Best Movies of 2008

Previous lists:
2007
2004-2006

1. The Dark Knight: The best superhero movie ever made, in part because it's not even so much about the superhero as it is about how he compares to all the peripheral characters. You can spend hours talking about all ideas explored by the movie, from how a hero can become corrupted, to why we can idolize a character who exists outside of the bounds of the law, to how far people should be allowed to go in the name of fighting crime. At the same time, Heath Ledger's performance--probably a lock for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar--is one of the great character studies of all time, as he portrays The Joker as a man who's insane enough to exist with no moral code or ideology of any kind, but sane enough to realize that he's doing it. Some people have told me that it feels too long to them. I disagree. The writing is excellent, and I defy you to point to me any scene in the film that's simply a throwaway that doesn't either advance the plot, develops the characters, or is just cool as hell to watch.

2. Doubt: A powerful character driven drama with excellent performances by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Merryl Streep. Intentionally opened ended, its a movie you can discuss at length long after you're done watching it.

3. Slumdog Millionaire: The basic premise of the movie is kind of hokey: A slumdog from one of the poorest parts of India gets the chance of a lifetime as he's selected to be on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." This alone would be enough of a plot for an entertaining, feel-good type of a movie that would probably draw a crowd, but the movie aspires to be something more. As we follow the movie's hero Jamal and his brother Salim from childhood all the way up to Jamal's big moment on the show, we see them take divergent paths as they try and escape poverty, and the conflict that arises between them hilights the plight of the people at the bottom of a society with huge stratification.

4. The Wrestler: A quiet, somber movie from Darren Aronofsky about a washed-up wrestler whose career in the ring has left him physically and emotionally broken down, but who keeps wrestling because it's all he really knows. Mickey Rourke perfectly embodies the lead role.

5. Milk: Led by a great performance by Sean Penn, it tells of the rise and fall of the nation's first openly gay public official. Incredibly prescient in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California.

6. Iron Man: Another great superhero movie which, along with Tropic Thunder, represents a huge comeback for Robert Downey Jr. Not quite as philosophical as Dark Knight, Iron Man is much more reliant on humor and the charm of its characters, and does so very much successfully. The morality tale angle of the movie--which follows Obidiah Stone (Jeff Bridges) as an arrogant executive, trying to steal the Iron Man technology from Tony Stark while simultaneously selling weapons to militia groups around the world--is kind of heavy-handed, but the characters are well written enough such that its still very enjoyable and still puts a smile on your face when Obidiah gets what's coming to him at the end. Sets up for a sequel which has the potential to be every bit as good as the first.

7. Wall-E: An superbly made animated movie with a great, original concept that extends beyond just making jokes about non-human characters doing human things. Manages to introduce you to endearing and charming characters while conveying a somewhat foreboding message. A perfect balance of style and substance, and a shining example of what is possible with animation.

8. Frost/Nixon: Ron Howard takes the play of the same name and adapts it into a pseudo-documentary style movie about the tit-for-tat, boxing match style event that was the series of interviews between David Frost and Richard Nixon in which Frost eventually gets Nixon to admit wrongdoing and express regret over the Watergate cover-up. The actual plot--detailing the run preparation of the interviews, how they came about, and how Frost eventually got around Nixon's ability to control the dynamic of an interview--is fairly interesting, though somewhat predictable. Stealing the show is Frank Langella as Nixon, who shows both his burly, overbearing demeanor as well as an inner struggle with guild and old demons.

9. Tropic Thunder: As mentioned in #3, Tropic Thunder has another fantastic performance by Robert Downey Jr. as (to paraphrase his character's own word) "an Australian dude playin' a black dude, disguised as another dude!", one of four actors trapped in the jungle after their plan to film a Vietnam war movie goes to hell and they run into actual bandits who make and distribute heroin. Directed by Ben Stiller, its a great self-deprecating Hollywood movie, which takes shots at actors who think they're better than they are, film company executives who are painfully self-absorbed, and everything in between.

10. Hellboy II: Yep, one more comic book movie. Hellboy II is definitely in sort of the next tier down from Dark Knight and Iron Man, but still has its merits and is still a lot of fun to watch. The plot is a little bit more cookie-cutter than the two aforementioned movies, but the film has every bit of the gorgeous visual style that Guillermo Del Toro poured into his masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth. Taking us out of the BPRD headquarters where we spent a lot of our time in the first Hellboy, Del Toro presents us with some amazing set pieces from a huge underground society of mythical creatures--from an elven throne room that's been thrown together underneath the New York subway, to a marketplace that's like the new version of the Star Wars cantina scene. Oh, and Ron Pearlman's still great as Hellboy, the demon spawn from the blackest depths who's come to earth to complain a lot about his job and eat pancakes.