The Best Sci-Fi Movies of 2008

This wasn't just the year that science fiction dominated the movies — it also featured an amazing diversity of SF stories. Here's our list of the greatest films of 2008.
BEST:

10. Let The Right One In-This intense, beautiful Swedish movie about a 12-year-old boy's relationship with a vampire did the near-impossible: it almost made us forget the blah Twilight.

9. Teeth. This year saw a boomlet in feminist horror movies, between this film and Zombie Strippers.

8. Speed Racer. Pretty much everyone hates this movie except us — Entertainment Weekly listed it twice on its year's worst lists, even as the mag praised the bland Benjamin Button. But we really did love this film.

7. Cloverfield. Of all the movies on this year's "best" list, this is the one I can least imagine wanting to watch more than once. But that's okay, because the one time you watch it, you'll be blown away.

6. Sleep Dealer. We called it one of the best small-budget science fiction movies in years, in our review back in October. Set in a future where Mexicans do menial labor in the U.S.via telepresence, Dealer is a commentary on immigration and racism.

5. Iron Man. This movie exceeded our expectations, delivering a mind-expanding story of the military-industrial complex instead of just a superhero punch-em-up.

4. City Of Ember. It could have been just another young-people-discover-their-world-is-a-lie movie, but instead it becomes a post-apocalyptic masterpiece.

3. Synecdoche, NY. Charlie Kaufman gave us Being John Malkovitch and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, but this is probably his weirdest, most surreal movie.

2. The Dark Knight. This movie got us so worked up, we reviewed it twice. Sure, it was too long — and did the Joker really have to put explosives in the hospital and the boats?

1. Wall-E The only movie in years that I've wanted to watch again, right away. If I hadn't been starving and late for dinner, I would have watched it two or three times in one sitting. The first half hour, featuring the cute-bot in the post-apocalyptic abandoned Earth, is poetic and slapsticky.
By Charlie Jane Anders