Top 50 Films of the Decade 2000-2009 Part V: The Top Ten

So at long last, we come to the 10 best films of the decade - at least according to me. List making should be personal - at least if you're doing it right. So while I'm sure that many people will have a problem with at least one, if not more, of my choices, these are them all the same. I thought long and hard about these, and this is what I came up with.

10. City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2003)
Fernando Meirelles’ City of God is the type of film Scorsese would have made had he been from Brazil, not New York. The film is epic in scope, as it details the rise of organized crime in the City of God slum of Rio de Janerio over the course of the a decade – from the late 1960s until the early 1980s. The criminals here are not your typical American style gangster, but really little more than children who have been abandoned and left to fight for themselves. The two main characters are Rocket, a kid from the slum who wants out, and sees his interest in photography as perhaps his ticket. He wants to capture life in his slum the way it really is, and get the word out about it. The other character is Lil’Ze, who we see early in the film as a boy no more than 10 who commits a massacre at a hotel gunning down countless people. Through the year, Lil’ Ze only becomes more ruthless and violent. The film ends, as we know it must, in a huge gang war between two warring factions, neither of whom will make it clean. The end of the film ensures us that the cycle of violence will continue – a younger generation has taken over the reins. City of God is electrifying filmmaking at its best, and put Meirelles on the map as a world class filmmaker (his two films since this one, The Constant Gardener and Blindness were both quite good, but he has yet to rise to these heights again). Let’s hope he makes another film this great again soon.

9. Cache (Michael Haneke, 2005)
Michael Haneke has always liked to play games with the audience, and in none of his films has he done so as brilliantly as he does in Cache. The movie is about an upper middle class couple in Paris (Daniel Auteil and Juliette Binoche) who start to receive strange packages on their doorstep that contains videos of their house. When they try and find the camera, they can’t. Then when other things start appearing, it forces Auteil to search his past to find out what exactly he is being punished for. Haneke has made a thriller in the best Hitchcockian sense of the word – the videos are really a McGuffin, and it doesn’t really matter who is sending them. What matters is why they are being sent, and how they shake this family out of their complacent, happy lives. The final shot of the movie seems to finally explain who sent the videos, but it simply raises more questions then answers. How do the two people in the final shot know each other, and why do they want to punish they people involved? And perhaps even more eerily, who the hell is shooting that final shot anyway?

8. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
David Fincher’s Zodiac does for serial killer movies what The Godfather Part II did for mob movies – completely and totally de-romanticize them. Fincher frontloads all of the killing in the movie to the opening half hour, making us wallow in the depravity on display, and drawing us into the mystery. The rest of the film is about how the hunt for the Zodiac killer, who was never caught despite all his killings, and his constant taunts to the police and media, destroys the lives of the people it touched. Jake Gyllenhaal starts out the movie as the political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, with one failed marriage already behind him, and his obsession with the killer destroy his second. His family is replaced around the table by boxes of files about the Zodiac. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards are top cops who are drawn deeper into the mystery, until finally Edwards cannot take it anymore. Robert Downey Jr. is another reporter who becomes so paranoid, that he falls further into alcoholism, destroying his career and his life. Fincher’s perfectionism is on display in every scene – the period details just right, as he draws us deeper and deeper into the mystery. The movie is about the fruitlessness of obsession, and life in the information age – where we have so much information at our fingertips, yet somehow answers still elude us. If Seven marked Fincher as a great filmmaker, and Fight Club elevated him to cult status, than Zodiac is the film that confirmed that Fincher was a master.

7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
Life is about making mistakes and learning from them. It is our memories, of both the good and bad times in our lives that make up who we are as a person. And if you take away those memories, all that is left is hollow shell – a body without a soul. Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind understands this, and together they have made perhaps not the greatest love story of the decade, but the greatest film about love. Jim Carrey gives easily his best performance as a man who finds out that his ex-girlfriend, Kate Winslet, has undergone a procedure to erase all memory of him from her mind. For spite, he decides to go through the same process – only part way through the procedure, he realizes that he wants to hold onto those memories and starts fighting back, trying hide memories inside different parts of his brain. Like all of the films written by Charlie Kaufman, this one is about the mind, and how it works, and is endlessly imaginative film – visually inventive from start to finish by Gondry, brilliantly bringing to life Kaufman’s ideas. (The films Gondry has made since this one prove that while he remains an inventive filmmaker, he should get someone else to write his movies). Carrey and Winslet are a perfectly matched pair in this film – both diving headlong into their roles, and taking risk and risk, all of which pay off brilliantly. When at the end of the film, they decide to try again, even though they know that last time it didn’t work out (although they have no idea why), they are in a way reclaiming their humanity from technology. A brilliant movie for our times.

