Top 25 of the 2000's

This list was tough because I think the 2000's is the best decade for film. American and internationally, filmmaker were killing it in the 2000's. Now, of course I'm biased because this is the decade of film which I really came of age as a film watcher, and is the decade from which I've seen the most amount of movies. But, the fact is that I could've expanded this list out to more than 40 entries and still not run into a movie I hadn't rated a 10/10. So, let's take a look at the movies I did include, in my vote for greatest film decade:

25. Katyn (2007) directed by Andrzej Wadja
During WWII, the Soviets massacred thousands of Polish citizens, both soldiers and civilians, in the Katyn forest in April and May of 1940. The estimates on how many were murdered is between 12,000 and 22,000 people. The Nazis, as the relationship with the Soviets turned south, exposed the genocide and used it as propaganda against them. When the Soviets took control of Poland after the war, however, they turned and claimed the Nazis were the culprits, committing the crimes in 1941. In post-war Poland, to even suggest that your brother died in Katyn in 1940 was considered treason, as the Soviet backed government propagated the lie covering up their actions in Katyn.

Among those murdered was Jakub Wajda, the father of 14-year-old Andrzej, who would go on to be the most important filmmaker in Polish history. Andrzej has said he knew he needed to make a movie about the Katyn massacre, but he wasn't able to tackle it until 2007, at the age of 81. What he gave us is one of the most powerful war movies I've ever seen because, although the movie takes fictionalized characters to tell the story, it sees the reality of how war spreads over people like a plague. Once the war is over, it's not really over because now we have to live with the consequences of war. And that's how we see this story, often playing out through the women: wives, mothers, sisters, daughters of those killed. Some holding out hope, some trying to move on, some just wanting the closure that truth brings. Katyn is a powerful movie that plays on us like no other WWII movies have.

24. Mulholland Dr (2001) directed by David Lynch

David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. is a fascinating dream of a movie. I would say it’s nightmarish, but for a good amount of its running time it’s over-the-top cheery and almost phony. Of course, as the movie goes on we begin to see that those times where it felt fake might have been for a reason. We descend into the fractured psyche of Diane Selwyn, or maybe a woman named Betty, as she arrives in Los Angeles and meets Rita. They go on a series of adventures, but then like its closest analogous movie, Bergman’s Persona, things start to break down and we begin to see that everything is not what we might’ve previously thought it to be. We begin to see Diane in a different light, as a more down on her luck and paranoid and angry character, seeing Rita less idealized as well.

But Mulholland Dr. works even if you don’t try to figure it out. Lynch’s approach has always been dreamlike, and this is his most successful dream. The movie plays on fears and emotions without even always consciously evoking them. The Silencio sequence, the person behind the dumpster at the cafe. Why do these sequences work? What exactly are we meant to feel? Why? It’s an odd movie to talk about, really, if you’re trying to explain it to someone who hasn’t seen it. So, if you haven’t seen it, remedy that as soon as possible. It’s a masterpiece, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even really like Lynch as a filmmaker.

23. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009) directed by Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam, another filmmaker I don't much care for. But when I watch this movie, I miss Heath Ledger more than ever. He reached great heights with his Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight, which was his final completed performance, but not technically his final role. He died midway through re-teaming with his The Brothers Grimm director (and former member of Monty Python) Terry Gilliam in the dark comic fantasy The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. The role he left behind was that of a mysterious stranger who joins up with the supremely odd theatre troupe of the title character. Thanks to the story, one involving a magic mirror that allows people to enter into a world of imagination partially controlled by Dr. Parnassus, Gilliam was able to recast Ledger's role during the sequences inside the Imaginarium. He recast it with three great actors who wanted to honor Ledger's memory, and took on the roles without payment (all three deferring their money to Ledger's daughter Matilda). Gilliam has said that many actors (including Tom Cruise) offered their services, but he wanted to "keep it family" with actors whom Ledger had befriended, therefore the casting of Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell to complete the role.

Gilliam has always been known for his distinct imagery (often in a fantasy setting), but is a filmmaker I usually find short on story and character. Here, he is not. I've not typically been a fan of Gilliam’s, even his celebrated visuals, but this movie made me reconsider (I’ve since revisited much of Gilliam’s work and found that my dislike of his non-Monty Python movies hasn’t changed just because I love this one). Although the CGI isn't perfect, we're not always convinced that the actors and the effects are occupying the same space, the overall feel and impact of the images works the way I assume Gilliam wants it to. And that’s because of the amazing and dreamlike imagery in the Imaginarium. The fact that we don’t believe the effects actually ends up elevating the dreamlike state of those scenes.

22. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) directed by Sidney Lumet

The last film directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet, 50 years after his directorial debut 12 Angry Men announced him as a bright new talent, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is both a fascinating character study of a disentegrating family, and a terrifically suspenseful crime thriller. Hank (Ethan Hawke) is 3 months behind on his child support payments, and his older brother Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is in trouble with the IRS for embezzling countless dollars from his employer. Andy's wife Gina (Marisa Tomei) complains that he doesn't open up to her the way he did on their vacation to Rio, and Andy thinks maybe they could start over their life by moving there. Andy comes to Hank one day with a proposition, a mom and pop jewlery store robbery where they'll use toy guns so that there's no chance of anybody getting hurt, the owners will be taken care of by insurance, and the overall haul should be around $600,000. More than enough for both of them to fix their problems. Hank says that it sounds like a victimless crime, so he agrees to pull the job. I'll stop plot description there because one of the movies many pleasures is the way it slowly reveals the complete happenings of how the robbery goes spectacularly wrong. I will say that it shows remarkable confindence from first time screenwriter Kelly Masterson that the robbery is not the climax of the story, but the catalyst for it.

This movie nearly ended up in last week's "Best Cast" list, and there's not a weak link in the bunch. Hawke and Hoffman both do what might be the best work of their considerable careers. Marisa Tomei is her always underrated self. Albert Finney, Michael Shannon, Rosemary Harris, Amy Ryan, they're all wonderful as can be. But really the movie hits the highs it does because of Hoffman and Hawke. The casting of Hawke and Hoffman as brothers seems wrong at first, but the movie uses it as an advantage to show the opposing effect that each brother has within the family, Hoffman as the first born, and Hawke as the baby. They also work so well with each other that you feel the sense of history and brotherly connection that Hank and Andy share. Hawke should be commended for his fine work here as Hank. Most actors would shy away from the role of the obviously weaker brother, but Hawke completely nails Hank as the inadequate scared little boy in over his head. And since it's masterfully directed by Lumet, this movie becomes one of the great hidden gems of the 2000's. A wonderful swan song for Lumet's amazing career.

21. Eastern Promises (2007) directed by David Cronenberg

As the movie opens, we meet Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a mid-wife at a London hospital. A young teenager dies after giving birth in Anna's ward, and while searching for any sort of identification Anna stumbles upon the girl's Russian language diary. In an attempt to find the rightful home for the newborn, she takes the diary to a local Russian restaurant where the owner, a seemingly kind old man named Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), offers to translate it for her. While at the restaurant, Anna crosses paths with Seymon's son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and his best friend and driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Anna's Russian born uncle warns her that these people are part of vory v zakone, the Russian mafia, but when Anna's motorcycle breaks down one night outside the restaurant, Nikolai gives her a ride home. There is a strange attraction between the two, but he warns that she should stay away from people like him. Nikolai insists he is just the driver but we've, not long before this, seen him casually dismember the body of a mobster that Kirril had put out a hit on. Anna gets slowly sucked into this world and fights to protect the current and future safety of the baby. Nikolai meanwhile must handle his unstable captain Kirril, and make progress in the eyes of the cold hearted boss Seymon. Kirril and Nikolai also have to deal with the fact that when you put out a hit on another member of the mafia, his family might come looking for you.

There is violence in the movie, as there has been in nearly every Cronenberg movie, but the violence is not exploitative in any way. Cronenberg doesn't necessarily want to thrill you with action sequences or fight scenes, he wants you to see how difficult it would be to fatally slice someone up with a razor. He wants you to see the consequences to the body when you get stabbed with a knife (fragility of the human body is a recurring theme throughout Cronenberg's career). As he himself has pointed out, there are only about 4 or 5 scenes of violence in the movie, but you will hear many people talk about how violent it is. It's not because there is a lot of it, it's because Cronenberg takes violence seriously and doesn't want to trivialize it by making it part of a standard action sequence. In so doing, the violence makes a bigger impact on people's minds. The movie has also become somewhat notorius for an extended fight sequence in a bath house where Viggo Mortensen is naked throughout. This was also not done simply to give the movie a calling card, it was done because Nikolai has nothing to hide behind in this fight. No pads, no armor, no weapons. It makes the fight all the more effective because we can see how vulnerable Nikolai is to attack, and that adds an extra layer of danger and suspense to the scene. Also, kudos to Viggo Mortensen for taking on that scene when every single other star in Hollywood would've balked at it. As Cronenberg said, he was lucky that he cast an actor in the part and not a star.

20. The Aviator (2004) directed by Martin Scorsese

This spot goes to my favorite living directors masterpiece of the decade, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, from 2004. From what I've read, the movie is 2 hours and 50 minutes long, but it has flown by for me the many times I have watched it. Scorsese favorite Leonardo DiCaprio proves yet again what a versatile actor he can be in the right circumstances. His take on legendary billionaire Howard Hughes is fascinating in the small details he adds into his performance. His striking blue eyes bouncing between paranoid fear and defiant rebeliousness, which serves the movie well since Hughes often feels he has to prove himself to the unbelieving people he comes into contact with, people like Alan Alda's smarmy Sen. Brewster, Alec Baldwin's Pan Am exec Juan Trippe, or even the other people in Hollywood who say that he's mad to try making his movies in the unconventional way in which he chooses to make them in. The ending may not work as well if we weren't familiar with what Hughes ended up being, a reclusive germophobe who spent his final years in a hotel room overlooking Las Vegas. It's wonderfully tragic (from a dramatic standpoint) to see Hughes rise above his illness and accomplish his greatest achievement, only to allow his demons to take a final hold of him, while he's looking hopefully to the future. An ending worthy of Shakespeare, and a testament to what an amazing decade it has been for moviegoers that this masterpiece is only #20.

