What are your 3 favorite movies of 2008?

I searched around, and there's no thread for this yet.

Emphasis on not necessarily the BEST movies, but the ones you personally enjoyed the most.

i wanna say wall-e, burn after reading, and either paranoid park or milk.

1. Speed Racer.

Wall-E no question.

haven't seen 3

i have but i can't name another two i liked as much right now. also i've yet to see a bunch of movies i feel i might love (synecdoche, ny, burn after reading, that swedish vampire flick).

bent, I'm with you:
01. Wall-E
02. Paranoid Park
03. toss up b/w Dark Knight & Standard Operating Procedure

*note A: I have not yet seen any of the late-season Oscar bait.
**note B: If the last two episodes of The Shield could be counted as a "movie," that would easily top my list.

1. Cloverfield
2. Hancock
3. Wall-E

not necessarily the BEST movies, but the ones you personally enjoyed the most.

no comprendo.

people sometimes say things are 'good' when they didn't really enjoy it? Peer/cultural/media pressure? Wouldn't happen here though!

It was very easy to come up with my 3 faves.

i've seen a lot this year that i was meh about. it was not a great year for movies, but i'm sure there's some quality under-the-radar stuff i haven't checked out. wild combination was lovely, would def. be in my top 5.

2. Son of Rambow.

maaaybe battle in seattle -- i enjoyed the intensity of it, but it felt shallow.

do-over

1. Wall-E
2. Iron Man
3. The Dark Knight (probably).

i've explained this in previous threads...

Step-Brothers would be in my favorites for this year, even tho it's really stupid, it made me laugh more than anything else I saw this year

Not necessarily brilliant movies that you still loved

i laughed a lot at step brothers too.

it had good will ferrell ad-libbing, but what will ferrell movie doesnt? the rest was reprehensible

The radar claimed that Step-Brothers and Battle in Seattle were awful.

Step Brothers was OK. Nowhere near the awfulness of Zack & Miri Make A Porno, the worst comedy I've seen this year.

Wall-E, Step-Brothers, In Bruges

LOVED; Wall-E.
LOVED (But not sure if they came out this year or last): Paranoid Park and Cloverfield
Saw in the cinema, wasn't convinced; Saw it at Imax and wow great filim: The Dark Knight

Saw a couple of shit other movies. Still have Son Of Rambow sat on my shelf unwatched...

Going by UK release dates:

1. Iron Man
2. The Dark Knight
3. There Will Be Blood

Haven't seen Wall-E.

Biggest let-downs: Indiana Jones & The Aliens, Cloverfield, Hellboy II, Quantum of Solace.

Wall-E
Wall-E
Wall-E

Paranoid Park came out in the UK right at the end of last year, and in the US a few months later. Cloverfield is definitely 2008.

The first third of Wall-E was surprisingly great, but the rest was just so garish and frenetic. This probably makes me a film rockist, but it really didn't appeal to me as much as, say, Rachel Getting Married or Man on Wire or Milk.

1. I'm Not There
2. Priceless
3. Paranoid Park

3. (tied) REC. and The Orpahange.

Haven't seen Wall-E or In Bruges. No Country For Old Men was okay, but everything else was a bit crap.

a foreign-lang mention! I thought it would take at least 3 weeks.

Well, as I've said elsewhere, 4 Months might well be my #1 if I didn't decide to call it a 2007 film.

1. a british movie about class
2. a gay movie
3. a foreign-language movie

4. a cartoon

My two favorite films so far are Flight of the Red Balloon and The Witnesses.

I might have an opinion on 4 Months if Netflix hadn't sent four different damaged copies.

but it really didn't appeal to me as much as, say, Rachel Getting Married or Man on Wire or Milk.