6. No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007)
The best film the brothers made this decade (and second only to Fargo in their all time canon), No Country for Old Men is a brilliant adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s book about how America has completely lost its way. You can hardly blame Josh Brolin’s character for picking up that bag of money and going on the run – he’s got a young, pretty wife at home (Kelly McDonald), and only works part time. Plus the money is just sitting there, waiting to be taken. It’s drug money, who’s going to miss it? But this simple act sets the events of the movie in motion, as two men pursue Brolin as he goes on the run. One is the benevolent sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) who has worked for years and he no longer understand his job – no longer understand all the violence and bloodshed he sees around him. The other is the hit man (Javier Bardem) who moves like a shark, or as one character compares him to, the bubonic plague – an unstoppable killing machine. How do you stop someone like Bardem, who plays by no rules whatsoever? The Coen’s film is pitch perfect – there is no a shot, cut or line of dialogue out of place, from it’s opening shots, right down to its ambigious ending. The Coens usually work best when they write their own material, but here they have accomplished the best adaptation of the decade – knowing precisely what needs to stay in from McCarthy’s book, and what needs to be cut. This dark film was a surprising winner for best picture in 2007 – and it’s one of the best choices the Academy has ever made.

5. Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
In my mind, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds is the best movie of his career. Tarantino has always been enthralled with movies from the past, and it shows up in his work. Yet he gloriously mixes them all together and comes up with something that while it seems somewhat reminiscent of the films of the past, is still wholly unique – wholly Tarantino. The reason I think Inglorious Basterds is better than the rest of his films is because Tarantino has fully integrated his movie love into the narrative of the movie itself. This is a movie about movies, and the power they have over the audience, and the way that they can be used to change people’s perceptions, and influence what people think of as the truth. There is a lot of talk in Tarantino’s film of Nazi Propaganda films, and Tarantino seems to have decided to do just the opposite. Just like Oliver Stone did in JFK, Tarantino’s film is no more “true” than the Nazi propaganda films, but what it does is spin a counter myth. Not only is all of this true, but I also think Inglorious Basterds is the best screenplay Tarantino has ever written. He has always loved language, and has let his characters sit around and talk more than any other director in recent memory. Yet again, Tarantino’s love of language becomes more fully integrated into the plot of the movie. In that brilliant opening scene, when the Jew Hunter Hans Landa (Christophe Waltz in one of the best performances of the decades), switches back and forth between German, French and English there is a reason for it. There is a reason for all the word games that he plays – both with the farmer here, and later with Melanie Laurent in the restaurant (where he coldly asks for a glass of milk) and most hilariously with Brad Pitt who is trying to speak Italian, at which point wouldn’t you know, it is revealed that Landa speaks perfect Italian as well. (This doesn’t even the brilliant sequence in the bar that Landa is not a part of, where language, and accents, play an important role as well). I realize now that in all of this, I forgot to mention that Inglorious Basterds is also one of the most flat out entertaining films of the decade – moving along at a breathless pace for two and half hours, where each and every scene, or chapter as Tarantino calls them – are perfectly calibrated. Tarantino certainly raised him game for this film.

4. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar for directing The Departed – and he deserved it. This film I think ranks right along the best films that Scorsese has ever made – and since Scorsese is my favorite director of all time, that is saying something. This epic gangster saga puts an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) into the Boston mob led by Jack Nicholson, without realizing that Nicholson has a mole of his own in Matt Damon who has infiltrated the police. The movie is supremely entertaining – it doesn’t let up for a second – but I think the fact that it was so entertaining led some critics to overlook the thematic complexity of Scorsese’s film. This is really a story of two lost young men, who have grown up without fathers, doing everything they can to please the surrogate fathers they have chosen. Both Nicholson, and Martin Sheen (who has the role of surrogate father to DiCaprio), know this, and use it to push their “sons” further and further into harm’s way, bringing them closer to death at every possible step. The film is also a superb Iraq war allegory, where the enemies are hiding right in plain sight. Scorsese hurtles the movie along at quick pace, but he never loses sight of the bigger picture here. To those who say that The Departed is little more than a remake of Infernal Affairs, I suggest you have another look at both films. Infernal Affairs was never this complex (at least until the second movie in the trilogy). This film belongs in the top echelon of all of Scorsese’s films.

3. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence updates the Western to modern day America, and then pushes it even further into murky moral waters. Viggo Mortenson gives an excellent performance as a seemingly normal family man – married with two kids – in small town America. Hell, he even runs the local diner, and is so mild mannered that everyone in town loves him. Then things spin out of control after two men try to rob the diner, and Mortenson acts quickly, killing both of them (in a horrifically bloody scene, where Cronenberg invites us to feel the bloodlust of the moment, then makes us sit in the aftermath). This makes him a hero to the town, and brings news attention. And that’s when a horribly disfigured Ed Harris shows up in town, and starts calling Mortenson by a different name – believing him to be a gangster out of his past. Cronenberg’s film delves into the identity issues that have always been a part of his work. Is it really possible to change the person you are? When Mortenson kills those two robbers, we see a flash of his former life, that old killer instinct kicking in again. But once he’s started to go back down that road, he has trouble stopping it (the mild mannered guy he became would never have pretty much raped his wife on the stairs). The final scene in the movie, where Mortenson comes back to his family after doing what he had to do, suggests that the family just wants to go back to normal. The question is, now that Mortenson has allowed that old life to resurface, can he put it away again?

2. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive has the feeling of a dream that by the end has turned into a nightmare. I do believe the much discussed theory that the first two-thirds of the film is really the dream life that Diane (Naomi Watts) has constructed for herself. In that film, we see Watts as the innocent and bright eyed Betty, who meets the beautiful Rita (Laura Elena Harring) who has amnesia and the two go on a sort of Nancy Drew like quest to find out what happened to her. The last third is her grim reality where she has failed both personally and professionally, and the woman she is in love with (Harring) now treats her with cold, cruel distance, driving her towards insanity, murder and suicide. Yet, I don’t necessarily think that it is necessary to explain every loose end in the film, or even the overall meaning of it. Lynch has crafted his best, most complete movie and was able to maintain his dreamlike atmosphere for almost his film. Lynch has always been interested in dreams, and his films have often played like them (most notably Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Lost Highway), but he has never seemed to have as much control of his film as he does here. The film is a nasty little examination of Hollywood, how some people make it, and some get chewed up and spit out by it – but that every sexy allure never wears off. This is Lynch’s masterpiece.

1. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
There was never any real doubt in my mind that Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood would be my number one film of the decade. From the wordless opening section lasting nearly 15 minutes, right up until the films brutal, violent, bloody climax There Will Be Blood stands head and shoulders above every other movie made this decade. Daniel Day-Lewis gives the performance of the decade as Daniel Planview, the misanthropic oil man who spends his life gathering wealth, and driving every one close to him away. He lets his guard down only once – when he thinks he has found his long lost brother, and he admits how much he hates everyone in a marvelous sequence next to a campfire. Day Lewis is equally great in his big, over the top moments (like the infamous “I drink your milkshake scene”), as he is in the films quieter, more subtle moments. There Will Be Blood is really about the twin pillars of America – capitalism and religion (represented by Paul Dano’s charlatan of preacher), and how they are both rotten to the core. There were a lot of great films this decade – but a lot of great filmmakers. This list of 50 films just barely scratches the surface of the riches that were out there for moviegoers. But none of them can match There Will Be Blood. With this film, Anderson clearly established himself as the best filmmaker in the world today.

Top 50 Films of the Decade 2000-2009 Part IV

20. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
After making two of the best films of the 1990s, Paul Thomas Anderson shocked people by making this movie with Adam Sandler. But the gambled paid off, as the film proved that only could Sandler actually act, but also that Anderson could pull off pretty much whatever he wanted to do. The film basically deconstructs Sandler’s screen image – his character here is just as anti-social and prone to violent rages as someone like Happy Gilmore, the difference here is that Anderson and Sandler see this character for who he really is, and do not make him into some kind of misfit hero. The movie spins around and around, as Sandler gets drawn in deeper – deeper into the phone sex scam he unwittingly became a part of, deeper into his obsessive collecting of points to build up air miles, deeper into his novelty business, deeper into his dysfunctional family relationship, and finally deeper into his romance with Emily Watson, who is outwardly normal, but there is something definitely wrong with her. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a brilliant supporting performance as the mattress king, and the films creepy soundtrack is perfect. I think if you really want to know when Anderson truly announced himself as a singular talent, it was this film.

19. Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002)
I am better able to see the flaws in this film than I was in 2002 when I was enamored by the film. Yes, the storytelling is sloppy at times, and this is undoubtedly DiCaprio’s weakness performance in a Scorsese movie. And you could probably jettison Cameron Diaz and not lose much. I certainly understand the criticism that the film is a giant mess. But what a glorious, brilliant mess it is! There are scenes as brilliant as anything put to film before – the opening battle (in fact, the lead up to the opening battle is perhaps even better), the scene where DiCaprio wakes up to find Day-Lewis sitting there staring at him with the American flag draped over his shoulders. In fact, pretty much every scene with Day-Lewis who towers over the movie and everyone else in it, just like a character like Bill the Butcher should. The period detail, the amazing cinematography, the overall hugely ambitious, epic scope. So yeah, Gangs of New York is a flawed film. No doubt about that. But I absolutely love it just the same.

18. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
Christopher Nolan had a great decade, starting with Memento, moving onto to the underrated Insomnia then Batman Begins, then The Prestige, and finally settling on The Dark Knight – one of the great crime dramas of the decade. The key to the film is even though it is about a man who dresses up like a bat, fighting a man who dresses up like a clown, that Nolan takes the movie, and its characters seriously. Christain Bale gives a fine performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman – the best we have seen on film yet, and he is ably supported by Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and the rest of the cast. But the movie is owned by Heath Ledger who delivers a wickedly demented performance as the Joker. What the movie is really about is how do you fight an enemy with no morals or scruples – do you sink to their level, or not? That makes The Dark Knight relevant to our times and more than just a superhero movie – although it is a brilliant one of those as well.

17. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)
Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is undoubtedly the best classic western of the decade, and one of the best films the genre has ever produced. It is brilliantly shot and edited, making this look and feel like a Terence Malick at times. But it’s portrayal of Jesse James as a reluctant celebrity, who while he remains slightly crazed (it all happens in Brad Pitt’s eyes – easily his best performance), is beaten down and ready to die. Casey Affleck is the real star of the movie though as Robert Ford, a pathetic little man who idolizes James to an obsessive degree, and although he does “befriend” him, he still feels small and pathetic, which turns his adoration into a desire to kill him. The movie sticks close to the facts that we know about the case, but the film is also relevant to our times – with Affleck as almost a Mark David Chapman like character. Celebrity culture it seems is not a modern invention.