19. The Dark Knight (2008) directed by Christopher Nolan

There's not much left to say about The Dark Knight, one of the most talked about movies of my generation. I love it despite its flaws. The main flaw with it is that Nolan pitches everything at a climax, so that there's eventually no more drama to wring out, as we haven't had a chance to ebb and flow. When it's all climax, you run out of build-up and resolution to let the energy keep flowing. But despite that major flaw, the movie is wonderfully acted, well shot, and contains one of the great villains of cinema.

18. 5 Centimeters per Second (2007) directed Makoto Shinkai

5 Centimeters Per Second is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, in both a visual and thematic way. It's the story of two people who were inseparable as kids (both entranced by the falling cherry blossoms, which allegedly fall at 5 centimeters per second) but are split apart by their families moving. But they are determined to meet up again, they do and fall in love as teenagers, only to be split apart again, before becoming adults who still think of each other but have moved on with their lives (or are trying to learn how to). It's breathtakingly animated. Writer/director Makoto Shinkai allows so many shots of lonely looking objects to linger a bit longer than most would let them, underscoring the longing our characters feel for each other. At just 63 minutes, 5 Centimeters doesn't outstay its welcome, but Shinkai takes his time unfolding his story in a way that makes sure it doesn't feel truncated either.

The story reminded me forcibly of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's great Three Times, another love story set against 3 separate time periods (and was my honorable mention in my previous top ten of the decade). Of course, Hou set the stories apart by having the same actors playing different characters in different time periods and then watched how they play out their love scenarios. Shinkai simply gives us three segments from the same characters, as they grow older. The first segments are strikingly similar, as the man (boy in 5 Centimeters case) seeks out the woman (girl) before eventually meeting and sharing a simple expression of affection, although Shinkai's ending is as achingly beautiful as Hou's, it's in a different way, since 5 Centimeters follows the same characters throughout its 3 stories, we don't leave our characters at the end of the segment. So there isn't the ending note of love, since we will catch up with Shinkai's characters (and his first segment ends on a less fully romantic note, there's some mixed feelings there). The unreciprocated feelings in the second story are interesting and worthwhile as a story, but don't have quite the same emotional weight as the opening segment.

The final segment, though marred a bit by a too on-the-nose power ballad that stands at complete odds to the sparseness of the rest of the soundtrack, is the ambiguous end to the story that maybe isn't so ambiguous once you think about it. Our hero is haunted by the lost love that never got to see its fruition, while the heroine still occasionally thinks back on those days gone by, even as she has moved on. The chance meeting that the hero has longed for finally happens, but how you feel about the outcome will ultimately depend on each viewers interpretation of the characters feelings at that point in their life.

17. Three Times (2005) directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

I first discovered Hou Hsiao-Hsien's brilliant Three Times back in 2009 and was bowled over by it. Hou's style, slow paced, gorgeously filmed, but not distractingly so, mesmerized me. I was also taken by the incredible beauty of lead actress Qi Shu. But mostly, I just flat out loved the first of the three times that Hou gives us. I think the opening section, the simplest of the three segments, is one of the greatest pieces of filmmaking I've ever seen. Its simplicity gets right to the heart of the love story, and I've never felt such joy just watching two people hold hands.

Sadly, the next two sections don't live up to the first (honestly, how could they?). The second segment is at least interesting from the point of how different it is. It's filmed like a silent movie, complete with title cards for dialog, using the same actors from the first section to play out a love story of a different sort. It has a tremendous score, and is unbelievably beautiful to look at, but doesn't have the emotional resonance of the first section. To be fair, it's not meant to, since Hou isn't just repeating the same love story in different times, but it doesn't work as wonderfully as the first. The final section is the only one set in modern times, and is by far the weakest. It doesn't ruin the movie, but it is not a great piece of drama and keeps the movie as a whole from unencumbered genius. But this is still one of the great movies of the decade and deserves its spot in the top 25. Hou is one of our best filmmakers, and this is my favorite film of his in the 2000's.

16. Unbreakable (2000) directed by M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan is pretty much a joke now, after the colossal failures of his last few movies, but there was a time when he was thought of as a Spielberg/Hitchcock hybrid for a new generation, mainly due to the unforeseeable success of 1999's The Sixth Sense, which got him Oscar nominations for Screenplay and Director. His career has been seen by most as a steady decline since then, with many pointing to 2002's Signs as his last good movie (though that movie has plenty of detractors, myself not among them). Until this year's Split, which served as a sort of backdoor sequel to Unbreakable.

