The summer movie season is officially over.

Or, shall we say, the summer of "The Dark Knight" is over. Which gives you a pretty good indication of where we stand on the idea of summer's winners and losers.

What makes a movie a winner or a loser depends upon who is making the list. For some, it's how much money a film makes (or loses). For others, it's quality.

What was so impressive about "The Dark Knight" is that it succeeded wildly in both categories. Yes, it made truckloads of money — nearly $520 million and counting, good enough for No. 2 on the all-time list of moneymakers.

But it wasn't just mindless fluff that amused the masses. Thanks in large part to the late Heath Ledger's over-the-top brilliant performance as the Joker — he deserves every bit of Oscar hype he's getting, and then some — and to director Christopher Nolan's dark tone, it's also one of the best movies of the year as well.

In other words: winner.

On the other end of things we have "The Love Guru." Ugh.

Mike Myers' film about a guru who tries to help a hockey player straighten out his life was just awful, easily the worst movie of the year. A ridiculous story with terrible acting and non-stop mugging from Myers, it was a disaster. Plus, it's reportedly lost nearly $30 million.

In other words: loser. Big time.

If "The Dark Knight" and "The Love Guru" were the extreme ends of the spectrum, there were a lot of movies that fell in-between those posts. Any ranking of things is nothing but a fight-starter, but that's why we do it. To wit:

Winners:

• "Iron Man": Specifically, Robert Downey Jr. "The Dark Knight" put this film in its rear-view mirror early on, but when it came out, critics — including this one — raved about Downey's performance as Tony Stark, the playboy billionaire who has a change of heart (almost literally), dons a metal suit (not really iron, but whatever) and fights crime (including, but not limited to, terrorists).

• "WALL-E": The first 30 or 45 minutes, which contain almost no human dialogue, just beeps and whistles and such from the last working robot left on a polluted earth, are magic. What a robot WALL-E is, a heap of bolts with more personality than the characters in about half the live-action films out there. Another brilliant score for Pixar.

• "Kung Fu Panda": Jack Black's best role since "The School of Rock" may have been in an animated film, but at least it was a really good one. His unlikely martial-arts hero — a big fat panda better at eating than fighting — was easy to root for. When's the last time you could say that about one of his characters?

• "Sex and the City": Alas. Though we were not fans, it made a mint, and proved that if you give them a movie they like, women will come back for seconds. Worth landing in the winner side of the ledger for that alone.

• "Mamma Mia!": Meryl Streep sings ABBA. Also, there's dancing. Not much more to it than that, and critical reception was spotty, but audiences loved it.

Now, for the other side of the coin.

Losers:

• "The X-Files: I Want to Believe": I know I did. And yet the film, reuniting Mulder and Scully after all these years, was a disappointment on just about every front for all but the most-fanatic loyalists. The case they investigated was somewhat creepy, but not bizarre enough. And it tanked at the box office, taking in a paltry $21 million (it reportedly cost $30 million to make).

• "Speed Racer": The Wachowski brothers' first stint in the directors' chairs since the last of "The Matrix" trilogy was a visual treat, truly stunning to look at — and almost nothing else. It was also a financial disaster, reportedly losing more than $76 million. That's a lot of money, even in Hollywood.

• "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull": OK, it wasn't terrible. And it was kind of nice to see a then-65-year-old Harrison Ford running around shooting things and whatnot. But ultimately, 19 years after the last one, one question remained: Why?

• "Meet Dave": Oh, Eddie Murphy, what were you thinking? What are you ever thinking these days, except for the days when you sign on for another "Shrek" movie? On the plus side: It wasn't Norbit.

• "Death Race": What should have — or maybe could have — been exciting dumb fun along the lines of "Wanted" left out the exciting and the fun part of that equation. Serious demerits for wasting Ian McShane.

Jury Still Out:

We're still hashing out our feelings for "Tropic Thunder" and "Pineapple Express." Sure, Tom Cruise is great in a small role in the former, and both movies were laugh-out-loud funny — part of the time. There's just that nagging feeling: They could have been better.

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Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic is the chief film critic for Gannett.