Movie City News has collected the most comprehensive list of top tens anywhere on the web. No one even bothers competing with them on this because they do it so well. There is another site, too, that is more comprehensive in certain ways and is devoted to the top ten lists, http://criticstop10.com/. Check it out. Here is how it’s shaking down so far. They score them in order of where they are on the lists but include how many times the films are mentioned.
1. Wall-E
2. Milk
3. The Dark Knight
4. Slumdog Millionaire
5. The Wrestler
6. Rachel Getting Married
7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
8. Happy-Go-Lucky
9. Let the Right One In
10. A Christmas Tale
Curious about last previous years’ standings?
*nominated for Best Pic/+won Best Pic
1. No Country for Old Men+
2. There Will Be Blood*
3. Zodiac
4. Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5. Once
6. Juno*
7. Atonement*
8. Into the Wild
9. Ratatouille
10. Away from Her
Michael Clayton, at number 15, was also nominated for Best Pic.
More after the cut.
2006
1. United 93
2. The Queen*
3. The Departed+
4. Letters from Iwo Jima*
5. Pan’s Labyrinth
6. Borat
7. Little Miss Sunshine*
8. Babel*
9. Little Children
10. Children of Men
2005
1. Brokeback Mountain*
2. A History of Violence
3. Capote*
4. Good Night, and Good Luck*
5. The Squid and the Whale
6. King Kong
7. Crash+
8. Munich*
9. Grizzly Man
10. 2046
2004
1. Sideways*
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Million Dollar Baby+
4. The Aviator*
5. Before Sunset
6. The Incredibles
7. Kinsey
8. Hotel Rwanda
9. House of Flying Daggers
10. Fahrenheit 911
(other Best Pic nominees from that year that didn’t make the top ten: Finding Neverland at 13, Ray at 16)
It’s weird to think of how the critics can sometimes fall ass over elbow for a movie that just so clearly doesn’t belong (Borat, cough). It’s even weirder for me to have followed the films from the cradle to the grave all of these years. There are movies critics fall in love with that make it, there are movies pushed by great publicists that don’t need the critics – but what we can glean from these archived lists are that after 2004 all five Best Pic nominees were in the top ten. While the list might shift in the next two weeks as more top ten lists come out, this is pretty much it, folks, for 2008.
So far, three of the so-called frontrunners are sitting high atop the critics’ list: Milk, Slumdog and Benjamin Button. Two slots remain up for grabs but probably Frost/Nixon, at number 14, takes one of those. Doubt, therefore, is a long shot at number 29. Not impossible, but a long shot if you use the top ten lists as a current trend that might repeat. Both The Dark Knight and Wall-E also have a shot, obviously.
25 Responses for "Top Ten of the Top Ten"
it’ll be interesting to see if doubt can do work with that 29th rank. it feels like its doing quite well at the moment, with the swell of sag love an all. I’ve now seen Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button, the perceived top 2 at the moment, and I loved both. Benjamin Button scored an A+ on the Casey meter, and might well enter into my top 10 films of all time with another viewing or 2. However, I will not be at all upset if Slumdog beats it for Best Picture, as it registered a solid A for me. I must admit I’m quite behind on my viewing for this season at only 22 films, but I cant say I understand the mass disappointment with this year’s crop of films. I’ve given 4 “A’s” of various degree to Button, TDK, Slumdog, and Wall*E, and a few solid “B+’s” as well. When more critically lauded/ and or Oscar films (Milk, Doubt, Rev. Road, Wrestler, etc.) make their way into my theaters, I can see this turning into an unforgettable year
Looks to me like it’s Milk, Slumdog, Button, and Knight all the way. The latter is in the unique position of being fawned over by critics and the general public alike, and after the ratings disappointment with the last ceremony, it’s just what the Academy needs. As for the fifth slot, I guess it’s either Frost/Nixon or MAYBE Revolutionary Road. Doubt has always felt like a long shot to me and it looks like I was right. But who knows?
I’m part of the disappointment group this year, Casey, but maybe that’s because last year was far too good. I can’t remember the last time that the mainstream embraced pictures as interesting and bold as No Country and There Will Be Blood; whether you loved or hated them, the fact that they weren’t your usual Oscar-bait was EXCITING. Even The Assassination of Jesse James snagged a couple nominations, as did The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Into the Wild. It was as though artistry was tearing down the walls of Hollywood at full force.
