Ranked No. 8 out of the 10 Best Films of the Year by the New York Times.

Much of this film about James, a young Glaswegian boy (William Eadie) during a few weeks in 1970, seems to take place near water, and much of its power comes from the dreamy authority of its debutante writer-director Lynne Ramsay. Her influences are clear - this could be "The 400 Blows" by way of Ken Loach - but the intimacy that Ms. Ramsay achieves is her own. Value is constantly being weighed by the characters. "Someone's chucked out a perfectly good dog," someone says, while examining a canine's corpse. Everything here gets a second look and deserves it.