2007 marked the year of the Coen Brothers.  No other film came close to the impressive 358 spots on top 10 lists that No Country for Old Men could be found on, becoming the second Coen brothers movie to top the number one spot (the other being 1996’s Fargo).

Meanwhile, Paul Thomas Anderson reached the top 10 for the third time in his short career (Magnolia, Boogie Nights) with his highest rating ever.

Approximately 585 lists were found in 2008.  The top 40 are as follows:

50. Rescue Dawn (27 lists)

“Werner Herzog is finally unveiling the first American narrative feature of his long career. As any Herzog fan would expect, it’s an odd and thrilling mixture, and I can’t imagine a better Fourth of July present to his adopted country.” — Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

49. Charlie Wilson’s War (27 lists, 1 top spot)

The big-screen Charlie Wilson’s War, clocking in at 93 fly-by minutes, is dark and funny and mean and sexy, damned near pitch-black-perfect considering that at the end of this boozy comedy you wind up with, oh, Osama bin Laden.” — Robert Wilonsky, Village Voice

48. The Kite Runner (27 lists, 2 top spots)

“The movie has two extraordinary characters and performances. Non-pro Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada breaks your heart as the innocent, wide-eyed child Hassan, and Homayoun Ershadi makes Amir’s father a model of intuitive decency.” — Jack Mathews, New York Daily News

47. Lust, Caution (28 lists, 1 top spot)

“A brooding meditation on the unnerving power and terrible cost of emotional and political masquerades, the Chinese-language Lust, Caution gets under your skin with its examination of what qualifies as love and what does not.” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

46. Margot at the Wedding (30 lists)

“Only an actress of Ms. Kidman’s stature, talent and proven magnetism could make her mercurial character bearable and watchable for the full 91 minutes of the film, in which she is in almost every scene.” — Andrew Sarris, New York Observor

45. In the Valley of Elah (31 lists)

“In the Valley of Elah held me despite my many qualms. That’s because the subject matter is innately powerful and resists Haggis’s pigeonholing. He’s latched onto something that’s bigger than himself.” — Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

44. La Vie en Rose (31 lists, 7 top spots)

“The movie, the voice of Piaf, and a performance that turns Marion Cotillard into a great new star shimmer with the kind of beauty, power, intensity and visual opulence you might want to experience again and again.” — Rex Reed, New York Observer

42. Across the Universe (33 lists, 2 top spots)

“Across the Universe isn’t beholden to any stage incarnation. It owes its vision to the vibrant imagination of its director, who created a musical that reminds us how cultural-political events can change our tune.” — Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

42. Control (33 lists, 2 top spots)

“Riley makes a perfect Curtis, and Corbijn’s finely shaded recreations of classic Joy Division performances are so exciting that the movie could’ve been nothing but fake concert footage, and it would’ve been every bit as moving as the filmmakers intended.” — Noel Murray, AV Club

41. Waitress (36 lists, 2 top spots)

“In the end, Shelly’s script for Waitress has a pleasingly tart undertone that balances out what could have been an overly sugary confection. And she directs with a skill that makes me wish we could look forward to many more films from her.” — Lou Lumenick, New York Post

40. Sicko (37 lists, 1 top spot)

“Sicko is Moore’s best film: a documentary that mixes outrage, hope, and gonzo stunts in the right proportions; and that throws an unforgiving spotlight on what is, in both senses, the elephant in the room.”  — David Edelstein, New York Magazine

39. Colossal Youth (37 lists, 7 top spots)

“Rather than impose actors on the scene, Costa involves the people who already live there. Instead of training them to perform a story, he locates a skeletal narrative from a rehearsal process based on their personal stories.” — Nathan Lee, Village Voice

37. Offside (38 lists, 2 top spot)

“Humanizes the Iranians and shows that they’re just as crazy about their sports as Westerners, if not more. If anything, it proves that soccer is truly an international language, providing an arena where anyone can communicate.” — Bill Muller, Arizona Republic

“It’s nothing less than a miracle that the director, Craig Gillespie, and the writer, Nancy Oliver, have been able to make such an endearing, intelligent and tender comedy from a premise that, in other hands, might sustain a five-minute sketch on TV.” — Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

34. Black Book (45 lists, 4 top spots)

“Judged in dramatic terms, situational ethics drive the film, never slackening the pace nor making the nearly 2 1/2-hour running time seem overlong. Van Houten is rarely out of the frame, but she’s no mere eye candy.” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star

“The movie duly quickens into pursuits of every speed, and the homage to action thrillers is there in the smallest detail; the clicking of a ballpoint pen, say, is amplified to sound as menacing as the cocking of a gun.” — Anthony Lane, New Yorker

31. American Gangster (54 lists, 3 top spots)

“Purposefully uneventful and made in a minor key, Killer of Sheep moved me to tears. Contemporary audiences may not recognize it as a great movie. There’s not an ounce of slick in it; it’s neither manipulative nor hurried.” — Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

29. No End in Sight (59 lists, 3 top spot)

“Remember the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex has his eyes clamped open and is forced to watch a movie? I imagine a similar experience for the architects of our catastrophe in Iraq. I would like them to see No End in Sight.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

28. 3:10 to Yuma (62 lists, 2 top spots)

“The best Western since Unforgiven, 3:10 to Yuma is both cathartic and intelligent. While a wildly eventful action-adventure and outlaw shoot-’em-up, it’s also a vibrant story of heroism, villainy and hard-earned redemption.” — Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle

26. The Savages (63 lists, 3 top spot)

“Tamara Jenkins has made a movie about something that lots of people are going through but nobody wants to deal with, not even in life, much less in entertainment. And she’s done it fearlessly, with the right mix of humor and horror.” — Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

