Stephen King Weighs In

Stephen King is a fan of lists, as any reader of his monthly Entertainment Weekly column knows, so it's only natural that he'd weigh in on the movies of the year.

The best part about King is that his choices are perhaps the least pretentious of absolutely any person to ever write a column about their favorite movies of the year. Starting with #10...

10. Death Race
9. Redbelt
8. The Ruins
7. Lakeview Terrace

Is Samuel L. Jackson in every movie? No...but it might be a better world if he were. Jackson's performance deserves an Academy Award nod, but won't get one. Too bad.

6. The Bank Job
5. Funny Games
4. Tropic Thunder
3. Wall-E

The first half an hour is an almost wordless tone poem that combines humor with 
an elegiac sadness for our throwaway culture. I don't think it deserves a Best Picture Academy Award, but it certainly deserves to be nominated.

2. Slumdog Millionaire
1. The Dark Knight

This is to cape-and-tights movies what Godfather II was to the gangster movie: a genre-defining event.

What conclusions can we draw, other than his admiration for Jason Statham? I think tops is a reaffirmation that Slumdog Millionaire can play really well with mass audiences -- it's the only major awards bait on the entire list, unless you count Dark Knight.

It's also evidence that The Dark Knight could become a Best Picture nominee if only because it's automatically the movie people seem to go to when they're thinking over the accomplishments of the year. Academy members who haven't seen everything there is to offer might vote for it by default.

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