My Top Movies of the Summer of 2008

1. The Dark Knight
Official Website
Christopher Nolan wanted to make an action movie that was different from other action movies -- darker, more twisted, more despairing, more bleak -- and he has mostly succeeded in this latest Batman installment. He can thank Ledger for a lot of that.
-Mike LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

2. Mongol
Official Website
The film, a foreign-language Oscar nominee, is epic in scope, in scale, in story, in everything. It has as much action as any brain-dead Hollywood blockbuster, but Mongol also has heart and intelligence.
-Bill Goodykuntz, Arizona Reporter

3. Iron Man
Official Website
Downey's richly human performance as a reformed rake who relies on his intelligence, feels both personal and genuinely fresh.
-Liam Lacey, Glove and Mail

4. Wall-E
Official Website
No movie can be a downer that fills you with pure exhilaration. You leave WALL-E with a feeling of the rarest kind: that you've just enjoyed a close encounter with an enduring classic.
-Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

5. In Bruges
Official Website
It is easily one of the best debut feature films in recent memory. The notion of a pair of hit men cooling their heels as they're forced to play tourist in a picture-postcard town is clever enough. But as the story unspools, it grows more intriguing.
-Claudia Puig, USA Today

6. Tropic Thunder
Official Website
"Boasting yet another shining performance from Robert Downey Jr., Ben Stiller's politically incorrect satire of Hollywood war-action movies is rude, crude, messy and sharply uneven, containing wildly funny sequences..."
-Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.com

7. Pineapple Express
Official Website
The plot is as thin as rolling papers and OD's on graphic violence, but the smokin' cast lights up the screen and scores lots of laughs.
-Matt Stephens, E! Online

8. The Incredible Hulk
Official Website
This new production, starring Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, looks a lot better -- sometimes it looks great -- and it's a thunderously efficient enterprise, with a nice surprise at the very end.
-Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

9. Bottle Shock
Official Website
Its heart is so in the right place and its tableau so appealing that it's easy to come away from this sweet, scrappy film with a nice little buzz.
-Bill Ward, Minneapolis Star Tribune

10. Wanted
Official Website
Wanted may be the most absolutely stone bonkers, crazy-good movie of the century. Or it may be a gargantuan piece of trash. Chances are it's a combination of the two. But man, does it rock.
-Tom Long, Detroit News