25. Gone Baby Gone (65 lists)

“In emulating the best — Eastwood’s Mystic River, Scorsese’s The Departed — Affleck shows excellent instincts, not least of which is letting his brother, Casey, hold the center as a young guy not as smaht as he thinks he is.” — Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

24. Syndromes and a Century (65 lists, 9 top spot)

“Are these parallel tales a Buddhist romance? An attempt to induce something like 3-D narrative depth? A consideration of repetitive human activity over the course of a lifetime? You might as well ask why the breeze is rustling the leaves.” — J. Hoberman, Village Voice

23. Superbad (67 lists)

“Contains laughs galore, so many that the last one may get in the way of next one coming. But it’s also got moments where you may want to cover your eyes to shield yourself from the sheer, wince-inducing familiarity of the behaviour on display.” — Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

22. Grindhouse (73 lists, 6 top spots)

“The 1970s exploitation movie gropes, bites, kicks, slugs, blasts, smashes and cusses its way back to life in Grindhouse, a ‘Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature’ that lovingly resurrects a disreputable but cultishly embraced form.” — Todd McCarthy, Variety

21. The Lives of Others (73 lists, 12 top spots)

“A genuinely thrilling tale, leavened with sly humor, that works ingenious variations on the theme of cat and mouse, speaks to current concerns about personal privacy and illuminates the timeless conflict between totalitarianism and art.” — Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

20. The Bourne Ultimatum (78 lists, 6 top spot)

“Insistent, ingenious and slammed full of five heart attacks worth of action, The Bourne Ultimatum may be the best conspiracy action-thriller ever made, a beautifully crafted mix of mayhem, well-earned paranoia and unlikely introspection.” — Tom Long, Detroit News

19. Persepolis (81 lists)

18. Knocked Up (90 lists, 3 top spot)

“Hilarious from moment to moment, but leaving behind both a warm glow and a sting. This is a picture that refuses to fetishize either the ability to conceive or the significance of our place in the universe once we’ve done so.” — Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

14. Sweeney Todd (116 lists, 11 top spots)

“It combines some of Tim Burton’s favorite elements: The fantastic, the ghoulish, the bizarre, the unspeakable, the romantic and in Johnny Depp, he has an actor he has worked with since Edward Scissorhands and finds a perfect instrument.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

13. Atonement (126 lists, 17 top spots)

“The film is gorgeous to look at, well paced (especially during the first half), and by turns touching and sad. The ending packs an emotional punch, which is what one would expect from any movie developed from a McEwan novel.” — James Berardinelli, ReelViews

12. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (127 lists, 11 top spots)

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the story…of the moment in America when myth was murdered by mere celebrity and we were left, perhaps forever, with only the latter’s meager consolations.” — Christopher Orr, New Republic

11. Michael Clayton (133 lists, 14 top spots)

“This uncommonly intelligent thriller evokes the great films of the 1970s (All the President’s Men, Klute, Three Days of the Condor) that managed to elicit gritty urban realism while maintaining a suave sense of style and moral complexity.” — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

10. Eastern Promises (134 lists, 3 top spot)

“Eastern Promises, a chilly character thriller set in the Russian underworld of London, has elements of murder mystery and gangster melodrama. But in director David Cronenberg’s hands, it’s a search for moral bearing in a dark and desperate world.” — Desson Thompson, Washington Post

9. Into the Wild (138 lists, 13 top spots)

“Sequences are gorgeously filmed by cinematographer Eric Gautier, and they’re heady with the joy of discovery — they make you want to hit the road into the magnificent landscape we forget is out there.” — Ty Burr, Boston Globe

8. I’m Not There (141 lists, 18 top spots)

“The singular haunting beauty of I’m Not There, Todd Haynes’ thrilling deep-vision meditation on the music and many lives of Bob Dylan, is that obsession isn’t just its fuel — it’s the movie’s spirit and subject, its driving force.” — Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

7. Once (157 lists, 11 top spots)

“Forget everything you think you know about the movie musical, one of the more predictable genres. With Once, writer-director John Carney deconstructs it and reinvents it as something wholly new, inspired and alive.” — Christy Lemire, Associated Press

6. Ratatouille (158 lists, 10 top spots)

“A film as rich as a sauce béarnaise, as refreshing as a raspberry sorbet, and a lot less predictable than the damn food metaphors and adjectives all us critics will churn out to describe it. OK, one more and then I’ll be done: it’s yummy.” — David Ansen, Newsweek

5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (163 lists, 26 top spots)

“Thanks to Bauby’s courageous and honest writing, and Schnabel’s poetic interpretation, what could have been a portrait of impotence and suffering becomes a lively exploration of consciousness and a soaring ode to liberation.” — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

4. Juno (178 lists, 19 top spots)

“That smart, hip, human comedy you’ve been waiting for all year? The one with dialogue like a sugar rush and performances like grace notes? It’s called Juno and it just arrived in theaters. Go forth and multiplex.” — Ty Burr, Boston Globe

3. Zodiac (216 lists, 27 top spots)

“Fincher leads us down little dark alleys and side streets, and we’re never quite sure who might jump out to be the killer. After three decades, details of the case have faded from public consciousness, so the movie is surprising at times.” — Bill Muller, Arizona Republic

2. There Will Be Blood (245 lists, 63 top spots)

“An impressive achievement in its confident expertness in rendering the simulated realities of a bygone time and place, largely with an inspired use of regional amateur actors and extras with all the right moves and sounds.” — Andrew Sarris, New York Observer

1. No Country for Old Men (358 lists, 90 top spots)

“Bardem is nothing less than the best movie villain since Anthony Hopkins slipped out of Hannibal Lecter’s manacles, scary-smart and horrifyingly appealing, and Brolin is nothing short of a revelation.” — Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press