i wrote this more for a facebook audience so if it feels like i'm overexplaining stuff that's the reason.i’m not sure if anyone will read this whole thing, but i had a great time writing it and trying to say things about these films that are more specific to my personal experience with them than what i might write in a typical review.
DISCLAIMER: just because a movie didn’t make it to this list doesn’t mean i don’t consider it GREAT. 50 is a tiny number for any decade. particularly this one, with years like ’07 and ’09, both of which i had to extend my usual top tens for. if 1999 had happened a year later this list would have been damn near impossible. so don’t feel left out, 25th Hour, Hot Fuzz etc. it’s also important to note the lack of upper-level 2009 films. this is because i think generally a movie needs to survive a couple of grace years and still feel amazing before it can be on that level... and of course i haven’t yet seen all the great movies this decade had to offer. i’m sure if i wrote this list again in two years it would be different.
ALSO: i forgot American Psycho (barely) came out this decade. it would be in the 30s or 40s if only for containing one of my favourite performances ever.. but i can’t bear to move everything around. i also maybe would’ve liked to add An Education. but again. too much gut-wrenching moving around, and i only saw it after writing the list. honourable mentions, both.
it BEGINS.
50. The Dark Knight 
it’s flawed in many ways, but it still kicks you in the head. i’ve never seen a superhero movie before where i actually felt like the characters were in real danger. the whole movie swells with a pulpy sense of dread. how can The Joker ever be topped as a Batman villain? i never understood before this movie how he is Batman’s PERFECT opposite from every angle. your move, Batman 3: The Darker Knight.
49. The Kill Bills 
yes, it was the beginning of Tarantino’s decline. it was the first hint of not living up to the promise (putting it lightly) of pulp, jackie and dogs, and a regression into genre-remixes. it’s nothing original, either. and don’t get me started on Daryl Hannah. but kill bill proves that story itself is only a small part of the equation. it’s all in the telling, and kill bill is, above all, EXTREMELY well-told. no one can deny Tarantino’s hyper-love of setting a scene and delivering a moment. he is a true master of holding the audience in his hand and flinging them in whichever direction he chooses, because he loves pretty much everything that has anything to do with the act of filmmaking. except for developing as an artist. but that’s another story for another time.. i think Basterds was a step in the right direction, i love it too and give it an honourable mention (it would be in the top 100) for most of the same reasons.
48. In the Bedroom 
the amazing thing about this movie is how REAL it all feels. there are scenes that seem as though the camera was recording for hours and just happened to capture this particular moment. like Tomei’s confrontation with her ex-husband. his sudden banging of the table followed by a scarily calm exit.. it isn’t filmed in a documentary style, with shaky-cam, or anything. far from it. it’s just very well directed. Todd Field was an actor for many years before he was able to move behind the camera, and i think this experience has made him one of the best actor’s directors working today. no matter the wrenching subject matter of his films, they remain intensely watchable in large part because the performances are so achingly real.
47. Two Lovers 
the tone is as twisty, enigmatic and strangely inviting as Jaoquin Phoenix’s character. case in point: a scene he describes moments afterwards as “fuckin’ weird”, which is not only very accurate, but weirdly knowing and hilarious in its own right. the ending is also an amazingly double-sided moment... i STILL don’t know how i really feel about it. and a dry-cleaning empire has never felt so sinister. it’s also one of the least judgmental films of the decade.
46. Heima 
this movie IS Sigur Ros and more.. perhaps the most obscure film on the list, so i’m sure most people haven’t seen it.. it’s such a pure love letter to Iceland and.. people enjoying music. as broad as that sounds. Iceland is like a natural expressionist painting. the mountains aren’t just mountains. they’re like a dream version of mountains. extra twisty and with little spots of snow as though they were flick-painted on... such is the uniqueness of this film and Sigur Ros.. a band that has achieved fame in North America without a word of english in their music, and 11-minute songs. there are many great interviews between songs, but even if you don’t speak english this movie will take you on a mesmerizing aural/visual journey.
