The Cinematical Team's Picks for the Best of 2008

This just in: Cinematical loves movies. So I thought it would be smart to poll the Cine staff, get a bunch of Top 10s, send all the data over to Goss for the math, and then publish the list here for everyone to see. Yes, that's right: We have a Top 10 Movies of 2008 article. We expect to start a big trend with this piece.

01) The Dark Knight -- The highest-grossing film of the year (and second-highest of all time) also happened to be one of the best films of the year -- how often does that happen? Christopher Nolan's dark morality play had something for fanboys, film critics, and regular moviegoers alike, making it the rare entertainment spectacle that actually deserved the attention it received. The bar keeps getting raised on "superhero" movies, but can the genre get much better than this? -- Eric D. Snider

02) Let the Right One In -- One of the strangest, sweetest, and most unexpectedly powerful films of the year. This tale of a vampiric young girl and her human new friend is one of those horror movies that reminds you how excellent the genre CAN be. -- Scott Weinberg

03) Slumdog Millionaire -- I hate to be the fuddy-duddy who goes for the conventional, predictable pick, but this year I can't help it. The best film of Danny Boyle's career is a fairytale, wrenching and funny and impossibly rousing; it transported me to another world, made me cry and want to leap out of my seat. By the time the closing Bollywood dance number wrapped up, I had given Slumdog my heart. -- Eugene Novikov

04) The Wrestler -- It may not look like much beyond your typical comeback-redemption story, but Darren Aronofsky's intimate drama both is and isn't in all the best ways. And out of a small but strong cast, in a small but quietly powerful movie, Mickey Rourke deserves every last accolade that is surely coming to him. It's a performance that will last, in a movie that should as well. -- William Goss

05) Wall-E -- Beyond the Hello Dolly songs and painfully cute robots is a haunting look into the not-so-distant future. I can't really throw anything away without thinking that 700 years from now, one lonely Wall E unit is crushing it into a cube. People decried its environmental "politics," but it wasn't just telling you to recycle, it was warning us against drowning out reality with cupcakes in a cup and iPhones. Look around you, appreciate what you see, and realize the simple pleasure of holding hands with someone you love. It only takes a moment, after all. -- Elisabeth Rappe

06) Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father -- Not often does a film come along that makes you want to change something about yourself and the world, but the fantastic Oscar-worthy documentary Dear Zachary... -- which will rip your heart out and drop it into the middle of a boxing match for an hour and a half before returning it beaten, battered and in need of repair -- is just one of those films you have to experience and talk about and share with the ones you love. -- Erik Davis

07) Synecdoche, New York -- The directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman features the surreal, symbolic storytelling you'd expect from the writer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation. Once you stop trying to analyze it all and sit back and let it wash over you, it's an incredible experience, with top performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams and Dianne Wiest. -- Jette Kernion

08) Happy-Go-Lucky -- It's a rare gem that can fuel a feature film base on the thrills of positivity, rather than the spoils of bitterness. Poppy's exuberant, happy-go-lucky attitude is not only a lesson for us all, but one for Hollywood -- sometimes a little positivity doesn't hurt. It's wonderful when you can learn something on the big screen without feeling like you just came out of a lesson. -- Monika Bartyzel

09) Burn After Reading -- Slyly undermining expectations, the Coen Brothers took a savagely funny look at Washington, espionage, privacy, spy movies, the politics of relationships, and, most of all, our obsession with ourselves. In a nation of people living in denial, the Coens mock celebrated our relentless pursuit of unhappiness.-- Peter Martin

10) Milk -- Gus Van Sant turns the traditional bio-pic into a warm character study, a grim thriller, a fascinating meditation on laws and rights, a stylized retro trip through the '70s and a clear concise look towards how we live now. Penn's performance is enthralling -- you can watch his Harvey Milk dare everyone around him, and himself, to do the right thing -- and the surrounding supporting cast make a bygone age come alive with swift, sure graceful moments. Dustin Lance Black's script avoided almost every bio-pic pitfall, and Van Sant's stylistic choices -- to never show anti-gay organizer Anita Bryant outside of video news footage, for example, or showing a murder scene in the mirrored surface of the victims' whistle -- filled Milk with subtle, special art. -- James Rocchi

