This year we’re getting our fair share of bad-ass fighting robots and homoerotic men in tights, but where would we be without sweeping historical epics to make us feel just a bit smarter (without all of the tiresome book reading that sensation normally requires)? Strangely enough, one of 2009′s additions to the fold, Agora, comes from the mind of writer/director Alejandro Amenábar, the man who introduced himself to America with the smart and classy ghost story The Others (yes, ghost stories can be both smart and classy, damn it!).