Sight & Sound’s annual Top Ten is, for my money, one of the most intelligent and respectable of all critics’ lists, and this year’s is no exception. Revealed in the magazine’s just-out January 2009 issue, the list is drawn from a poll of 50 international critics, including such heavyweights as Kenneth Turan, Amy Taubin, Armond White and Peter Bradshaw, and the results (for me, at least) are hard to argue with.
The list rather bluntly highlights the less-than-stellar year American cinema has had, with only one 2008 U.S. picture (“WALL-E”) making the cut. (The inclusion of “There Will Be Blood” stems from UK release date differences, which might also account for the low profile of some current year-end contenders.) But it’s a rich and exciting collection of films, however you look at it:
1. “Hunger” (Steve McQueen)
2. “There Will Be Blood” (Paul Thomas Anderson)
3. “WALL-E” (Andrew Stanton)
4. “Gomorrah” (Matteo Garrone)
=5. “A Christmas Tale” (Arnaud Desplechin)
=5. “The Class” (Laurent Cantet)
7. “Of Time and the City” (Terence Davies)
8. “Happy-Go-Lucky” (Mike Leigh)
=9. “The Headless Woman” (Lucrecia Martel)
=9. “Let the Right One In” (Tomas Alfredson)
I can’t tell you how much happier I would be if the eventual Best Picture nominees were drawn from that lot. We can but dream.
I also have to say, by the way, that “A Christmas Tale” has really grown on me in the weeks since I saw it at the London Film Festival, as the visual and structural clutter of Desplechin’s approach has revealed to me, in hindsight, a greater thematic density than I perhaps originally credited it with. It’s one of the hazards of writing starred reviews that one often has to assign a numerical value to a film before it has completely settled in one’s mind. Suffice to say I would now bump up my original three-star rating.
The same goes for “Happy-Go-Lucky,” where instances of what I initially perceived as writerly imprecision now seem to speak more to the film’s current social context. Easily one of the year’s finest.
I digress. Anyway, it’s an impeccable list, as you’d expect from a publication that has previously crowned masterworks like “Amores Perros,” “Cache” and “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” the best of their respective years. Good work, S&S.
Comments
9 responses to “S&S names ‘Hunger’ best of 2008”
Interesting list but did the critics see all the films coming out late in the year? I really don’t think WALL-E belongs on a 10 Best List–this is really the most overrated film of the year. Where is Milk?
Checking their previous top tens, these guys really have good taste in movies! and in some cases match ed with Oscar choices
2005
Brokeback Mountain
A History of Violence
2006
Volver
The Departed
The Queen
United 93
Pan’s Labyrinth
2007
I´m Not There
The Lives of Others *2006
No Country for Old Men
The Assassination of Jesse James
Eastern Promises
There Will Be Blood (in the top ten of this year)
so maybe these are good news for
Wall-E
Gomorrah
Happy-Go-Lucky
The Class
and Hunger (will be great if that tuesday morning Michael Fassbender come together with Rourke, Penn, Jenkins and DiCaprio) Dream Team I know!
daveylow, you’re wrong.
And having recently seen Happy-Go-Lucky, I am quite pleased to see it getting some Top Ten attention. I think you and I may actually agree on something, Guy. It is certainly one of the year’s finest films.
Great list except that I find the inclusion of The Headless Women extremely puzzling. Saw the film at Cannes and thought it was terrible; don’t remember it garnering any strong reviews either.
Wall-E deserves a nomination for Best Picture!
Happy Go-Lucky was good but better than TDK, In Bruges, LOL, thats like saying The Godfather 3 is better than part 1 &2.
Kokushi: I disagree. Each to their own, but “Happy-Go-Lucky” has nagged away at me for over six months now — there’s something urgent and devastatingly sad about its storytelling to me that resonates more than most of the things I’ve seen this year. It’s a grower.
N8: Glad we agree on something! Long may it continue.
Ivan: I’m starting to get a weird feeling about Michael Fassbender. I’m tempted to put him in my top 5, insane as that sounds. But every year has at least one out-of-left-field arthouse nom. Maybe he is it.
Guy, you’re my kind of guy ;-), I’m glad you think so highly of Michael and Hunger. I’m going to pimp you massively at my Fassbender blog for your brilliant thoughts.
[…] to see Steve McQueen grab the group’s New Generation award. I’m happy to see some outlets already calling “Hunger” the best of the year. When I saw the film at this […]