The Best Movies of 2008
by marymary3004 | created - 06 Sep 2014 | updated - 06 Sep 2014 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Wrestler (2008)
R | 109 min | Drama, Sport
A faded professional wrestler must retire, but finds his quest for a new life outside the ring a dispiriting struggle.
Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Mark Margolis
Votes: 319,327 | Gross: $26.24M
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
PG-13 | 166 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with consequences.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Julia Ormond
Votes: 693,772 | Gross: $127.51M
3. The Dark Knight (2008)
PG-13 | 152 min | Action, Crime, Drama
When the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine
Votes: 2,858,757 | Gross: $534.86M
4. The Reader (2008)
R | 124 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.
Director: Stephen Daldry | Stars: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Bruno Ganz, Jeanette Hain
Votes: 258,829 | Gross: $34.19M
5. Revolutionary Road (2008)
R | 119 min | Drama, Romance
A young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children.
Director: Sam Mendes | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Christopher Fitzgerald, Jonathan Roumie
Votes: 224,418 | Gross: $22.91M
6. Gran Torino (2008)
R | 116 min | Drama
After a Hmong teenager tries to steal his prized 1972 Gran Torino, a disgruntled, prejudiced Korean War veteran seeks to redeem both the boy and himself.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Christopher Carley, Ahney Her
Votes: 812,901 | Gross: $148.10M
7. Defiance (I) (2008)
R | 137 min | Action, Drama, History
Jewish brothers in German-occupied Eastern Europe escape into a Belorussian forest, where they join Russian resistance fighters, and endeavor to build a village, in order to protect themselves and about one thousand Jewish non-combatants.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos
Votes: 155,420 | Gross: $28.64M
8. The Hurt Locker (2008)
R | 131 min | Drama, Thriller, War
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Stars: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce
Votes: 472,698 | Gross: $17.02M
9. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
PG-13 | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two friends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Christopher Evan Welch
Votes: 268,346 | Gross: $23.22M
10. Martyrs (2008)
R | 99 min | Horror
A young woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.
Director: Pascal Laugier | Stars: Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Bégin, Robert Toupin
Votes: 105,870
11. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A teenager from the slums of Mumbai becomes a contestant on the show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati?' When interrogated under suspicion of cheating, he revisits his past, revealing how he had all the answers.
Directors: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan | Stars: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Saurabh Shukla, Anil Kapoor
Votes: 875,867 | Gross: $141.32M
12. Taken (I) (2008)
PG-13 | 90 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.
Director: Pierre Morel | Stars: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Leland Orser
Votes: 632,600 | Gross: $145.00M
13. Let the Right One In (2008)
R | 114 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.
Director: Tomas Alfredson | Stars: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl
Votes: 226,318 | Gross: $2.12M
14. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
PG-13 | 94 min | Drama, War
Through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
Director: Mark Herman | Stars: Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis, Rupert Friend, Zac Mattoon O'Brien
Votes: 245,123 | Gross: $9.03M
15. Departures (2008)
PG-13 | 130 min | Drama
Soon after buying an expensive cello, Daigo learns that his orchestra is disbanding. He moves back to his hometown with his wife, where he answers an ad for what Daigo thinks is a travel agency but is, in actuality, a mortuary.
Director: Yôjirô Takita | Stars: Masahiro Motoki, Ryôko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
Votes: 54,848 | Gross: $1.50M
16. I've Loved You So Long (2008)
PG-13 | 117 min | Drama
A woman struggles to interact with her family and find her place in society after spending fifteen years in prison.
Director: Philippe Claudel | Stars: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent Grévill
Votes: 20,694 | Gross: $3.17M
17. The Chaser (2008)
Not Rated | 125 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A disgraced ex-policeman who runs a small ring of prostitutes finds himself in a race against time when one of his women goes missing.
Director: Na Hong-jin | Stars: Kim Yoon-seok, Ha Jung-woo, Seo Yeong-hie, Kim Yoo-jung
Votes: 72,451
18. Cloverfield (2008)
PG-13 | 85 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A group of friends venture deep into the streets of New York on a rescue mission during a rampaging monster attack.
Director: Matt Reeves | Stars: Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller
Votes: 419,461 | Gross: $80.05M
19. North Face (2008)
Not Rated | 126 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
A secretary at a Berlin newspaper in 1936 gets to write about two Alpinists, as she knows them well. She later gets to report on and photograph her friends' and other Alpinists' climbs of the dangerous Swiss Eiger north face.
