David Edelstein

The top movies of 2008 — and the larger cultural trends reflected in those films. Fresh Air movie critic David Edelstein talks with Terry Gross about his Ten Best List for 2008.

Movies you've heard plenty about (Avatar, Where the Wild Things Are) rub elbows with movies you may have missed (Summer Hours, Everlasting Moments) on our critic's list of the finest big-screen features of 2009. Edelstein joins Terry Gross to talk about the year in pictures.

Fresh Air's David Edelstein couldn't limit himself to 10 movies for his Top 10 list -- he put 12 titles on this year's crop -- and explains why he parted ways with colleagues when it came time to hand out the annual New York Film Critics Circle Awards.

From a white-knuckle Wall Street chronicle to a modernized Shakespearean war story, the films on David Edelstein's best-of-the-year list tell solid stories new and old.

Fresh Air's movie critic does not think any masterpieces were made this year, but he does compare Daniel Day Lewis to Julius Caesar and have some choice thoughts on the movie version of Les Mis.

In 2013, "you really feel as if directors are taking chances in their storytelling," says film critic David Edelstein. He loved the movie Her, and says the biggest surprises of the year were All Is Lost and Much Ado About Nothing. He also explains why 12 Years a Slave didn't make his top 10.

Edelstein notes that La La Land is just one of the releases that made 2016 "an excellent year" for movies. Below is his list of the best dozen films of the year.