45. Donnie Darko 
Richard Kelly has since become the immature teenaged David Lynch of his generation who just needs to get his goddamned head on straight! but at this moment in time, before the far inferior director’s cut, the insanely terrible Southland Tales, and the alright with spots of good The Box, he was simply the young David Lynch of his generation. i remember jeff introducing me to the trailer/website and becoming obsessed with its mysteriousness and my inability to see it anywhere in Canada. when i was finally able to see it on dvd it revealed itself as the feature-length version of the trailer. ie just as obsessively intriguing. the thing i love most about Donnie Darko (along with most other fans) is how differently people can interpret it. it’s a rorschach movie, dressed in 80s sci-fi teen drama garb.
44. Mulholland Dr. 
speak of the devil! Lynch! this movie is the bible for dream logic movies. i admit i’m not as devout a follower of it as most Lynch-lovers (in my defense, my imaginary 90s and 80s lists would include Lost Highway and Blue Velvet near the top) BUT it’s hard to escape the power of this guilt-soaked nightmare. like most every Lynch movie, it is filled with moments of unexpected and unique hilarity (the key shoot-out, the use of the name “Winky’s”), the inspiringly odd (..a lot), and the very scary (if you’ve seen it you know...). they culminate in a profound vision of jealousy and lost love in Los Angeles... jeez. i’ve got to watch this again immediately.
43. Monster’s Ball 
i don’t believe a better movie could have been made from this script. even Diddy works here. the thing i’ve always admired about this is how internalized all the character development is, and yet how obvious it all seems. everyone changes before your eyes without a trace of typical subjective filmmaking tricks. it just. happens.
42. Traffic 
Soderbergh has made a LOT of movies this decade, and most of them have been great. Traffic is a good representation of how adept at everything he can be. he’s dealing with like 30 characters, however many subplots and settings (distinct colour schemes categorize them brilliantly), and somehow this movie remains coherent and compelling throughout. everyone gives a great performance. this is one of those movies where i marvel at how giant a task it must have been to pull off. simply making this script would be an epic accomplishment, but making it this well is something else.
41. Lost in Translation 
another film that does a great job of letting the characters simply develop in front of you. but one of the characters happens to be Bill Murray. a sad film, but not just for the sake of sadness. funny, too.
40. Knocked Up
the finest Apatow (and there are a lot to choose from if you count movies like Superbad--which would be in the top 100--where he has clearly influenced so much as a producer). as usual he makes hilarity seem simple and easy and obvious, coming from every angle and encounter. and before you know it you’ve got a deep emotional attachment to all the characters, even the ones that are only around for minutes. the ending sneaks up on you like that. whoa--this is beyond funny. it’s actually moving in the way a great drama might be. i hope Apatow figures out the difference between this and Funny People for his next movie. or just gives in and makes a drama like he seems to want to. not that “dramas” have to be unfunny.
39. Sideways
see? dramas can be downright side-splitting. this is one of those rare movies where the writer character is actually believable as a writer. Thomas Haden Church needs to be in so much more. what else to say? as Virginia Madsen’s character points out: “it tastes so fucking good”... that wine speech is sublime.
38. District 9
where did this come from? i’ll never forget the experience of busing from a sold-out theatre to another supposedly not sold-out one NEEDING to see this despite knowing so little about it. Sharlto Copley gives the improvised performance of the decade. this movie is TRULY dark. unlike most of those silly superhero movies that claim to be dark because people die and stuff. this is actually looking into the deep dark soul of humankind. the weapons testing scene is nightmarish because of how logical it all feels. cannot wait for District 10. ps. this movie also handles a lot of the same human/alien issues Avatar does, but far better.
37. King of Kong
the incredible thing about this documentary is its God-like repository of every. possible. piece. of footage. you could ever. have. i think this was filmed for years. i think they had a camera following everyone. and the result is a real WORLD of ugliness, hilarity, and the weird. it’s not just about an incredible rivalry, but a community. it almost feels fake in how much everyone willingly and unintentionally reveals about themselves, but it can’t be. because no one could write this. well. maybe Ricky Gervais. but no. too epic.
