World Trade Center

As we draw closer to the five-year mark, filmmakers have grown less shy about portraying the tragedy that, as many people say, felt like a big-budget, special-effects movie in the first place. With World Trade Center, Oliver Stone focuses on two Port Authority officers (played by Nicholas Cage and Michael Peña) who found themselves trapped in the wreckage of the second tower, and makes what feels like Irwin Allen’s September 11th. Call JFK and Nixon historically incorrect, but at least they were masterpieces of paranoia and hugely entertaining. Here, Stone brings perhaps the most charged day in history to a grinding halt, though patriots might appreciate the excessive slo-mo, the chest-thumping religious allegories, and his obvious support of the war in Iraq.