Best & Worst 2008: Kenneth Turan's movie picks

Ten-best lists are often ranked, but I prefer to avoid that misery if I can. It's like ranking your children: Even if you could do it with a degree of accuracy, the very act spreads more unhappiness than joy.

But while slots two to 10 will be listed alphabetically, I'm going to depart from my usual practice and name a clear No. 1 film: Danny Boyle's exhilarating "Slumdog Millionaire."

I'm naming it No. 1 because of the effect it had on me as well as almost everyone I've talked to. Watching it was like seeing an old friend long presumed dead suddenly walking around town as healthy as you please. "Slumdog" is a modern version of an old-fashioned Hollywood-style audience picture, an updated romantic melodrama whose outlines the Warner brothers themselves would have embraced. If you think this kind of thing is easy to do, you haven't been going to the movies lately.

Watch the video review here.