Much as we did last year, we're devoting the last column of the year to a look back rather than a look forward. As recently as a few months ago, it seemed 2008 was going to end up an uneven year at the movies, at least lacking the sort of instant classics and works of mad genius that made 2007 such a thrill. But in the end, we had a lot of trouble assembling this list -- not out of a lack of great material, but more because there were so many titles which we were reluctant to not recognize.

There are some troubling signs in this list, though. The dearth of material from major Hollywood studios is unsurprising; but many titles here were made via the studios' specialty divisions, many of which are folding or have already been absorbed back into the studios. With specialty divisions collapsing and studios increasingly reticent to sink money into material without a proven audience (even Frost/Nixon, one of the two major studio films on this list, only managed to get made with the support of European money from StudioCanal), it could be a bleak near-term future for marquee American filmmaking. But then again, considering the quality of much of the relatively low-budget foreign, documentary, and true indie films out there this year, maybe we won't even miss it.

So with that, our top ten, with the usual weekly caveats of "highly subjective" and "hardly comprehensive".

• The Wrestler: Mickey Rourke gives both the performance of the year, and of his career, as a broken down professional wrestler at a crossroads. Terribly and deeply alone, he seeks companionship and friendship in a stripper facing similar issues in her own life. Estranged from his daughter after years of being an absent father and an all-around asshole, he clumsily tries to mend their broken relationship. Facing career-ending (and potentially life-ending) health trouble, he tries to figure out where his life is going next, even as he looks for one last shot at glory in the ring. You don't have to be a fan of wrestling to be a big fan of the glorious and heart-breaking highs and lows that director Darren Aronofsky has achieved in this picture.
• Che (Part 1 and Part 2): When Steven Soderbergh's lengthy biopic of the life of Che Guevara comes out in wide release in January, it'll arrive as two separate movies, which is the way the pair were made. But seeing the two together -- as one singular epic -- makes one wish the producers would allow for more screenings of the two together, as they provide a beautifully distilled dichotomy of the life of the revolutionary leader. The first half deals with Che's time in the Cuban revolution, and presents him as an uncompromising idealist whose passion is reflected in every soldier under his command. The second covers his final campaign in a gritty and meticulous verite style, detailing the many failings of both philosophy and strategy in the Bolivian revolution that would kill the man. Soderbergh is apolitical and unsentimental, depicting Che as neither hero nor villain; he is simply presenting arduously researched realities and letting the audience make their own judgements. Benecio del Toro -- much like Rourke -- delivers his tour de force in a film that will, sadly, be seen by very few in the U.S. due to its dense subject matter, subtitles (the dialogue is not changed from the historically accurate Spanish to cater to a U.S. audience), and January release. But it deserves to be seen. And greatly admired.
• In Bruges: This film was met with mixed reviews when it was released to the late winter graveyard where movies are often sent to die in the infancy of 2008. Count me on the glowing side of that mix. The Tarantino of the British stage, Martin McDonagh, takes his usual intellectually profane blend of violence-laced drama and moves it to the big screen with a surprisingly assured directorial hand. His story of two hitmen stuck in what is either the most picturesque or dull town in all of Europe (depending on which you ask) is original, engaging, and a shocking reminder of just how sensitive an actor Colin Farrell can be.



