But all things considered, it was an above average year - even if there weren’t many champions to be found among the many contenders. When I sat down to write my top 20, the list filled up promptly. The hard thing, though, was deciding the order. So while 2008 may go down as a year without any classics, it was a great time to be a movie lover.

Here they are, the very best of the year:

Mickey Rourke stars in "The Wrestler."

1. "The Wrestler" (opens Jan. 16)

It won’t arrive for Milwaukee audiences until Jan. 16, but when I saw my first screening of Darren Aronofsky’s "The Wrestler" six weeks ago, I walked away in a state of shock.

On the surface, it’s the story of a washed-up professional wrestler struggling to resurrect the relationships he threw away when winning was all that mattered. Now, battered and bruised, he finds that even his heart has failed him. He reaches out to his estranged daughter, to the one woman he has always been enamored with who views him less as a man than as a business customer.

When all else fails him, he tries to regain glory in the ring, but suddenly finds that his body that he has so long abused can no longer take any more punishment. He’s a tragic figure trying to dig deep, determined to find the inner strength to set his life on the right course.

But it’s Aronofsky’s ("The Fountain," "Requiem For A Dream") direction that elevates the material. Stripping the film of all the glitz and glamour of a coming-of-age Hollywood fable, "The Wrestler" is gritty and calm. More than once, Aronofsky puts the camera behind our hero, not focusing on him as some sort of superstar, but helping us to identify with his point of view: a fallen soldier rushing back into battle.

There’s the real-life drama of Mickey Rourke playing this wrester: himself a washed-up actor returning to the big screen with a vengeance. And as we see a desperate man finally go for broke in one of the film’s closing matches, "The Wrestler" establishes itself as one of the great movie tragedies, filled with promise, flaws and despair. It’s an unforgettable creation.

2. "Slumdog Millionaire"

For a brief second, it feels like a gimmick: putting the central character of "Slumdog Millionaire" on the set of the TV game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." But then we realize it’s actually something of a godsend: the over-the-top act of God that elevates the whole thing into the realm of magical realism.

Through the device of this television show, we’re able to identify with a young man at the biggest crossroads of his life: a poor Indian man who has come onto this show in hopes of winning over the heart of the woman he loves. Director Danny Boyle intercuts this game show drama with scenes of young Jamal’s (Dev Patel) past, taking the film into the chaos of Mumbai’s slums, establishing Jamal’s sordid relationship with his brother and his passion for Latika, the woman he adores - the one shred of hope he continues to cling to.

It is a movie crackling with energy and excitement, filled with subplots of horrifying dangers and the ecstasy of youthful optimism. And with each game show question, and every lifeline, we realize that there’s more at stake here than simply money. In Jamal’s life story, we see the hopes, the agonies, the promise of an entire nation.

3. "The Fall" (now on DVD)

No one saw "The Fall." Their loss.

In part a fantasy adventure, and in part a meditation on the nature of storytelling, the film couldn’t be simpler. A guy breaks his leg and meets a girl who broke her arm. He starts telling her a story, and together they imagine a rip-roaring adventure involving kidnapped princesses and manly heroes in exotic locales. As fantasy starts to blur into reality, we’re given one of the most captivating fables since "Pan’s Labyrinth."

4. "Man on Wire" (now on DVD)

It was more than just the year’s best documentary, it was one of the year’s most exciting, thrilling and inspirational films of any genre. About Philippe Pettit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers, director James Marsh masterfully stitches the material together so that a story of personal obsession gives way to a heist movie and then a soaring artistic spectacle. In the midst of all this, we allow ourselves to once again fall in love with those two magnificent towers.

5. "The Dark Knight" (now on DVD)

There’s a point at which pop art elevates itself into something more. It happened with "Star Wars," it happened with "Indiana Jones" (well, the first three Indiana Jones films) and it’s happened again here in 2008, with Christopher Nolan’s "The Dark Knight" Envisioning a new kind of villain, a new kind of hero and a whole new set of stakes, "The Dark Knight" flips the superhero formula on its ear and gives us one of the most haunting and harrowing thrillers in years.

6. "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" (now on DVD)

This Romanian thriller, occurring almost in real-time and involving characters with hidden motivations, made only the briefest of stops in Milwaukee this year. That’s too bad, because few movies have so successfully immersed me in their fears. As two female friends set out to do something illegal, the world seems to come crashing down all around them.

7. "The Visitor" (now on DVD)

A Connecticut professor visits his New York apartment, discovers two squatters living there and kicks them out. But then he feels guilty, allows himself to see these illegal aliens as people and slowly befriends them. With one arrest, he’s dragged into the illegal immigration debate, realizing that behind all the rhetoric is a world of forgotten people and broken lives.

8. "Milk" (now in theaters)

Sean Penn delivers one of the year’s most hopeful, unrelenting performances in "Milk," Gus Van Sant’s biopic of the first openly-gay elected official in American history. Focusing on eight years of Harvey Milk’s life, we see the way that one middle-aged man with a determination to preach a gospel of acceptance literally changed the world.

9. "My Winnipeg" (now on DVD)

What a confounding, delirious, delightful film. It’s been dubbed a "docu-fantasia," a fabricated documentary by Guy Maddin of Winnipeg, his hometown. Using black and white, mixing fact with fiction and bathing his homeland in an aura of magic and mysticism, "My Winnipeg" taps into the way our past exists in our mind: memories and facts and myths all swirled into one syrupy, nostalgic mess.

10. "Wall-E" (now on DVD)

Pixar’s done it again. "Toy Story" was epic nostalgia. "The Incredibles" was classic comedy. "Ratatouille" was a testament to the unfailing spirit of the artist. And here’s "Wall-E," a silent film of loneliness that gives way to a cautionary tale about a human race gone off course. It’s beautiful, sad, inspiring and funny: the family film that everyone in the family (even the film critic son) could enjoy.

THE SECOND TIER (in alphabetical order):

"Chop Shop"

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

"Happy-Go-Lucky"

"Iron Man"

"Rachel Getting Married"

"Revolutionary Road"

"Synecdoche, New York"

"Standard Operating Procedure"

"Trouble the Water"

"The Wackness"

What were your 10 favorite films of 2008? Let Steve know at SnyderReviews@hotmail.com