Best Movies of 2008
Ranked by our critic's grades, best first.
The Dark KnightThe superhero film that stopped being one and became a crime epic instead.Read the review
Tropic ThunderActors making a Vietnam film get dropped into a real war, and the satire lands hardest on the actors.
Iron ManDowney improvises a franchise into existence, and the film is loose enough to let him.
Man on WireA heist picture whose score is forty five minutes of standing on nothing, a quarter mile above lower Manhattan.
Step BrothersTwo grown men share a bunk bed and a drum kit, and the whole thing runs on absolute commitment.
WALL-EThe first forty minutes are near-silent perfection; the spaceship half is merely very good.
Revolutionary RoadA marriage autopsy with two great performances and a secondhand contempt for the suburbs it is set in.
Gran TorinoEastwood files the Dirty Harry persona down to a grumbling widower on a Detroit porch, and the film around him is clumsier than he is.
Pineapple ExpressA stoner comedy shot like a real film, with a great Franco performance and a last act that forgets what movie it is.
AustraliaLuhrmann's ambition is real and so is the country, but four endings and soft digital skies keep the epic from landing.