Our individual Top Tens:

James Rocchi

1) Che
2) The Wrestler
3) Slumdog Millionaire
4) Milk
5) Reprise
6) Ballast
7) The Dark Knight
8) Man on Wire
9) Funny Games
10) Waltz with Bashir

Eric D. Snider

1) Wall-E
2) Synecdoche, New York
3) Dear Zachary...
4) Son of Rambow
5) The Wrestler
6) Tropic Thunder
7) Young @ Heart
8) The Dark Knight
9) Cloverfield
10) Boy A

Jette Kernion

1) Synecdoche, New York
2) Milk
3) Let the Right One In
4) The Wrestler
5) JCVD
6) Dear Zachary...
7) Medicine for Melancholy
8) Standard Operating Procedure
9) Hellboy II: The Golden Army
10) Slumdog Millionaire

Richard von Busack

1) Wall-E
2) The Dark Knight
3) Happy-Go-Lucky
4) The Fall
5) Revolutionary Road
6) My Winnipeg
7) A Christmas Tale
8) Up the Yangtze
9) Milk
10) Around the Bay

Nick Schager

1) Synecdoche, New York
2) Flight of the Red Balloon
3) Boarding Gate
4) Reprise
5) The Dark Knight
6) Dear Zachary...
7) Chris & Don: A Love Story
8) Encounters at the End of the World
9) The Strangers
10) August Evening

Jeffrey M. Anderson

1) Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2) Flight of the Red Balloon
3) The Dark Knight
4) Rachel Getting Married
5) Happy-Go-Lucky
6) Gran Torino
7) Still Life
8) Burn After Reading
9) My Blueberry Nights
10) Encounters at the End of the World

Peter Martin

1) Let the Right One In
2) Tell No One
3) Man on Wire
4) Wall-E
5) Timecrimes
6) The Pool
7) Encounters at the End of the World
8) Burn After Reading
9) Astropia
10) Dance of the Dead

Erik Davis

1) Slumdog Millionare
2) The Dark Knight
3) Dear Zachary...
4) Burn After Reading
5) Let the Right One In
6) The Wrestler
7) Doubt
8) Tropic Thunder
9) The Living Wake
10) Milk

Eugene Novikov

1) Slumdog Millionaire
2) The Visitor
3) The Dark Knight
4) Let the Right One In
5) Flame & Citron
6) Wall-E
7) The Wrestler
8) Rachel Getting Married
9) Midnight Meat Train
10) Body of Lies

Jessica Barnes

1) The Dark Knight
2) Taxi to the Dark Side
3) Iron Man
4) Cloverfield
5) Pineapple Express
6) Standard Operating Procedure
7) How She Move
8) Redbelt
9) Forgetting Sarah Marshall
10) Synecdoche, New York

Monika Bartyzel

1) The Dark Knight
2) My Winnipeg
3) The Brothers Bloom
4) Happy-Go-Lucky
5) Burn After Reading
6) Appaloosa

William Goss

1) The Fall
2) The Dark Knight
3) Dear Zachary...
4) The Wrestler
5) Man on Wire
6) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
7) Son of Rambow
8) Let the Right One In
9) Forgetting Sarah Marshall
10) Slumdog Millionaire

Scott Weinberg

1) Let the Right One In
2) Slumdog Millionaire
3) Son of Rambow
4) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5) In Bruges
6) The Dark Knight
7) Wall-E
8) Iron Man
9) Eden
10) Hancock (unrated version)

Elisabeth Rappe

1) Wall-E
2) Gran Torino
3) The Dark Knight
4) Appaloosa
5) Iron Man
6) In Bruges
7) Tropic Thunder
8) RocknRolla
9) The Duchess
10) Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day