But watching this movie it was obvious that Shyamalan had genius within him. This might be the best superhero movie ever (only The Incredibles can top it, in my mind), and it's because it has not only the serious dramatic weight that Christopher Nolan would get credit for introducing to the genre 5 years later with Batman Begins, but also the visual audacity not seen in any other entry to superhero movies. There are deliberate multi-minute shots, definitely not seen in the hyperkinetic work of the genre today. For instance, it's just over 9 minutes into the movie when we get to shot #3. Then there are the motifs like Elijah and glass ("the kids called me Mr. Glass"), where we see him often reflected in mirrors, glass panels, TV screens, etc. The color motifs of purple for Elijah, green for David, and pops of color (red, orange, blue, whatever) from the normally dreary palette for when David senses someone bad. There's that simple attention to visual detail and depth that no other superhero movie has. This is really masterful filmmaking, no matter what happened to Shyamalan afterwards.

I believe Unbreakable should stand atop the mountain of superhero movies, despite being an original creation and not a Batman, Superman, or Spiderman adaptation. It's steeped more in comic lore than any other, and it is steeped in greatness more than any other comic book movie.

15. Yi Yi (2000) directed by Edward Yang

Taiwan's Edward Yang was one of the most respected filmmakers of world cinema, and most often cited as his masterpiece is his 2000 drama Yi Yi (sometimes translated as A One and a Two). A nearly 3 hour human epic focusing on the Jian family living in Taipei. It starts with a wedding, and a visibly pregnant bride, and ends with a funeral, in between containing everything life could contain: joy, pain, anger, regret, love, and the constant search for the whole truth of it all. It's a truly great movie.

We mostly follow NJ (Nien-Jen Wu), the father of the family, as he struggles with money, disagreements with his partners in the failing business he runs, and a chance meeting with his first love, 30 years after he'd run away from her, making him contemplate his choices and direction in life. We also see Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), NJ's teenaged daughter, struggle through the mess of being a teenager. Making friends, hanging out, discovering boys (and boys discovering her), her relationship with her elders, and more. We see a bit of the mom in the family, Min-Min (Elaine Jin), but mostly the other person we follow is Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), the 8-year-old son as he navigates being a kid; a curious, sensitive kid. Writer/director Yang manages all of this and more with an author's sense of detail and character building. Like John Sayles's Lone Star or Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, this is one of the few movies I'd describe as novelic. It is so richly made, and with such care. I've rarely felt closer or more curious about the fates and futures of movie characters than this family.

Yang was a member of the Taiwanese New Wave, alongside one of my favorite filmmakers Hou Hsiao-Hsien. He even cast Hou in his third movie, Taipei Story, in 1985. Nien-Jen Wu, the father NJ, is a celebrated writer/director himself (his 1994 movie A Borrowed Life was named by Martin Scorsese as the 3rd best movie of the 90's), and worked as an actor and writer for both Hou and Yang throughout his career. And he's tremendous in the lead role here, playing a thoroughly good man who contemplates his life while trying to be a good dad, and a good and ethical business man. The kids, neither of whom had ever acted before or much since, are both tremendous. Especially little Jonathan Chang as the son searching for truth in the world. It's a beautiful trio of performances in a beautiful movie.

14. The Incredibles (2004) directed by Brad Bird

This is the best and most thrilling action movie ever made, if you ask me (which by reading this blog, you're kinda doing). I also think that with the issues of marriage and family and trying to find yourself when you don't know who you are anymore, The Incredibles is Pixar's most adult movie, most thematically complex, even though it's disguised as a bright colorful action movie for kids. Each character is created with a distinct personality, each speaks differently about their feelings and actions (you'd be surprised how little this happens in movies once you start paying attention to it), and the voice acting brings that last little bit to make these truly remarkable characters. All of that said, it's also just a mind blowingly amazing action movie, with set pieces that put Bond and Bourne to shame. The attack on the plane is my personal favorite, as the mounting fear in Helen's voice, and the parental actions she takes to possibly sacrifice herself for her children are a rare action sequence that makes me tear up with its dramatic implications. Then there's also the "discovering the joys of your abilities" quality of Dash vs. the flying machines. When Dash starts running (with unexpected success) on the water of the ocean, he lets out a little "oh man, that's so awesome I can do this" kinda giggle that lights my face up every time I watch it.

13. Take Care of My Cat (2001) directed by Jeong Jae-eun

2001's Take Care of My Cat is one of those movies that doesn't sound like it'd be extraordinary, but it is. It's about a group of 5 young women in South Korea, just out of high school, and how they grow, work, and basically how they handle the world at such a transformative age. It has no love story, but contains characters that I want to see more of. It's just under 2 hours long, and that times flies by. Coming-of-age movies are one of my favorite genres, and this is right at or near the top of the heap.

