Screw Oscar, which will surely ignore Drive because it's too bloody, too creative, too ambitious and too polarizing to comfort audiences. Solid reasons, I say, for naming Drive the year's best movie. Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn puts an iconic Ryan Gosling behind the wheel into a feverish battle between good and its opposite (Albert Brooks does great evil). Hard-wired to the year's most propulsive synth score, Drive is pure cinema. I couldn't have liked it more.

Related
• Peter Travers' Original Review: 'Drive'
• Video: 'Drive' Delivers Existential Thrills