36. Mysterious Skin
how is a movie about child rape so watchable? performances. ambient score.. a vision of trauma and repression that is somehow.. luminous? the internal mystery of one’s past.. part of the wonder of this movie is its somehow accurate-feeling treatment of such horrendous moments and their aftermath. like a quiet nightmare you wake up from without discomfort, because you know deep down it’s all part of the natural healing process.
35. The Aviator
strictly from watching it, this movie must’ve had one of the most uncompromised productions ever. it seems like Scorsese was able to make EXACTLY what he envisioned with absolutely no expense spared, down to the tiniest detail of, say, rotoscoping a skeleton over Dicaprio’s body for a split-second during the taking of a photograph in court*, a painstaking detail almost impossible to notice. it simply screams epic. it’s very long and it deserves to be. and its fascination, nay obsession with Hughes is infectious.
*
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y251/fbv/caps/aviatorskeleton.jpg34. The Fog of War
First Person is one of my favourite television shows of the decade. this movie began as an episode of that, but Errol Morris realized he’d stumbled onto a film and recorded a longer interview. it’s intermittently moving, fascinating, and scary as hell. McNamara sums up his painfully-realized life lessons with examples that stagger the mind again and again.
33. Sweeney Todd
a supremely underrated musical adaptation. the songs alone make it addicting, but on top of that you have classic Burton visuals (being used for good this time), wonderfully creepy performances from everyone, and a disquieting anti-revenge tale holding it all together. this is a great case of the right director matched with the right material. it almost feels like the story came straight from Burton’s mind by the gruesome end.
32. UP 
a KID’S movie about being able to let go of the past, including material possessions like your HOUSE, in order to move on to the next adventure in life... in many ways it’s the most mature Pixar movie, but that doesn’t stop it from also being one of the outright zaniest. people have criticized the dog collar squeaky voice gag for being too Dreamworksy but i say it’s quality goofiness. how can one not be moved by this movie? it probably squeezes the hearts of adults and older people MORE than its “intended” audience. i’m so happy i got the first Pixar movie as a kid, and they continue to stretch the limits of what constitutes a kid’s movie.
31. A Serious Man
i’m pretty sure this will leap up the list on further viewing, but from barely having met it i can say this: one of the best-executed movies of the decade. the pure technique at work is never anything but masterful. masterful of the camera, of the soundtrack, of the blocking, of the twitch of the right eyebrow on an actor’s face. it’s so precisely realized that it feels like a bob zemeckis motion capture thing, only without all the horribleness that entails (though i’ve never actually sat through one of those). beyond that this movie is a fascinating loop of knowing and not knowing and the hilarity of incongruity and the randomness of existence. it’s another one of those every-performance-is-amazing ones too.
30. Man on Wire
Philippe Petit is probably the single greatest documentary interviewee of the decade. he spins stories constantly as though they were magic coins appearing from nowhere and by mere association he brings out the magic in the people around him. the centerpiece of this movie to me is when a vacant-looking new york cop describes moment-by-moment the events of the morning Petit realized his dream and walked between the towers. it’s a purely factual description from a no-nonsense guy just doing his job, but he can’t stop himself from calling it one of the most amazing things he’s ever seen in his life towards the end. it’s a simple fact. the idea that people were plotting to do something wonderful to the world trade centers is a perfect counter to the grim associations we feel today and captures what they were meant to symbolize at best.
29. Anvil! The Story of Anvil!
this is a movie about what it means to really REALLY love your art. there’s something beyond touching about the image of these 50-year-old heavy metal rockers keeping on keeping on. keeping their spark under ENDLESS frustration and hardship and rejection. this is the audacity of hope. this is the true meaning of devotion.
28. The Pianist
one of those movies i can watch again and again despite its intense pain and tragedy. i’m not an expert but it seems like the most accurate holocaust movie as far as the moment-to-moment feel of it, which is a gigantic feat. i find it very tough to reflect its many merits in words. most of the really powerful moments in this film are wordless. it’s like a great thriller wrapped in an equally great tragic historical drama. the memory of Katie laughing uproariously at the jacket-confusion bit will always be part of watching this for me.