The friends, as can happen in school and sadly not so much later in life, are all of differing social classes, and may even sound like clichés, even though they're not. There's the rich girl Hae-joo (Lee Yo-won), the poor girl Ji-young (Ok Ji-young), the dreamer Tae-hee (played by the amazing Doona Bae, from The Host and Cloud Atlas), and the twin sisters Bi-ryu and Ohn-jo (Lee Eun-shil and Lee Eun-jo). The sisters get the short stick, development wise, but the other three are really wonderfully drawn and played by the actresses. They grow and change and develop in perfectly believable ways, never a false note or false drama, though there were many times it could've gone that way. It's a great trio of leads, even though I can't quite put my finger on why it's so good.

And that's kind of the whole thing about the movie. Writer/director Jeong Jae-eun has crafted a startling movie that has nothing startling in it, really. It's just SO good. The music is impeccable, the framing of the shots, the cinematography, everything is top notch. I want to see this movie over and over again throughout my life. I know it's going to be one of those that really stays with me. Which is a remarkable thing to say about the movie because what do I know or can relate to about being a 20-ish Korean girl? Nothing whatsoever. Yet I was moved by these actresses and their story. Jeong has created herself a truly amazing movie that plays on us like music. We may not be able to articulate what makes it special, it just is.

12. Adventureland (2009) directed by Greg Mottola

Greg Mottola's coming-of-age/the-summer-that-changed-everything movie, Adventureland, was my favorite movie of 2009. Adventureland is the most wonderfully realized, delicately crafted, and emotionally affecting movie about young people that I've ever seen. It captures a moment in time that didn't even exist in my life, yet I connect to it so deeply I almost can't explain it.

There's not a single moment in the movie that rings false to me, and so many moments that transcend the maligned "young adult/teen" genre. Of course, it's not about "teens", it's about people just out of college realizing that their studies in Comparative Literature or Russian and Slavic Languages don't mean much in the real world. It's also about those fragile feelings of first love, real friendship, jealousy, and taking the wrong advice because you don't know any better yet. More than anything really, it's the story of first love. But because everything is so carefully constructed, capturing life, the feeling of real life, it's about much more than that simple genre description might allude to. Sure, it's not documentary-esque real life, it's idealized and nostalgic, but in the best way possible.

11. Before Sunset (2004) directed by Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy (consisting of 1995’s Before Sunrise, 2004’s Before Sunset, and 2013’s Before Midnight) is the great trilogy of cinema, I think. It’s a fascinating look at a couple, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) at vastly different times in their lives. Before Sunrise finds them in their early 20’s, in love with life and ideas and philosophy and all that great college era stuff. They meet and fall in love over the course of a night roaming around Vienna. Before Midnight sees them dealing with the mundanity of parenthood, the crumbling of love when you don’t protect and nurture it, and the ruts that we all fall into in relationships that lead to fights and unhappiness.

Before Sunset, my favorite of the series, follows Jesse and Celine through a 90-minute meetup in Paris as he’s on a book tour for a book he wrote about the events in Before Sunrise. The movie takes place in real time, as Jesse has to catch a plane back to his life in the US, while Celine goes about her life in Paris. We see both the love and the pain caused by the events in Before Sunrise. We see the missed connections and the longing for the feelings of love that were created that magical night in Vienna. We see Jesse and Celine’s immediate re-connection, falling back into their love of talking and connecting with one another. We see the things they keep and the things they share with the other, before it all seems to come out in a car ride back to Celine’s apartment. And, ah! The perfection of that ending. “I know” has never felt so romantic and full of possibilities.

10. No Country for Old Men (2007) directed by The Coen Brothers
2007's No Country for Old Men is the Coen brothers best work, and they're no strangers to great movies. I would count their The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Blood Simple, and Miller's Crossing as really great movies (and that's with thinking their generally regarded crowning achievement, Fargo, is just "good"). Of course, Javier Bardem's Oscar-winning villain is the part that sticks in everyones mind, but the work done here by Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Kelly MacDonald can't be overvalued. MacDonald in particular deserves more attention than she ever got. The scene where she gets a piece of news she didn't want to get, her reaction brings tears to my eyes every time I watch this movie, and I don't think I can say that about any other scene in the typically emotionally distant Coen catalog.

One of the most tense movies I've ever seen, I was so wrapped up in the story that like many people, I was caught off guard by the ending. We're trained by other movies to expect some sort of showdown between the main characters, and when we don't get it, I was left quite disappointed. It wasn't until I kept thinking about the ending, and watched the movie a couple more times, that I was hit by its brilliance. The Coen's go for intellectualism and metaphor rather than the emotional release of a showdown. I wasn't sure at first if they'd made the right decision, but I'm more sure than ever (after my last viewing) that they did make the correct choice.

9. Talk to Her (2002) directed by Pedro Almodovar
I already admired even if I hadn't quite loved Pedro Almodovar's movies when I finally came to Talk to Her. This is not just one of the great movies of the 2000's, but one of the great movies ever made, period. The story, of two relationships of very different types, gets us to identify and relate to these four people in surprising ways. The amount of life that Almodovar injects into this movie is astounding. Every frame pulses with the energy of life. He tackles weighty topics in the same movie in which you'll find dick and poop jokes. And the turn of the plot comes as such a shock that we cannot believe it, just as we wouldn't if it happened in real life. But Almodovar never cheated, it's not a twist in the regular movie sense. It's kind of a twist in the way that life twists us. Overall, I just can't quite get over how much life is in this movie. That was the theme that kept coming up to me. Even side characters are so precisely written that one doctor character has one small scene and he felt like a fully formed person. The movie also contains the craziest, funniest, wildest movie-within-a-movie I've ever seen.

