When it comes time to hand out the best-of-the-year awards, movies released in December get all the love. This is partly due to the fact that studios have been saving some of their best products for the holiday season, but sometimes it seems like movie critics and members of the Academy Awards of Arts and Sciences suffer from memory loss. So I thought it might be fun to see what the first 11 months of the year had to offer and make a best-of-the-year list from that. Keep in mind that I still haven’t seen some of the most anticipated films of the season, including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon and Milk. I’ll write about those movies in future blogs. For now, here’s my nowhere-near definitive look at the best movies of 2008, listed in order of preference:

1. Vicky Christina Barcelona: Pure European travel p**n. Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall heat things up as American friends who meet a handsome Spanish lothario (Javier Bardem, as seductive here as he was psychotic in No Country for Old Men). The showstopper is Penelope Cruz as Bardem’s unhinged ex-girlfriend; she deserves the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her fearlessly funny performance. This is one of my favorite Woody Allen movies ever, right up there with Hannah and Her Sisters and Stardust Memories.

2. Wall-E: In the latest triumph from Pixar Animation Studios, a rambunctious little trash compactor falls in love with an egg-shaped probe ‘bot named Eve. Their adventures on an amused-itself-to-death Earth and later in space form the basis for one of the shiniest, deepest and most heartfelt pieces of sci-fi around.

3. The Dark Knight: Featuring an unforgettable disappearing act by the late Heath Ledger, this shockingly dark sequel to Batman Begins is a gangster epic, a freak show and a pop tragedy all rolled into one. As much as I like Insomnia and The Prestige, I thought Christopher Nolan had peaked with Memento. Not anymore. What a jaw-dropping monster of a movie he unleashed upon the world.

4. The Visitor: Writer-director Tom McCarthy’s extraordinary follow-up to The Station Agent is full of white-hot anger, much of it directed at the Bush Administration. But what makes this a richly rewarding human drama is the central performance by Richard Jenkins, surely one of the year’s best, as a college professor who befriends a gifted Syrian musician.

5. Changeling: Angelina Jolie brings almost too much Hollywood glamour to this otherwise terrific crime drama directed by Clint Eastwood. Heath Ledger got all the praise this year, but you tell me Jason Butler Harner wasn’t every bit as good as the serial killer Gordon Northcott. As his young accomplice, Eddie Alderson gives one of the most remarkable child performances I’ve ever seen.

6. Rachel Getting Married: Anna Hathaway dazzles in Jonathan Demme’s glorious ensemble drama, one of the most diverse and vividly drawn family portraits in movie history.

7. Burn After Reading: Nowhere near as mind-blowing as the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, but still the funniest CIA satire ever made.

8. Cloverfield: You might get motion sickness while watching this jerky-cam knockoff of The Blair Witch Project. If not, then you’re likely to spend most of the movie with a stupid grin on your face.

9. Be Kind Rewind: Michel Gondry’s criminally unappreciated comedy won’t make too many best-of-the-year lists. It’s on mine because I can’t remember the last time a movie made me feel so good.

10. Diary of the Dead: Forty years after Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero is still giving flesh-eating zombies something good to eat. Another dark vision by America’s most uncompromising horror director.

Honarable Mentions: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Iron Man, The Pineapple Express, W.