This makes it seem like these are my top three. I'm not sure that's the case -- I don't really like to obsess over list placement until January -- but all will likely make my top 10.

but won't more films you'll end up considering 2008 reach you in February? That's why I make lists at least 2 years later.

http://www.leninimports.com/shirley_maclaine_out_on_a_limb_book.jpg

There's usually no more than one film that I care about that I have to wait until February to see in the theater. 4 Months and Inland Empire are the most recent examples of this. If I missed a film in the theater and have to wait for the DVD release the following spring/summer, then that's my fault.

milk
wall-e
cloverfield

prob forgetting something tho

Stranded
Tokyo Sonata
The Fall

I can't even remember 3 movies I've seen this year, but I really enjoyed Sukiyaki Western Django.

let the right one in
wall-e
man on wire

cloverfield was awesome in theatre but i'd never rent it don't think. really liked i'm not there. prob forgetting tons.

if i had actually seen them, i think my top 3 would be Up the Yangtze, Shine a Light and Wall-E, tho Wendy and Lucy and Waltz With Bashir are tk

;)

also Frost/Nixon and Theater of War

tho Meryl prob can't look more radiant than in Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

Frost/Nixon is a travesty best enjoyed by ppl who know nothing about RMN or the '70s.

so it's perfect for me, rite?

Wall-E
Pineapple Express
King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Shit, imdb says King of Kong came out 07.

Replace it with...uh...Kung Fu Panda.

the iMdB uses the year a film was first shown anywhere, even once.

twilight

forgetting sarah marshall
in bruges
wall-e

Wanted
Wall-e
Iron Man

Wanted may be one of the dumbest movies ever made but I love it anyway.

Wall-E
Dark Knight
Iron Man

geez, apparently I am 14 years old.

fwiw, I keep meaning to get to Synechoche NY

The King Of Kong is amazing, but yeah.. it was 2007.

You could always vote for his follow-up, Four Christmases. ;)

I feel bad just saying three (i posted my top 25 in the other thread)

the diving bell and the butterfly
the dark knight
and maybe paranoid park, nice to see it getting so much appreciation. i kind of can't remember what else came out. there seemed to be a good run of sight and sound picks like syndromes and a century, but i forget exactly what i saw.

the diving bell and the butterfly is 2007

My top 3 right now are Viva, Flight of the Red Balloon and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, but I'm pretty sure I overrated the middle one, in which case WALL·E slips in there.

Was 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days this year? I thought it was '07. That was great.

viva = the sexploitation throwback that opened nyuff this yr? or something else?

i didnt watch many movies this year but

wall e
role models
dark knight?

step brothers was horrible

Oh yes ROLE MODELS was great.

It was Ruddalicious.

after finals i will catch up on a lot of movies and music hopefully. need to see stuff esp. slumdog and synedoche

Two Lovers
Wall E
Dark Knight

Aside from the first 45 mins of WALL-E, at the moment I'd likely go with

Still Life
Woman on the Beach
and My Winnipeg or The Witnesses

Anyone else?? My netflix is a dry sponge.

Still Life
The Witnesses
Rachel Getting Married

Haven't seen too many new movies this year, the only really great one so far has been Happy-Go-Lucky, but it was great indeed.

I guess I need to see Wall-E.

I saw Still Life at least a year and a half ago and Woman on the Beach way before that, but they both would have made my list.

The Duchess of Langeais
WALL-E
A Christmas Tale

I guess if I would have to choose two other flicks, they'd be Dark Knight and You Don't Mess with the Zohan, though I found both of them entertaining but not what you'd call great.

Since I've only seen 4 films in a cinema this year (and one of those was a screening of the original Solaris)
So it would have to be:
1. Iron Man
2. The Baader-Meinhof Complex
3. Dark Knight

In Bruges is awful

Awful is pushing it. I just found it a bit too written for my taste, plus I didn't find the farce it descended into very entertaining.

My favourite critically overlooked film of the year is Flashbacks Of A Fool. Had me in tears. Maybe my second favourite film of the year if I was being strict and not allowing I'm Not There or Paranoid Park.

i thought the farce was the point. it was gross. i think lots of violent movies are, tho.

i wouldn't mind seeing more of Clémence Poésy, tho

Oh yeah, I'm with you there.

