Welcome to the first official installment of the 8s rankings. I figured I’d start with 2008 before going back to the other years. I had recently released my 1998 rankings so I’m not redoing them. For a film year with so many films that felt like touchstones, I didn’t get that euphoric feeling from many of them 10 years later. This is perhaps due to the fact that 2008 was just a weird year for movies. We got a billion dollar superhero film that got 8 Oscar nominations but missed Best Picture which was won by a British take on an Indian take on Who Wants to be a Millionaire with a Bollywood number at the end. It was the year we saw Brad Pitt age backwards and saw the James Bond franchise seemingly age rapidly before our eyes with Quantum of Solace. 2008 also kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with an actor that no one wanted to work with, in the same year that actor landed an Oscar nomination for playing an Australian who changes his skin color to play a Black man. Kate Winslet finally won an Oscar but for the wrong movie. The year was kicked off by the brilliant film Cloverfield, following an equally brilliant marketing campaign and ended with epics and a very sad movie about a dog.
The year was so strange that when I initially did my top 10, I had the Dark Knight at number 8. Many of you know how I have grown agnostic to that film and it, along with Frost/Nixon, have not held up in my mind for various reasons. What was a mess is that this year was so foolish, The Dark Knight ended up in the top 15 again. 2008 was truly all over the place, but after going through the films, I kinda liked how wild everything feels. 2008 has the unfortunate distinction of being squished between two of the greatest years for movies of all time, so if you can’t be great at least be weird.
For my Oscar ballot, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was my top winner with four awards from 15 nominations but much like it’s fate on Oscar night, it fails to take the top prize. That honor goes to The Strangers, which is still one of the scariest films I have ever seen. Anyways, here are my fave films, performances, and things movie related from 2008!
- The Strangers
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Cloverfield
- Milk
- Let the Right One In
- Burn After Reading
- Get Smart
- Wanted
- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
- Iron Man
Directing
Bryan Bertino, The Strangers
The Coens, Burn After Reading
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Matt Reeves, Cloverfield
Gus Van Sant, Milk
Actor
Steve Carrell, Get Smart
Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Actress
Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Anna Faris, The House Bunny
Lina Leandersson, Let the Right One In
Frances McDormand, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road
Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Doubt
Viola Davis, Doubt
Shirley Henderson, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Emma Stone, The House Bunny
Supporting Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
James Franco, Milk
James Franco, Pineapple Express
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading
Original Screenplay
Be Kind Rewind
Burn After Reading
Cloverfield
Milk
Wall-E
Adapted Screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Get Smart
Iron Man
Let the Right One In
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Editing
Cloverfield
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Strangers
Cinematography
Australia
Cloverfield
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Strangers
Production Design
Be Kind Rewind
Burn After Reading
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Wanted
Costume
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The House Bunny
Milk
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Revolutionary Road
Makeup
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Let the Right One In
Tropic Thunder
Visual Effects
Cloverfield
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Wanted
Sound Mix
Cloverfield
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Iron Man
Let the Right One In
The Strangers
Sound Editing
Cloverfield
Iron Man
The Strangers
The Dark Knight
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Score
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Revolutionary Road
Wall-E
Original song
Jai Ho – Slumdog Millionaire
Dracula’s Lament – Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Rock Me Sexy Jesus – Hamlet 2
The Story – My Blueberry Nights
Another Way to Die – Quantam of Solace
Animated film
Wall-E
Kung-Fu Panda
Bolt
Foreign Film
Let the Right One In
Ensemble
Burn After Reading
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Get Smart
Milk
Wanted