Edelstein isn’t the only critic in a morally complicated swoon over “Zero Dark Thirty.” Last week the New York Film Critics Circle awarded it the best movie of the year. So did the National Board of Review. Surprises atop surprises: not only does “Zero Dark Thirty” decline to toe a conventionally liberal line, but it is being embraced by many cultural arbiters who are probably at some level horrified by the conclusions it seems to reach.

Image Frank Bruni Credit... Earl Wilson/The New York Times

Will they wrestle honestly with that, as Edelstein did? Or will they elect unsullied rapture for “Zero Dark Thirty” and either ignore or come up with a selective interpretation of its policy implications? That will be one of the fascinating wrinkles of the imminent debate about a movie that demands close examination.

With ample reason, we often dismiss what comes out of the commercially minded dream factory of Hollywood as simplistic, candied, trivial. Yet “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Lincoln,” another of the year-end movies at the center of the unfolding Oscar race, are dedicated to the ethical ambiguities and messy compromises of governing — to the muck and stink that sometimes go into the effort of keeping this mighty country of ours intact and safe.

“Lincoln” looks at that through the prism of our 16th president and the legislative art and chicanery by which he and his allies passed the 13th Amendment, ending slavery. “Zero Dark Thirty” uses the war on terror as its lens and raises big, complicated questions about whether one brand of evil excuses another and the preservation of freedom hinges on targeted applications of savagery. From Hollywood during the holiday season, we’re getting not just “The Hobbit” and the inevitable Tom Cruise vehicle. We’re getting a civics lesson.

“Zero Dark Thirty” takes its title from a military term for half past midnight, which is when Navy SEALs raided Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. It’s the work of the director Kathryn Bigelow and the screenwriter Mark Boal, who previously collaborated on “The Hurt Locker.” As they researched their new movie, they got considerable cooperation from the C.I.A. and the Defense Department, provoking complaints from some conservatives, who smelled an Obama hagiography in the making.