The Top Films of 2007

It seems around this time of the year I'm ready to rate my movie picks from the previous year, since by May I've caught up on DVD releases of things I missed in the theater. You won't find 300 or Beowulf here -- they'd be on my "worst list" if I made one -- so let's get that out of the way right up front. Nor will you see No Country for Old Men or American Gangster; I liked these but found them terribly overrated. The following scored big with me.

1. Juno. I never thought I'd take to a light comedy like this, let alone award it the top slot. But it's so arresting and honest in its simplicity, about a teen who contemplates abortion but wants to have the baby and give it to a wealthy couple. Ellen Page is easily the best young actor on the scene these days, and I agree, literally, with every sentence written by Roger Ebert in his review. You can watch the film so many times; there's none of the cheesy sentimentality that mars most stories like this. And no, it doesn't glorify teen pregnancy or serve an anti-abortionist agenda. It's about a particular girl's choice, clearly established in the film, and how that choice affects others, for better and worse in equal measures.

2. There Will Be Blood. Here's a well-deserved Oscar for best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis as a ruthless oil man at the turn of the 20th century, who gets tangled up in the town-politics of a fundamentalist church. The narrative and moral scope of this film is amazing -- but hardly surprising coming from the director of Magnolia -- dealing with the power of charisma, hypocrisy, exploitation (of land and children), and inevitable alienation from society.

3. Bug. This is Friedkin's best film after The Exorcist and remake of Twelve Angry Men, and as psychologically searing as the former and claustrophobic as the latter. It's about deranged paranoia, and contains some of the most convincing performances I've seen in a while. (Yes, Ashley Judd proves she can act for a change.) The narrative crescendo builds and builds until your nerves are screaming, and the sudden horrific ending leaves you wondering what the hell you just watched for the last two hours.

4. Moonlight. (Released on DVD in 2007) A fairy tale for adults: a young Dutch girl runs away with an Afghan boy who is being pursued by killers, and the loss of innocence ensues. The kids quickly find a nack for communicating non-verbally with each other, use heroin, and become sexually intimate. The film pulls no punches -- it sure doesn't romanticize running away from home, and ends in foreordained tragedy -- but the dark journey these kids go on is no less magical for it while it lasts. Why can't America serve up films like this?

5. Inside. An instant horror classic, and the most gory film I've seen after Passion of the Christ. A story about relentless obsession, as a woman traumatized by miscarriage stalks the woman who caused her car accident -- and who was also pregnant during the crash but didn't lose her baby. The stalker has decided the woman owes her that baby, and so invades her house, viciously terrorizing her (and massacring all who come calling) until finally performing a hideous "caesarean section" with a pair of scissors.

6. Eastern Promises. David Cronenberg's best film since his flesh-horrors of the '70s and '80s. Like A History of Violence it's a crime drama starring Viggo Mortenson, but this time less as a superhero and more like a real-life figure out of a Scorsese film. Cronenberg was apparently inspired by watching some old Miami Vice, which like his film, examined the criminal world on its own terms. Come to think of it, the undercover Mortenson does remind of Crockett and Tubbs, living and breathing the mob underworld that he forgets who he is.

7. Halloween. What a surprise this was. Rob Zombie's hard-core revamping of the Carpenter classic does everything a remake should, fleshing out Michael Myers with new backstory, and paying homages to the original in creative and unexpected ways. The '78 version holds pride of place, but I dare say Zombie has come close to rivaling it. With horrible remakes of other '70s horror films just behind us (Texas Chainsaw Massacre ('03), The Omen ('06)), I was expecting this one to follow suit, but Zombie knows what serious horror fans crave and directs for them more than the studio.

8. Planet Terror/Deathproof. Rodriguez and Tarantino team up in an over-the-top double-feature of gore and raucous mayhem. I liked Deathproof better for the Tarantino dialogue, and I couldn't stop laughing at the end of it as the four women comically kick and beat the crap out of Kurt Russell for having put them through such hell.

9. 30 Days of Night. With lame crowd-pleasers like Blade and Underworld in recent years, I wondered if the vampire would ever be scary again. Leave it to David Slade to dish up this nightmare: a violently barbaric invasion of an Alaskan town during the month when the sun don't shine. These vamps go for the jugular without any aristocratic fanfare, much like those in Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn. It was perfect timing when this hit the theaters around Halloween.

10. The Tracey Fragments. If you can deal with the screen being split eight ways to Sunday, you'll enjoy this edgy film starring the talented Ellen Page (who also tops the list with Juno). It's indie, weird, and sometimes hard to make sense of -- about a disturbed teen searching for her lost brother, surrounded by dysfunction everywhere she turns.

(See also: The Top Films of 2005, The Top Films of 2006, The Top Films of 2008, The Top Films of 2009, The Top Films of 2010, The Top Films of 2012.)