As a public service for readers seeking out excellent films -- specifically, for those readers who put more trust in the Skandies than in the aggregate results compiled by Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes -- I'm going to start keeping a tally of the top ten films released so far this year as judged by members of the Movie Nerd Discussion Group you may have seen mentioned here now and again. Basically, we stole and slightly modified Variety's "crix pix" survey, with its pro/mixed/con structure; the only difference is that voters can strengthen their votes at either end with an all-caps PRO or CON. This project began as a labor-intensive deal whereby everyone e-mailed their votes to poor Scott Tobias; eventually, Greg Dunlap created an automated version that also maintains stats, updated weekly. Since the Movie Nerd Discussion Group has 100+ members, and the Skandies only about 40, the results aren't precisely congruent, but they're pretty close; of the Skandies top 20 for 2007, for example, 14 were in the crix pix top 20. (The six that weren't: Exiled (#27), Into the Wild (#32), Grindhouse (#34), Once (#38), Atonement (#46), and Joshua (#51).)

Films without at least ten votes aren't counted, and folks don't always send in their votes (or even see the films) the week they're released, so don't conclude that a given title wasn't well-received simply because it doesn't show up on the list right away.

Numbers in parentheses represent the previous week's placement. Links are to trailers.



01. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi) (1)
02. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick) (2)
03. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami) (3)
04. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan) (4)
05. House of Pleasures (Bertrand Bonello) (5)
06. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn) (6)
07. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) (7)
08. Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean) (8)
09. The Interrupters (Steve James) (9)
10. The Arbor (Clio Barnard) (10)

And just for fun, the ten worst-rated films -- though, again, bear in mind that films receiving fewer than ten votes (which would likely include most of the truly terrible ones) aren't tallied.

(Total number of films ranked: 199)

199. The Roommate (Christian E. Christiansen)
198. Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder)
197. Country Strong (Shana Feste)
195. (tie) The Change-Up (David Dobkin)
195. (tie) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall)
194. Battle: Los Angeles (Jonathan Liebesman)
193. We Are What We Are (Jorge Michel Grau)
192. I Am Number Four (D.J. Caruso)
190. (tie) Just Go With It (Dennis Dugan)
190. (tie) Restless (Gus Van Sant)