Cloverfield

A monster movie that literally plays to its audience. Cloverfield by the way is never seen as a title, text or dialogue, but it's just another gimmick that works in this rapid roller coaster grade 9/11 allegory, If there's any doubt that the spirit of Godzilla hoovers over Cloverfield as an inspiration consider that the closing credits theme, composed by Michael Giacchino, basically pays homage to the slow moving brass Godzilla theme of old. There's also a similar feeling to the ending that was in Miracle Mile, a bit of a more obscure film.
The entire movie comes from one perspective, a video camera that gets passed around and ends up with Hud (until someone called him Hudson I thought he was named after Paul Newman). Around midnight during a surprise going away party that Hud is shooting testimonials at, a monster of some sort attacks New York City. But the crux of Cloverfield revolves around a love story - even though there're monster loose Rob goes into the center of town to rescue Beth. But then all night Hud's camera's been paying special attention to Marlena
There's non-stop action and interesting character development, two factors that make Cloverfield compelling. Compare the character interest in the recent Alien vs. Predator movie and Cloverfield accelerates light years ahead just on that point. There's a poetic scene where a white horse pulling an empty carriage down a broken street. This monster flick has a soul.