Roger Ebert's Top 10 of 2007

1. JUNO
2. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
3. BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD
4. ATONEMENT
5. THE KITE RUNNER
6. AWAY FROM HER
7. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
8. LA VIE EN ROSE
9. THE GREAT DEBATERS
10. INTO THE WILD

Best Animated Films
-Beowulf
-Persepolis
-Ratatouille

Best Foreign Films
-The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
-4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
-Lust, Caution
-The Orphanage
-Vanaja

Best Documentaries
-In the Shadow of the Moon
-The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
-Lake of Fire
-No End in Sight
-Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
-Sicko

For full explainations, http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/COMMENTARY/176124809

As is invariably the case, I didn't care for many of the movies on Ebert's list (though I haven't seen 3 of them). At least he didn't pick the year's biggest stinker as his top film as he has done the past few years (Babel, and Crash). The only one in his Top 10 that I saw and liked was "Away from Her" though it wouldn't make my Top 10. Unlike most years, I don't find much on his list that I thought was truly awful, just one forgettably adequate middle-of-the-road film after another: Juno, Atonement, Into the Wild, Across the Universe, La Vie en Rose (ugh). His Jury Picks and Honorable Mentions have more interesting picks like Once, Eastern Promises, I'm Not There. Also the utterly wretched 'Rendition,' a legitimate choice for "worst film I saw this year."

As for the foreign films, I'm guessing he didn't get a chance to see most of the top foreign releases this year. Roger's not kidding about not saving up his 4-star reviews: he doeld out a 4 star review to 27 or so movies in 2007 (search results came up with 37, but some of those were 2006 releases.) Kind of, um, excessive considering he wasn't really writing many reviews in the first half of the year.

I have to agree with Chris. I didn't see "Away from Her" or "The Great Debaters," but of the ones I did see on this list, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," "Juno," and "Atonement" were the only ones I liked, and "Juno" and "Before the Devil" were still not all that great. "No Country for Old Men" was a major disappointment. "Into the Wild" I positively disliked. And even though one of my old students, Matt Chesse, edited "The Kite Runner" and I visited him one day at Skywalker while he was editing it, I didn't think it was a great picture.

But what do I know? My taste is pretty simpleminded and tends toward popular titles:

Stardust
The Bourne Ultimatum
Ratatouille
Hairspray
Michael Clayton
The Orphanage
Live Free or Die Hard
Atonement
American Gangster
Eastern Promises
Once

John

Hey, didn't they teach you nothin'? Don't give it away for free? We have our "Best of 2007" article coming out in a couple weeks.

Ha! By the time a couple of weeks roll around, I'll probably have a completely different list to produce. This one's a work in progress, to say the least.

John

John was Stardust that good?

No, it wasn't. John's just pretty simpleminded.

I only know how I feel when I finish a movie. Was I moved, touched, enlightened, saddened, overjoyed? I watched "Stardust" in a theater twice, once with a friend and again with my wife (who is also a friend, by the way). Then I watched it in HD DVD. I enjoyed it immensely all three times, making it my favorite film of the year. As I say, simpleminded.

John

I'm really looking forward to seeing "Juno" when it opens here (in a few days?). It got a lot of buzz up here after the Toronto Film Festival. Glad to see "Away from her" made the list. Dukakis, Fiona Anderson, and Gordon Pinsent gave outstanding performances - the best I've seen in a long time in a truly great film. Our lil' Sarah Polly "Dawn of the Dead (remake)" star did a fine directing job. When Juno comes out on disk, I'll watch both again back-to-back. First a love story to bring me down, then a love story to buoy me back up again

Edit: Stardust is somewhere in my top 10 as well, at least from the movies I've seen so far. Although not a great film and as I mentioned before more of a collection of Hollywood cliches, it did everything it was supposed to do and was just plain entertaining. If there was a category for a light enjoyable popcorn fare that has to be seen with your wife/girlfriend, this would be #1 in that list for me. Ratatouille has to take it away for best animated film I've seen this year. I enjoy films that work on many different levels at the same time, and Ratatouille turned out to be a delightful surprise this way, touching on some interesting subject matter.

[Post edited by Skyhawk on Dec 22, 2007]