I think it would take a lot to make me really like a comedy about gangsters these days. Was never that interesting a mix to me in the first place and by now it's just so played out.

"In Bruges is awful"

I never thought I would agree so strongly with gabbneb. ;)

It's very stagey, but after a while I kind of enjoyed that. It was just quite refreshing for a British movie to have, y'know, funny dialogue. I'm sure McDonagh will make much better films.

Maybe I just felt sorry for Farrell after he was in Cassandra's Dream :/

I can understand that impulse, but that dialogue was not funny. And I like a lot of McDonagh's plays.

i'm just dropping in to say that Wall-E was fucking stupid and boring and predictable and it makes me sad that so many smart people like that crap. byeeeee!

Burn After Reading would be in my top three, btw

have yet to see Paranoid Park or Happy-Go-Lucky

ur fucking stupid!

OWNED

FACE

BURN

Wall-E was fucking stupid and boring and predictable

That's fine, but just so you know, you were born without a soul.

So now I'm probably the only one here so far who had all 3 movies ripped apart. It feels good.

i am going to see let the right on in tonight and hopefully it will be as good as i am anticipating (ie: the greatest fucking thing ever) and i still havent seen synechdoche, which i also expect to shake things up. as it stands, these are the five movies i've seen this year that i remember being really good: sukiyaki western django, pineapple express, vicki cristina barcelona, burn after reading, the dark knight.

I basically quit going to the art house theatres (fuck you, entitled talkative yuppie fuckers + fuck you, Mark Cuban for making the Magnolia and Inwood suck, could you really not find better programming than fucking Twilight?) and never get to DVDs, so my list is Morbius unfriendly.

Rachel Getting Married
Role Models
X-Files

im surprised by the love burn after reading is getting here btw

coens = genius.
haven't seen the new one but want to

it not v good tbh kevin

yeah, i'm not going to go in with huge expectations. not everything they do has gotta be a landmark. if they can put together a tight movie with good writing, good acting, and good direction every once in a while it makes me happy. it's like in music when you listen to one of your favorite band's not-so-great albums. you can still find something endearing in just about everything, because they're the people who consistently make you so happy, even if it doesn't all come together and work
(nb i've never been outright disappointed by a coen flick, but then again i've avoided the ladykillers and intolerable cruelty thus far :p)

nothing they've ever done has been a landmark

cloverfield
wall-e
kung fu panda

nb i saw all of these twice

who am i turning into that *serious* movies bore me?

Paranoid Park was ok

I saw fuck all as far as new movies this year, but:

Burn After Reading
Role Models
Dark Knight

Rachel Gets Married and Synechdoche are hovering around there. Seriously, I think the only others I saw all year were W, Iron Man and C. Wilson's War. Oh yeah and Religulous.

Ha that's actually prob more than I usually see at the cinema in a typical year..

nothing they've ever done has been a landmark

― sad man in him room (milo z), Wednesday, December 3, 2008 8:57 PM (22 minutes ago)

cmon, i've been provoked better than that ;)

What an awful fucking year for movies.

okay, i'll take the bait!
subs. "classic" for "landmark." i'd say they've got at least three of those (and those are just the boring, canon choices!) if you happen to think otherwise, surely we can agree that they're posterboys for postmodern cinema (for better or worse), at least in the mainstream

So no one else besides me thought Happy-Go-Lucky was one of the best movies of thisear? I thought it was one of the freshest films I've seen in years in its willingness to go against all expectations, thought I guess you have to be a non-cynic (or even an anti-cynic) to like it.

Btw, I'm going to see Wall-E this Saturday, I hope I won't be disappointed.

The Dark Knight was great. Iron Man was good. Missed Burn After Reading when it played here and other than that I haven't really been paying attention.

4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days
Hunger
No Country For Old Men

but not really a great year (for films with a domestic UK release anyway).

nothing

oh, Burn after reading is okaay

After Wall-E and Iron Man I was going to say Cthulhu but apparently that is also 2007.

