Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale, and Jenifer Lawrence in American HustleAMERICAN HUSTLE

You wanna have a good time this winter? Grab some friends, see American Hustle, hit the coffee shop or bar of your choosing, and enjoy a spirited debate over which performer in director David O. Russell's con-man (and -woman) comedy gives the best, funniest performance. Better yet, enjoy a spirited debate over which performer has the best, funniest hair. Either way, there are no wrong answers.

Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in The FamilyTHE FAMILY

Robert De Niro fans will likely want to catch director Luc Besson's The Family, as it showcases one of the actor's finest, most alert leading performances in years. Michelle Pfeiffer fans (and I'm a huge one) will definitely want to catch this new gangster comedy, as it gives the eternally radiant performer the closest she's had to a fully fleshed-out character in over a decade, and Pfeiffer - returning to her mob-wife roots of the Scarface and Married to the Mob era - plays the role spectacularly well.

Yet there's one demographic for whom The Family should be absolutely must-see viewing: anti-Francophiles. Though it has its problems, several of them major ones, I'm betting that most of its viewers will enjoy the film. But if you're the sort who's prone to make hostile remarks about the French with little or no provocation, or have ever referenced "freedom fries" completely without irony, this is, without question, the movie for you, which makes this latest effort by Parisian filmmaker Besson not just cheeky but downright subversive.

Paul Giamatti and Alex Shaffer in Win WinWIN WIN

When I say that writer/director Tom McCarthy's Win Win could easily serve as the inspiration for a long-running TV series, I don't mean it in any way insultingly, partly because our current small-screen options are, in general, vastly superior to our big-screen ones. Mostly, though, it's because this serious-minded comedy is so teeming with nuanced, empathetic characters and complicated yet wholly plausible situations and circumstances that you want to luxuriate in Win Win's universe for far longer than the movie's too-brief 100 minutes - like, for an hour a week over several seasons.

Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner in The TownTHE TOWN

Director/co-writer/star Ben Affleck's crime drama The Town is an enjoyable, frustrating, fascinating contradiction: a movie with a storyline that's nearly impossible to buy, yet one performed and directed with such assurance and strength that it's nearly impossible not to buy. You can roll your eyes at the film's many clichés and contrivances, but you can't say they're presented with anything less than full commitment; for a two-hour-plus movie that doesn't provide even one truly novel character, situation, insight, or plot twist, The Town is remarkably fresh.

Shutter IslandSHUTTER ISLAND

Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's operatically paranoid adaptation of Dennis Lehane's 2003 suspense thriller, is easily the best movie of 2010 thus far, so it seems a bit churlish to wish that was higher praise. Don't get me wrong: Even running a wildly overlong 138 minutes, the film is mostly terrific, and one of the very rare works of its kind in which your interest actually increases during the final reels. Yet given Scorsese's glorious technical acumen and the efforts of a ridiculously gifted cast, I still left the cineplex feeling that it just missed greatness, and not even greatness along the lines of GoodFellas or The Departed - more like the genre excellence of Scorsese's 1991 remake of Cape Fear. Shutter Island is a strong, worthy offering, yet as far as this year's releases go, it's only a few degrees more satisfying than Youth in Revolt or Daybreakers. But hey, it's early - I'll happily take it.