2007
No Country for Old Men
(2007)
Joel Coen (screenplay), Ethan Coen (screenplay), Cormac McCarthy (novel)
Won 4 Oscars. Another 148 wins & 122 nominations.
In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart.
Planet Terror
(2007)
Robert Rodriguez
2 nominations.
After an experimental bio-weapon is released, turning thousands into zombie-like creatures, it's up to a rag-tag group of survivors to stop the infected and those behind its release.
Resident Evil: Extinction
(2007)
Paul W.S. Anderson
2 wins & 1 nomination.
Survivors of the Raccoon City catastrophe travel across the Nevada desert, hoping to make it to Alaska. Alice joins the caravan and their fight against the evil Umbrella Corp.
Saw IV
(2007)
Patrick Melton (screenplay), Marcus Dunstan (screenplay), Patrick Melton (story), Marcus Dunstan (story), Thomas Fenton (story)
1 win & 6 nominations.
Jigsaw and his apprentice Amanda are dead. Now, upon the news of Detective Kerry's murder, two seasoned FBI profilers, Agent Strahm and Agent Perez, arrive in the terrified community to assist the veteran Detective Hoffman in sifting through Jigsaw's latest grisly remains and piecing together the puzzle. However, when SWAT Commander Rigg is abducted and thrust into a game, the last officer untouched by Jigsaw has but ninety minutes to overcome a series of demented traps and save an old friend or face the deadly consequences.
Shoot 'Em Up
(2007)
Michael Davis
3 nominations.
A man named Mr. Smith delivers a woman's baby during a shootout, and is then called upon to protect the newborn from the army of gunmen.
Sicko
(2007)
Michael Moore
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 14 wins & 14 nominations.
Documentary look at health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France. Moore contrasts U.S. media reports on Canadian care with the experiences of Canadians in hospitals and clinics there. He interviews patients and doctors in the U.K. about cost, quality, and salaries. He examines why Nixon promoted HMOs in 1971, and why the Clintons' reform effort failed in the 1990s. He talks to U.S. ex-pats in Paris about French services, and he takes three 9/11 clean-up volunteers, who developed respiratory problems, to Cuba for care. He asks of Americans, "Who are we?"
Sunshine
(2007)
Alex Garland
1 win & 17 nominations.
A team of international astronauts is sent on a dangerous mission to reignite the dying Sun with a nuclear fission bomb in 2057.
Superbad
(2007)
Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
11 wins & 24 nominations.
Seth and Evan are best friends, inseparable, navigating the last weeks of high school. Usually shunned by the popular kids, Seth and Evan luck into an invitation to a party, and spend a long day, with the help of their nerdy friend Fogell, trying to score enough alcohol to lubricate the party and inebriate two girls, Jules and Becca, so they can kick-start their sex lives and go off to college with a summer full of experience and new skills. Their quest is complicated by Fogell's falling in with two inept cops who both slow and assist the plan. If they do get the liquor to the party, what then? Is sex the only rite of passage at hand?
Taxi to the Dark Side
(2007)
Alex Gibney
Won 1 Oscar. 11 wins & 5 nominations total
Using the torture and death in 2002 of an innocent Afghan taxi driver as the touchstone, this film examines changes after 9/11 in U.S. policy toward suspects in the war on terror. Soldiers, their attorneys, one released detainee, U.S. Attorney John Yoo, news footage and photos tell a story of abuse at Bagram Air Base, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay. From Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Gonzalez came unwritten orders to use any means necessary. The CIA and soldiers with little training used sleep deprivation, sexual assault, stress positions, waterboarding, dogs and other terror tactics to seek information from detainees. Many speakers lament the loss of American ideals in pursuit of security.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(2007)
Andrew Dominik (screenplay), Ron Hansen (novel)
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 25 wins & 64 nominations.
The last months of Jesse James's life, from meeting Robert Ford, a 19-year-old who idolizes Jesse, to the day Ford shoots him. Jesse's a wanted man, living under a pseudonym, carrying out a train robbery, disappearing to Kentucky, and reappearing to plan a bank holdup with Robert and Robert's brother as his team. The rest of the gang is dead, arrested, or gone from Missouri. Whenever Jesse's around, there's tension: he's murderous, quixotic, depressed, and cautious. Ford wants to be somebody and wants the reward. On April 3, 1882, things come to a head: Jesse is 34, Robert 20. Ford becomes famous, reenacting the shooting on stage, facing down the label "coward," shot dead in 1892.
The Bourne Ultimatum
(2007)
Tony Gilroy (screenplay), Scott Z. Burns (screenplay), George Nolfi (screenplay), Tony Gilroy (screen story), Robert Ludlum (novel)
Won 3 Oscars. Another 24 wins & 36 nominations.