8. Ratatouille (2007) directed by Brad Bird

The first thing I wanted to do when leaving the theater after seeing Ratatouille on opening day was cook. Cooking is one of the great joys of my life, and it is one of the great joys for Remy the rat too. Re-watching this movie so many times, I'm actually a little bored by the opening 20 minutes or so, until Remy gets to Paris. From then on the movie is perfect. It's hilarious, heartbreaking, romantic, and filled with a love of life and food. Peter O'Toole's performance as the food critic Anton Ego is the movie's key, I think. When presented with the title dish, vegetable peasant food thought unworthy of the high end restaurant in which it's being served, he is raced back to childhood and the comfort and love he felt when his mother made him the dish. Then he follows with one of my favorite monologues in movies, about the relationship between art and art criticism. Heady stuff to put in a "kids movie" but that's because Pixar isn't trying to make movies just for kids, they're trying to make good movies period. The fact that Ratatouille isn't even the best Pixar movie of the decade is further proof that they can edge out Studio Ghibli as the best animation studio in the world.

7. In Bruges (2008) directed by Martin McDonagh

Colin Farrell's effortlessly heartbreaking yet hysterical performance as the endearing naughty boy Ray becomes much more impressive every time I watch this infinitely rewatchable masterpiece. Brendan Gleeson's work shows that many more layers to his character, the wonderfully paternal Ken. And even Ralph Fiennes' deliriously over-the-top mob boss becomes more of a joy to watch, as well as making such a deeper impact on a dramatic level. McDonagh's screenplay shows off his roots on the stage (where he's often considered one of Ireland's top playwrights) in its use of a small number of locations and characters, and his attention to the detail of his dialog. In what may be the movie's best scene (although it's really too tough to pick just one), a simple piece of dialog shifts the entire mood of the film. Not in many movies would a line like "Good. Because he wasn't a bad kid, was he?" change the course of the movie, but the line is loaded with meaning where it's placed in the screenplay, and delivered with such brilliance, it has a remarkable impact. And that's without thinking about the scene being a masterfully subtle 6 1/2 minute long single take.

McDonagh should also be commended for his ability to mix the profane with the spiritual, violence with the magical, and most simply (yet remarkably) the comedy with the drama. In Bruges would be a tremendous piece of work for any filmmaker, but the fact that it was McDonagh's first makes it all the more impressive.

6. Wall-E (2008) directed by Andrew Stanton

The next movie on my list is the Pixar tour-de-force that is Andrew Stanton's Wall-E, quite possibly the greatest of all animated movies. Its visual invention and nearly silent opening section are reminders of what a little ambition can do for a movie. Stanton and his co-writers provide pointed commentary on the laziness of the human race and where our reliance on technology will logically lead us to (a commentary lost on so many viewers who thought the filmmakers were just making fun of fat people). But at its heart, Wall-E is a simple love story, one that just happens to star robots.

Most of note, really, is the genius creation of the title character. Stanton gives ample time for his mostly silent hero to show of his comedic skills, ones worthy of the great Buster Keaton. Stanton has actually said that he and his staff studied the entire available catalogs of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in an effort to understand and emulate the great silent comedians. Wall-E is a delightful creation, and the movie starring him equally enchanting. It was another one that didn't quite hit me with its full force on first viewing. Looking back on my original review, I wasn't even sure if it was Pixar's best movie. After repeat viewings, I always find wonderful little details in it, plus there's still the beautiful sequences like Eve and Wall-E's dance, and the simplicity of the story proves to be a strength rather than a hindrance. Our adorable hero and his quest for love hits me in the gut every time since that first viewing. It's really a testament to the strength of the decade's movies that a masterpiece like Wall-E is only 6th. And I'm already starting to wonder if that position is too low.

5. High Fidelity (2000) directed by Stephen Frears

High Fidelity is another one that didn't immediately make an impact on me. As a 17-year-old, I walked away from the theater loving Jack Black's hilariously over-the-top know it all Barry, but not really connecting with John Cusack's self-loathing (yet often arrogant) Rob, and his travails through the top 5 loves of his life, and why they didn't work out. A few years later, I watched the movie again and found it deeply affected me on an emotional level, now that I had some life experience with what Rob was talking about, and a deeper love of the pop-culture that Rob also cherishes. Now, as a 26-year-old with even more experiences, I find more than ever that I connect not just with Rob, but with Barry, Dick, Liz, and Laura. All the characters are amazingly well drawn (much of which comes from Nick Hornby's brilliant novel) and brilliantly played by the actors, with even Jack Black seeming like a real character, and not just Jack Black.

