Best of 2007: The Year in Review

With the 80th Academy Awards ceremony now in the bag and No Country for Old Men proclaimed as the best picture of 2007, here is your chance to offer your own choices for the "Best of 2007."

The list can be as long as you'd like, but try to include at least your top 10 films of the year (this is “The Film Script’s” one diversion from our top 7 lists). Then after you list your top films of the year, you can also include honorable mentions, a list of films you missed that you would still like to catch up with, best performances and even worst of the year if you’d like. Anything really.

Personally I'm going to comment on the top ten individually and then maybe post my "'07 Misses" and "Best Performances" in the comments section, but it's up to you what you want to talk about and how you want to do it.

For now, let's put 2007 officially in the books...

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Well, before I even get into my own "Best of 2007" list, I'd like to publicly apologize to the filmmakers of '07. Early on in the year - for good reason I still say - I criticized the lack of quality films that had been released all the way up through June (this syndrome has already started to have a similar effect on me in 2008, with only a handful of releases this year even piquing my interest).

I understand that the serious Oscar contenders are usually reserved for late in the year, but still… I didn’t expect the season to be so outrageously back-loaded. Only 1 of the films on my Top 10 list was even released to a wide audience before August. This studio tactic really leaves you scrambling at the end of the year trying to catch up with all the quality releases before the Oscar telecast – and who wants to go into the Oscars not having seen most of the films up for nominations?

But that’s a different topic, now on with the list –

#10 Gone, Baby, Gone
Starting at 10 and working my way on down, Gone, Baby, Gone was the type of hard-boiled crime pic that I honestly didn’t think Ben Affleck had in him until the trailer debuted. And even that didn’t prepare me for the moral questions and resonance that you’re left with. Not flawless, but easily the best debut feature of the year.


#9 Juno
Juno meanwhile was probably the most purely enjoyable and ‘fun’ film all year (although there was a handful of other worthy choices too). After a rocky start, the film really blossoms into a wonderful story about coming to be the person you should be. Invitations to the Oscar party, at least for Best Picture, might have been a little much but it also doesn't deserve the backlash it's been receiving recently.


#8 Eastern Promises
Eastern Promises I might have marginally overrated upon my first viewing (I moved it down my list a notch or two when I had to finalize the placements), but it’s still a moody little movie that guts you… by sticking a knife in you and everyone else on screen. A rock-solid follow-up to A History of Violence. Keep Viggo and Cronenberg working together.


#7 I'm Not There
The film with the most experimental soul of the year, I’m Not There does a pitch perfect job of trying to portray a man that refused to be pinned down. It ranges all over the place and takes six actors to do the trick, but director Todd Haynes still manages to make it all seem so easy and seamless.


#6 The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bourne Ultimatum marked what was supposed to be the end of the Jason Bourne saga and it went out with a bang, sending up the previous pictures and continuing the razor sharp scriptwriting from Tony Gilroy. Rumors of a fourth Bourne feature have already started… and are welcome.


#5 Zodiac
Released so long ago that it was completely and unjustly overlooked by the Oscars, Zodiac has David Fincher back in the serial killer realm stubbornly refusing to follow any of the paths that he himself helped to establish in Se7en. The film is all dead ends and clues that lead no where… and somehow puts the audience into the same mindset as its protagonist.


#4 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
At least Zodiac found a Fincher audience though, because The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was the best film that absolutely nobody saw, in spite of the presence of Brad Pitt as Jesse James. The melancholy nature of its storytelling and epic length surely had something to do with it, but this a lovely and beautiful film to watch unfold. And what’s so striking is that it’s a tragedy for every character involved.


#3 There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson continues to amaze. In There Will Be Blood he throws out all of the stylistic choices he had previously relied on in films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia, instead going for a much sharper, direct tale of a greedy, sociopathic oil man. I’ve never seen a film that captures and exudes the personality of its main character more.


#2 No Country for Old Men
Another Coen Brothers’ masterpiece, and rightfully chosen as the Best Picture of 2007 from amongst the contenders, No Country for Old Men does a lot of the same things that Zodiac does, manipulating a proven, familiar story into something more. What elevates it towards being the best picture of the year, besides its brilliant acting and directing, is the lost soul embodied in Tommy Lee Jones character. It’s through him the Coens show the horrible, indefinable nature of evil in the world and make the point hit home.


#1 Into the Wild
Into the Wild. The best film of 2007. I’ve been praising it from the minute I walked out of the theater and haven’t stopped since (it’s also the movie I’ve passed along to friends more than any other to try to get the word of mouth spreading). In a year when there were so many dark and brooding films, it’s refreshing to see a movie that is so enthralling and life-affirming captured so well. It’s a film about the need for human interaction, about connections and friendship, about living your own way and finding your own path and director Sean Penn just portrays it perfectly. He captures not only the relationships and the scenery, but the spirit of Christopher McCandless’s journey. Easily my #1.

And the runners up that barely missed my list –

11. Knocked Up
12. Ratatouille
13. Superbad
14. The Lives of Others
15. No End in Sight
16. Death Proof
17. Once
18. Atonement
19. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
20. The Wind That Shakes the Barley
21. The Lookout

And the rest of the films I found worthwhile in 2007 –

B+ Breach, Lars and the Real Girl, Hot Fuzz, Talk to Me, Waitress, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Grindhouse, The Hoax, Away From Her, The Darjeeling Limited, Rescue Dawn, Reign Over Me, 3:10 to Yuma, Control

B Michael Clayton, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Black Snake Moan, 28 Weeks Later…, The Savages, American Gangster, Reno 911! Miami, The Simpsons Movie, Stardust, I Am Legend, Mr. Brooks, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Bug, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Namesake, Black Book, Wristcutters: A Love Story, In the Valley of Elah, Sicko, A Mighty Heart

B- Sunshine, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Alpha Dog, Lucky You, Ocean’s Thirteen, Margot at the Wedding, Live Free or Die Hard, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, First Snow, Persepolis, The Kingdom, Paris Je T’aime