Movie Magic: When Bigger Is Better

In 2008, Wall Street was wounded, Detroit was roadkill, but Hollywood kept cruising along. Despite a 100-day writers' strike that postponed the release of a few big titles to 2009, and the usual quadrennial dip in attendance as some Americans stayed home to watch the Summer Olympics and follow the presidential campaign, the movie industry weathered the recession, finishing the year close to 2007's $9.7 billion take in domestic (North American) theaters. The number of tickets sold, about 1.33 billion, was the lowest since 1996, but Hollywood won't need a bailout as long as the average ticket price keeps inching up. It's now about $7, which, all things considered, still makes the movies a fairly cheap night out.

But what are moviegoers going out to see? There are really two Hollywoods: the one that covets box-office gold 11 months of the year and the one that in December dreams of gold-plated statuettes for its trophy case. Christmas week saw the releases of films meant to bridge that gap--including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with Brad Pitt as a man who ages in reverse, and Revolutionary Road, a domestic drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. And this is the season--as industry accountants tot up the past year's champs and chumps while critics pass out scrolls to their preferred films--to bridge another gap, taking stock of the state of the art alongside the state of the biz. (See the 10 best movies of 2008.)

You may ask what film criticism has to do with box-office tallies. Who cares if a film plays to just a thin crowd of the cognoscenti, so long as it makes a fresh statement about life in a vivid visual language? The answer is that in recent years a movie's popularity has become a decent indicator, not just of its entertainment value but also of its quality. (And with box-office earnings regularly reported, audiences take note.) Indie films have grown stagnant and flaccid, while the blockbusters have gotten smarter, mixing storytelling craft with nifty effects work by the most imaginative people around--the F/X technicians, cinematographers and second-unit directors--who push their movies' visions further. To put it baldly, action films are where the art is. Bigger is better.

The Year in Hits and Misses

No surprise: The big hits of 2008 were action films and animated features. The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Hancock copped the top four slots, and the James Bond Quantum of Solace was ninth. WALL-E, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! all made the list. The only wild card was No. 8, the teen vampire romance Twilight, which was also by far the cheapest to make, at $37 million: the budgets for the other pictures in the Top 10 averaged about $150 million.

Most consoling for American moguls, all but the Bond film were U.S. movies. And they extended their domination around the globe. Except for Mamma Mia! and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian replacing Twilight and Horton, the worldwide box-office list was the same. (If you're wondering, ladies, Sex and the City finished 11th on both charts.) This is one American business that needn't worry about foreign incursions. In movies, Hollywood rules.

See pictures of movie costumes.

See the top 10 movie performances of 2008.