So uh...

There's a Cthulhu movie now?!

The Dark Knight
Wall-E

And then any one from There Will be Blood, Iron Man, No Country For Old Men, that eastern european film about abortion if it counts as this year, and some other stuff I can't recall.

Yes actually I'm counting There Will Be Blood and No Country which are both better than Dark Knight... so there has been a number of great films this year after all

So no one else besides me thought Happy-Go-Lucky was one of the best movies of thisear?

I liked it a lot, Tuomas. It would probably make my top 10, but not top 3. It was spoiled a little by its didacticism. Like Mike Leigh is too in the spell of Poppy's character and wanting to force her attributes down people's throats.

vicki cristina barcelona

despite it playing at the angelika for like five thousand years, i can still not motivate myself to go see this. i love woody allen and have diligently watched scoop, enjoyed match point etc, but somewhere deep down i know that while i'll think it was o k, this won't be good. am i wrong? should i go? it's still playing.

IN BRUGES? *AWFUL*?? wow i thought it was great.

So no one else besides me thought Happy-Go-Lucky was one of the best movies of thisear? I thought it was one of the freshest films I've seen in years in its willingness to go against all expectations, thought I guess you have to be a non-cynic (or even an anti-cynic) to like it.

― Tuomas, Thursday, December 4, 2008 5:32 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dled hav not watched yet

burn after reading was pretty dumb

i think mine are probably--

wall-e
cloverfield
dark knight

or something

Most films you guys will be talking about in the Oscar run-up haven't even opened yet.

milo, I've only seen one of the 3 films you mention and I liked it.

Tuomas, I've been a Mike Leigh fan for close to 20 years but haven't had time to see H-G-L, for fuck's sake.

Pretty boring list really:

1. Cloverfield
2. No Country For Old Men
3. The Dark Knight

Seeing Blade Runner in the cinema for the first time was more exciting than all of these, though.

God Speed Racer ruled so hard.

Of the ones I've seen, my favorites were probably "Rachel Getting Married", "Tropic Thunder", and "Run Fat Boy Run". (I'm not counting "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will be Blood", which were 2007 releases here.)

omg tropic thunder totally forgot abt that - def in the running

Indiana Jones and the Temple of the CGI Monkeys
Wall-E
I'm Not There--wasn't crazy about this but loved the coversation I had w/a friend a few weeks later. we'd seen it at different times, he tried to sell me on it.

Run Fat Boy Run

!!

subs. "classic" for "landmark." i'd say they've got at least three of those (and those are just the boring, canon choices!) if you happen to think otherwise, surely we can agree that they're posterboys for postmodern cinema (for better or worse), at least in the mainstream

You think the legions of Big Lebowski quoting asshats are really thinking of them in terms of postmodernism? Really?

Cuz I think they make quirky mainstream comedies that are sometimes amusing, more often not, and certainly haven't managed to create anything classic.

who gives a shit about a bunch of lebowskifest dbags. anyway, they've done more than just comedies obv and i think they've got several classics in the bag.

blood simple raising arizona fargo and no country for old men are all classic as shit

miller's crossing too, i think.

i watched it recently and it didnt live up to my memory :/

^yes and big L for sure and maybe millers Xing (xp)

milo, wasnt saying mainstream types think if them this way...i was grouping the coens under "mainstream cinema"

maybe not my top 3 but movies that haven't been mentioned:

Redbelt (enjoyable if minor)
Shake the Devil Off (documentary about the catholic church trying to shut down st. augustine in new orleans, post-katrina)
The Pool (imdb says 2007, but i saw it in a theater a month ago and it's not on dvd yet)

hmm i really liked in bruges didn't know there was a lot of hate.

o man forgot abt redbelt too

My favourite critically overlooked film of the year is Flashbacks Of A Fool. Had me in tears. ― Alba, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:45

Of laughter? Just watched this and can only presume your critical faculties were blinded by all the willowy posh girls.