27. 21 Grams
again, a monumentally painful film that manages to stay incredibly watchable. partly because of the depth of the performances (even the tiny ones... lookin at you, Clea Duvall, Eddie Marsan, etc…), the writing, and its fragmented structure. making sense of the arrangement of those fragments is half the fun of rewatching it. the scene where Sean Penn squeezes Naomi Watt’s face sticks like a thorn in my mind. the final answering machine message is a great, modern dramatic device, too. woulda been cool if this was coincidentally also #21. ah well.
26. In the Loop
underneath the frighteningly accurate satire, the thing that makes this movie so outstanding is its utter and unrelenting expressiveness. there are MANY great characters ranging from sane to the opposite of sane, and they’re all constantly venting in their own wonderful ways. not since Groucho Marx have people been so effectively insulted on the screen... the unceasing slew of verbal carnage that makes up this film is so well-written that if you look at the imdb page of “memorable quotes” (
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226774/quotes ) you’ll find practically the entire screenplay. Armando Iannucci is simply one of the funniest men alive.
25. Where the Wild Things Are
to me this is the purest movie representation of childhood. it actually managed to remind me of things i’d forgotten about when it came to being a kid. like how there’s no sense of clear narrative in your life. not enough stuff has happened yet. this is artfully reflected in this movie’s structure or lack thereof. or the things you take SO seriously... making each wild thing represent a different aspect of Max’s psyche is a genius idea, and every actor nails their particular zone. Gandolfini as the mildly psychotic one is really good casting too.
24. Almost Famous
i think this movie may have the best end credits ever. looking over the polaroids you feel like you’ve lived through a defining era in Crowe’s life. and for the most part you have because he’s managed to perfectly distill and weave together his experiences as a rock journalist. this movie has so much genuine character.. “ask me again” is a famous moment of non-acting kept in the movie, but it still seamlessly blends with the rest of the dialogue. because it’s that real.
23. Brokeback Mountain
this movie is more or less a perfect storm of tragedy, multiplying and compounding every minute until the final image. how is Ang Lee so amazing at handling such specific Western ideas time after time? i guess he taps into the universal ideas underneath, and repression is a tragedy anywhere. major props to Gustavo Santoalalla for the epic yet personal score, too (and back-to-back oscars.)
22. Gerry/Elephant
these sibling films redefined the act of “patiently” watching a movie for me. after i saw Gerry for the first time i remember just standing around, looking at things with a newfound wonder.. it lengthens your attention span. but these movies aren’t just a series of incredibly long shots. it’s the content of these shots that truly warrant your thought and attention.. the literal, near-subconscious passing of night to day.. the creeping sense of death in the wilderness.. the living organism that is high school.. the sheer upsetting emptiness of Columbine. it took real courage and vision to make these kinds of sluggishly-paced movies at this particular time, reinvigorating an old style.. nowadays movies like “Goodbye Solo” and “Hunger” have taken the idea the wrong way, turning the technique into something actually mundane and meaningless. Van Sant’s first two attempts got the idea of sloooooow photography right, and when done right, there are few things in cinema more invitingly profound.
21. Shaun of the Dead
Wright/Pegg/Frost are a powerful moviemaking trio, and this film represents the best of their abilities: flawlessly executed visual jokes, loving parodies, and characters you laugh WITH to the end. all within the parameters of a zombie movie. but how does a mere parody of something else manage to make it this high on the list? it doesn’t exactly reinvent the genre. it’s just so brilliantly made that i can’t imagine a single element being improved. not a moment of timing, or a camera move, or a prop. anything. it’s kind of perfect.
20. Fahrenheit 9/11
this movie manages to summarize possibly the most important and terrible chain of events of this last decade in a manner that is both concise (with expertly edited news footage and interviews) and detailed (using stories of specific individuals paying for those events in their own ways). it also suggests theories about why and where we’re headed. it’s incredibly sad, but also somehow VERY entertaining. just what you’d expect from Moore, who has delivered this kind of America-spanning analysis not once but four times this decade.
19. Memento
i vividly remember an intense, somewhat new feeling walking out of the theatre after seeing this for the first time: the feeling of wanting to make films. i have studied this movie a LOT from a structural perspective (it’s actually backwards AND forwards at the same time, a lot of critics fail to note) and i have come to the conclusion that there are no answers beyond a certain point. it’s a riddle that isn’t meant to be solved, AND YET it always seems like you’re on the verge and there’s a tangible solution hidden somewhere in there. just like how poor Lenny feels. one thing most people never mention is the power of the Sammy Jenkis scenes. so short, but they break me every time.
