Best Movies of 2008: Your Picks

How about a magic trick? Heath Ledger's Joker helped drive The Dark Knight to the top of your 2008 list -- and the critics' lists, too. Warner Bros.

 

by Trey Graham

Nearly 3,500 of you weighed in, and your verdict was clear: With a solid 41 percent of the almost 7,500 votes cast, The Dark Knight was your favorite movie of the year.

Not that we disagree: It made Bob Mondello's list, too.

David Edelstein begged to differ — but then he liked Sex and the City and sniffed at Slumdog Millionaire, so make what you will of that.

Come to think of it: That's what keeping up with a critic (or two, or three) is all about. You don't have to agree with 'em. The idea is to get to know their taste, and figure out how it squares with yours. Disagreeing — without assuming that the other person is an idiot — is the name of the game. Unconvinced? Check out the chart below. Is of these three NPR critics more on your wavelength than the others?

Side by side by side: Disagree with our critics? Well, so did they ... Kirk Radish/NPR

 

But we digress. Wall-E was another movie that made your list and the critics' picks: You ranked it No. 2, and Mondello, Edelstein and Kenneth Turan all picked it for their Top 10 roundups. (Does that mean you're antsy about the, um, uuuuuupcoming release of Pixar's Up?)

I loved Slumdog, so I was happy to see it land at No. 3 on the user poll — especially since it was only in 10 theaters initially, and it's still playing at only 614 venues nationwide. That's real passion reflected in those poll results — and in Slumdog's per-screen average, which is higher at this point than the average for Yes Man (a newer film, playing on 3,400 screens, and a star-driven comedy besides).

The tally: Click for complete results.

 

Milk made your short list, too, which I'd argue says good things about Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn and the NPR audience too. So did The Visitor: Nearly 10 percent of you picked that unassuming but enormously affecting character study as one of your three favorite movies of the year — which pleased me and Mr. Mondello no end.

That's your Top 5 — you'll find the rest of the NPR Listener Poll's Top 10 Best Movies of 2008 in that bar chart at right, and the complete list of results in the widget over on the original poll page.

After the jump: Your favorite blockbusters ...

So what about the other poll, the one we ran here on Monkey See, where we asked you which of the big-ticket blockbusters rang your bell?

No surprises in the top two spots: The Dark Knight and Wall-E grabbed the gold and the silver again.

 

After that came that other surly superhero, Iron Man. Again, no big surprise there; it had the third-biggest opening weekend of any movie in 2008.

But: Once the superheros and the animated romances were accounted for, your 4th and 5th favorite-blockbuster picks were a bit of a surprise. (Top 8 results in the bar chart; full results here.)

Not the newest Indiana Jones. Not Hancock or the new Bond flick or Twilight. And not Kung-Fu Panda — though every last one of those movies opened bigger than the two you did pick.

Your favorites, after the top three? Mamma Mia! and Sex and the City. A shameless romp that's all about adults letting down their hair and remembering what it's like to be young and carefree, and ... well, a shameless romp about adults putting down their cocktails and coming to terms with growing up.

That's my NPR crowd: Even your escapist movies have a little something going on under the surface.

Happy New Year, everybody — and thanks for joining in.

'Til next year ...