The LA Times’ Kenneth Turan says what we’ve all been thinking:
But while slots two to 10 will be listed alphabetically, I’m going to depart from my usual practice and name a clear No. 1 film: Danny Boyle’s exhilarating “Slumdog Millionaire.”
I’m naming it No. 1 because of the effect it had on me as well as almost everyone I’ve talked to. Watching it was like seeing an old friend long presumed dead suddenly walking around town as healthy as you please. “Slumdog” is a modern version of an old-fashioned Hollywood-style audience picture, an updated romantic melodrama whose outlines the Warner brothers themselves would have embraced. If you think this kind of thing is easy to do, you haven’t been going to the movies lately.
- #1 — Slumdog Millionaire
- A Christmas Tale and The Class
- Frost/Nixon
- Frozen River and Ballast
- Gomorrah and Happy Go Lucky
- Rachel Getting Married
- Sundance documentaries *
- Tell No One
- WALL-E
- Waltz With Bashir
* Man on Wire, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Stranded, and Trouble the Water