18. There Will Be Blood
i think this movie has become
relatively overpraised (#1 on most decade lists apparently*). having said that, it’s pretty fucking amazing. obviously it has one of the most amazing performances ever. obviously it’s one of the most visually incredible films of the decade. obviously the score is on another level. obviously it manages to create a piercing, underlying mirror to where we find ourselves today without even really trying. i have no doubt pt's next film will shine further light on this. he is the master.
*
http://gawker.com/5428998/there-will-be-blood-wins-the-decade17. Synecdoche, New York
this movie is my ultimate case of not understanding upon first view (of this decade). i love Charlie Kaufman. i HATED this movie. i had pretty much resolved to never see it again before he came to town and indirectly shed light on one of its central themes: creative freedom as a bad thing. i watched it again and i still couldn’t like it but began to see intricate patterns and less meaningless sadness the more i thought about it. the third viewing finally turned me around. this movie is about a lot of things: the inherent futility of creating ambitious, existence-questioning works of art for one, which is a tragic and funny insight into its own existence. ultimately, it’s about acceptance. the acceptance of an endless and indifferent universe. and about that acceptance ironically being the first step to happiness and perhaps transcendence. i think Kubrick would have approved.
16. Little Children
this movie is melodramatic in the best way, hilarious (!), disturbing (!!), and so ..enlightened. it’s so GREAT that it managed to bring Jackie Earle Haley out of retirement. and the ending slaps the audience in the face in a way that seems like it’s commenting on the very fabric of suburban-based movies. it’s probably a little more obscure than some of the other movies on this list too so i offer this low-quality clip to show off some of its exceptional diversity in just over a minute:
.
15. WALL•E
wwwwaaAAAaallll•e... ‘nuff said.
...no? well. a robot accidentally teaches us to be human again... and nearly everything about this movie is perfect. the sound effects alone are a work of art. Ben Burtt manages to top his work as R2D2. as sacrilegious as that sounds. (and i’m big into Star Wars.)
14. The Man Who Wasn’t There
i consider this the final original Coen movie from a period where they were incapable of anything but genius. it’s so original, so true to its truly weird self, it’s near-impossible to compare it to anything even though i know it’s kind of riffing on what noir is. Ed Crane is one of the top Coen characters. when he flashes back, in the midst of a car crash, to a memory of his wife getting rid of a salesman... i don’t know what to say. it’s a good encapsulation of why this movie is incredible. the salesman incident seems like a mundane experience, but it’s a key moment in Ed Crane’s mind. and why shouldn’t it be? the final speech of this movie is so beautiful and strange.. it kind of changes everything that came before it. there are a lot of BRILLIANT speeches strewn throughout. this attempt at a summary is rambling, but so is the film. and so is everyone’s life. particularly Ed Crane’s. and that’s great. For he IS modern man! (i’m not being pompous, that’s a quote from the film.)
13. The Wrestler
the bare premise for this could have produced a terrible movie easily. because of the way it’s written and delivered, it rises above cliché and becomes an original piece of art. my friend Perry sees Rourke as a representation of the US, and his opponent, The Iron Sheik, as an obvious, exaggerated stereotype of the Middle East. this implies a country uncertain of its identity unless it’s fighting and entertaining, which is kind of the same thing. i don’t think Aronofsky was conscious of this idea while he was shooting, but that’s one of the essential characteristics of truly great storytelling: it can be applied to history, both shared and individual. the use of Rourke is the best casting of the decade.
12. The Fall
this movie actually has the best performance by a little girl ever. as well as the best-acted death scene by a monkey ever. it’s a major accomplishment and it’s pretty well impossible to find another movie like it. at times it feels like a narrative version of Baraka, jumping to a new continent every minute for another scene of craziness.. this movie has a perfect sense of seriousness about it, too. it’s half about a ridiculous, improvised story, but also about how the act of making stories is one of the most powerful and healing things we are capable of as a species.