2008 has shown me plenty of passable films but none of the Oscar contenders so far have truly moved me. Slumdog is my favorite so far but the story is just too contrived to be part of my Great Films list (I realize that was the point of the film so spare me. Like I said, it’s my favorite of the bunch.) Nothing has moved me more than JCVD, but because it’s about Jean-Claude Van Damme, the snobs in the mainstream media refuse to allow it to be a great film. But it is. Then there’s In Bruges, one of the smartest and wittiest films of recent years that was destroyed by a pathetic marketing strategy that sold it as a poor man’s Guy Ritchie flick. Other than that, I’ve seen a lot of great acting but little else.
“Cinema is not a playground for Sharon Stone.”– Peter Greenaway
I suppose you make a good point but I think I’m in the minority who doesn’t think last year was all it was cracked up to be. I liked some of the movies very much, notably Jesse James, Juno, No Country, and Zodiac, but I think one of the reasons they were accepted into the mainstream was the lack of typical blockbusters (Transformers probably the biggest…?). Furthermore, I think this year has turned the blockbuster to art ratio on it’s head with the typical blockbusters not only scoring big box office but presenting legitimate artistic value. (TDK, Iron Man, Tropic Thunder)
late ‘06 thru 2007 was a golden period imo, so many great films. This year is more lean, but honestly 04-05 were arguably worse.
As for that list, interesting, but likable.
As much as I hate to say it, WALL-E is turning more and more into this year’s “United 93″ or “Eternal Sunshine,” the most critically acclaimed film of the year that stands an outside chance of getting a BP nomination. :/
What stands in WALL-E’s way? I’ve been following, but just to be sure: is it because it’s animated? Because from all that I’ve seen and read, it meets all the criteria of being the “best” of the year. But, when predicting, I realize other factors are considered, like how the Academy will likely vote.
Do watchers feel the Academy won’t be brave enough to go WALL-E? Is that why it’s hovering in 6th place or so, despite its consensus rave? My heart so went out to little WALL-E in the film. It’s hard not to feel emotional and upset over a possible slight now, *frown*.
Jen1: Yes, the Academy has traditionally not nominated animated films for BP. The only exception was in 1991 with “Beauty and the Beast,” and that was before the Oscars had a separate “Best Animated Film” category. Now that there is a Best Animated Film category, the Academy seems inclined to let animated films compete in that arena.
What makes Wall-E a somewhat different case, however, is that it’s winning crit prizes as Best Picture. I’m not sure that’s happened before. When Wall-E won the Los Angeles Film Critics prize, we started entering uncharted territory.
I agree that WALL*E is this year’s United 93 (which is a great film, but the Academy was too scared to nominate it).
I have high hopes that maybe THE VISITOR could get nominated? I like far more than just Richard Jenkins Best Actor performance…The entire movie is pretty heartbreaking—
My pick so far for Best Picture is SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (with MILK a close second, although the more I think about it, it seems like an AMAZING, JAW-DROPPING performance by Sean Penn which is better than the movie as a whole–I’m going to see it again soon so I may revise my opinion). I haven’t seen BUTTON yet and was not very impressed with DOUBT, except for STREEP and ADAMS.
I do think that Wall-E has a chance of becoming a Best Picture nominee. I really can’t see them nominating Doubt or Revolutionary Road over something as critically loved (and rewarded) as Wall-E. At the moment the BP nominee’s look likely to be:
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Milk
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Wall-E
Sasha, you got it all wrong; this guy does it better.
http://criticstop10.com/
In my opinion Gran Torino is the BEST FILM of the year and Clint Eastwood makes the best performance of the year.I think Clint Eastwood will win the oscar for best actor.
Jordan, maybe “you got it all wrong” is the wrong way to put it. The CriticsTop10 list you’re citing matches the MCN calcuations 8 for 10, with very minor shifts in position.
1. WALL-E (139 lists, 19 top spots)
2. Milk (108 lists, 10 top spots)
3. Slumdog Millionaire (99 lists, 21 top spots)
4. The Dark Knight (98 lists, 27 top spots)
5. The Wrestler (87 lists, 7 top spots)
6. Happy-Go-Lucky (75 lists, 9 top spots)
7. Rachel Getting Married (72 lists, 8 top spots)
8. Wendy and Lucy (66 lists, 3 top spots)
9. Man on Wire (64 lists, 1 top spots)
10. A Christmas Tale (63 lists, 9 top spots)
11. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (60 lists, 5 top spots)
12. Let the Right One In (53 lists, 7 top spots)
The major difference in the inclusion of the CriticsTop 11 & 12 moving up to the MCN Top 10. Benjamin Button and Let the Right One iIn replace Wendy & Lucy and Man on Wire.
