On Saturday, the American Film Institute picked its Top Ten American Films of 2007. The list is available below in alphabetical order:
- Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- Into the Wild
- Juno
- Knocked Up
- Michael Clayton
- No Country for Old Men
- Ratatouille
- The Savages
- There Will Be Blood
I tend to agree with this list more than I agreed with the Golden Globe nominations. I’m not sure if “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” deserves to be up there, and while The Savages is a great movie, I’m not sure if it deserves to be in the top 10. Fox Searchlight’s Once would have been my choice. errr I forgot the AFI list only includes American films. I’m glad to see that AFI included my favorite comedies of the year: Juno and Knocked Up. And why has everyone forgotten about David Fincher’s Zodiac?
Here are AFI’s Top 10 lists from the last six years:
- 2006: Babel, Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, Half Nelson, Happy Feet, Inside Man, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, United 93.
- 2005: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Good Night And Good Luck, A History of Violence, King Kong, Munich, The Squid and the Whale, Syriana.
- 2004: The Aviator, Collateral, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Friday Night Lights, The Incredibles, Kinsey, Maria Full of Grace, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, Spider-Man 2
- 2003: American Splendor, Finding Nemo, The Human Stain, In America, The Last Samurai, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander, Monster, Mystic River
- 2002: About a Boy, About Schmidt, Adaptation, Antwone Fisher, Chicago, Frida, Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Quiet American
- 2001: A Beautiful Mind, Black Hawk Down, In The Bedroom, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Memento, Monster’s Ball, Moulin Rouge, Muholland Drive, Shrek
- 2000: Almost Famous, Before Night Falls, Best In Show, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator, High Fidelity, Requiem For A Dream, Traffic, Wonder Boys, You Can Count on Me.
December 16th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Into the wild is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I saw a free sneak preview and I still think I should be getting my money back. Besides that, the list seems pretty accurate, though I’m seeing “Juno” tomorrow and I can’t wait for “There Will Be Blood”
December 16th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
I wanna know why I’m Not There is not on there, this movie was one of my favorite of 2007. I think people tend to overlook it because of the way it’s told. And have people forgot about Sicko.
December 16th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Gone Baby Gone and Zodiac were far superior to Before the Devil Knows Your Dead and the Savages even though both were really good.
December 16th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
*and I’m Not There. I forgot about that too. And Assasination of Jesse James. And Rescue Dawn.
December 16th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead really deserves to be at the top of every year-end list. The acting across the board is top notch. It’s one of Lumet’s best directing efforts (and considering his long career, that is really saying something). And the writing is terrific. It’s a really haunting movie and so much more than just another “heist gone wrong” movie. It’s on such a limited release and hasn’t got one tenth of the attention that most other movies on this list (not counting maybe The Diving Bell and The Savages) have gotten and I think that’s really too bad. I think it’s a great partner piece to No Country For Old Men.
My top three movies of the year are Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, No Country For Old Men, and Zodiac - which I can see getting skipped over for acting, writing, and even picture, but Fincher really deserves some praise for directing. I think the Director’s Cut is going to be pretty impressive.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Superbad was better than Knocked Up
December 16th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
The Bourne Ultimatum definitely should have been on the list, it is one of the most intense action movies of all time!
December 16th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
ONCE can’t be up there because it isn’t an “American” film…it was made in Ireland. But, yeah, ZODIAC deserved to be up there, but not in place of BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD.
And what happened to THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD?!
December 17th, 2007 at 12:10 am
i cant comment on this years list at all, because ive only seen a few of those films.
however, based upon there picks from last year, i dont have too much faith. I mean The Devil Wears Prada over The Departed?????
I do completely agree with their picks for 03 04 and 05 though.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:24 am
and where is SPARTAAAA?