11. Adaptation.
i’m not sure what to write about this, which is pretty appropriate. i could go down a list of everything it does right but i dunno.. it kinda speaks for itself in that way. i will say Kaufman and Jonze completely succeed at getting across the beauty of flowers in the scene where Cooper talks about pollination. and that all happens in less than a minute... just watch it. i have a youtube tribute to Kaufman* that works better than a little paragraph.
*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWTy4o2EbkY10. Requiem for a Dream
watching this is always traumatic, and yet i can’t count the number i’ve times i’ve hunkered down to let it destroy me. why do i do this to myself? it’s easy to be drawn in by its wide range of eye-catching techniques. never has the snorricam (attached to the actor’s body) been so effective and nightmarish. and it’s also possibly the greatest performance by EVERYONE involved. will Jared Leto ever be this good again? Marlon Wayans? or that guy who’s in everything, this time playing a self-help tv guy? Ellen Burstyn maybe. (her aging monologue might be the best of the decade.) anyways. this is possibly the most subjective movie ever made about addiction. and that’s a good thing.
9. The Royal Tenenbaums
this is a movie that knows it’s a masterpiece. it
knows. and acts accordingly. elaborate cast introductions, insanely detailed momentary flashbacks, dozens upon dozens of well-illustrated relationships amongst an adept and enormous ensemble. and still at its heart, amongst all these complex illustrations and extravagant filmmaking moments, it’s a story with heart. Wes Anderson’s magnum opus. i heart it.
8. The New World
someone else compared the final part of this movie to the jump-cut from the bone to the spaceship in 2001, but 30 minutes long. 30 solid minutes of that level of visual mindblowingness and “oh my god it’s like i’m seeing something for the first time”-iness... i agree. this movie took a couple of views to sink in. i had to be able to see it as a whole rather than a series of events before i could appreciate it fully and experience it best. i’d call this medium-level difficulty Malick. not as tough as Thin Red Line to sink your mind-teeth into, but tougher than Days of Heaven. when you do get it, it’s a rich, rich portrait of humankind... it’s hard to word my feelings about this. it’s kind of like the best alien invasion movie ever.
7. Zodiac
this is like three amazing movies in one: the standard whodunnit/murder mystery, the story of the burnt-out cops, and finally the unlikely detective story. each one is more compelling than the last, and leaves you as obsessed with the mystery as the central characters. the scene between ruffalo and gyllenhaal at the diner jumps out of the screen.. it feels like a real mystery is actually being solved in front of you. and everyone is perfect. and every shot is flawless. and it uses cg in the best possible way, where your mind is blown when you see what was actually digitally manipulated later. i could go on and on. it’s a movie filled with brilliant choice after brilliant choice, and is endlessly rewatchable in no small part because of its unyielding level of detail.. a level of detail so specific it’s still hard to grasp what this movie is as a whole instead of just a collection of great things. one can only keep watching.
6. Dogville/Manderlay
Lars von Trier is like a genius-level chess player as far as argument-makers go. in these movies he aggressively plays against himself and wins. but also loses. could slavery ever conceivably be a good thing? ...yes? how can i possibly be questioning this? the empty stage/zero sets idea works so well, paradoxically creating a sense of a real community that is always moving and unaware of its profound ugliness, which is hidden in plain sight.
5. Let the Right One In
for starters, child actors are impossible. if you want a child actor to carry a movie, you NEED to do a massive, lengthy search. this is why there are only ever 2 or 3 big child stars in hollywood at any given moment. so it’s startling that a movie could feature two amazing, unknown lead children. on top of this you have a visual atmosphere so specific to this particular director that it becomes impossible to imagine anyone else handling the material nearly as well, or as boldly. i found out after the first time i saw this that the subtitles i had been reading were actually a second-rate translation. the fact that i fell in love with it despite that speaks to just how potent the subtextual meaning in this film is.. it’s a powerful emotional experience, conjured not just by words but visuals, performances and score. even though it’s based on a book.
