2. The Order of Myths
Every year, the residents of Mobile, Alabama, celebrate Mardi Gras — twice. The main parade is a whites-only event. Rather than sitting things out, the city’s black residents hold their own Carnival celebration. “They like it like that,” the old-timers tell themselves, and so the segregation continues. Margaret Brown’s movie isn’t an agitated indictment of backwards thinking, as you might expect, but rather a robust portrait of current affairs, captured at the moment the two pageants are beginning to integrate. I tend to prefer my Issue Movies more unresolved, yet Brown strikes gold exploring this uneasy balance between progress and tradition.

3. Sugar
A Dominican baseball trainee can all but taste the American Dream in this poignant tribute to our nation’s favorite pastime. A more accessible, yet no less independent portrait than directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson, Sugar tells the story of a talented young pitcher who’s trained his entire life for a shot at the Major Leagues, then balks just shy of the big time. The movie simmers with the energy of the game, but is ultimately about what becomes of all those starstruck immigrants once they leave the field. This kid’s dream isn’t what we expect, but baseball gets him there all the same.

4. Bigger, Faster, Stronger*
I skipped Morgan Spurlock’s Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? (which was almost unanimously the worst film at Sundance for all who saw it), but I had the good fortune of reviewing Chris Bell’s enormously entertaining personal look at the steroid debate. Bell’s affable style reminds me of Spurlock’s Super Size Me, as he turns the camera on his bodybuilder brothers to better understand the controversy. Bell also examines the larger context (something few pundits ever do), asking all the right cultural questions about how pro sports reached a point where steroids could be seen as a necessary evil.

5. Ballast
Not even remotely sentimental, Lance Hammer’s feature debut is an answer to movies like Monster’s Ball. When Halle Berry hit rock bottom, she made sweet, sweaty love to Billy Bob Thornton. Here, we see a more plausible variation on that scenario after an unexpected suicide leaves the dead man’s wife, son and twin brother reeling. Yes, characters cling to one another when there’s nowhere else to turn, even reaching out for intimacy in their duress, but these characters don’t wear their emotions on their sleeves. In the ensuing tangle of anger and confusion, Hammer captures what he can of their world.

6. Frozen River
Like her heroine, writer-director Courtney Hunt spends most of Frozen River on thin ice: In one scene, a baby is left freezing out in a blizzard, two kids start a fire in their trailer home and a suspicious cop pulls over Melissa Leo while transporting backdoor immigrants across the Canadian border (via the precarious route suggested by the film’s title). But instead of playing such scenarios for cheap thrills, Frozen River remains firmly grounded in its characters, whose (sometimes questionable) maternal instincts allow them to rationalize their illegal dealings. Hunt’s storytelling instincts elevate such Lifetime Movie material to white-knuckle stuff.

7. August
This tale of dot-com hubris may take place one month before the crash, but August isn’t a 9/11 story. If anything, it’s a period piece about where our minds were just before terrorism hijacked our attention. The real revelation here is Josh Hartnett, who delivers his first significant performance as the cocky younger half of this Romulus and Remus pair: Two brothers build a tech company that makes them millionaires on paper, but can’t actually deliver on its promise. August twists Warhol’s prediction somewhat —in the future everyone will be RICH for 15 minutes — capturing the view just before time runs out.

8. Momma’s Man
Not much happens in Momma’s Man, in which a lonely, middle-aged Angeleno indefinitely extends a visit to his parents in New York City, but that merely accentuates the care Azazel Jacobs gives his misfit protagonist. Mikey (Matt Boren) may or may not have missed his return flight. His wife may or may not be cheating on him. Yet he clearly has some issues to work out, and until that happens, he’s most comfortable at home. Who knows how autobiographical Jacobs’ intimate little character study is, but it sure feels real (those are his folks in their actual apartment we’re watching).

9. Phoebe in Wonderland
Those Fanning girls are just so talented. Here, little sis Elle Fanning plays an acting prodigy with a problem. The saintly new drama teacher (Patricia Clarkson) recognizes her talent and casts her as the lead in the school play, Alice in Wonderland. Her mother (Felicity Huffman) approves, having dedicated her adult life to analyzing Alice. But poor Elle’s condition worsens, things go wrong and the teacher gets blamed, leading to one of those big “O Captain, My Captain” finales. I can see what writer-director Daniel Barnz is trying to do here, and though he doesn’t quite succeed, I applaud the effort.

10. The Wackness
I can’t say I cared all that much about the outcast drug dealer (Josh Peck) or the irresponsible therapist (Ben Kingsley) who treats him in exchange for free dope or even the high-school siren (Olivia Thirlby) who steals his heart, but I did see real promise in director Jonathan Levine’s style. Though stuck in his own glory days (circa 1994) and too enamored of indie-movie quirks (fine, the therapist wants dope, but why does the dope dealer want therapy?), Levine understands how to use the camera, music and novelty casting (Mary-Kate Olsen anyone?) to create a fresh backdrop for a familiar coming-of-age tale.

Honorable Mention: Funny Games U.S.
In which Michael Haneke remakes his most sinister experiment for U.S. audiences, following the original virtually shot for shot. Two polite young men (Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet) stop by a family’s vacation home to demand some eggs, then stick around to harass the couple (Tim Roth and Naomi Watts). Haneke’s challenge: Do we want the family to survive, or do we take pleasure in their torture? I’d rank this one higher, only I didn’t see it in Park City, having caught a test screening last summer instead (how twisted is that, by the way, testing a Haneke movie that’s engineered to upset?).