With the year two-thirds over, we thought it was a good time to look back at some of the most acclaimed titles of 2008 so far. But while IMDb users and tough-talking bands of blog commenters are largely in agreement that The Dark Knight is pretty much the greatest thing ever (or at least since The Shawshank Redemption), it might come as a surprise that the Screengrab readership does not concur with this opinion. To wit: in last week’s poll of the top five best-reviewed major releases of 2008 (according to Rotten Tomatoes), the winner was Pixar’s latest contemporary classic, Wall-E, which brought in 39% of the vote. Furthermore, The Dark Knight actually tied for second (22% of the vote apiece) with a film that was never released on more than fifty screens at any given time, last year’s Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. As for me, I cast my vote for the James Marsh’s thrilling documentary Man on Wire, which came in a solid fourth (17%) but at least fared better than Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winner The Counterfeiters, which garnered no votes whatsoever.
This week, in conjunction with my colleague Andrew Osborne’s run-down of the biggest hits and flops of the summer, we get your opinions on the hottest tickets from the last four months. As you might have guessed, two of the titles this week were also included in last week’s poll, but we’re hoping that perhaps some of you Iron Man fans out there were waiting for your chance to cast your vote here. So, which of the summer’s biggest box-office winners was your favorite?
In addition, we’d like to know how many of the summer’s reigning blockbusters you managed to see.
As always, the comments section is open. See you next week!