This local critic took a big step forward in 2022 when he began writing film pieces for your favorite weekly newspaper. Having started somewhat significantly after an auspicious New Year’s Eve viewing of “West Side Story,” the Webb Weekly movie column marks its tenth installment with a few worthy picks featuring that number in their title.

Actually, I need to start by demurring on what is probably the most famous of these: 1979’s “10,” a critical and commercial hit that made a star of Bo Derek and a sensation of Ravel’s “Bolero.” Featuring Dudley Moore and Julie Andrews — and directed by Andrews’ husband, the veteran Blake Edwards — this admittedly funny film revels in lust, infidelity, voyeurism and misuse of controlled substances; so I cannot endorse it, especially in such a family-friendly publication.

Let’s look instead at 1999’s “10 Things I Hate About You,” an uproarious high-school version of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” Spring-boarding wildly off the Bard’s key plot about two teen sisters — an older toughie and a younger boy-magnet — “10 Things” features a dandy cast: Heath Ledger, just on the cusp of worldwide fame, and Julia Stiles, who did two other Shakespeare stories around the same time (“Hamlet” and “O”) — plus Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union and Allison Janney. The film is laugh-out-loud funny — and though it frontlines crude sex-jokes, it’s ultimately quite conservative on that issue: None of the young couples sleep together, and there is a late-film revelation that warns against moving too fast toward physical intimacy.

For Western fans, there is “3:10 to Yuma,” based on a short story by modern crime master Elmore Leonard. The arresting tale of a down-on-his-luck rancher escorting a dangerous outlaw to trial, it has been filmed twice, perhaps most famously with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe in 2007. But while that film is decent, I prefer the old black-and-white version from 1957, starring Glenn Ford as the prisoner and Van Heflin as the rancher, whose friends abandon him one by one — kind of “High Noon” style — when it becomes apparent that the outlaw’s many cronies will do all they can to prevent their comrade from coming to court. The older film looks gorgeous, and it’s a real slow-burner, focused on character and fully 30 minutes shorter than the recent color remake.

Trivia note: The newer version of “3:10” was directed by James Mangold, who is just wrapping the fifth Indiana Jones film. Starring a 79-year-old Harrison Ford, it is due out next summer.

But I saved the best of these “10” films for last:

It’s a dandy under-the-radar thriller called “The Tenth Man,” made for TV’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame” in 1988. While that might not sound promising, this near-masterpiece is based on a late-career novel by the legendary Graham Greene; it also stars a young Anthony Hopkins, giving what I still consider his finest performance — fully four years before catapulting to worldwide fame as Hannibal Lecter. Greene’s ingenious and spellbinding plot has Hopkins as a pampered lawyer living in Paris during the Nazi occupation; imprisoned by the Gestapo, he basically buys another man’s life and goes free, then winds up working for the dead man’s sister, who has no idea he’s responsible for the devastation of her family. Along with Hopkins, “Tenth” features fine work from Kristin Scott Thomas, plus the brilliant British stage actor Derek Jacobi. But perhaps the best thing about “The Tenth Man” is that after being unavailable for decades, a handsome copy is now running free on YouTube! Folks, this is a must for fans of Greene or Hopkins — or good movies of any kind.

And as for these Webb Weekly pieces: Here’s to 10 more.

Or 10,000.