Heath Ledger, left, and Jake Gyllenhaal turn in powerful performances in director Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain." In director Tim Burton's wildly imaginative "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," the otherworldly, otherweirdly Johnny Depp takes on the role of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.

The triumph of hope over experience.

Brit wit extraordinaire Samuel Johnson once used that pithy phrase to describe the remarriage of "a gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage."

But I invoke it every time I sit down in a darkened movie theater, hoping against hope that, at the very least, I'll be diverted -- and, at best, I'll be enlightened, entranced, enthralled.

After most of the 125-plus movies I saw in 2005, I felt lucky if I managed to escape with approximately the same number of brain cells I had when the movie started.

Yet, sometimes when you expect it, more often when you don't, the magic happens. Here are 10 movies in which the magic not only happened but happens still, whenever I relive their impact in the movie palace of my mind.

1. "Brokeback Mountain" -- Talk about saving the best for last, the final movie to open here in 2005 turns out to be the most powerful. Director Ang Lee and screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana do full justice to writer Annie Proulx's haunting tale of thwarted love, charting the mysterious trails of the human heart with anguished restraint as two cowboys (Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal) ride the range together one summer -- and spend the rest of their lives wrestling with the consequences.

2. "A History of Violence" -- When a small-town guy (Viggo Mortensen) heroically vanquishes homicidal intruders, his shady past literally comes gunning for him. Director David Cronenberg's quick-on-the-draw contemporary Western smoothly inverts -- and subverts -- our expectations, delivering sucker-punch impact with every sly, mind-bending twist.

3. "The Constant Gardener" -- It's a gripping John le Carrè thriller. It's a powerful love story. It's two movies in one, as a British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) ventures into darkest Africa to unravel the riddle of his wife's disappearance. Director Fernando Meirelles uses his striking visual sense to underscore the maddening contradictions that power the parallel stories.

4. "Grizzly Man" -- In a year of standout documentaries ("Murderball," "Rize" and "Mad Hot Ballroom" among them), Werner Herzog's stunning study of a self-styled eco-warrior's life -- and death -- among Alaska's wild bears explores nature's implacable power and one lost soul's misguided quest to find a home in the heart of darkness.

5. "Capote" -- Oscar shoo-in Philip Seymour Hoffman's riveting performance is far from the whole show in this portrait of the artist as hollow man, a contradictory genius both fascinating and horrifying.

6. "Good Night, and Good Luck" -- Director George Clooney revisits the anti-Communist hysteria of 1954 in a trenchant, timelier-than-ever study of politics, truth-telling, courage and responsibility.

7. "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" -- An irresistible Force, my favorite of the year's megablockbusters recaptures the awestruck amazement that makes visiting George Lucas' long-ago galaxy far, far away such a literal -- and figurative -- blast.

8. "Millions" -- This whimsical, poignant little fable (from, of all people, "Trainspotting" director Danny Boyle) explores the miraculous power of childlike wonder to heal all-too-real heartbreak.

9. "Saraband" -- Two players, 10 scenes, one genius: Swedish master Ingmar Bergman, who revisits 1973's "Scenes From a Marriage" -- and transforms its central couple (Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson) into an audience for another duo's wrenching duels.

10. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- Director Tim Burton's scrumdiddlyumptious re-imagining of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" emerges as that rarest of treats: a remake that thinks, and acts, like a brand new movie.