Sometimes a movie feels so personal to me that I fear showing it to other people, afraid that their opinion (whether positive, negative, or indifferent) will color mine in some way and my love of it will be somehow tainted. This is a movie like that. I occasionally hesitate in recommending such a deeply personal favorite, especially one that I don't think will connect with someone as fully as it does with me, immediately at least. Some people aren't willing to revisit movies that they didn't love the first time around. But I do have such a deep love and connection with it that I can't help but put it on this list and want to recommend it to anyone with an open mind.

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) directed by Michel Gondry

This is one of the most interesting visual experiences ever put on screen, with Michel Gondry able to project what the inside of our minds just might look like.

The crowning achievement in Charlie Kaufman's catalog, in my eyes, teaming him again with French music video director Gondry (who had previously directed Kaufman's script Human Nature, unseen by me). A haphazard journey through the memories of Joel Barish (a never better Jim Carrey) as he tries to erase his recently ex-girlfriend Clementine (the always brilliant Kate Winslet) from his mind. Kaufman started from the idea of erasing someone from your memory (who hasn't wanted to do that before?) and the impact that memories have on us as people. The way a loved one can get so associated with something that to remove it would be to remove a part of your own being. The impulsive Clem has had Joel erased from her memory by a company called Lacuna that provides such a service. As a way of getting back at her, Joel decides to erase her from his memory. Joel at one point asks Dr. Mierzwiak (the infallible Tom Wilkinson) if there's any chance of brain damage caused by the erasing. He answers "Well, technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage."

There's an achingly sad moment later in the movie when you realize that Joel doesn't remember the song "My Darling Clementine", even though it had deep meaning to him long before meeting Clem. It had become so associated with her in his mind that to remove her removes all traces of the song as well as his childhood favorite, Huckleberry Hound. For the majority of the movie we travel with Joel through the good and bad memories of the two years he spent with Clem. It's hysterical, heartbreaking, amazingly true to life while being totally surreal. Also, the brilliant score by Jon Brion is worth mentioning. It plays more like an accompaniment to the action onscreen, instead of trying to underline it, or try and inform the audience how to react emotionally. The movie is a beautiful, hilarious, and melancholy trek through the emotions one experiences with both the good and bad in a relationship, and how you should live with the balance of the two instead of trying to forget. Your memories help make you who you are, appreciate that you have them.

3. Almost Famous (2000) directed by Cameron Crowe

With Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe finally achieved the flawless synergy of his love of rock music and the personal relationship dramedy that he’d been trying to perfect since his debut with Say Anything. Crowe used his experiences as a teenaged journalist for Rolling Stone magazine (where he toured with Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and The Eagles, among others) as the basis for his autobiographical masterwork. And while the theatrical cut of the movie is wonderful, the cut that makes it onto my list is the Untitled: Bootleg cut (i.e. Director’s cut). Although most director’s cuts are fairly worthless and indulgent, the original cut of Almost Famousonly had one drawback (to me), which was that it felt a bit rushed. Crowe’s Untitled cut adds in just enough scenes to make the movie feel more lived in, more detailed, and add more character moments so that we really get to know and love these people.

Even though the movie skirts so close to cliché at nearly every turn, it never felt anything but alive to me. A lot of the credit for that goes to Crowe’s (deservedly) Oscar-winning script, but I think even more of it goes to the best cast he’s ever assembled. From Patrick Fugit as our hero William, to Frances McDormand’s overprotective mother and Zooey Deschanel’s flighty sister, Jason Lee and Billy Crudup’s quarreling band leaders, to Kate Hudson’s perfect Penny Lane and most especially Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lester Bangs (still his greatest of many, many great performances), the closest thing William has to a mentor. Hell, Crowe even gets a terrific performance from Jimmy Fallon. Fugit though, as the newcomer of the bunch, deserves special mention for his ability to capture a certain youthful naiveté and earnestness, while also taking us on William’s coming-of-age journey with enthusiasm and joy. It’s one of the great youth performances the movies have ever given us.

Probably the most talked about sequence in the movie is the “Tiny Dancer” scene. I’ve heard it described as transcendent by some, and ridiculous (or worse) by others. It is, of course, the former. After a night of in-fighting and much drug taking, the whole group is angry with Crudup’s Russell Hammond as he gets on the bus wrapped in a towel and still a little bit high. The bus sets off, and Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” plays over the bus speakers. Eventually everyone joins in singing along, and with it, Crowe shows us the kind of healing power great music can have. Nobody says anything to Russell about the night before. They don’t have to. Music is a powerful thing, and Almost Famous captures that like no other movie I can think of.

2. Pan's Labyrinth (2006) directed by Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro had shown promise with some of his earlier films, most particularly in the comic book adaptation Hellboy, and his ghost story The Devil’s Backbone. But he had never melded his extraordinary talents as a visual stylist with some storytelling craft as well as he did with his 2006 masterwork Pan’s Labyrinth. He wrote a simple story about a young girl escaping from her hellish life into a fantasy world that may not be any less brutal, but tells it with an elegance and assurance that he’d only hinted at before. The effortless flow of the story makes the simplicity all the easier to enjoy, with the only character who isn’t really a defined good guy or bad guy being the Faun who opens up this alternate world to our young heroine.

