It’s hip to declare every year to be the worst on record in terms of quality movies, but even a cursory glance at the past 12 months shows 2008 to be a stellar year. Nowhere is this more evident than the Golden Globe nominations, which cast further and wider than one might expect—there’s simply too many good movies to recognize, which is hard to do when you have to make room for bland boners like Revolutionary Road.

The same goes here. I went with 11 best picks last year, but only 10 this year—room had to be made for the 5 worst, because some movies must be shamed at every opportunity. A handful of movies (Burn After Reading, Miracle at St. Anna) didn’t make the list, despite their exemplary natures… but what can you do. As in 2007, I will be listing the 10 Best in alphabetical order, because each of these movies is divinely inspired in their own special way. Why play favorites?

Bigger, Stronger, Faster
—A surprisingly engaging documentary about the world of steroids abuse, as conducted by Chris Bell, one of three brothers who habitually uses ‘roids to compete in weight-lifting and body building competitions. What’s so interesting about Bell’s unpretentious approach is his unwillingness to condemn steroids and steroid culture; Bell is far more interested in looking at the larger American culture that practically demands such gratuitous self-abuse while demonizing it at every turn.

The Dark Knight
—My standing line about the upcoming Watchmen movie is that The Dark Knight may very well render its revelations and themes redundant. The Dark Knight explores the full depth and breadth of the vigilante concept, and its fearlessness to see just how very exceptional—and dangerous—it is for anyone to pursue justice while operating outside the bounds of law. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan tell a complex, multi-layered story with deceptive ease, and the four powerhouse performances don’t hurt, either.

Doomsday
—The first thing you need to know is that Doomsday is a send-up and homage of John Carpenter movies, most specifically his Escape films. It doesn’t end there, though; writer/director Neil Marshall mashes up tropes and conventions of everything from fantasy epics to Bruckheimer car chases to bring us a movie that’s quite clearly insane, but also a hell of a lot of fun.

In Bruges
—A February release, which often means a studio doesn’t know what to do with the thing. (See also: Doomsday.) And I suppose I can see why. In Bruges starts as something like a very British dark comedy, with hitmen played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson waiting in the Purgatory of Bruges (it’s in Belgium) while their boss (Ralph Fiennes) decides their fate. It’s a sneaky movie: You start off laughing at and with these guys, then end up crying for them. Curiously powerful.

Man on Wire
—This part-documentary, part-dramatization is like a 90-minute demonstration of that famous mountain climbing answer, “Because it was there.” Way back in 1974, tightrope walker Philippe Petit enacted what amounts to a heist to get into and on top of the World Trade Center in New York City, to string a rope between the two towers and walk across them… for 8 minutes. Petit is a larger-than-life character, and watching him do what he does… you almost want to do it yourself.

Speed Racer
—The Wachowskis often leave me lukewarm at best, but this one I fell in love with, unabashedly. It’s fitting that they were the ones to lash cutting-edge special effects technology to their story, effectively sculpting a story from them. The movie’s a bit like live-action animation in that you’re seeing things that are clearly not possible, but their seamless blend of the real and the fantastic makes it all seem quite real, and quite possible. I never expected such a gutsy move from these filmmakers.

Slumdog Millionaire
—It’s rare I walk into a screening knowing nothing about the movie, but this is one of them. In that way, every new flashback and flash forward was something unexpected—very rarely did I know where Slumdog was going, and the experience was all the better for it. It is a love story at heart, but it is so much more than that, too. It is quite possible I teared up (with joy) both times I saw it.

Standard Operating Procedure
—There have been many, many documentaries about the Iraq War, but none so powerful as this. Directed by Errol Morris, possibly the finest documentarian alive today, S.O.P. examines with startling intimacy the abuse and torture conducted in Abu Ghraib, and how such a horror could be photographed with such glee by those doing the torturing. Morris, unexpectedly, is not interested in trying the MPs caught in the photos, but rather in the culture that put scared teenagers in a position of power over faceless “enemies” and let them run wild. This one will rip your heart out.

Stuck
—Based on a true incident in Ft. Worth, Texas, Stuck is about a young nursing home aide (Mena Suvari) who hit-and-runs a down-on-his-luck drifter (Stephen Rea), with one crucial twist—the man is lodged in her windshield, and he is not dead. Panicked, she stows her car in her garage. Their twin stories—her moral distintegration, his struggle to survive—unfold in parallel, and director Stuart Gordon is sly enough to make you side with both characters, though you (and they) know full well that for one’s life to continue, the other’s must end. A true horror movie.

Wall-E
—Pixar may have the most flawless studio record in film history, and Wall-E is quite possibly their best film. Simple yet nuanced, tarnished yet beautiful, critical yet sentimental, there is so very much to love in this movie, most of all its titular protagonist. The stroke of genius is to render so much of the story in purely physical terms; Wall-E and his companion Eve do not speak, so much of their thoughts and emotions are conveyed as they would be in a silent film. It is nice to be reminded from time to time that those old movies still have a lot of power.

And now, the THE FIVE WORST MOVIES OF 2008, from most offensive to least…

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
—Note to Premise Media: do not give critics an insult for your movie right there in the title. Both horrifying and instructional in ways it does not intend, Expelled is like every conservative caricature of a Michael Moore documentary taken to its ghastly extreme. It never presents anything like a coherent argument, and often betrays its own rules multiple times to score cheap points. Possibly useful as a spectacle, but more likely to induce nausea in anyone who understands the most basic principles of science. A sick, laugh-free joke, made all the worse because its players do not seem to know it.

Hell Ride
—It’s one thing to let someone indulge in their childish desire to relive the movies of another era; it is quite another to enable them to do so in front of the general audience. Larry Bishop is the writer-director-offender here, wallowing in the conventions of the biker-movie genre like an infant in a mudhole. Bishop confuses posturing for style and cloying “cleverness” for true wit. The result, saturated as it is in needless obscenity and brave new vistas of misogyny, is hard to stomach and infuriating to behold.

Righteous Kill
—Not so much terrible as it is terribly mediocre, Righteous Kill made much hay out of pairing Robert Deniro and Al Pacino together, then squandered that opportunity. Director Jon Avnet was apparently so smitten with his leads that their phoned-in performances didn’t bother him in the least. Righteous Kill is not aggressive in its badness, merely joyless and pointless; none of its muddled morality presents anything not done ten times better in a hundred other movies, and the simple question of “why was this made?” can provide no answer. Offensive in its pointless waste.

Eagle Eye
—I’m sure that, somewhere in the original pitch meetings, Eagle Eye might have made some kind of sense to someone; maybe as a critique of our technology-obsessed culture, maybe as a (rather broad) critique of the Patriot Act, or what have you. But, no, it’s just a dumb thriller with some seriously disorienting rules: we’re meant to root against Hal 9000 while cheering for the FBI agent whose first appearance has him cheerily telling fall guy Shia LeBouf how innocent civilians have no rights and can be abused at will. Um, yay?

Twilight
—I try not to be mean, seeing as Twilight is basically a pro-abstinence supernatural romance for tweener girls, but it really is quite terrible. There is no actual conflict to be found anywhere in this ostensible vampire story, unless you count “being single” as a deviation that must be resolved by close of play. Everyone likes everyone, everyone has special gifts or powers, and the lead vampire’s curse is that when he steps into sunlight, he only gets more beautiful. Twilight is like The Fast and the Furious for teenage girls: a stubborn finger on the pleasure-center trigger, all release and gratification with no real catharsis. Hold suspect anyone over the age of 17 who breathes a single kind word for this movie.