4. Amelie
this movie is pretty much made of magic. every three seconds something wonderful happens. it’s a grab-bag of amazing moments, but more than that, it’s a perfect summation of an era in an imaginary person’s life, and of the lives of many other imaginary characters. it’s hard to find a movie that takes more simple joy in existence. even in misery and loneliness, this movie finds beauty.
3. Punch-Drunk Love
a true original. the execution is so strange and fascinating that you can never feel as though you’ve fully absorbed it. a classic example [someone else pointed out to me] is the broken harmonium in the background of a single shot in Dean’s warehouse shortly after we meet him. this is a near-subliminal detail, but it informs so much about who he is and where he’s coming from. he’s failed to embrace the music machine like Barry does, instead seeing it as a piece of junk to be discarded and forgotten. he’s afraid of his own soul, whereas Barry is finally beginning to understand his (he’s secretly Adam Sandler). there are so many ways to interpret this movie beyond the literal. some of my friends see it as sci-fi, a film prof has called it the filmic response to every Adam Sandler movie from the past. all valid. all make it worth watching again. it may have the score of the decade too.
2. No Country for Old Men
the first time i saw this i knew i couldn’t make any sense of the last 20 minutes and would have to see it again to begin to understand. despite this, i still i knew i’d seen a truly amazing film. seeing it a second time knowing how everything would go down, i knew it was one of the best movies ever. i still can’t get over it... a real mark of greatness is when you see a movie on tv and you watch it from beginning to end even though you own it on dvd and now really isn’t the best time to be doing that. but it happened... i don’t know what to say that hasn’t been said. it just works on so many levels; as a merciless thriller, a grim character study, a picture of crime and justice in both a modern and primal sense... a dark-as-a-black-hole comedy. etc.
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
a few weeks ago at work i recommended this movie to a couple, calling it my favourite movie of the decade. when they asked “why do you like it?” i found myself at a loss for words, overwhelmed with the idea of summarizing its goodness... i’m pretty sure Eternal Sunsh’ is the only movie i saw in theatres thrice this decade. it’s so chock-full of brilliant ideas. and it’s self-looping, so you kind of want to see it again the moment it’s over. but it’s so good you don’t want to devalue it by wearing it out.. if you watch this movie, the reasons for it at least being among the greatest films of the decade should be self-explanatory. i can’t come close to explaining why without simply transcribing it, which would be boring and a waste of time. and really, that’s the case with every movie on this list. if you haven’t seen them and i’ve managed to intrigue you, see them. my descriptions are just a feeble attempt at reflecting what it is to sit down and do just that.
if you made it this far, congratulations and i hope you had at least a fraction of the fun reading these as i had writing them. BUT IT'S NOT OVER...
BONUS scientifically-generated top three for next decade with photos and analysis from the FUTURRRRE:3. Avatar 2
somehow by mixing things up and putting the characters and story ahead of the visual technology Cameron made up for his schlocky starter with this decade’s T2. he always
was the best at sequels. so very, very hard to believe this happened.
2. Tree of Life
Malick has done it again! the scene where the dinosaur feeds plants to an injured, fresh out of time-travel school Brad Pitt never fails to make me laugh tears of sadness.
1. The Master
oh my god. Hoffman utterly pwns this L Ron Hubbard-inspired madman, making Plainview look like PTA’s ambassador to the UN or something. i remember feeling so proud of Tom Cruise when he quit scientology after seeing this.
YET ANOTHER BONUS, 50 more of the BEST, far less thought-out, very little research, in NO ORDER WHATSOEVER:capote • atonement • hot fuzz • assassination of jj • confessions of a dangerous mind • life aquatic • fantastic mr. fox • o brother! • in bruges • hot rod • departed • catch me if you can • finding nemo • inglourious basterds • grizzly man • war of the worlds • gangs of new york • hurt locker • chopper • cloverfield • down with love • venus • superbad • wonderboys • diving bell • changeling • five obstructions • doubt • into the wild • cloudy with a chance • high fidelity • the lives of others • i love you, man • the informant! • comedian • zoolander • my winnipeg • away from her • minority report • king kong • lust, caution • no end in sight • downfall • polytechnique • departed • kiss kiss bang bang • solaris • american splendor • triplets of belleville • dear zachary •i think i hold the record for longest post now.
