Top Ten Movies of 2007

December 28, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

With the year just about over, it's time to take a look back at the best moviegoing experiences of the last twelve months.

Here are, from one critic's point of view, the Top Ten Movies of 2007:

10. Sicko

Muckraking maverick and puckish provocateur Michael Moore gets a little more click-o and little less politic-o than usual, but this entertaining and eye-opening documentary about the ailing U.S. health-care system still does the trick-o. Nonpartisan and featuring less of Moore on-screen, this is a thought-provoking and saddening movie that matters.9. Sweeney Todd

It's a bloody musical! Literally. Director Tim Burton and frequent collaborator Johnny Depp team up with Helena Bonham Carter to bring Stephen Sondheim's dark, violent musical about revenge in 19th-century London to impressive movie-screen life. Depp, as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, does wonders with the songs and Burton stylizes the blood-spurting vengeance. Any way you slice it, it's to die for.

8. Dan in Real Life

About as good as reel life gets, this warm and funny romantic comedy from director and co-writer Peter Hedges is about a widower with three daughters who falls for the girlfriend of his younger brother during an extended family weekend. We're strongly drawn to leads Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche in a splendid, touching ensemble piece that remains grounded in reality. A jim-dandy.

7. Gone Baby Gone

Ben Affleck, who also produced and co-wrote, hits it out of the park in his smashing directorial debut. His younger brother, Casey, exceptional as a tough, baby-faced private eye, stars in this twist-and-turn-filled mystery-thriller about the kidnapping of a child in Boston. Working-class realism abounds in a tense, gritty, complex drama that's fine baby fine.

6. Ratatouille

Director Brad Bird has cooked up something scrumptious: a magically original work of CGI animation about a rat who's a born chef and becomes the master chef in a gourmet restaurant in Paris. Fast food this is not. Rather, it's a carefully, lovingly prepared feast for the eyes, a dazzlingly designed and detailed, fully flavorful foodie comedy for all generations. Oh, rats: it's over.

5. Juno

Witty and idiosyncratic, this absolutely endearing comedy from director Jason Reitman about a pregnant teen who gives up her baby to a wealthy, infertile couple does smile- and laugh-producing wonders with what should be a downbeat subject. Lead Ellen Page is spectacular, but she's part of a fine-tuned comic ensemble--Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, and Allison Janney--who have a field day with screenwriter Diablo Cody's wisenheimer dialogue. Juno what? This is a disarming charmer.

4. In the Valley of Elah

Set in 2004 and based on actual events, this engrossing military mystery from writer-director Paul Haggis provocatively explores just what happens to, and becomes of, youthful veterans who return from the Iraq War. Tommy Lee Jones is brilliantly understated as the father of a missing soldier in a quietly powerful and stealthily resonant drama about post-traumatic stress disorder and the price being paid for the chaos of conflict.

3. The Namesake

A wondrous, visually enthralling, emotionally powerful culture-clash drama about Indian immigrants in New York City. Mira Nair, directing what for her is a deeply personal film, gets a strong performance from deadpan comic actor Kal Penn in his first dramatic lead, and two brilliant supporting turns from Bollywood superstars Tabu and Irrfan Khan as his parents. A marvelously moving East-meets-West family saga that positively brims with universality.

2. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Eighty-three-year-young director Sidney Lumet delivers this electrifyingly intense crime melodrama about two brothers who rob a Mom-and-Pop jewelry store, telling his gripping story from multiple perspectives, and showcasing a terrific ensemble that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, and Albert Finney. What starts out as a tricky heist thriller metamorphoses--magnificently--into a Greek tragedy that leaves you breathless.

1. Death at a Funeral

There aren't many perfect movies in any genre, but this irreverent British comedy, directed by wizardly Frank Oz, is one of them, a spit-polished, uproarious farce about the burial of a dearly beloved patriarch of a dysfunctional upper-crust family. Everything that can possibly go wrong does on this what-fools-these-mortal-be day, but the characters remain touchingly real, even as the desperation heightens, dignity topples, and the hilarity grows exponentially. Let's pay our respects to a dark lark with a stark spark: this movie just killed me.

And on to 2008.