Well, it's official. I am utterly incapable of compiling a list of the year's best movies during the same year they were released. After a mere twelve months, I'm already beginning to pick apart last year's choices. The overexposure of Lindsay Lohan has indeed bumped Mean Girls from my Guilty Pleasures of 2004, and where are Napoleon Dynamite and Million Dollar Baby? I didn't see those until 2006! I really do need about twenty years to figure out how I feel about a movie.

So, since all my favorite people made movies this year, I'll just give a shout-out to my posse: Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line), Viggo Mortensen (A History of Violence) , Drew Barrymore (Fever Pitch), Al Pacino (Two for the Money), and John Corbett (Bigger Than the Sky). The delightfully busy Christopher Plummer and Alec Baldwin could be found in an array of movies, and I must send copious amounts of praise to Tim Burton and Johnny Depp for working their creative magic twice this year in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Corpse Bride. Anything that brings these people out of the house gets points with me.

And now, for something I'm sure about...

Top ten movies of 1985:

1. The Goonies: Hey you guys! The Goonies are good enough for me.
2. The Breakfast Club: Don't you forget that underneath it all, we are each a brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a criminal, and a princess.
3. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure: I love that story.
4. Witness: Remember when Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis were the hottest things around? And hey, check out Viggo in the background!
5. The Color Purple: Why again didn't this win Best Picture?
6. The Jewel of the Nile: When the going gets tough, the tough get going! Who wouldn't watch a nonsensical, overly-elaborate movie about some sort of holy man in the desert just to see Jack Colton and Joan Wilder together again?
7. Desperately Seeking Susan: Get into the groove and see Aidan Quinn at his hottest. Remember when Madonna was so cute, funny, and talented that she stole Roseanna Arquette's breakout movie right from under her?
8. St. Elmo's Fire: When your dysfunctional co-dependent friends get you down, can you feel St. Elmo's Fire burning in you?
9. Back to the Future: Take me away, I don't mind, you just better promise me I'll be back in time.
10. Jagged Edge: Did he or didn't he? Jeff Bridges is so charming that he just couldn't be the killer... even though we totally know he did it.

Kurt Russell and Andy Garcia hunt down a creepy killer in The Mean Season. When she's not riding on the back of Sam Elliott's motorcycle, Cher tends to her intelligent but tragically deformed son (Eric Stoltz) in Mask. Meryl Streep catches Syphilis and falls in love with Robert Redford in Out of Africa. Jane Fonda tries to figure out where Meg Tilly's baby came from in Agnes of God. John Cusack has a big year in Better Off Dead, The Journey of Natty Gann, and The Sure Thing, while Michael J. Fox struggles with life as a Teen Wolf. A pre-gubernatorial Arnold protects little Alyssa Milano in Commando. Sylvester Stallone fights the Commies to the tune of fantastic 80's music in Rocky IV. Corey Haim endears us all in Murphy's Romance and Silver Bullet. Stephen King scares the dickens out of Drew Barrymore (and me) with Cat's Eye. Chevy Chase makes us laugh with Fletch and Spies Like Us. John Candy has loads of fun at his Summer Rental. Anthony Michael Hall gets an "A" in Weird Science, and Cocoon teaches us that the fountain of youth is at the bottom of the ocean... or in outer space... or something. Just follow Steve Guttenberg—he'll show you where to find it.

With a year full of movies like these, I see no reason to go back to the future.