Director: Philipp Stölzl | Stars: Benno Fürmann, Florian Lukas, Johanna Wokalek, Simon Schwarz
Votes: 16,415 | Gross: $0.71M
20. Eden Lake (2008)
R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller
Refusing to let anything spoil their romantic weekend break, a young couple confront a gang of loutish youths with terrifyingly brutal consequences.
Director: James Watkins | Stars: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Tara Ellis, Jack O'Connell
Votes: 94,411 | Gross: $0.01M
21. The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008)
R | 114 min | Drama
A story told by Zahra to a French journalist of her niece Soraya Manutchehri, a 35-year-old married woman, who received capital punishment and stoned to death because of false accusations in the remote village of Kuhpayeh, Iran, in 1986.
Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh | Stars: Shohreh Aghdashloo, Jim Caviezel, Mozhan Navabi, Navid Negahban
Votes: 21,688 | Gross: $0.66M
22. Frozen River (2008)
R | 97 min | Crime, Drama
A mom looks for another source of income, when her husband leaves with the money meant for the new mobile home. A nearby Indian territory stretches across the border to Canada with a drivable frozen river between. Smuggling?
Director: Courtney Hunt | Stars: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, Michael O'Keefe
Votes: 26,432 | Gross: $2.51M
23. Doubt (I) (2008)
PG-13 | 104 min | Drama, Mystery
A Catholic school principal questions a priest's ambiguous relationship with a troubled young student.
Director: John Patrick Shanley | Stars: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis
Votes: 135,864 | Gross: $33.42M
24. Hunger (2008)
Not Rated | 96 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Irish republican Bobby Sands leads the inmates of a Northern Irish prison in a hunger strike.
Director: Steve McQueen | Stars: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, Laine Megaw
Votes: 73,430 | Gross: $0.15M
25. Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (2008)
R | 133 min | Action, Biography, Crime
The story of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine, with the focus on his life and death as France's Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1970s.
Director: Jean-François Richet | Stars: Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric, Samuel Le Bihan
Votes: 31,170 | Gross: $0.28M
26. Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008)
R | 113 min | Action, Biography, Crime
The story of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine, with the focus on his life before the early 1970s and the events that led to him being declared Public Enemy No. 1 in France.
Director: Jean-François Richet | Stars: Vincent Cassel, Cécile de France, Gérard Depardieu, Gilles Lellouche
Votes: 35,220 | Gross: $0.55M
27. Elegy (I) (2008)
R | 112 min | Drama, Romance
Cultural critic David Kepesh finds his life, which he indicates is a state of "emancipated manhood," thrown into tragic disarray by Consuela Castillo, a well-mannered student who awakens a sense of sexual possessiveness in her teacher.
Director: Isabel Coixet | Stars: Ben Kingsley, Penélope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson, Dennis Hopper
Votes: 23,186 | Gross: $3.58M
28. Love Exposure (2008)
Unrated | 237 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
A bizarre love triangle forms between a young Catholic upskirt photographer, a misandric girl and a manipulative cultist.
Director: Sion Sono | Stars: Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, Sakura Andô, Yutaka Shimizu
Votes: 15,814
29. Julia (2008)
R | 144 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A woman tries to extort money, using a young boy as bait.
Director: Erick Zonca | Stars: Tilda Swinton, Saul Rubinek, Kate del Castillo, Aidan Gould
Votes: 6,949 | Gross: $0.00M
30. Revanche (2008)
Not Rated | 121 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Ex-con Alex plans to flee to the South with his girl after a robbery. But something terrible happens and revenge seems inevitable.
Director: Götz Spielmann | Stars: Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko, Andreas Lust, Ursula Strauss
Votes: 15,898
31. Blindness (2008)
R | 121 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant white blindness.
Director: Fernando Meirelles | Stars: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael García Bernal, Yûsuke Iseya
Votes: 75,090 | Gross: $3.07M
32. Seven Pounds (2008)
PG-13 | 123 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A man with a fateful secret embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers.
Director: Gabriele Muccino | Stars: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Ealy
Votes: 314,676 | Gross: $69.95M
33. Tokyo Sonata (2008)
PG-13 | 120 min | Drama
An ordinary Japanese family slowly disintegrates after its patriarch loses his job at a prominent company.
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Stars: Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyôko Koizumi, Yû Koyanagi, Kai Inowaki
Votes: 11,653 | Gross: $0.28M
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