My faves from 2008

A road trip through Louisiana transforms three strangers who were originally brought together by their respective feelings of loneliness.

Henry Poole moves in to a house in his old neighborhood, to spend what he believes are his remaining days alone. The discovery of a miracle by a nosy neighbor ruptures his solitude and restores his faith in life.

The Taylor family is devastated by an accident that takes place on the day their matriarch is due to graduate from college -- decades after leaving to raise her children.

A young woman who has been in and out of rehab for the past ten years returns home for the weekend for her sister's wedding.

1964. Lily, a lonely teenager, flees from her home and reaches a small town in South Carolina. Once there, she finds herself in the company of the Boatwright sisters who introduce her to a new world.

In a remarkable turn-of-events, the result of the presidential election comes down to one man's vote.

The life of a woman is transformed after she is diagnosed with a terminal disease, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she throws caution to the wind to pursue her dreams.

Two newly acquainted music-lovers spend the night scouting the streets of New York City in search of their favourite band's surprise secret show. All the while, they're both being chased after by their tempting but devious exes.

Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.

After a Hmong teenager tries to steal his prized 1972 Gran Torino, a disgruntled, prejudiced Korean War veteran seeks to redeem both the boy and himself.

A man with a fateful secret embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven strangers.

A disillusioned medical student is stranded for a summer in a remote community of counterculture pot farmers, the last place in the world he imagined he would discover himself.

Dissatisfied with his wife's death, an English teacher becomes depressed and bitter, but finds the possibility of new love.

A family unit begins to bow under the pressure of a failing marriage.

The drama follows a twelve-year-old girl's struggle to come to terms with her mother's abandonment.

A desperate young man, on the run from a dangerous drug dealer, returns to his mother, years after a family tragedy drove them far apart, to hide. However, his old and new life are about to collide.

In London for his daughter's wedding, a rumpled man finds his romantic spirits lifted by a new woman in his life.

A coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old girl trying to fit into both a posh private school and an ordinary public school.

A drama with a two-tiered storyline concerning a mother and daughter who try to form a bond after the young woman's difficult childhood.

Bertram Pincus is a man whose people skills leave much to be desired. When Pincus dies unexpectedly, but is miraculously revived after seven minutes, he wakes up to discover that he now has the annoying ability to see ghosts.

The son of a thrifty conman begrudgingly joins his father on the road.

A lonely boy who lives in his parents' home for the elderly explores his obsession with the afterlife through his friendship with an aging magician.

In 1963, during the swirl of glamour and intrigue that turned President John F. Kennedy's Washington into Camelot, a lonely 13-year-old Catholic school boy comes of age.

A commitment-phobic man reunites with his estranged, ailing father and comes to terms with his own childhood.