16. I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007)
Bob Dylan has made himself such an enigma over the years, and has reinvented himself so many times, that a classic Hollywood style biopic would do him no justice at all. Which is why Todd Haynes’ brilliant film I’m Not There is as great as it is. Haynes uses six different actors to portray Dylan at different stages in his life, different personas if you will. You have youngest Marcus Carl Franklin as the kid who wanted to be Woody Guthrie, Christian Bale both trapped as a folk singer, and later as a gospel singer, Heath Ledger as Dylan the celebrity, Ben Whishaw as Dylan the poet, Richard Gere as Dylan the recluse and finally, in one of the very best performances of the decade, Cate Blanchatt as Dylan at the height of his fame, not knowing precisely what is expected of him, and drowning his sorrows in drug abuse. Haynes has a different style for each of his characters, influenced by different directors from Godard to Warhol to Peckinpah to Pennebaker and more. I’m Not There is a brilliant movie precisely because it doesn’t explain Dylan, who is unexplainable, but instead gives us snapshots of Dylan. Just like the song that the movie is named after says, every time we think we get a glimpse of the real Dylan, he’s gone.

15. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
Pixar has been one of the most consistent creative forces in America movies for well over a decade now, and Wall-E is far and away their best film. The movie is a magical silent comedy in its first act, as Wall-E, the last robot left on a deserted planet earth, continues his job of slowly cleaning up the planet destroyed by human shortsightedness. Wall-E is lonely though, so when another robot named Eve descends from the sky, he thinks he has finally found a friend. But when she is taken away on a spaceship, Wall-E refuses to let go of his friend, and travels with her back to a huge spaceship arc, which contains the remnants of humanity which have become slovenly and obese, depending on machines from everything. The film is a brilliant mixture of state of the art animation, mixed in with references to cinema’s past. As well, it is a touching love story, even though the film is about two robots. There are more magical moments in this film than in any in recent memory. Pixar has created a lot of great films in the past, but none better than this one.

14. Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005)
It has been a very dark decade for Spielberg in his films – and none of his films were as dark, or as brilliantly conceived as Munich, his study on revenge, and the endless cycle of violence that it brings. Eric Bana heads up a team of Israeli Secret Agents, who are tasked to eliminate the people behind the planning and execution of the Munich Olympic Massacre, where a group of terrorists kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes. At first Bana and his team are all for the mission – they want vengeance as much as anyone does, and they see this as their way to serve their country. But as one killing leads to another and another, and innocent people start to become involved and the mission continually expands, they all start having their doubts about the mission. Every assassination they carry out doesn’t really accomplish anything, as the terrorists simply respond in kind, and as such add more people to the list, or simply replace the man killed. Bana becomes disillusioned, and eventually leaves the mission, but becomes increasingly paranoid about his safety. In the scene that many critics point out as being the weak point of the film, or even downright stupid, Bana has sex with his wife, as we flash back to the Munich massacre – something that Bana never witnessed. But since he has lived with this moment for years – it has been the driving force behind his actions – it does make sense that he could be haunted by an event he didn’t actually witness. Far from being the naïve movie some critics have claimed – slamming the film for saying that government should never retaliate for wrongs done against them (which is just stupid), the movie instead offers a critical examination of the moral doubts that come along with taking retaliation, and more argues that a black and white policy of tit for tat vengeance leads to a kind of group insanity. Munich is the most complex film of Spielberg’s career, and one of his very best.

13. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
Synecdoche, New York is a brilliant little mind fuck of a movie from Charlie Kaufman, who proves in this film that he should continue to direct his own material. The film is about a New York based theater director (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who gets a MacArthur genius grant and uses the money to stage a huge, never ending play in an abandoned factory going over the minuate of his everyday life. He rehearses the play for years, bringing in actors to play themselves, and then bringing in other actors to play the actors playing themselves, building massive life size sets, as he continues to spiral down into his own head. The world crumbles around him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He is beset with different ailments that he cannot explain, and loses one wife after another, the whole time wishing he could have his assistant (Samantha Morton), who moved on years ago, but still remains by his side day in and day out. Synecdoche, New York is hugely ambitious – it is about nothing less than life, and we live it day in and day out.

12. A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2009)
The Coen brothers had a great decade – seven films, four of which appear on this top 50 list (which means that there is still one coming up). A Serious Man is both very much in line with their previous work, but also somewhat of a departure for them. In the film, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a Physics professor in 1967 Minnesota who is being tested by God very much like Job was. His wife is cheating on him with his new age spouting friend, his tenure is at risk, his kids don’t respect him, he is drawn to the shiksa goddess next door and his brother is an absolute mess. He reaches out to three different rabbis, but finds no help from them. He struggles to do the right thing at every turn, to stay on the good path with no guidance from anyone, not even God, and when at long last he fails, he may have triggered the apocalypse. To those who say that the Coens are being anti-Semitic here, I would say that there is a big difference between being anti-rabbinical and anti-Semitic, and that even if Larry is a bit of a nebbish nerd, the Coens show tremendous sympathy towards him – much more than perhaps any other character in their oeuvre. Finally, I know some think that this is just the Coens playing God, and fucking with Larry (like say Scorsese in After Hours), but I disagree there as well. They have God play God in this film, who although he isn’t answering Larry, is still very much a part of the movie (hence the finale). A Serious Man is the Coens pushing themselves farther than they ever have before, and the result is one of their masterpieces.

11. Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003/2004)
The two halves of Quentin Tarantino’s epic are very different from one another. Volume I is very much a breathless action movie, where The Bride (Uma Thurman) wakes up from five years in a coma and goes after the people responsible for putting her there. She storms into the first house, with Vivica A. Fox, and gets her vengeance quickly, making Fox leave behind a daughter (which could set up Volume III if Tarantino is to be believed). Then she flies to Japan and in the most remarkable, sustained action set piece of the decade fights off the Crazy 88 before confronting Lucy Liu, the one she wanted all along. The first volume moves at an almost impossibly fast pace, mixing together animation and other video formats, and coming to a conclusion that is breathtaking. Volume II is a slower, more subdued film – more typical of Tarantino as he allows his characters much more time to talk, reveling in the words they speak. I’m not sure which half of the film is better – both I think are incomplete without the other. To some, Kill Bill is Tarantino’s ultimate masturbation project – simply getting off by doing everything he ever wanted to do in a movie. But to me, Tarantino is an original talent – he takes what has come before him, mixes it all together and comes out with something completely new.

Top 50 Films of the Decade 2000-2009 Part III

30. Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
Writing is one of the least cinematic actives that you can do. How many ways are there to shot a man sitting at typewriter working through his book? But that is precisely what Spike Jonze’s Adaptation is about. Working off a brilliant screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, the film stars Nicolas Cage (in an amazing dual performance) as both Kaufman himself, and his twin brother Donald. Charlie works hard and diligently trying his damnedest to adapt Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, a nearly impossible task he finds. He ends up injecting himself into the screenplay, as well as Susan Orlean herself (Meryl Streep) in her own story about The Orchid Thief (Chris Cooper). Meanwhile, Donald is carefree and easy, and has taken a screenwriting course from Robert McKee (Brian Cox), and has now decided that he too can be a screenwriter, and has come up with an idiotic screenplay entitled The Three (which strangely enough, seems to have been adapted in the horrible film Three). Kaufman has always been fascinated with how the human mind works, mainly his own mind, and in Adaptation he comes up with a brilliant screenplay about his mind and writing in general. And when he cannot come up with an ending, good old Donald is there to supply one.

29. Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
Spielberg’s science fiction film, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, is a brilliant Hitchcockian thriller set in a future world where people are arrested for crimes that they haven’t committed – yet. Tom Cruise stars as one of the cops who monitors the near future from murders that are about to take place, and then he and his team race in and stop them before they can happen. But when the machine tells him that he is going to kill someone, he goes on the run like many a Hitchcock hero – an innocent man wrongly accused. Or is he? This is the type of film that Spielberg does better than anyone else. The futuristic world he has created is full of details and wonderfully original creations (most notably, those creepy, crawly spider things). Cruise is excellent in the lead role, but I think Samantha Morton, as one of the three people who can see the future, is even better. Many think that Spielberg screwed up the ending – tacking on a happy one where it didn’t belong. But did he really, or did he just show us that like the Tim Blake Nelson says at one point, they are put where they can dream whatever they want forever.

28. In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001)
Todd Field’s In the Bedroom announced him as a major talent as a director. The film is a perfect adaptation of the Andre Dubos novel about a middle aged couple (Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek) whose life and marriage falls apart after the murder of their son, prompting Wilkinson to take matters into his own hands. Field’s film is a tightly wound thriller and a shattering family drama all at the same time. Field’s film slowly gets under our skin, and then involves us in the ever tightening noose of the plot. Tom Wilkinson’s performance here made him a star – a subtle, powerful performance of a grieving father, and the film offered the best role that Sissy Spacek had in years, and reestablished Marisa Tomei as an actress to watch for. One of the best debut films of the decade.

27. Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
Alexander Payne’s Sideways is a sly comedy for grown-ups. Two men go on a wine tasting tour on the weekend before one of them is to become married. Paul Giamatti is the wine connoisseur (which in his case is a fancy way of saying alcoholic) who is still reeling from the fact that his wife has left him, and he cannot get his latest book published. His best friend is Thomas Haden Church, who just wants to let loose and have fun before he gets married. They meet two women – Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh – and that’s where things get really interesting. Sideways is a movie about two middle aged men still stuck in adolescence, who with the help of the women in their lives, start to take real steps towards adulthood. All the critical bashers of the movie – who claimed that most movie critics who celebrated the film looked like Paul Giamatti and wanted to bone someone who looked like Virginia Madsen – were misguided. This is just a lovely, life affirming little gem of a comedy.

26. Little Children (Todd Field, 2006)
If In the Bedroom was the film that announced Field to the filmmaking world, than Little Children is the film that cemented his status among the best directors out there right now. Little Children is an even more complex, more assured directorial effort than In the Bedroom was. The films title is supposedly about the children in the movie – but it really applies to all of the characters, who are one way or another all stuck in childhood. Kate Winslet gives a great performance as the housewife of an older husband, who is never around, who is bored just raising her kids. When she meets stay at home dad Patrick Wilson, everything changes. Wilson is the quarter back type – the guy who never looked at her in high school – and so when they start an affair, it’s an ego boost for her. For him, it’s a way to rebel against his wife (Jennifer Connelly), who earns all the money, and pushes Wilson to be more than he thinks he’s capable of. He is a guy who has never really progressed past who he was in high school – he was always good looking and popular, so he didn’t need to really develop a personality. Add in Jackie Earle Haley’s brilliant performance as a local pedophile, struggling to stay straight, and Little Children becomes one of the most interesting, deeply felt movies of the decade.

25. Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, 2003)
Clint Eastwood even more firmly established himself as more than a movie star, but a legitimately great filmmaker this decade, and for me Mystic River is the best film of his career aside from his masterpiece Unforgiven. Set in Boston, the movie tells the story of three childhood friends who have gone off in wildly different directions. Sean Penn has become a husband and father, but still has crime connections that can get dirty work done when he needs it. Kevin Bacon has become a cop, and is determined to solve the crime in front of him, no matter where it leaves. And most tragically, Tim Robbins has also grown up to become a father, but because of an incident in his childhood, has become damaged goods – there is something not quite right about him. When Penn’s daughter is murdered, Bacon is assigned the case, and Robbins becomes the chief suspect. But not everything is as it appears. Like Eastwood’s masterpiece, Unforgiven, Mystic River is a film about the causes and effects of violence – how one act can irrevocably affect someone’s life forever. This is Eastwood at the height of his filmmaking powers.

24. Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic is the director’s best film. He tells three overlapping stories about the futility of the drug war. In one, the newly appointed drug czar (Michael Douglas) struggles with his new job as his daughter (Erika Christenson) falls into abuse herself. In another two cops (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman) try and catch a major drug smuggler, only to have his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) take over while he is in prison. In the best segment, Mexican cop Benicio Del Toro stops a major drug run, but is interrupted by an army general who hires him to bring in a hit man for a major drug cartel, and this is only the beginning to the corruption Del Toro sees over the course of the film. Shot is three distinct visual schemes, the film paints a dizzying portrait of the drug war – a war where nobody wins, and everyone loses. For every victory there are a thousand loses. Soderbergh has spent most of the rest of the decade experimenting, but he has never made a film this good since.

23. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
Spike Lee had an interesting decade as a filmmaker starting with the under seen and underrated Bamboozled and ending with the under seen and underrated Passing Strange. But to me, his best achievement of the decade was this 2002 film about a drug dealer (Edward Norton) on his last day of freedom before going to jail for years. The film, coming a year after 9/11 didn’t shy away from the new New York (it even features a lengthy conversation where outside the window we can see ground zero), and instead embraced it. The sequence where Norton pours out of all his rage in a lengthy monologue where he blames everyone else for what happened to him, before finally coming around back to himself is one of the best sequences that Lee has ever shot. Yet the whole movie is electrifying and alive. Norton, who had a troubling decade where he rarely delivered the type of performance that I know he is capable of, is simply amazing here, and he is supported by a great cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Brian Cox, Rosario Dawson and Anna Paquin. A tour de force for Lee that ranks right along his very best films.

22. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
This was the decade that Darren Aronofsky really established himself as a filmmaker. After his ambitious debut film, Pi in 1998, Aronofsky raised his game another level when he made Requiem for a Dream, one of, if not the best, movie ever made about drug addicts. Most films about drug addicts are about the world around them when they get high, but this is a film that concentrates on the world that the addicts retreat to when they’re high. Four different drug addicts are portrayed here, whose lives fall apart over three seasons. In the summer, everything seems to be going okay – Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly and Marlon Wayans are three heroin addicts who have decided to try and make money selling drugs, not just taking them. Meanwhile, Leto’s mother, Ellen Burstyn, dreams of going on the game show she watches every day, and has convinced herself it’s going to happen – so she starts taking diet pills, which are essentially just speed. Fall brings the beginning of their downfall, as none of their plans go like they were supposed to, and rifts in the relationships start forming. By winter, all four characters have been ripped apart in one way or another, driven to jail, prostitution, hospitals or mental wards. Brilliantly shot, edited and scored (by Clint Mansell, who is on the best breakout composers this decade), Requiem for a Dream is a gut punch of a film. The film is not just about drugs – but really about addiction of any kind, and how people substitute real happiness for a quick fix that ultimately destroys them.

21. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)
Following The Fountain, an equally ambitious and flawed film, Aronofsky took a major departure for him, making this brilliantly, stripped to the bone film featuring one of the very best performances of the decade by Mickey Rourke. Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a once famous wrestler during the 1980s, who now 20 years later is still trying to hold on to the last remnants of his fame. His money is gone, his groupies are gone, and years of steroid use and wrestling, have left his body a complete and utter wreck. But he keeps going unable to let go of the past. He tries hard to reconnect with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), but he doesn’t really know her, and she has moved on. The only real relationship he has is with a stripper (Marisa Tomei), who like Randy is getting too old for her profession. There is a tenderness and sympathy between the two of them. Rourke is amazing in his comeback role, and The Wrestler is a heartbreaking character study, from its opening montage to its tragic final image.

Top 50 Films of the Decade 2000-2009 Part II

40. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven is a throwback to the Douglas Sirk films of the 1950s, where simmering erotic tension was just beneath the surface, and even if they were not explicit, you could tell that homosexuality and bi-racial romances were being implied. In a way, Haynes made the film that Sirk never could. Julianne Moore gives an excellent performance as a housewife you believes she has the perfect life, until she finds out her husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay, and it sends her into a tailspin. Dennis Haysbert plays her gardener, and despite their racial differences, the two start to fall in love. Patricia Clarkson is great in a small role as the nosy neighbor who sticks her nose in where it doesn’t belong. Haynes does a great job recreating Sirk’s dazzlingly Technicolor look, and the score by Elmer Bernstein brilliantly evokes the classic scores of the 1950s. This is not the 1950s as it really was – but how it was as filtered through the movies.

39. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
This was a critical favorite back in 2003, but for some reason it has lost some its praise over the years. This mystifies me, as I still find Sofia Coppola’s drama of isolation and alienation to be both touching and funny. Bill Murray gives a great performance as an aging movie star who goes to Japan to make a lot of money shooting a whiskey commercial, and while there he meets Scarlett Johansson’s bored wife or a famed photographer. The two of them bond, and spend more and more time together, yet the relationship never becomes sexual like we think it’s going to. Instead, the movie just observes these characters in a foreign land with no one else to hang onto. I know that Johansson really has not delivered on her early promise, but she is fantastic in this movie, and Murray’s performance is still one of the best of the decade. Go back and watch the film again, and I think you’ll fall in love with it all over again.

38. About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002)
Alexander Payne has firmly established himself as one of America’s best filmmakers (now make another damn film Alex!), and About Schmidt is one of the big reasons why. The film stars Jack Nicholson in one of the best performances of his career as a recently widowed man who travels across country to be at his daughter’s wedding. About Schmidt is a subtle comedy, which mixes in healthy doses of tears along with the laughs. Schmidt is a guy who has never been all that open or loving with the people in his life, and he has become isolated and remote by the passing of his wife – a woman who he pretty much hated by the end. Kathy Bates gives a lively performance as his future in law, but this really is Nicholson’s show. He foregoes his usual tendency to simply play Jack, and instead gets inside the skin of a character unlike anything he has ever played before. A sly comedy that sticks with you long after it’s over.

37. The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004)
Unlike most of his cohorts who came of filmmaking age in the 1970s, Martin Scorsese is still turning out great films. The Aviator is at first glance, just another splashy, big budgeted Hollywood biopic, concentrating on Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the years before he became the crazed, germaphobic recluse who locked himself in his Las Vegas hotel and never came out. DiCaprio perfectly captures Hughes – which is a challenge because physically, I don’t see much resemblance. The movie is essentially about how the same things that destroyed Hughes – his possessiveness – is also what made him great in the first place. Brilliantly filmed by Scorsese and Robert Richardson, the film is almost three hours long but moves at a restless pace throughout. DiCaprio is great, but he is supported by a wonderful cast – most notably Cate Blanchatt in her Oscar winning turn as Katherine Hepburn. The Aviator is one of the many triumph’s of Scorsese’s career.

36. A.I. (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
I know Spielberg caught a lot of slack from critics for taking over one of Stanley Kubrick’s dream projects, but in my mind, A.I. is an almost perfect blend of the two radically different filmmakers. To those who say that Spielberg screwed up by giving the film a happy ending, all I can say is that if you call a movie which ends with the extinction of the human race a happy ending, then be my guest. This is Spielberg at his darkest – from the family who abandons David (Haley Joel Osment), to the Flesh Fair, to Gigolo Joe, to William Hurt as the icy, cruel inventor (which is right out of Kubrick by the way – watch the scene where he reaches for the naked woman’s breasts), this was the start of what in my mind has been the most fascinating segment of Spileberg’s career (at least until the latest Indy movie that is). A brilliantly well made film. I doubt Kubrick could have done any better.

35. Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
Lynch’s second surrealist shot at Hollywood of the decade proved once again that the older Lynch gets, the weirder he gets. This film, which he financed and distributed by himself, is about an actress (Laura Dern, in a stunning performance) making a film called On High in Blue Tomorrows, which is a remake of an old Polish film that was abandoned after the two leads were murdered. Thus begins this exercise in surrealism that includes a sitcom about giant rabbits speaking in non-sequitor with an inane laugh track in the background, and a group of prostitutes doing the Locomotion. What does it all mean? Well, I don’t have time to explain that here, nor would I really want to (or honestly, I don’t think I could), but this is a film that Lynch was born to make. That he had to make. A masterpiece.

34. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2001)
The Coens second film on this list is this wonderful, comedic film noir with Billy Bob Thornton’s best performance at its core. Thornton plays a barber who is so quiet that no one ever quite notices when he is around. He narrates his story in classic film noir style, and we learn about his wife’s (Frances McDormand, brilliant as always) infidelity with her boss (James Gandolfini), while at the same time he is approached by a sleazy man (Jon Polito) asking for an investment in a new idea called “dry cleaning”. Thornton decides to blackmail Gandolfini for the money, thus setting off a sequence of events, where the entire weight of the world comes crashing down on Thornton. The film is a classic firm noir story, with twists that only the Coen brothers could have thrown in (the constant talk of UFOs for example). Brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a throwback to the type of film Hollywood doesn’t seem to know how to make anymore.

