Films that make you say "My God, there are still great films being made"

Moon is brilliant, good script, great acting, and a class example in making the most out of a minimal budget. Dark Knight/Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Juno. I must admit to really enjoying Transformers/Tran2, for the totally juvenile joy of Blowing Shit Up. Some may not agree, but some of the recent animations have been great fun, too, especially now they've got 3D pretty well sussed, particularly Coraline.

Lives of others
Into the wild
Juno
Little miss sunshine, and I really liked Gran torino.

Taken and Veronica Guerin both spring to mind as brilliant

There Will Be Blood is probably the best thing I've seen in recent years in the "They don't make films like that anymore" arena

into the wild
bridge to terabithia (me and my kids love it)

Gladiator-purely on a visual basis.
Little miss sunshine-again, shot beautifully and i didn't really get it, right until the end, and then it just all made sense. Great film.

oh I forgot – Bubba Ho Tep! Never **** with the king! LOL

District 9 and Last King of Scotland (not that new I know) I thoroughly enjoyed.

Films that have stood out for me over the last year or two

No Country For Old Men
District 9
Let The Right one in
The Orphanage
Up
There Will Be Blood
The Wrestler
Mesrine Killer Instrinct
Gomorrah
Coraline
I'm Not There
4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Gone Baby Gone
In Bruges
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Lots. But I just saw The Fountain. Amazing.

Watchmen
In Bruges
Hard Candy
No Country For Old Men

Hot Fuzz
along with much of the above…

District 9 and Hurt Locker are both excellent. Pans Labyrinth although not that new is a spectacularly good film. But my favourite film of recent times is In Bruge. By a long way, just fantastic from start to finish.

It is amazing how many truly shit movies are out there though.

Layer Cake for me, twas a great film

Layer Cake? really?

Up.

have none of you seen Frost/nixon? shame on you, tis bloody brilliant!!!

giant shark vs massive octopuss…

frost/nixon is v good

Snakes on a Plane

'Tell No-One', only film I remember seeing where I could feel my heart beat rise & fall with the film (the bit in the park when his wife walks in..).
+1 for 'The Lives of Others' too.

"In Bruges"

recent goodies for me have been

Juno
In Bruges
Kite Runner
The Wrestler
Diving Bell and the Butterfly

pans lab
mongol
saints ans soldiers
tsotsi
this is england
dead mans shoes
assembly
assasination of jesse james
the fall
training day

have none of you seen Frost/nixon? shame on you, tis bloody brilliant!!!

Yes. Very good, though Sheen's performance does descend into too much pastiche at times and he's acted out of every scene by Langella.

Finally got round to watching Lives of Others a couple of weeks ago – exactly as good as I hoped it would be.

Seven Pounds was very good.
Watched Bronson at the weekend. Quite dark and very funny at times. Tom Hardys portrayal of Charles Bronson aka Michael Peterson was brilliant.

Agree with lots of the above, but also:

3:10 to Yuma
Let the Right One In

I watched "Shoot 'Em Up" the other night. I don't think there was a plot, just a long series of gunfights, chases and a completely gratuitous hooker in corset and black stockings. Brilliant for it's simplicity. As the ad says, did exactly what it said on the tin.

Man on Wire. Best film I've seen in the last few years.

Joe

This had me in tears

Right, the OP asked about films that are being made now, some of these films are from the 70's! Unless we're measuring time geologically.

The more recent films I've seen that I thought were good were In Burges, Dark Knight and Gran Torino.

I have had to start watching forign films what with the good lady being Italian. So, to add to the other good'uns mentioned already;

Science of Sleep
My Brother is an Only Child
Romanzo Criminale
and very old but too good not to mention La Haine

…they are not bad for films you have to read. Next on the list Gamorrah.

if we are on foreign films then these are defo worth a watch:

Pan's Labyrinth
The Mist (saw it last night – classic B movie but as dark as the Road)
Up
er… there are masses of others

I'm not too impressed with a lot of recent films, but one of my co-workers lent me a copy of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 'Babel' which I thought was excellent- nice, low key, naturalistic performances out of even the biggest stars.
His '21 Grams' was even better, so good that I almost forgive that Naomi Watts for her complicity in the cinematic war crime that was the King Kong re-re-make.
Well, almost…

I've also enjoyed 'No Country for Old Men' and 'The Prestige'.

Although I enjoyed District 9, I didn't think it was all that good a movie, as a concept yeah, interesting, but the movie was pretty formulaic.

Let the Right One In gets my vote for most interesting film recently

Pan's Labyrinth, one of the best films of all time.
Spirited Away, amazing bit of anime, nice and quirky.
More recently, Inglorious Basterds,

"You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business; we in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, Business is a-boomin"

I like Spirited Away (especially the soot). Howl's Moving Castle was great too.

and by all accounts Moon and District 9 although i've not seen them yet, all reviews have been promising

Two very good films, nightmare finding somewhere showing Moon but it was worth it. When you start to watch District 9 you might think it's going to be a lemon but it improves…

UP and Hurt Locker next on my list of new films…

North Face. Absolutely superb German film about climbing the Eiger.

I enjoyed Cloverfield, as an origianl take on a well used story. Try it.