The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)

The most serious film here, and it still earns its place. A retired court investigator starts writing a novel about a murder case from the 1970s that never left him, and the past and present threads close on each other with a final turn that lands like a slap. What keeps it from solemnity is the office banter: Ricardo Darín and Soledad Villamil's unspoken romance, and Guillermo Francella's boozy colleague, who steals every scene he is in. Juan José Campanella also stages a continuous five-minute shot through a packed soccer stadium that is worth the ticket alone. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; skip the 2015 Hollywood remake.