The Best Movies of 2007

  

            2007 has been one of the best years for challenging and unique cinema in recent memory. The Hollywood multiplexes were dry as usual with limited offerings, but the art-houses came jam-packed with insightful and resonating pictures from a variety of daring filmmakers. Special mention goes to the following fifteen runner-up picks, which were still worth applauding and certainly rank amongst the year’s best: 3:10 to Yuma (James Mangold), Atonement (Joe Wright), Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer), Charlie Wilson’s War (Mike Nichols), The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson), Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg), Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck), The Hoax (Lasse Hallstrom), The Kite Runner (Marc Forster), Knocked Up (Judd Apatow), Once (John Carney), Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog), Sicko (Michael Moore), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Jake Kasdan)

 

  1. No Country for Old Men

                    

No Country for Old Men is a poetically haunting picture written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, besting their 1996 crime masterpiece Fargo. Javier Bardem is a terrifying sensation as the maniacal killer Chigurh, who sweeps across West Texas in the pursuit of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) and his satchel containing two million dollars. Wearily hunting both is the disillusioned Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones in his best performance.) No Country for Old Men bemoans the careless brutality of a raw and threatening society where heroes and villains are indistinguishable, and one old man is as lost as the next.

  1. There Will Be Blood

                                  

The closest second-placer on my ten-best list ever is Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant and Kubrick-esque There Will Be Blood, featuring a performance by Daniel Day-Lewis that will be studied endlessly and almost certainly win him a Best Actor Academy Award. This picture is the most harrowing and powerful depiction of the demise of the human soul since Scorsese’s Raging Bull.

  1. I’m Not There

                             

Six actors, including Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger, portray legendary musician Bob Dylan. But I’m Not There is not really about Bob Dylan at all; the film rather uses his persona as an example of the futile attempt to set a clear definition of the human character. Director Todd Haynes has created a composite Dylan that is a symbol of the varying personas within us all. No film this year has a more profound statement regarding who we are.

  1. Into the Wild

                             

There isn’t a second of Into the Wild, based on the nonfiction novel by Jon Krakauer, that you can’t feel writer/director Sean Penn behind the camera. His moving account of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), who at the age of nineteen gave away his worldly possessions and ventured out across America on a two-year journey that left him dead in the Alaskan wilderness, illustrates the allure – and consequences – in freeing oneself from society. “I read somewhere…how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong…but to feel strong,” McCandless says. This devastating look at escape is impossible to forget.

  1. Zodiac

                               

Based on the Zodiac killings in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late-1960s/early-1970s, David Fincher’s Zodiac is a brilliant saga of obsession, featuring extraordinary performances from Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal and especially Robert Downey Jr. as the men desperately seeking the identity of the Zodiac killer.

  1. Michael Clayton

This morality tale, written and directed by Tony Gilroy, is supported by career-best performances from George Clooney and Tom Wilkinson. Michael Clayton is the smartest legal thriller in years, featuring what I consider a shoe-in for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

  1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Andrew Dominik’s 160-minute art western is the most inspired and soul-searching take on the genre since The Searchers. Casey Affleck is frighteningly sympathetic as the supposed coward of the title, with Brad Pitt also excelling as the mythological James.

  1. Sweeney Todd/ Juno

These two films don’t really have anything in common whatsoever (except a glorious zeal for great moviemaking) but ergo – Tim Burton’s intimate Sweeney Todd is an unabashedly violent musical that offers a fantastic Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp; and Jason Reitman’s Juno (which was recently named as Roger Ebert’s #1 film of 2007) is hilariously sweet. Mr. Ebert – in any other year, Juno would have been in my top five, too.

  1. American Gangster

American Gangster contrasts the ethics of 1970s self-made drug lord Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) with the troubled life of police officer Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), who eventually caught Lucas.  In Ridley Scott’s excellent film, the honor of the criminal is tested against the flaws of the cop.

  1. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

Sidney Lumet’s statement on brotherly love is disturbing and gritty, chronicling the mistakes of two desperate-for-money brothers (Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), who concoct a scheme to rob their parents’ jewelry store. Lumet builds on this premise that leads to an incredibly explosive and powerful finale.

 

The Ten Worst

 

  1. Rush Hour 3
  2. Death Sentence
  3. Because I Said So
  4. No Reservations
  5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
  6. Shrek The Third
  7. Spiderman 3
  8. License to Wed
  9. Wild Hogs
  10. The Invasion

 

Previous Top  Ten Lists 2001-2006

 

The Top Ten Films of 2006

 

  1. The Departed
  2. The Good Shepherd
  3. Children of Men
  4. Letters from Iwo Jima
  5. Babel
  6. Little Children
  7. United 93
  8. The Queen
  9. The Last King of Scotland
  10. Little Miss Sunshine

 

The Top Ten Films of 2005

 

  1. Munich
  2. Brokeback Mountain
  3. Capote
  4. Syriana
  5. Crash
  6. Walk the Line
  7. Match Point
  8. Sin City
  9. Good Night, and Good Luck
  10. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

 

The Top Ten Films of 2004

 

  1. The Aviator
  2. Million Dollar Baby
  3. Sideways
  4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  5. Collateral
  6. Ray
  7. Kill Bill Volume 2
  8. Before Sunset
  9. Finding Neverland
  10. Hotel Rwanda

 

The Top Ten Films of 2003

 

  1. Mystic River
  2. Lost in Translation
  3. 21 Grams
  4. American Splendor
  5. House of Sand and Fog
  6. Monster
  7. Matchstick Men
  8. Shattered Glass
  9. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
  10. The Fog of War

 

The Top Ten Films of 2002

 

  1. Gangs of New York
  2. Minority Report
  3. Adaptation
  4. About Schmidt
  5. City of God
  6. Far From Heaven
  7. The Quiet American
  8. The Pianist
  9. Road to Perdition
  10. 25th Hour

 

The Top Ten Films of 2001

 

  1. The Royal Tenenbaums
  2. Black Hawk Down
  3. Memento
  4. Ghost World
  5. Gosford Park
  6. A Beautiful Mind
  7. In the Bedroom
  8. The Pledge
  9. Ocean’s Eleven
  10. The Man Who Wasn’t There

                                        

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