The 2008 Film List
1. Rachel Getting Married2. W.

3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

4. Stop Loss

5. At the Death House Door
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6. Changeling

7. Savage Grace

8. Vicky Cristina Barcelona

9. Redbelt

10. Australia

Realism dominates my top ten this year, for the biggest positive in the best films of 2008 is that they have either something we can learn or relate to - making them real for a vast number of audiences, if not all.

Women dominated the screens this year, and not all did so because they were good people but because they were polarizing figures. Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) and Julianne Moore (Savage Grace) had the two best performances, from anyone let alone the women, for their portrayals of people we cannot forget - but cannot say we like them, all the same.

Hathaway and Moore as standouts come as no shock to most, but when you mention that this year also marked career bests from both Angelina Jolie (Changeling) and Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), in the best unseen performance of the year, alongside an amazing role for Cate Blanchett (Benjamin Button), now you are saying something.

Subtlety was common place among two of the better male performances this year. Brad Pitt (Benjamin Button) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Redbelt) quietly dominated their movies on screen, yet both men allowed actions to speak louder than words - and uphold the messages behind the movie. Pitt and Ejiofor were also both blessed with nearly flaw less direction from two well established filmmakers in David Fincher (Benjamin Button) and David Mamet (Redbelt) at the top of their game.

Stop Loss, however, was not as subtle; it was a blunt instrument designed to get a reaction. Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum lead the charge in this Iraq War movie that gives the soldiers of our latest conflict a voice in the same way Platoon did for those in Vietnam and Saving Private Ryan did for World War 2 vets. Stop Loss' finest performance - and one of the best all year-was from Joseph Gordon-Levitt for playing a man that vented his inner anger and frustration with life through the military but can't deal with every-day life sober or non-violently. Gordon-Levitt in Stop Loss is what Oscars are made for.

Oliver Stone's W. made my list not just because it was a great movie or biopic or character study on our current president. It made my list because it may be the thing we need when it comes to looking at our presidents - an observation of one's life. Josh Brolin not only brings George Bush to life, Brolin gets us inside his head as we watch him think through his choices. The 43rd presidency might not be a good story, but the journey through the game of life Bush took is certainly something to be seen.

At the Death House Door was a documentary made by the creators of Hoop Dreams about a man that was a Chaplin at a prison in Texas that presided over nearly 100 executions in his tenure there. Pastor Carroll Pickett is the main attraction to this documentary that explores the death penalty from a point of view few probably knew existed. I don't care what your opinion is on capital punishment itself, after watching At the Death House Door you will never look at the death penalty the same way again.

Australia and Vicky Cristina Barcelona were the two most beautiful - and enjoyable - films to unfold on screen, for they each captured the setting as if it were a character in the film. Barcelona sported the best cast of the year and Woody Allen's screen play kept the laughs and insights coming in droves.

But it was Rachel Getting Married that displayed my favorite form of realism-human emotion.

Jonathan Demme's best movie sits at the top of my list as a towering achievement because it has a strangle-hold on the pulse of humanity and is shot almost as a documentary walking us through a film that looks like our own lives - even if they are extremes - bringing up things we never want to think or feel. But in doing so Demme challenges us and makes us constantly feel our way through the film instead of thinking our way around an issue.

A challenge like that is what makes it the best picture of the year. And is a reason to go to the movies. channingtatumfan.com