The Best Films of 2007
by Brian Tallerico

4. No Country For Old Men
The coldest, darkest, most vicious movie of the year also happens to be the most critically acclaimed. A grad student could write a thesis on what it says about the dark days we currently live in that The Departed won best picture last year, No Country For Old Men is favored to win this year, and both films feature an exorbitant amount of death. Joel and Ethan Coen's best film in a decade starts out as a traditional but very well-made thriller but becomes much more than that in the final act. No Country For Old Men is a commentary on the increasing power of evil with every generation. There may be warmth in the afterlife but not in this life, and us good folks are lucky enough to survive it for any length of time. You may be lucky enough to wound evil, but you'll never kill it. And evil has rarely been played better than it is by the Oscar-worthy Javier Bardem. Javier, Josh Brolin, Kelly MacDonald, Tommy Lee Jones, Roger Deakins' cinematography, Cormac McCarthy's ability as a master storyteller - it all comes together to create arguably the most haunting film of the year. No Country For Old Men is a hard movie to shake. Having seen dozens of movies since seeing No Country, it still lingers in my mind and is likely to do so for years to come.

3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Another haunting masterpiece on this list, the divisive Jesse James is not only one of the most beautifully shot films in years, but is also an amazing study of how the power of legend can mix with the reality of human fallibility. Near the end of the film, a character asks Robert Ford why he committed the titular murder and the great Casey Affleck has a look on his face that perfectly sums up the film - there's no easy answer. You could make a long, long list of the reasons why, and director Andrew Dominik takes those reasons and fashions them into a timeless cinematic legend. From the very first scenes to the last, The Assassination of Jesse James feels like nothing else we've seen in the genre for years, combining the pace of Malick's films with a stronger storytelling urgency to create something completely new and totally unforgettable. The critics who dismissed Jesse James will deny they ever did so in just a few short years.

2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The true story of a man trapped in his own body by a horrible stroke that allowed him movement of only his eye would be a powerful one in almost anyone's hands, but it's the choices made by the team behind The Diving Bell and the Butterfly that make it one of the best films of the last few years. Diving Bell isn't your average movie by any stretch of the imagination. Almost the entire first third is shot from the perspective of the lead character, a sensation unbelievably captured by master cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who turns his camera into a fluttering, immobile eyelid. From there, Julian Schnabel starts to pepper in shots from other character's perspectives, and we can see how the rest of the world views a man we already feel like we know. And then Diving Bell truly takes off by inserting more and more memories, including unforgettably heartbreaking passages with Max Von Sydow and a trip to Lourdes that ranks with the best scenes in film of the year. Internal misery, external pain, the power of memory, and, eventually, the human will - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly isn't as much of a film as it is an experience. You won't be the same for hours, days, or weeks after you see it. You might never be the same again.

1. Once
A lonely Irish guitarist who lives with his father sits down with a pretty pianist to play a song he wrote. The rest is movie history. Watching John Carney's Once was a movie experience like no other this year. Once is the perfect combination of genuine realism - making us feel like we're Irish flies on the wall - and the power of movies, music, and the creative mind. Carney, Glen Hansard, and Marketa Irglova have made a love song to the gorgeous twists of fate that make up our lives. If we're lucky, we have a moment, a song, a friend, whatever, that can lift us up out of the valleys of our lives and place us back on a different path. Once is about the power of creativity to change our lives. Like a lot of films on this list, it transcends description and merely asks you to enjoy spending time with its characters and possibly look at your own life and what's inspired it a little differently on the way out of the theater. In the final shot, as the music soars and the camera moves out of a second-floor window, it doesn't fall to the Earth, it stays airborne and we go with it, leaving the theater a little higher off the ground than when we came in. That's what movies are all about.

For more information on the best movies of 2007, check out the Deadbolt interviews with:
Mathieu Amalric on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Brad Pitt on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem on No Country For Old Men
Josh Brolin on No Country For Old Men
Joel and Ethan Coen on No Country For Old Men
George Clooney on Michael Clayton
Ellen Page and Michael Cera on Juno
Keira Knightley on Atonement
And watch for our interview with the writer and director of The Orphanage coming soon.