Movies with children as the lead characters can often get bogged down in “cute” moments from the young actors who fail to give much in the way of a real acting performance. Pan’s Labyrinth is not one of those movies. Premier among the movie’s many pleasures is the central performance from Ivana Baquero as Ofelia. The rest of the cast is littered with wonderful performances as well, but Ofelia is our guide and needs to be something truly special. Baquero is most certainly that. The film’s detractors often point to the simplistic nature of the movie as a negative, usually pointed at Sergi Lopez’s villainous Captain Vidal as the biggest offender. So what? So he’s obviously the bad guy, and he’s a really, really bad guy. He’s not even the most memorable villain, as the infamous Pale Man sequence has demonstrated. Regardless, do we denigrate The Adventures of Robin Hood because Claude Rains is so wonderfully hissable, or the Harry Potter movies because Voldemort is one-sidedly evil? No, we enjoy the obstacle for our heroes to overcome. And the movies are better for it.

The feeling that often stays with me after watching Pan's Labyrinth is one of a beautiful melancholy. The Javier Navarrete score is gorgeously haunting, and fits the movie perfectly. The rich cinematography from Guillermo Navarro, as well as Del Toro’s developing compositional brilliance, leaves us with some stunning images. One thing I would like to address that Del Toro purposefully leaves open to a bit of interpretation is whether or not this fantasy escape is all happening in Ofelia’s head. There’s a shot near the end where Vidal runs into Ofelia talking to the Faun, but he can’t see the Faun. Del Toro has said he meant this as adults aren’t as in tune with the fantasy world as children, more than that the fantasy world doesn’t exist. And that’s the way I’ve always looked at it as well. I’m more one who believes in the fate of the fig tree as an indication of what was real and what wasn’t. What is very real though is that this is one of the great movies I’ve ever seen, and I have no problem having it as my #2 movie of the decade.

1. Children of Men (2006) directed by Alfonso Cuaron
I have rarely been as emotionally impacted while watching a movie as I was sitting in the theater watching Children of Men. Having since seen it multiple times, I am more convinced than ever that it is the best movie of the decade, and one of the greatest achievements in all of cinema. Its story is very simple: the year is 2027, and the human race has been infertile for the past 18 years. An emotionally disconnected former activist (now anonymous bureaucrat, played by Clive Owen) is asked by his ex-wife to escort a young girl to safety across the dangerous obstacles now occupying England as the world's last surviving powerful nation. The by now well known complication being that the girl is pregnant. Director/writer/editor Alfonso Cuaron uses this concept as the basis to tell a powerful story of action, love, and hope rarely touched in cinema. The almost oppressive grimness of the frighteningly realistic future setting is offset with the optimism brought about by the prospect of a future generation.

Children of Men has become somewhat famous for its single-shot sequences, including an assault on a car that lasts for more than 4 minutes, and a shot during a chaotic battle that lasts for around 7 1/2 minutes. The thing that many people don't know about these shots are that they aren't really a single shot, but a couple of shots stitched together through the aid of computers. Some detractors have taken this as a negative, as though the only point of single-shot sequences is an exercise in technique. The single-shot sequences, whether actually a single unaided shot or not, work as a single take, not allowing the audience the chance to distance itself through an edit. We can't get away from the action, because the camera isn't getting away from the action, making the movie all the more tense and exciting.

Werner Herzog has often said that the world is starved for great images. With Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron continues his fight to give us extraordinary images. He has the audacity to be poetic in an almost Herzog-ian way such as in the scene where the soldiers all stand around dumbfounded at the sound and sight of the baby Theo is escorting out of a building. Some people, even in the midst of the fighting and destruction going on around them reach out to the baby as the first sign of hope in nearly 20 years. The soldiers, many of whom are probably too young to even remember seeing a baby in their lifetimes, look on at the young child in a paralyzing shock. It's a tremendously moving sequence, and again, Cuaron's use of music (an opera) is very reminiscent of Herzog. Cuaron has given us some wonderful images in his previous movies. Y tu Mama Tambien, A Little Princess, and even his Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were expertly filmed and gave us gorgeous shots to behold. But nothing he'd ever done in the past prepared me for the power and poeticism of some of his work here. I would single out more shots, but I could nearly single out anything in the movie and use it as an example, since Cuaron often finds the poetry of images in small ways that many viewers may not even be aware of or remember.

Some great movies that just didn't make the list include:

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Spirited Away (2001)
The Pianist (2002)
Adaptation. (2002)
Whale Rider (2002)
Lost in Translation (2003)
Master and Commander (2003)
Shattered Glass (2003)
Zodiac (2007)
Once (2007)
Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
Superbad (2007)
Coraline (2009)