This is a dynamic list, so it’ll be updated each time I see a film which had its world premiere in 2008 that is better than at least one of the films already on the list.
- Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)
- The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
- Afterschool (Antonio Campos)
- Melancholia (Lav Diaz)
- Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
- A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin)
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen)
- Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
- Julia (Erick Zonca)
- Revanche (Götz Spielmann)
Other 2008 films I’ve seen (In approximate order of preference)
- Our Beloved Month of August (Miguel Gomes) – 7.5
- Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)
- Burn After Reading (Joel & Ethan Coen)
- Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
- Home (Ursula Meier)
- Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso)
- Two Lovers (James Gray) – 7.0
- Old Partner (Chung-Ryoul Lee)
- Milk (Gus Van Sant)
- The Class (Laurent Cantet)
- Rembrandt’s J’Accuse…! (Peter Greenaway)
- Lorna’s Silence (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
- Boogie (Radu Muntean) – 6.8
- Rumba (Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, & Bruno Romy)
- The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
- Adhen (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche)
- Martyrs (Pascal Laugier)
- Transmission (Harun Farocki) – 6.7
- Hunger (Steve McQueen)
- Modern Life (Raymond Depardon)
- 24 City (Jia Zhangke)
- Frontier of Dawn (Phillipe Garrel)
- Birdsong (Albert Serra)
- Mommy is at the Hairdresser’s (Léa Pool)
- Of Time and the City (Terence Davies)
- Soi Cowboy (Thomas Clay)
- Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)
- 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
- Jerichow (Christian Petzold)
- Involuntary (Ruben Östlund) – 6.1
- Coal Money (Wang Bing) – 6.0
- Milk (Semih Kaplanoglu)
- Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
- A Lake (Philippe Grandrieux) – 5.8
- Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy)
- The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow) – 5.8
- Iron Man (Jon Favreau) – 5.5
- Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)
- Everlasting Moments (Jan Troell) – 5.3
- Momma’s Man (Azazel Jacobs)
- Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller)
- Jumper (Doug Liman) – 5.3
- Mid-August Lunch (Gianni Di Gregorio)
- Tokyo! (Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, & Bong Joon-ho) – 5.2
- Surveillance (Jennifer Lynch)
- The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
- Goodbye Solo (Ramin Bahrani)
- Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
- Serbis (Brillante Mendoza)
- WALL•E (Andrew Stanton)
- This Night (Werner Schroeter)
- The Christians (Stephen Cone) – 4.6
- Adoration (Atom Egoyan)
- Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
- Helen (Joe Lawlor & Christine Molloy)
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher)
- Four Nights With Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg)
- On War (Bertrand Bonello) – 4.1
- Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim)
- Snow (Aida Begic)
- Changeling (Clint Eastwood)
- Antoine (Laura Bari)
- Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)
- Eldorado (Bouli Lanners) – 3.7
- Waiting for Sancho (Mark Peranson) – 3.6
- Il Divo (Paolo Sorrentino)
- Sleep Furiously (Gideon Koppel)
- My Magic (Eric Khoo)
- Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd)
- Australia (Baz Luhrmann) – 2.6
- Palermo Shooting (Wim Wenders)
- Adam Resurrected (Paul Schrader)
- The Reader (Stephen Daldry)
- Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes)
- The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Kim Jee-woon)
Hey! I thought you didn’t hate Wall-E… MLG
I don’t hate it. It is a very annoying, disappointing movie should have better. I only really hate the first 6 on that list.