Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a contendah!
My general rule when determining my movies list is to include those films released in a given year. Therefore, if a film was released in December of the previous year but I didn’t get to see it until January or February of the following year it should count against last year’s list. Peter Pan fell into that situation. So did Chicago.
I am considering breaking that rule in this instance.
Atonement is so spectacular a film – so beautifully filmed, so wonderfully acted, so intriguingly written – that it really deserves the honour of my choice for best film of the year. However, after much soul-searching, the general brilliance and oppressive silence of No Country for Old Men must firmly cement that film in the top spot.
I’ll modify the list. I’ll push Transformers to number 3 and bump Hot Fuzz off the list (it was a mercy add anyway, out of respect for the filmmakers) and I’ll sadly, undeservedly, put Atonement down as number two.
It isn’t often there’s a tie. It’s more often the case that there’s no clear winner. What seemed at the outset to be a poor year for movies turned out to have an overabundance of wonderfulness.