ROTTEN TOMATOES: Golden Tomatoes: The 10 Best Movies for each of the Last 10 Years

Golden Tomatoes: The 10 Best Movies for each of the Last 10 Years

RT highlights the best reviewed movie for each year we've been around.

by RT Staff | July 16, 2008

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What better way to celebrate RT's 10^th birthday than with a film retrospective that focuses on the very basis of our existence? Take a look back, all the way through our formative years, to see which movies had garnered the best critical responses. Those of you who have been with us for a while now are already familiar with our Golden Tomato Awards, and the memory of last year's winner might still be fresh on your mind. But between a handful of animated features, a political satire, and a sentimental turn from a wild comedian, you might find one or two surprises in our list of each year's best-reviewed film.

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1998's Best-Reviewed:
The Truman Show

Media appropriation, voyeurism, ditching our jobs and sailing to Fiji -- these are issues we mull over every day at Rotten Tomatoes. So it's fitting that The Truman Show, Peter Weir's gentle treatise on pop culture and art, is the movie to inaugurate the site. The movie stars Jim Carrey as meek Truman Burbank, an insurance adjustor slowly realizing his hometown a giant set, his life nothing more than televised pap. But just like everyone else, critics loved tuning in to The Truman Show: "Adventurous, provocative, even daring," wrote Kenneth Turan. And the movie demonstrated Carrey need not resort to falling out of a rhino's ass to make the audiences laugh and take home the box office; The Truman Show has heart, hijinks, and, according to Owen Glieberman, it turns "Carrey...into a postmodern Capra hero."

Runners-Up: Shakespeare in Love, Antz, Saving Private Ryan
Worst-Reviewed: Jawbreaker

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(1-20 of 131 posts) | Reply

TheGreatOne13 writes:
on Jul 16 2008 05:37 PM

Well two of the films...The Truman Show and Monsters Inc., are in my top ten of all-time, so thanks critics

(Reply to this)

The Dark Knight Fan 1 writes:
on Jul 16 2008 05:49 PM

Ratatouille is one of the best films i ever saw well deserved

(Reply to this)

Bruce Campbell writes:
on Jul 16 2008 05:52 PM

Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille... Wow, now with Wall-E, Pixar is god. Plus with Chicken Run, 60% of the films are animated. ZOMG0111!!

(Reply to this)

Deeds writes:
on Jul 16 2008 06:01 PM

Of course the animated films dominate, they appeal to nearly everyone.

Also the Queen better than the Departed and Pan's? I dont think so.

(Reply to this)

Bruce Campbell writes:
on Jul 16 2008 06:19 PM

In reply to this comment (#1881052)
Not elitists who think they're above everyone.

(Reply to this)

Mavtactic writes:
on Jul 16 2008 06:31 PM

Spirited Away should have won that year actually....higher rating and all...
so it should be 70% of the films are animated...PWNAGE

(Reply to this)

ksduded writes:
on Jul 16 2008 06:34 PM

It just shows how good Pixar is at their craft.

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Zergling writes:
on Jul 16 2008 06:35 PM

can pixar be nice...

Pans Labyrinth shouldve won best picture... thank you academy for choosing Scorsessssy's much overrated Departed over the true masterpiece.. Pans labyrinth. stupid.

(Reply to this)

sugarflowlistical77 writes:
on Jul 16 2008 06:39 PM

Does Pixar have you on a payroll? Until WALL-E, their films felt uniformly commercial and formulaic. Oh, and The Queen? That stuffy, overwrought, heavy-handed Tony Blair love-fest may as well have aired on PBS.

(Reply to this)

Bruce Campbell writes:
on Jul 16 2008 07:26 PM

In reply to this comment (#1881140)
*coughelitistcough*

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Long Live the New Flesh writes:
on Jul 16 2008 07:44 PM

This list is the demonstrates why I don't let the Tomatometer rule my life. If I did, then I would love "The Incredibles" (which I borderline hated), think that it was the best Pixar film (I think that it was the worst), think that "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" was the worst of the trilogy, and half of my favorite movies would be animated.

Thank God for free will.

P.S.: I think the comment about animated films is somewhat true. It's not that they're neccessarily any better than normal films; it's just that there is usually less in the thematic material sophisticated or controversial enough to complain about. I'm not saying that all animated films are awful. Some are good. Some are very good ("Toy Story", "Toy Story 2", "Shrek", "Chicken Run", "Finding Nemo", "Monsters, Inc.", "The Lion King", "Alladin", "Beauty and the Beast", "Spirited Away", "The Simpsons Movie", etc.), but none of them are, say, best-reviewed-picture-of-the-year good. I also prefer both stop-motion and traditional animation to the newer computer-generated films.

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IKRfilmfan writes:
on Jul 16 2008 07:51 PM

In reply to this comment (#1881140)
To sugarflowlistical77, Pixar's films are NOT formulaic and commericlal. Dreamworks' animated features are.

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IKRfilmfan writes:
on Jul 16 2008 07:53 PM

I can see the Golden "Tomaters" for this year:

Winner: WALL-E
Runner-Ups: The Dark Knight, Changeling, Encounters at the End of the World
Worst Rated: One Missed Call

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Ukrainianator writes:
on Jul 16 2008 08:17 PM

Too many stupid, mediocre cartoons which don't even come close to the real good films obviously. If you want to see which films at the best, don't look at RT, look at the academy awards for best picture.

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filmboy22 writes:
on Jul 16 2008 08:35 PM

Zergling, you're just hating on the departed because it won best picture. i remember that night hoping that it WOULDN'T win just so people like you wouldn't refer to it as being overrated. that's why i'm glad there will be blood didn't win, cause it was the best picture nominated last year and it will age better because it didn't win.

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Brodie14 writes:
on Jul 16 2008 09:00 PM

I think they should do these lists without the animated features, since they are films that appeal to nearly everybody.

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Garamonde writes:
on Jul 16 2008 09:18 PM

Why isn't Return of the king up there??? In fact, why so many damn animated movies? I doubt adults and people who take films seriously say "Hey, you know what the greatest movie of all time is??? Finding Nemo!". No, this list is a disgrace.

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arendr writes:
on Jul 16 2008 09:23 PM

I like Pixar, but they tend to get rave reviews from all critics because, let's face it, they're fairly safe movies (up until Wall-E; that was a little ballsier of them).

Pixar consistently makes great movies (although I went through a patch where I wasn't so high on them, mainly because we have CG animation overload now), but there are certain filmmakers who make better movies that won't get the same kind of acclaim because they don't make safe movies.

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Floor Man writes:
on Jul 16 2008 09:26 PM

Hmmm...I'm still surprised, even after a year or so, that The Queen got the nominations it did...it was good, but certainly nowhere near as spectacular as several others that year.

:/

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Yrogerg writes:
on Jul 16 2008 09:29 PM

In reply to this comment (#1881439)
So obviously the movies which appeal to everyone should not get be the best reviewed movie of that year. I mean... I'd expect critics to loathe movies which appeal to nearly everybody. This feature is meant to show which movies are most well liked, not which movies are the best works of art. Besides, critics more often than not dislike children's animated movies, so it's a mark for these movies that the only studios to have turned out consistently good and well reviewed animated movies this past decade are Pixar and Studio Ghibli. In my opinion these are some of the most aesthetically pleasing movies ever made and make great use of the film medium.

(Reply to this)