I Am Legend

Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend is a showcase for Will Smith's dramatic range — a performance of loneliness, grief, and deteriorating sanity that carries the film through its quieter, more effective first two acts. The deserted Manhattan sequences, filmed on actual emptied New York streets at dawn, are haunting and beautiful. Smith's relationship with his German Shepherd Sam provides the film's emotional core, and the scene of their separation is genuinely devastating. The CGI Darkseekers are the film's weakest element — the practical-effects test footage that leaked showed far more terrifying creatures — but Smith's performance and the film's exploration of isolation give it lasting power.