Someone should do something about the way films get released. We at The A.V. Club spent much of the spring and summer suspecting that 2007 would offer only a modest helping of great films. Then, almost as soon as the leaves started to turn, 2007 transformed from an okay film year to a pretty good film year to the best film year in recent memory. If you didn't see anything great this year, you either weren't trying, or you gave up around the time of Transformers. Below, you'll find a list collectively voted on by The A.V. Club's five film writers. Subsequent pages feature each writer's individual picks for the best of 2007.
The Master List
1. No Country For Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Coen brothers are back to noir of a sort, but it's an arid southwestern brand of noir, one in which all the moisture has been sucked out of the air along with most of the big emotional displays that mark most Oscar contenders. The Coens' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel is indisputably quirky in a way that recalls their comedies, but the humor is all buried under somber tension that keeps the action grim and utterly shocking. It's rare to see a thriller this perfectly paced, perfectly performed, and perfectly unusual.
2. Once (dir. John Carney)
It was a good year for firsts, but few made a more memorable splash than first-time leading man Glen Hansard (of The Frames) and his singing partner and first-time film actor Markéta Irglová in Once. As their characters fumble through a tender relationship that never gels enough to become clichéd, they reach a point where they're only really at peace with each other when they're performing together, though they themselves may not realize that. But their dynamic makes this movie's frequent songs all the more raw and winsome, and it puts a nervous edge on their every interaction, until the whole film vibrates beautifully with unmet needs and unrequited love.
3. There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
There's no more American a story than a man making it big through hard work and shrewd business skills, and no uglier version of that story than Anderson's adaptation of Upton Sinclair's early-days-of-industry novel Oil! Daniel Day Lewis plays an enterprising turn-of-the-century oilman who gains the world at the price of his humanity while joining his interests to those of a charismatic young preacher (Paul Dano). It's a horrific portrait of how empires get forged and the prices they exact.
4. Zodiac (dir. David Fincher)
Fincher's hypnotic masterpiece is an almost perversely straightforward police procedural that meticulously tracks the endless hunt for the Bay Area's Zodiac killer, a spotlight-hungry sicko who taunted the police and shamelessly manipulated a compliant press. It's an obsessive film about obsession that sucks audiences into its tortured anti-heroes' quest by evoking a rich aura of dread and paranoia. Zodiac's greatness lies in illustrating how a rash of irrational murders can get under the skin and infect the collective psyche of an entire city, seemingly altering its molecular structure and creating an atmosphere heavy with the threat of violence.
5. The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (dir. Andrew Dominik)
As if doing penance for every romanticized portrait of the outlaw life ever put to film, director Dominik's recounting of Jesse James' final days finds the famous gunslinger (Brad Pitt) living an unsettled life surrounded by men he can't trust. Foremost among them: Casey Affleck's Robert Ford, his biggest fan and eventual killer. Dominik's austere, contemplative approach requires patience, but those willing to give themselves over to his slow-motion storytelling saw a vision of modern America being formed out of violence, greed, nascent celebrity culture, and the desire for a quiet, normal life.
6. Atonement (dir. Joe Wright)
Director Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton adapt Ian McEwan's acclaimed novel of WWII-era class conflict and literary analysis by focusing on the author's fascination with misinterpreted gestures, moments that go wrong, and how the mood of a room affects everyone in it. In form, Atonement is a sweeping romantic melodrama, at times acted at a fever pitch by co-leads James McAvoy and Keira Knightley. But the real star of the movie is Wright, who works in the tradition of Michael Powell and David Lean to turn a prestige film into a showcase for his cohesive integration of editing, score, lighting, set design, and performance. When Atonement reaches for literal meaning, it recedes like the tide. Instead, the film's beauty is mainly in its bravura.
7. Sweeney Todd (dir. Tim Burton)
In a year dominated by darkness, murder, and perversity at the movies, it seems oddly fitting and fittingly perverse that the film with arguably the highest body count and blackest sensibility was a musical. After an uneven decade, Tim Burton came roaring back to form in this uncompromising adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's classic about a demonic barber who gets revenge on the sum of humanity by slashing his customers' throats so his proprietor can transform them into tasty meat-pies. Todd takes Burton's pop-Goth sensibility into thrillingly dark places, supporting Sondheim's tuneful nihilism and eviscerating wit. This cult-ready musical makes The Rocky Horror Picture Show look about as dangerous as The A-Teens by comparison.
8. Into The Wild (dir. Sean Penn)
Since Jon Krakauer first published his amazing story in Outside magazine, Chris McCandless has been a polarizing figure: Some admire his daring, if ultimately tragic, attempt to reject the trapping of modern society and explore America's untamed corners. Others view him as self-absorbed and willfully naïve, courting death by heading off half-cocked into nature at its most extreme and unforgiving. Much like Krakauer, writer-director Penn winds up treating McCandless with more sympathy than scorn, but his perfectly balanced adaptation doesn't gloss over the emotional wreckage McCandless left in his trailblazing wake. He also offers a gorgeous travelogue of American landscapes where few soles have tread.
9. Offside (dir. Jafar Panahi)
Offside takes place at Tehran's biggest soccer stadium during a 2006 World Cup qualifying match, but because the movie is about a group of women who try—and fail—to disguise their gender and sneak into the game, it rarely shows any soccer action, or any part of the stadium outside of the small holding pen where these women wait to be bussed off to jail. Director Jafar Panahi moves the camera between the women and their jailers, as though following a series of scoring rallies, while the women rage against the absurd situation and the men try in vain to silence them. Offside is funny, angry, passionate, and surprisingly patriotic, and it builds to an ending that feels hopeful but not phony, demonstrating how the higher callings of sports and nationalism can still unite us.
10. Gone Baby Gone (dir. Ben Affleck)
Shaking off a recent past riddled with bad choices and bad press, first-time director Affleck found the ideal material for a comeback in Dennis Lehane's book, which allowed him to evoke his Boston roots with a level of intimacy and authenticity that only a native could achieve. Affleck navigates Lehane's thorny child-abduction procedural with solid, workmanlike storytelling, but he excels at capturing the gritty texture of Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, and he gets wonderful performances out his actors, especially Amy Ryan as a hard-living young mother who may be unfit for the role. The final shot, coming after a gut-wrenching decision, is one of the more devastating in recent memory.
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