Bourne is once again brought out of hiding, this time inadvertently by London-based reporter Simon Ross who is trying to unveil Operation Blackbriar--an upgrade to Project Treadstone--in a series of newspaper columns. Bourne sets up a meeting with Ross and realizes instantly they're being scanned. Information from the reporter stirs a new set of memories, and Bourne must finally, ultimately, uncover his dark past whilst dodging The Company's best efforts in trying to eradicate him.
The Killing Floor
(2007)
Ryan Swanson, Gideon Raff
N/A
A literary agent moves into a penthouse apartment. Soon after the move, he receives crime scene photographs that seem to have taken place in his new apartment. Next he receives a series of stalker videotapes that document his every move.
The Mist
(2007)
Frank Darabont (screenplay), Stephen King (novel)
6 wins & 10 nominations.
Everyone thinks of it as a harmless lightning storm. When Dave Drayton notices a strange mist on the lake, he thinks nothing of it. When he, his son, Billy Drayton, and his neighbor Brent Norton travel to the supermarket, the unthinkable happens. On their way to the market, they see the army, firefighters, and the police heading toward the mist. When he sees this Brent mentions something about "Project Arrowhead", a secret military project that no one knows about. As they are shopping, they see three soldiers walk in, pick up a few things, then head toward the mist. All eighty of the store's shoppers have no clue what is going on until an old man runs in the market with a bloody nose and declares "Something in the mist!" He tells them to close the door. About five seconds after they close the door, the entire store shakes, as though it has been lifted several feet above the ground. When David is asked to check on the generator, he finds the loading dock door being pushed on by something outside. Then Dave hears a groan. He asks three people to come with him. When Norm the bag-boy volunteers to go out, he is dragged away by a creature with large squid-like tentacles that have mouths, teeth, and arms. After Dave and the other three fight off the tentacles, they warn everyone in the store what is out there. Upon hearing this, Mrs. Carmody exclaims that it is the End Time and that God is punishing them. People don't believe it, but finally Mrs. Carmody has almost everyone in the store on her side. Does 'Project Arrowhead' have anything to do with this? Will Dave Drayton, his son, and his friends make it out alive as they make a last stand against this destruction? Or will they be taken by the demon-like creatures of 'The Mist'?
The Nines
(2007)
John August
2 nominations.
Gary, an actor who plays a cop on television, uses too much lighter fluid when he burns his ex-girlfriend's things, then he drinks and drives, uses crack, and crashes his car. He sobers up in jail and is placed under house arrest and the watchful eye of a publicist, the cheery and tough-minded Margaret. She moves him into the empty house of a writer who's away in Canada on a shoot. Gary meets Sarah, an attractive and seemingly-willing neighbor. His friendship with Margaret blooms and strange things happen: he finds notes he doesn't remember writing, he hears noises, and he seems to bump into himself in the kitchen. Two remaining chapters reveal what's going on.
The Number 23
(2007)
Fernley Phillips
5 nominations.
Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him. As his obsession increases, more and more similarities seem to arise.
The Orphanage
(2007)
Sergio G. Sánchez (screenplay)
32 wins & 39 nominations.
Laura, a former orphan, raises her adopted son Simón together with her husband Carlos in an old house and former orphanage where she was raised. While at the orphanage Simón tells Laura that he has five invisible friends which she believes are a product of his active imagination. Laura decides to reopen the orphanage to cater for disabled children and throws a party. During the party Simón tries to persuade Laura to go and take a look at his friends cabin but she's too busy. Later on she sees a mysterious masked boy and realizes that Simón has also disappeared. Laura feels the presence of other people in the house and months later Laura invites a team of parapsychologists to try to unravel the mystery.
Timecrimes
(2007)
Nacho Vigalondo
8 wins & 7 nominations.
A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.
w Delta z
(2007)
Clive Bradley (screenplay)
1 nomination.
A series of deaths have started occurring in New York; Some are being found mutilated while others have an equation wÎ"z = Cov (w,z) = Ã?wzVz carved onto their skin. As police investigate they discover each victim was forced to choose between sacrificing their own life or a loved ones' life. Before long it becomes clear that this perpetrator has suffered just such a similar fate...so now is coping by seeking a way of solving this philosophical enigma, can Captain Maclean and his officers such as Eddie Argo and his new partner Helen Westcott stop this suspect, because he/she won't not until he/she gets to the end of this equation.
Zodiac
(2007)
James Vanderbilt (screenplay), Robert Graysmith (book)
2 wins & 60 nominations.
A San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac killer.