What a lot of excellent films made it to theaters this year. As a public service for readers from a guy who saw a couple hundred of them (and that was just at Sundance), here’s a list of 2014 releases with more pros than cons.

TOP PERPLEXING FILM:

"Birdman," a story about a has-been movie star’s iffy Broadway return, by the unconventional Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, is not quite like anything I’ve ever seen. I mean, hey, the full title is "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)." I didn’t understand the story 60 percent of the time. But I loved every bizarre moment. Peculiarity is good. Movies are increasingly noisy, similar and dull, so seeing Inarritu’s craziness is like drinking a giant margarita after an endless diet of flat Pepsi. What funny and touching characters. What an ensemble: Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts. And we didn’t even get to Zach Galifianakis yet. Give me a second, barkeep.

MOST JOLTING JOB SAGAS

"Whiplash" and "Nightcrawler" are two shrewd shockers about life in the business world. J.K. Simmons and Jake Gyllenhaal play noir characters, one in jazz, the other in journalism. They are monstrous occupational drill sergeants who have a way of pushing their followers until they literally bleed, while insisting they aren’t trying hard enough. Each film features a weird sort of S&M relationship in the workplace. They appear to suggest that great careers in music and television are the products of great tyranny — a discomfiting notion.

BEST BUFFOONERY FROM UNLIKELY SOURCES, STARRING CHRIS PRATT

"The Lego Movie" is a masterpiece of modern animation. The theme song, "Everything Is Awesome," describes each cartoonesque, adult-friendly scene. Best movie ever made about Danish plastic bricks. Swell cast, with a (pseudo)-happy plastic construction worker (played by Pratt) evolving into unplanned hero as President Business (Will Ferrell) endeavors to eradicate creative freedom with superglue.

But wait, there’s more. Pratt’s live-action role as a space crusader atop "Guardians of the Galaxy," based on an entirely forgettable Marvel comic, is again deliciously lightweight and agreeably absurd. While fighting alien enemies he bops to a choice 1980s soundtrack, full of hits chosen to leave us "Hooked on a Feeling." Co-star Vin Diesel offers his best vocal performance ever: "I Am Groot." And who can’t love a space battle scene based on that arcade game classic Galaga?

STANDOUT SLOW-COOKED HOME MEAL

Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age epic "Boyhood" looks at the common things in life in an exceptional way. It traces the youth of Mason, a nice suburban Texas kid, over the course of 12 years as his divorced parents (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette) try their best to raise him. Linklater shot the movie in chunks from 2002 to 2013. We watch Mason (and his exceptional performer, Ellar Coltrane) evolve from a dreamy tadpole first-grader to a thoughtful, long-limbed college freshman. The usual mile markers of a growing-up tale — the first kiss, the big touchdown, the funeral — are conspicuously lacking. The events in "Boyhood" are modest and charming, universal love songs to passing instants and lifelong feelings.

IDEAL COMEDY SET IN EUROPE BETWEEN THE WARS

Before "The Grand Budapest Hotel" I did not know that Ralph Fiennes was more than a dramatic icon. He’s pricelessly funny as M. Gustave, the world’s greatest concierge at a nostalgic luxury inn in the Eastern European country Zubrowska, or at least in Wes Anderson’s matchless imagination. Our droll, elegant hero, wearing his signature cologne, L’Air de Panache, scuffles with rich thieves and jackbooted military thugs while coping with the romantic shortcomings of his youthful bellboy (Tony Revolori) and his elderly lover Madame D. (Tilda Swinton, under hilarious layers of makeup). It’s gorgeous — each shot colored in pink, red, orange, purple and lavender — and the comic patter is pure, relaxed craziness. I think of Anderson as a character said of Gustave: "He managed the illusion with such grace." Unquestionably the best 99 minutes of the year.

GREAT PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC SCIENCE FICTION

It’s not "Interstellar," that’s for sure. The smart, terrific future action feast "Edge of Tomorrow" (retitled "Live Die Repeat" for home video) allows us to see Tom Cruise get killed over and over again — how is that not worth the price of admission? In the process he does his best acting in years. Plus, the movie is packed with humor and the ever-attractive Emily Blunt as a hard-as-nails military hero who inspires history’s happiest ending.

Then there’s "Snowpiercer," a clever, dark, mostly English-language thriller from Korean master Bong Joon-Ho. With Earth gone uninhabitably cold, the only survivors live in a planet-circling supertrain. Chris Evans outdoes his Captain America work as he leads the impoverished occupants of the windowless tail section in their attempt to overtake the train’s sacred creator at the front. It’s a thrilling action extravaganza. And as the battle flows across successive compartments, it’s an ingenious map of classism in a hierarchical culture.

POIGNANT AMERICAN DREAMS

Tommy Lee Jones perfectly directed and starred in "The Homesman," playing a frontier thief who, like Keaton in "Birdman," shows up in his underwear. It gives Hilary Swank her best role in years as his manager on a five-week trip carrying three women back east to a madhouse. At heart it’s a fable of Grace and Redemption — the names of their two horses. "The Immigrant" featured stellar performances in the story of a Polish emigre (Marion Cotillard), wrestling with American life under the employ of a boorish pimp (Joaquin Phoenix) in lushly shot 1920s New York.

THRILLING TRUE-LIFE NARRATIVES

Both "Wild" (starring Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern) and "Foxcatcher" (with Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo) feature characters wrestling with the roots of modern life. "Foxcatcher," from director Bennett Miller, bleeds anger and anxiety in its strong, precisely told recount of an emotional triangle among a wealthy wrestling patron and two Olympic-winning brothers. "Wild," from Jean-Marc Vallee, is heartbreaking and inspiring. Set from southern desert to the High Sierras, it pre­sents a troubled woman finding her future one step after another.

AND DON’T FORGET "THE BABADOOK"

Actress-turned-director Jennifer Kent’s debut is a relentlessly, ruthlessly chilling horror movie in "The Babadook." It’s part sinister fairy tale, part character-driven family freak show and — despite minimalist gore — 110 percent terrifying. It’s one midnight movie you should definitely see before bedtime.