The Best 10 Movies of 1999 | Roger Ebert

At major film festivals around the world, something called the Special Jury Prize is awarded to a film the jurors love, but which didn't quite win first place. In recent years I've chosen five titles, named alphabetically, for such an award. Call it a tie for 11th place.

Eric Rohmer's "Autumn Tale" was a sunny story of a 45ish French woman who owns a vineyard but (her friend thinks) needs a husband. Her daughter's girlfriend thinks the same thing, and their intersecting schemes lead to high and warm humor at someone else's wedding.

Robert Altman's "Cookie's Fortune" takes place in a small Mississippi town where a death is mistaken for a murder, leading to strange alliances and the discovery of old family skeletons. Rich comic performances by Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Charles S. Dutton and a colorful supporting cast. Norman Jewison's "The Hurricane" stars Denzel Washington in a performance of astonishing power, as a boxer framed for murder and given three life sentences. The film's emotional wallop develops after a young boy buys his first book, a used one, for a quarter. It is Carter's autobiography, and it inspires the boy and his foster family to mount a seemingly doomed appeal for the boxer's freedom. Patricia Rozema's "Mansfield Park" was an uncommonly intelligent story made from Jane Austen's novel and journals, showing a young woman (Frances O'Connor) whose matrimonial future seems to offer limited choices--until she boldly takes her life into her own hands. Anthony Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" stars Matt Damon as a poor man who wants to steal, not a rich man's wealth, but his identity. Sent under false pretenses to bring a playboy (Jude Law) back from Europe, he weaves a tissue of lies and impersonations, improvising brilliantly when on the edge of being exposed. Gwyneth Paltrow plays the rich kid's girl friend, who isn't as suspicious as she should be, because he's so unreliable anyway.

Named for the beloved author of so many of the finest moments of Bugs and Daffy, this category honors the best work in animation. In addition to "Princess Mononoke," which is in my top ten, the award goes alphabetically to: "Fantasia/2000," a new demonstration of Walt Disney's 1940 brainstorm: Why not set classical music to animated fantasies, both realistic and abstract? Seen on the big IMAX screen, it's a wondrous sound and light trip.

"The Iron Giant" tells an enchanting story about a boy who makes friends with a robot from outer space, at the height of the Sputnik era. The Giant was designed as a weapon, but, with echoes of "E.T.," becomes the boy's friend and learns he is not doomed to kill because "you are what you choose to be."