payoff.

2. "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten" -- Of course it helps if you're a fan of the Clash ("the only band that mattered," circa London 1977) and its late frontman a chameleonic and troubled figure who died of a heart attack at age 50 in 2002. But in my admittedly partial judgment, English director Julien Temple has made the greatest film yet about the punk era and its lingering aftermath, and one of the very best documentaries about a pop musician and his cultural legacy. (Temple made two films about the Sex Pistols, including the excellent retrospective "The Filth and the Fury.") You could argue that "The Future Is Unwritten" isn't about Joe Strummer at all, although Temple clearly loved Strummer and strives to portray him in full. It's about the transformation of England in the 20th century, about the thwarted hopes and dreams of a misunderstood generation (misunderstood by itself, at least in part), about aging and mortality and about the strange wormholes of possibility that open in pop culture, and then close again.

3. "Romance & Cigarettes" -- OK, once in a while critics still do make a difference. Sony was going to dump John Turturro's downbeat but delightful "karaoke musical," a story of a working-class marriage in Queens, N.Y., in which James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon et al. sing along with 1960s pop hits, straight to DVD. But film-festival audiences loved it, and after flat-out raves from the New York Times and (ahem) a few other places, a brief engagement at Manhattan's Film Forum sold out almost every seat. So "Romance & Cigarettes" went on to become an amazing success story, earning millions of dollars and a best-director nomination for Turturro! OK, that happened in my fantasy universe. What actually happened was a modest, limited release that's still going strong in much of the country, which allowed thousands of people to see the most remarkable new film from any American director this year. I'll take it.

4. "Regular Lovers" -- As I wrote in defending French director Philippe Garrel's three-hour, black-and-white magnum opus about the Paris riots of 1968 during its exceptionally brief U.S. release last January, this is a movie that isn't about its purported plot (even when it pretends to have one). It's about spending time with Garrel's cast of stoned, romantic and cynical young drifters (headlined by his prodigiously handsome son Louis, a major star in France), walking the night streets of Paris with them in boredom or in terror, experiencing the subtext of their stupid political arguments, feeling the pull between lover and friend, between getting high and getting laid. "Regular Lovers" will bore some viewers past tears into insanity, but if you have the appetite for this kind of languorous, beautiful, mind-trip movie, this is one of the greatest European examples of recent years. Rapturously photographed in widescreen black-and-white (by William Lubtchansky), "Regular Lovers" may not teach you much about the history of youthful rebellion in 1968; it lets you know what the youthful rebellion of 1968 felt like, which is quite a different thing.

5. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" -- At this point, you're either convinced already or you can't be. With a light touch never displayed (to my taste) in his über-macho painting, Julian Schnabel has turned the apparently bleak tale of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a magazine editor so badly paralyzed he could move only one eyelid, into one of the most beautiful and delightful cinematic experiences of the year. Full to the brim with visual inventiveness, and animated by a lighthearted transcendence you could call agnostic spirituality, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" expresses a simple, painful joy at the wonders of human perception. Often funny, resolutely warm and tragic without being depressing.

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