• Gomorra: With a focus as deeply varied as The Wire and the breathtaking pace and atmosphere of City of God, this Italian crime drama takes on the difficult task of detailing the country's intricate crime world, and the centuries-old Camorra organizations that have made Neapolitan suburbs like Scampia into practically lawless towns where the only rule is that of the crime families. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano that earned the author a price on his head from a number of those Camorra families, the film takes five tangentially related stories and cross-cuts them into an enthralling look at one of the world's most entrenched and ruthless criminal networks.
• Let the Right One In: 2008 may be remembered as the year of the vampire in pop culture, what with HBO's Alan Ball-created, soapy, southern-gothic shark-jumper True Blood and the literary conclusion and cinematic introduction to the wildly popular sparkling vampires and chaste teen swooning of the Twilight series. But the best blood-sucker of the year comes in the form of this gorgeously shot gem from Sweden, in which an outcast young boy finds an unlikely friend in his new neighbor, who is his age but doesn't go to school, go out in the day, or take very kindly to normal food. The ending is a slightly missed opportunity to take the story into a more tragic full circle, but it still doesn't take away from a film that broods as beautifully as it bleeds.
• The Dark Knight: Remove all the superhero trappings and the slight implausibilities of character or physics; what's left at the dark and moody center of Christopher Nolan's second Batman film is one of the finest crime dramas in years. One could easily see such a film released in 70s, maybe a slightly less stylized version from Sidney Lumet sandwiched somewhere in the midst of Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, and Prince of the City. Maybe a young Al Pacino, minus the greasepaint, as the psychotic and sociopathic crimelord, Gene Hackman the stony-faced rogue vigilante? At any rate, in comic book mode, Nolan never makes it cartoonish or dumbs things down for the action, and Heath Ledger more than lives up to the hype.
• Happy-Go-Lucky: We all know Mike Leigh is consistently brilliant with dark and depressing subject matter, but with this effort, he proves to have more range than even his most ardent fans might have given him credit for. While the life of his heroine -- a London schoolteacher called Poppy -- touches on some dark places, the overwhelming theme of the movie is really the power of positive thinking. Brightly colored and cheerful, Leigh's film manages to be joyful but never smarmy, sweet but never saccharine.
• Slumdog Millionaire: Genre-hopper Danny Boyle heads to the subcontinent to make a feel-good movie about a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? -- on whom good fortune shines by only feeding him questions that his somewhat checkered past has specifically equipped him to answer. Boyle's film is so satisfying because it takes an unlikely premise and makes it entirely believable and enormously entertaining. He dips his toe in the Bollywood pool while making a nearly entirely Western film about Eastern culture, and gets the blend just right.
• Man on Wire: In 1975, a group of men snuck to the top of the World Trade Center, strung a wire between the towers -- and for 45 breathtaking minutes, one of them danced and strolled from tower to tower some 400 meters above the pavement below. The story of Philippe Petit's daredevil stunt is as much a heist movie as anything else, and what he did was as much a work of ephemeral public art as it was an insane stunt. James Marsh's documentary strikes all the right balances between biography and documentary thriller, all with a touch of Petit's impish whimsy. It all builds towards the wire walk itself, which is so moving after what's come before that you might just find yourself a little choked up. Marsh and Petit also never mention the elephant in the room, the fact that the towers that Petit practically floated between are no longer there. That fact is all the more poignant for never being explicitly addressed.
• Frost/Nixon: Signs of the coming apocalypse, according to a friend of mine: the rumored reunion of the Smiths, and the fact that Ron Howard has actually managed to make not just a good, but a great film. Howard silences his usual tendencies towards melodrama and creates a nervy and thrilling film about two guys sitting down to talk for 30 hours. Howard has a great deal of assistance from the source material (the brilliantly constructed play by Peter Morgan, who also adapts his work for the screen), as well as a trio of hearty and riveting performances by Frank Langella as Nixon (who'd be a shoo-in for Best Actor if it wasn't for Mickey Rourke and Benicio del Toro's performances), Michael Sheen as Frost, and Sam Rockwell as the the nervous and idealistic journalist pushing Frost to make this into more than a TV news magazine puff piece.

- Rachel Getting Married: Jonathan Demme spins his best yarn since Silence of the Lambs with this uncomfortable and ultimately redemptive study in upper-middle-class familial dysfunction. And who knew the dude from TV on the Radio would be such a good actor?
- Milk: The most inspiring and simultaneously devastating film anywhere on this page, Gus Van Sant finds more breathing room within the constraints of the biopic format than most, while Sean Penn shines.
- Wall*E: Like Snow White in 1937, this is the film by which all animated films for generations to come will be judged. The first third of the film in particular is the most daring piece of mainstream filmmaking of the year.
- Gran Torino: Clint Eastwood's best film since Unforgiven slightly stumbles early on with faux-gangsta dialogue that sounds painfully false, but recovers quickly, sensitively targeting issues from race to aging to cultural integration -- all centered around a tough and elegant performance by director Eastwood in the lead.
- Encounters at the End of the World: Werner Herzog's documentary on the population of Antarctica continues in his usual vein of madmen, dreamers, and visionaries who try to make a place for themselves in an indescribably beautiful -- yet chaotic and wholly unforgiving -- natural world.