The dramatic portrayal of Buddhist lifestyles and spiritual truths is perhaps more  difficult to accomplish in an exciting way than depictions of Western religious practices and stories, because the Dharma is so geared to inner transformation. And while enlightenment or satori may be one of the most profound experiences a human being can undergo, it doesn't exactly translate easily into compelling cinema.

But Simon Augustine's found a list of films, from both the East and the West, that comment in some way upon the teachings of the Buddha, and that are both explicitly about Buddhist subjects, or more subtly so. 

Best Movies Seen on Screen or Via GreenCine in 2007

By Dylan de Thomas

Like most of us who don't work for major newspapers - or live in Manhattan or the City of Angels - I haven't had the chance to see many of the year-end must-sees, like Paul Thomas Anderson's much-anticipated and discussed There Will Be Blood, Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly or even Tamara Jenkins' The Savages. These either haven't made it up here to sleepy, rainy Portland, Oregon, or I just haven't made the time to make it out to the theaters to see 'em. Instead, I offer my favorite moments from mostly new-ish DVDs that I was able to see in the comfort of my own home, in between changing diapers and having tea parties with short, messy people. I gotta say, even from this distance, it's clear that it was a great year for film. Here are some of my favorites, split into neat categories for easy consumption.

By Erin Donovan

As with last year's list, this is a look at some of the best women-centered films released - except, notably, for the first one - to theaters or DVD in 2007.

Eve and the Fire Horse - A Sundance darling that has yet secure a US distribution deal, though it's aired on the Sundance Channel on Demand. Julia Kwan makes a magnificent directorial debut with a light-hearted film about coming of age, religious education, immigrant assimilation and grief.

Broken English - A romantic tribute to the neuroses and glory of life New York City (the way it could only exist, in films) is a remarkable directorial debut from Zoe Cassavetes. Like Sex and the City with the brain cells added back in.

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By Erin Donovan

These were the best documentaries I saw this year, new to theaters or new to DVD in '07.

51 Birch Street - Doug Block, so incensed by the betrayal of his father getting remarried just 3 months after the death of his mother, turns an investigative lens on the once romanticized memories of his childhood to discover (via decades of journals, interviews with friends and home-made movies) the starkly different inner life his mother was leading to the woman he'd grown up with. Through the discovery of sad and ordinary dysfunctions 51 Birch Street is as much a touching family portrait as it is a window into the generational contrast between expectations about marriage.

Girl 27 - A surprising documentary that played to quiet appreciation at Sundance this year. Girl 27 starts out as a true crime expose about a vicious assault and the cover up by the svengalis of 1930s Hollywood but becomes a touching (platonic) romance about how intertwined a documentary film-makers can become with their subjects.

King Corn - Two affable food activists grow an acre of corn in Iowa and attempt to trace it into our food system only to learn that between starchy fast foods, artificial sweeteners and preservatives Americans eat so much corn that an acre (producing 10,000 pounds) is a mere drop in the bucket. In the vein of Super Size Me, co-stars/directors Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis create an oral history of a declining farm town as well as illuminate some of the absurdities of food production in America.

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