When I assembled my 10-best films of the year, I did so with an eye on mainstream films. The year was so strong in that regard that it was still difficult to stop at 10 – and what got put aside were things like foreign-language and nonfiction films.

However, unlike the days when I worked for a newspaper, space on the Internet is not limited by physical constraints. So it’s possible to create more than one Top-10 list.

Instead of picking and choosing among all documentaries and foreign films to find a representative one or two for my Top 10, I have created an alternative Top 10 – five nonfiction and five foreign-language. (And even then I cheated a little.) Here goes:

NONFICTION

1. Iraq docs: “Standard Operating Procedure,” “Body of War,” “Taxi to the Dark Side,” “CSNY: Déjà Vu”: Since we were subjected to the overhyped “Shock and Awe” of the Iraq invasion five-plus years ago, filmmakers have been insistent on using cinema to remind us of the truth, despite the smoke and mirrors that the Bush administration consistently purveyed. This year’s crop was particularly strong, even if audiences stayed away as though they were poison; the home-video versions will live on, as kinetic history lessons for all who care to learn from them. Errol Morris’ “Standard Operating Procedure” was an infuriating examination of what happened at Abu Ghraib and why. Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro’s “Body of War” told one soldier’s stirring story about life after a crippling injury. Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side” won the Oscar and exposed American cruelty and callousness in a case of murder. And, for good measure, I’ve included Neil Young’s “CSNY” doc, which offered not only good music but a moving “Living with War” theme.

2. “Trouble the Water”: Carl Deal and Tia Lessin went to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, looking for a story about the National Guard – and came away with a first-person account of the storm, as seen and shot by Scott and Kimberly Roberts, residents of one of the neighborhoods hit worst by the storm and flooding. At once uplifting and sorrowful, it offers further proof that what this president will be remembered for is his unwarranted war and his casual response to a massive disaster.

3. “Bigger Stronger Faster”: First-time filmmaker Chris Bell looked at the American culture of winning in a piece that got tagged as “the steroids movie.” But you came away with surprising answers to the questions he raised, including the sense that, perhaps, there was more to be learned about steroids that we’ll never know as long as the drug war focuses on them. Plus it was both funny and moving.

4. “FLOW: For Love Of Water”: Irena Salina examined the politics of water in this far-reaching doc that took you from Michigan to India to South America and beyond. The bottom line: Corporations are attempting to consolidate their hold on Earth’s most precious resource in ways that chill your blood when you hear about them.

5. “Waltz with Bashir”: This film by Ari Folman used animation to examine the events that occurred following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s. Folman interviewed his former fellow soldiers to recapture memories of the period, including a massacre of Lebanese Muslims by Christian forces. Dreamy in a nightmarish way, it was the year’s most imaginative doc.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

1. “I’ve Loved You So Long”: I was intensely moved by Kristin Scott Thomas’ performance (in French) as a doctor, just out of jail for murdering her young son, trying to reintegrate into society. She is helped by a younger sister she barely knows, who takes her into her home and gives her the space and the time to find her way. Scott Thomas was painfully remote and yet open at the same time: a woman haunted by her deeds who walks away from the penitentiary but will never be free from her own personal prison of guilt and regret. It was spare and gripping, from novelist and first-time director Philippe Claudel.

2. “Tell No One”: Director Guillaume Canet took novelist Harlan Coben’s thriller – about a doctor who discovers that his long-dead wife may actually still be alive – and transferred it effortlessly from New York to Paris. The cast, led by Francois Cluzet and including the ubiquitous Kristin Scott Thomas, Jean Rochefort and Nathalie Baye, was strong and Canet’s direction kept your heart racing.

3. “Mongol”: This fascinating drama by Russian director Sergei Bodrov moved through history with fascinating sweep, yet managed to stay intimate, as it focused on the struggle of Genghis Khan to claim his place as leader of the Mongol horde. Big bloody battle scenes never diminished the intricate politics or the romance of the story.

4. “Let the Right One In”: Just your average Swedish vampire movie, this gruesomely dark little comedy worked interesting changes on the genre. Director Tomas Alfredson’s young cast turned confrontations with the living dead into a coming-of-age story for an unhappy boy, who finds a new best friend in the little female bloodsucker in the apartment next door.

5. “Under the Same Moon”: This may not qualify under most rules as foreign-language, since part of it was in English. But this touching, funny story of undocumented Mexican workers – and the journey of a son to find his mother – had so much heart and humor that it’s impossible to keep it off my list. I sure liked it more than the dry, overrated “A Christmas Tale.”

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