The CriticsTop 10 doesn’t seem to give any weighted rankings related to a film’s position on the various critics lists.
More interesting to me than the differences is the fairly impressive consistency.
@Casey: last year without blockbusters? I think last year was the record on box office champs. It still is, even with TDK. Last year we had PotC3, Shrek3, Transformers, Spiderman3, Harry Potter whatsthenumber, Bourne3… So I don’t think that’s the reason. I think in a year like the current one, Into the Wild or Zodiac would’ve gotten in.
The top 10 compilations are the best December precursor and far more reliable than RT and Metacritic scores. Sift out the docs, animated, foreign and the esoteric and you have your nominees.
See how much better Benjamin Button fares when the critics look back at the year – very much like the way Crash did.
Picking a top 10 is like voting for a list of nominees, and is quite different from writing reviews on deadline.
From 2006, rewatch The Queen. It is an acting clinic and far better than The Departed.
Ryan/Sasha,
Do you think The Wrestler will sneak into a best picture/best director nomination? It seems to be building buzz at the right moment…kind of reminds me of There Will be Blood from last year.
Or do you think it will suffer the same fate as Gone Baby Gone? A highly-rated critically acclaimed film (Wrestler is at 98% on RT/ 81 on metacritic) and not get nominated?
I wonder what film will be “The Dreamgirls” of this year–with all the hype and expectation, gets shut out of BP/BD nods? Thanks
@Ryan
Maybe that was the wrong way to put it ;p but every year MCN stops tabulating lists in January/febrary- thus ending up with just a few hundred lists. while Criticstop10 ends up having close to 600 by march or april.
The CriticsTop 10 is a terrific and very valuable resource, Jordan. It’s worthy of a main page post. I only meant to make the observation that the more we mix and mash the data, the more clearly the dozen or so best films of the year emerge. The cream does begin to rise to the top when the numbers are massaged with such diligence and care.
I’d love to see The Wrestler rise to the highest ranks of nominees, Alejo. It’ll need some skillful PR and a wider release — fast — because it’s box-office numbers are really low. (But so was the box-office for There Will Be Blood this time last year). I think we all know what movie I hope will be this years Dream/Girls.
I worry that In Bruges could be this year’s Gone Baby Gone. All the more sad because Bruges is even better than GBG.
As a huge supporter of “United 93″ a few years back, which I still defend as worthy of a Best Picture nomination, I think and fear the same thing for “WALL-E.”
I still wonder if “Milk” and “Frost/Nixon” have lost their steam. If they would have went wide this past weekend, they would have bombed.
This race is still “Slumdogs” to lose.
LOL Where’s Benjamin Button???????????????????? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
I find everything David Poland and Movie City News do suspect, and this list is no exception, if for no other reason than their placement of Crash at #7 on the 2005 list. No way. It got a 69 on metacritic, it was 58th on the Premiere Magazine survey of Top 10 lists, and was 30something on the EW survey of Top 10 lists. I remember the ads too, where each year’s true powerhouses post statements like “on over 150 critics top 10 lists”, and Crash had no such bragging rights. Now, I would certainly believe it had the 7th most #1 rankings, but to be #7 on overall top 10s is virtually impossible considering its mediocre critical reception.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Ryan. I agree The Wrestler needs to move wide fast, but it seems to be slwoly building buzz perfectly, having made limited release in Chicago on Christmas day, and expanding on that. Plus it’s the little movie that could–Rourke is all over the place doing interviewds (which is wonderful to see), word of mouth is fantastic and I read its per theater grossing was extremely high.
Yes I agree about In Bruges as well. It’s a wonderful film at many levels, and is worthier than some of the potential nominees.
Haven’t read anyone say this yet: the biggest problem with Wall-E’s path to Best Picture isn’t so much that it’s a cartoon, as that it’s pure science fiction, a genre that critics like but Academy voters don’t. When was the last time a sci fi film got a Best Picture nom? LOTR is fantasy, not sci fi. Sci fi is about man vs. machine, scientists who think they know better, the future, often space travel…LOTR isn’t sci fi. Basically you have to go back 26 years to a little film called E.T., and before that, 5 years before to Star Wars, and before that…if they can snub 2001: A Space Odyssey, they can snub Wall-E.
Armmlr
Leave a reply