This year, I’m withholding my annual (and tiresome) curse on the house of Hollywood, that tower of teen-driven merde rising out of the LA smog, and expressing a cautious optimism. For the first time since 1999, the studios stuck their necks out, greenlighting several fistfuls of projects that were uncharacteristically dark and unusual, and intended — dare I say it? — for thinking, feeling, discriminating adults. The list is worth pondering: Road to Perdition, Minority Report, Solaris, Punch-Drunk Love, About Schmidt, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Chicago, 25th Hour, Unfaithful, Adaptation.

Miramax Pictures, which is now indistinguishable from a major studio, came forth with Frida, The Quiet American, Gangs of New York, and The Hours. For American feature independents, this was an exceptional year: Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Lovely & Amazing, Roger Dodger, Far from Heaven, Secretary, The Good Girl, The Cat’s Meow, Auto Focus, Digby Goes Down, The Sunshine State, and Monsoon Wedding.

If George W. had the brains, he surely would claim credit: 2002 rocked for films from the USA. I noted that at Cannes in May, when the two best entries in the Competition were, to my surprise, Hollywood pictures, Punch-Drunk Love and About Schmidt. The roll has continued on — many of the prestigious American movies held for Christmas and New Year’s release are cause for jubilation.

But what of Roman Polanski’s shot-in-Poland The Pianist, which was the surprise winner at the year-end Boston Society of Film Critics conclave, taking Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Adrien Brody)? I remain underwhelmed. Fans of the movie cite Polanski’s distancing of himself from his autobiographical World War II story. The Pianist is seen as a Hitchcockian tale about a sequestered protagonist who watches the Holocaust go by his rear window. Me? I feel neutral about the film; I think Polanski is painfully out of touch with the tragedies of his youth as a Jew hiding from the Nazis. The Pianist is perhaps my 40th-favorite film of 2002.

And my number one? The best picture of the year?

Best film: I’m crazy for 25th Hour, the new Spike Lee movie about the last night of freedom for a low-level New York drug dealer (Edward Norton) who, having been caught and convicted, must report to a harsh prison the next morning for a stiff, debilitating jail sentence. It’s been a long time coming, Lee’s first masterpiece since 1989’s Do the Right Thing. And it’s the first time he’s allowed himself a really emotional story, this melancholy, pitiable tale of a guy who realizes, oh too late, that he’s squandered his life. The last 10 minutes of 25th Hour, a dreamlike montage of escape across America, represent the most poetic and philosophical section in any movie of 2002, haunting stuff.

The rest of the 10 best: Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (the best independent film of the year), About Schmidt, Punch-Drunk Love, Far from Heaven, Lovely & Amazing, 24 Hour Party People, The Fast Runner, Baran, The Son’s Room.

Plus these distinguished runners-up: The Hours, Heaven, Je rentre à la maison/I’m Going Home, Y tu mamá también, The Quiet American, Secretary, Unfaithful, L’ultimo bacio/The Last Kiss, The Good Girl, The Cat’s Meow.

Best actor: Nicolas Cage, Adaptation. Runners-up: Campbell Scott, Roger Dodger; Edward Norton, 25th Hour; Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt; Adam Sandler, Punch-Drunk Love.

Best actress: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Secretary. Runners-up: Catherine Keener, Lovely & Amazing; Diane Lane, Unfaithful; Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven; Isabelle Huppert, La pianiste/The Piano Teacher.

Best supporting actor: Alan Arkin, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing. Runner-up: Ed Harris, The Hours.

Best supporting actress: Toni Collette, The Hours. Runner-up: Kirsten Dunst, The Cat’s Meow.

Best director: Alexander Payne, About Schmidt.

Best screenplay: David Benioff, 25th Hour.

Best cinematography: Ed Lachman, Far from Heaven.

Most underrated film: Sherman Alexie’s The Business of Fancy Dancing. Runners-up: Trouble Every Day, One Hour Photo.

Best new talent: Dylan Kidd, writer/director of Roger Dodger.

Funniest performance: Barney Cheng, Hollywood Ending.

Best documentary (tie): Lucia Small’s My Father, the Genius and Marlo Poras’s America. Runners-up: Daughter from Danang, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Shelter.

Best Hollywood blockbuster: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.

Worst movie by a major director: Steven Soderbergh’s Full Frontal.

Worst male performance: Nathan Lane, Nicholas Nickleby.

Worst female performance (tie): Kyra Sedgwick, Personal Velocity, and Julia Roberts, Full Frontal and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Worst miscasting: Richard Gere, Chicago.

Most-botched final act: Adaptation.

Gerald Peary can be reached at gpeary@world.std.com