Why only 8? Because I’m a philis­tine and haven’t yet seen many of 2007’s most acclaimed films (look for a post on that sub­ject later). So here they are, in alpha­bet­i­cal order, and isn’t it a happy coin­ci­dence Blade Run­ner starts with a “B”:

BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT
It may be a bit of a stretch to include Blade Run­ner here, but a new cut released in the­aters dur­ing 2007 ought to count, and hey, it’s my damn list. The clas­sic has been eye-poppingly restored and is now finally defin­i­tive after a long his­tory of com­pro­mised releases. But with Rid­ley Scott sling­ing spoil­ers around in inter­views, and some new plot clar­i­fi­ca­tions made to the film itself, it’s a pity to lose some of the won­der­fully mad­den­ing ambi­gu­ity fans have cher­ished for decades. “Deckard might be and prob­a­bly is a repli­cant” is a lot more intrigu­ing than “Deckard is def­i­nitely a repli­cant and always has been.” But Blade Run­ner is still one of the most time­less, gor­geous, and influ­en­tial movies ever made.

THE DARJEELING LIMITED
Not just my new favorite Wes Ander­son film, but also a new favorite over­all. I under­stand that Anderson’s man­nered style is not everyone’s cup of dar­jeel­ing (sorry), and that he may seem to be sim­ply repeat­ing him­self in both style and con­tent. But I found The Dar­jeel­ing Lim­ited hilar­i­ous and gen­uinely mov­ing, even though I’m an only child and often can’t really sym­pa­thize with sib­ling stories.

HOT FUZZ
A hys­ter­i­cally funny mashup of all the best & worst action movies ever made (but mostly The Wild Bunch and, why not, The Wicker Man), that also some­how man­ages to be charm­ing and even a lit­tle heart­warm­ing. OK, you might ask, but why does this deserve a spot on a “Best Of” list? One of the entries on my forth­com­ing “Worst Of” list will illus­trate how badly this project could have gone off the rails.

JUNO
It’s got it all, home­skil­let: crack­ing good dia­logue, cast­ing per­fec­tion, and a good heart. All the social con­ser­v­a­tives that cried vic­tory when “Hol­ly­wood” released a movie in which a young woman does not have an abor­tion missed the greater mir­a­cle: here’s a movie with believ­ably rich char­ac­ters of all ages, incomes, and gen­ders, and it’s not even about abor­tion in the first place.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
The Coen Broth­ers toss nar­ra­tive con­ven­tion out the win­dow — no, wrong cliché. How about: The Coen Broth­ers drag nar­ra­tive con­ven­tion out into the desert, gut-shoot it, and leave it for dead. Even though I haven’t read the orig­i­nal novel, this is per­haps one of the most nov­el­is­tic movies I’ve ever seen.

EL ORFANATO (THE ORPHANAGE)
A mod­ern ghost story with dig­nity and class, The Orphan­age nearly scared this Dork Reporter into a coro­nary. And it does it all with­out gore and CG. OK, yes, there is a lit­tle of each, but still. (full dis­clo­sure: I work for the dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pany, and designed the offi­cial movie site)

RATATOUILLE
It’ll be hard to write this para­graph with­out hyper­bole, but Rata­touille is one of the more per­fect movies I’ve ever seen, period. I’m hard-pressed to remem­ber any other movie that lit­er­ally squeezed tears of pure delight out of me, and direc­tor Brad Bird is a genius. That’s all I have to say.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Com­mand­ingly con­fi­dent direc­tion, pow­er­fully staged action, polit­i­cal rel­e­vance at once clear and unspo­ken, stun­ningly intense act­ing, and a hair-raising score. And if all that isn’t enough, it’s also blessed with the best movie title… maybe ever?

Hon­or­able mentions:

• Apoc­a­lypto (yes, really!)
• Atone­ment
• Beowulf (for Neil Gaiman’s and Roger Avery’s ballsy script, not the flawed animation)
• Breach (for Chris Cooper’s performance)
• The Host (com­pa­ra­ble to Jaws, and way bet­ter than Clover­field)
• The King of Kong: A Fist­ful of Quarters
• Sun­shine

Com­ing up in a day or two: The 9 Worst Movies I saw in 2007!

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