Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (top); Time and Winds by Reha Erdem (bottom)
The London and the Sunday Times critics are apparently quite easy to please. They've come up with a list of no less than 100 Best Films for one single year: 2008.
Among the best of the best found in the Times list are masterpieces such as:
- Cloverfield ("An hour in I started to sweat. And I nearly threw up trying to make sense of the increasingly chaotic and frightening scenes of the gripping climax" – James Christopher);
- Definitely, Maybe ("A romantic comedy with a refreshingly adult sensibility and plot that doesn’t feel that it has been recycled and regurgitated by innumerable Cameron Diaz movies" – Wendy Ide);
- and High School Musical 3 ("As shiny and polished as newly fitted dental veneers and, like most Disney products, relentlessly family-friendly" – Wendy Ide).
Their top five picks (all five-star films):
The Dark Knight directed by Christopher Nolan ("Heath Ledger’s posthumous Oscar looks in the bag. The film is bleak and brilliant. Batman is Hamlet and Ledger is a sensation as the Joker. The late legend doesn’t just steal the film, he murders it in style. You will feel utterly numb afterwards" – James Christopher)
Gomorrah directed by Matteo Garrone ("Matteo Garrone’s startling film about the criminal underworld in Naples is one of these rare movies that can alter our perception of life. It's brave to the point of foolhardy" – James Christopher)
Man on Wire directed by James Marsh ("The American director James Marsh has created one of the greatest heist films of all times. Two things make his gripping docudrama so different: it’s all true, and the only thing stolen is air. It isn’t about art, it’s about us" – Cosmo Landesman)
There Will Be Blood directed by Paul Thomas Anderson ("Paul Thomas Anderson's movie about the scramble for oil is a masterclass in how the West was truly sold. It's a marvellously entertaining soap: a sort of Dickens does Dallas, without the sex or swimming pools" – James Christopher)
Bes vakit / Time and Winds directed by Reha Erdem ("The kind of movie that was invented for the word 'ineffable.' It is, at a guess, about life’s relentless march, about death, rebirth, and the hollow limits of religion in the face of overwhelming nature. When you’ve got it you’ve got it for good" – Kevin Maher)
Times and Winds is one of the most best films of the decade.