May 10, 2009 -- It is way past time to look back on the year 2008. I skipped most of the bad movies, as usual (sue me) so my “worst of” list is almost non-existent this year, but I've seen most of the best films of last year. Usually, there are six to eight A films (four stars out of four), but this year was an exception. I had 12 films that rate an A. This is strange, because it seemed that several months went by this year when there were no films worth seeing. A lot of my top 10 films were films that were not widely distributed for one reason or another. There are enough A films this year that I'm not going to bother to list B+ films this time (I don't use either A- or A+ in my rating system. That's grade inflation.).

As usual, many of the top films are released in December. I saw a number of these films on screeners (thanks to the studios, publicists and the Online Film Critics Society). The rest, I saw in Laramie, Cheyenne, Fort Collins or Denver. Don't feel left out if you haven't seen all these films. Lots of people haven't seen them all. Most of these are now available on home video. There are some acclaimed films that I haven't yet seen yet myself. Many of these films were poorly distributed around the U.S.

I did see “The Dark Knight” of course, which is probably the film with the most awards that didn't make my top 10 list. It was a good film, but it didn't impress me enough to make my top 10 list. The same is true for the animated film “WALL·E.” It made my top five list for animated films, but not top 10 film overall, as it did on many lists. The other film that bowled most critics over was the documentary film “Man on Wire.” It looks better on a big screen. I saw it first on video, where it put me to sleep repeatedly. The critical love for these three films, “The Dark Knight,” “WALL·E” and “Man on Wire” came as a surprise to me. I didn't think these films were good enough to win any awards, with an exception for the late Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker. He was awesome.

Below the list of top films are a list of honorable mentions, followed by lists of my picks for top director, top actor, top foreign film, etc. Those lists are followed by lists of the worst films, overrated films, funniest, saddest, etc. I've added a couple of Dubious Distinction awards as a satirical comment on certain awards that seem to be based on factors that are literally skin deep. Ordinarily, my top 10 lists include more comedy and films starring black actors. That doesn't seem to be the case this year, except for my inclusion of “Definitely, Maybe” as a top film. I'm sure it won't appear on very many top 10 lists. Drama is easy, but romantic comedy is tough to get right.

Page navigation: Honorable mention,  Best of by category,  Funniest movie,   Saddest movie,  Overrated movies,   Best movies you haven't heard of,   Worst movies, Dubious Distinctions.

Links to reviews of all the films below are indexed in the following web pages:

A through B   C through D   E through G   H through L
M through Q   R through S   T through Z

While I saw most of the best films of the year, I purposefully missed nearly all of the worst films, including The Hottie and the Nottie, Harold, Meet the Spartans, Strange Wilderness, College, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Surfer, Dude, Witless Protection, Prom Night, 88 Minutes, Saw V, An American Carol, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, House of the Sleeping Beauties, Take, Postal, Disaster Movie, Repo! The Genetic Opera, The Love Guru, Towelhead, Meet Dave, among many others, so this is not in any way a list of the worst of the worst films, just the worst of the films I saw. After all, I don't get into the movies for free, and I don't like to waste my money, but I got fooled into watching the following films anyway:

The jailbait award is usually won by very attractive, very young women, or girls, some of whom are prepubescent, or at who least look like they might be. Why is this you ask? Because most film critics are men and most men (especially older men) have trouble remembering actors at the end of the year for awards purposes unless they are very young and pretty. O.K., so they are dirty old men.

Past winners are Saoirse Ronan for “Atonement,” Anna Paquin for “The Piano,” Ziyi Zhang for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” of course Polanski's old flame, Natasha Kinski for “Tess” and most of the cast of “Thirteen.”

The award this year goes to Lina Leandersson for “Let the Right One In” (Låt den rätte komma in). She is very pretty and plays the part of a 12-year-old vampire. She also appears partially nude in the film and there is even a brief image of her vagina (unless that shot was of some sort of vagina double) in the film. No contest! We've got a winner!

The second dubious distinction is the Marilyn Chambers Memorial Nudity Award (If I have to take my clothes off to win an award, then so be it):

Kate Winslet wins the 2008 nudity award for her naked performance in “The Reader.” Winslet is a fine actress and she shouldn't have to take off all her clothes to win an Oscar, but that is what it took to get past the competition. She was even better in “Revolutionary Road,” but kept her clothes on in that film, and consequently didn't even get an Oscar nomination for her great performance. She did, however, win a Golden Globe award for her performance in “Revolutionary Road.” Apparently European voters are more jaded about nudity, and can look past it to see the performance underneath, as it were. Past winners of the nudity award are, Rinko Kikuchi for “Babel,” Maria Bello for “A History of Violence” and Kristen Scott Thomas for “The English Patient.”

These are the kinds of awards that guys just never win for some reason.

Links to reviews of all the films are indexed below:

Page navigation: Honorable mention,  Best of by category,  Funniest movie,   Saddest movie,  Overrated movies,  Best movies you haven't heard of,   Worst movies, Dubious Distinctions.