December 17th, 2007 at 2:56 am
I think Zodiac was my favorite film of 2007.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Eastern Promises should have made that list. That movie was incredible.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:32 am
totally agree w/ Zach. superbad was amazing. knocked up was just completely false in so many ways with the plot, the only saving grace being the humor of the characters which redeemed the whole 2 hours.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:56 am
Isn’t The Diving Bell and the Butterfly a French film?
December 17th, 2007 at 7:54 am
I was really relieved to see that someone else hated “Into the wild”.
A 3 hour Pearl Jam Video chronicling a spoiled kid’s quest to get back at his parents for an unpleasant childhood.
I just felt like it was so totally pretentious. It seemed like I was being preached to by someone who’s most notable achievement in life was running away from home and freeloading off of hippies.
Add a generous portion of man crying, soap box philosophy, and slow-mo shower scenes, all built on this rickety premise that somehow this quest for revenge was a philosophical journey.
Pardon me if I’m venting, but I didn’t want to say anything bad about it to my girlfriend because I never like the movies she makes me see, and she’s typically very nice about the movies I make her watch. After all the positive reviews I’m so glad to see I’m not alone.
In conclusion, if he hadn’t died at the end but he’d have spent the rest of his life writing books about his experiences this would be one of the most hypocritical and pretentious movies of all time.
In stead, it is the story of those who’ve survived him desperately trying to weave meaning into what could only be described as the trite and meaningless life of Christopher McCandless
December 17th, 2007 at 8:45 am
I can’t take this list seriously. Spiderman 2 made it in 2004? And NO Superbad!!! Brokeback Mountain????????????????????
December 17th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Zodiac? Are you people kidding? That movie was BORING! Yeah Fincher is great, but geeze, sometimes good directors make boring movies!
December 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Whats silly is that they wont include foriegn films, but they seem to have no problem awarding foreign films that had US financing…
Happy Feet - Australia
Maria Full Of Grace - Colombia
About A Boy - UK
Moulin Rouge - Australia
and now The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - France.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:42 am
You know, some people say that they found Zodiac to be really boring, but I couldn’t disagree more.
I thought that Fincher did an incredible job of telling a story about completely throwing yourself into something to the point where it consumes you with the building dread that there might not be a payoff. I was amazed at how procedural it was as we began to get a sense of how these complicated cases unfold without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. How do the SF cops who come across a murdered cab driver know that this is connected to a murder in another part of the state months and months ago? We get a sense at just how difficult this type of investment and investigation is as their lack of success takes its toll on their personal lives as they try to coordinate so many different aspects of the case. And while no one else is still interested in the case, a few people keep pushing, hoping for some sort of redemption and payoff. I thought it was a haunting story and dealt with obsession and caring about something when no one else does and whether or not that is only worth something if you get a final moment of success or knowledge. I thought that the movie could have told the story in a much easier way, but really threw you into a fascinating character study. And the actors, particularly Downey Jr. are terrific.
December 26th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Rescue Dawn
December 26th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
After my all my complaining about the Golden Globes leaving off one of the best movies of the year (a comedy, of course!), the American Film Institute has put Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up†on its short list of the 10 best Films of 2007.
http://www.scene-stealers.com/blogs/another-early-oscar-indicator-afis-top-10-of-2007/
January 4th, 2008 at 11:08 am
In my opinion American Pie 6 is the best movie for 2007, altough Iam from Macedonia :D
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
Rescue Dawn, you have got to be joking. By far one of the biggest let downs of the year. Dont get me wrong i believe christian bale to be a top notch actor but given the material there wasnt much he could do with it. I would have been upset if i were him though losing all the weight for nothing but a mediocre film. Im goin crazy, im in the jungle, oh no i’m seeing steve zahns ghost. But yeah where is the Assasination of Jesse James?
June 18th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Did someone suggest “Knocked Up”? A comedy without a single laugh in it. Must have been a really awful year for movies.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am
where the bridge to terabithia
July 11th, 2008 at 11:13 am
i loveeeeee josh hutcherson