33. The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003)
No single film in Jackson’s trilogy would be, in my mind, worthy of a place on this list. But taken together as a huge, 10 hour epic, it is impossible to deny the filmmaking skill, and the storytelling ability that is on display throughout this entire series. From the opening scenes of Fellowship, which establishes Frodo, Gandalf and the rest of our heroes, through The Two Towers (which in my mind, is the best of the three films), which deepens the characters and the story, right up until the final moments of The Return of the King, which strike the perfect emotional note, we are in the hands of a master storyteller. Am I cheating in putting all three of these films together in one spot? I don’t think so, because to me, they really are one, staggering work.

32. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2005)
Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men works on any number of levels. At its most basic, it is a wonderful Christian fable, about a vengeful God who punishes humanity by making them unable to reproduce for 30 years, thus throwing the whole world into chaos, before a miracle happens. It is also an intelligent dystopian view of the future, and breathless action film (those long, unbroken tracking shots during the climatic gunfight in the dilapidated refugee city are amazing). The movie is anchored by Clive Owen’s solid performance as a man who is long past the point of caring, until he is given a shattering wake-up call. Cuaron has been making great films for a while now – among them Y Tu Mama Tambien – but Children of Men is the film that lifted up among the top echelon of directors working today.

31. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)
Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon is an engrossing, methodical black and white film about a small town in Germany just before WWI, where the adults teach the children a set of absolutist moral values, and are shocked to discover that the children expect them to uphold the same moral code. The danger is teaching children these values, according the movie anyway, is how it gives rise to them being easily swayed to following them on a larger scale. Specifically, for this film, the children of this movie will grow up to become the Nazis under Hitler 20 years later – but the theme is universal and could be set anywhere from Muslim countries that produce terrorists, to the American South where Christian fundamentalists bomb abortion clinics. The film is epic in scope, brilliantly shot by Christen Berger is gorgeous black and white, the film feels like it is based on a classic novel, but the work is all of Haneke’s own. One of the best filmmakers in the world right now, The White Ribbon is one of his masterpieces.

Top 50 Films of the Decade 2000-2009 Part 1

Now that we are done looking back at 2009, let’s look back at the entire decade between 2000 and 2009. Over those 10 years, I saw well over 2,500 movies. These are the 50 that I liked more than the rest. Each one is masterful in its own way. Over the next five days, we will look at all 50 of my favorite films of the decade. Looking at this list, I am amazed at how many different filmmakers made a great film this decade, and just the wealth of great films that there were. Cinema is dead? I don’t think so. This list barely scratches the surface of the riches this past decade at the movies had to offer.

50. Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005)
Of all the great films that Gus Van Sant made over the course of this decade (and I would count Elephant, Paranoid Park and Milk as great films), Last Days was, for me, his best. It follows a rock star named Blake (brilliantly embodied by Michael Pitt) modeled after Kurt Cobain, as he stumbles around in a drug induced haze in his remote, dilapidated mansion. The film is mesmerizing as it sits back and follows Blake on his daily routine. The conclusion of Van Sant’s death trilogy, three films about young men who do not value their own lives, let alone anyone else’s, Last Days is a perfect mood piece – utterly transfixing. I know that many (if not most) audience members will find this film boring, but for me I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen for a second.

49. Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)
Brad Bird has established himself as one of the best animators in the world. Ratatouille is a thrilling, emotional, wonderfully entertaining film from Pixar, about a rat named Remy, who dreams of being a world class chef. He gets his opportunity when he stumbles into a gourmet restaurant, and meets a young man who is completely talentless, but can be used like a puppet for what he wants. Ratatouille could be about anything – even movies – but the essential message is the same – don’t settle for crap when you can have true greatness. Bird’s film transcends the stereotypes of talking animal movies, and really is one of the most joyous films of the last 10 years.

48. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2000)
The Coen brothers first film of the decade is one of their best comedies. Three escaped convicts in Depression era America go on the run across the South in an Odyssey reminiscent of Homer’s. There’s John Goodman’s giant Cyclops, a guitar player who sold his soul to the devil, and of course the sirens. But the stars of the movie are George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro, all hilarious as the three convicts. The visual look of the film is brilliant – sun burnt landscapes across the South. If you want to bring up the old criticism against the Coens, that the characters are little more than cartoons, I wouldn’t disagree with you on this film, but I do think that considering the movie is a throwback – a loving homage to the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s (the title of the movie comes from Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels), and as such the characters are appropriate for the film. One of the best pure comedies of the decade.

47. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2004)
I know that Von Trier enrages as many people with his films as he engages. This decade, he took his films to another level. I could have just have easily included Dancer in the Dark or Antichrist on this list (shamefully, there wasn’t enough room), but I do think that Dogville is his best, most engaging film. Shot on a bare soundstage, the movie tells the story of Grace (Nicole Kidman in a fearless performance), who comes to the small mountain town of Dogville on the run from her past. At first, she finds the people helpful and kind, but soon they start to take advantage of her. Kidman’s performance is brilliant – perhaps the best of her career – but I think it is Paul Bettany who truly makes the film great. He holds himself above the rest of the people morally speaking, but at heart, he is really just another spineless coward. Dogville, at nearly three hours long, is engaging, fascinating and incendiary. Only Von Trier would even attempt to make this film.

46. The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004)
The second film for Bird and Pixar on this list, The Incredibles is one of those films that are endlessly rewatchable. It is also one of Pixar’s more complex efforts – a fun superhero movie, a great action movie, a touching family drama, a hilarious comedy, and a commentary on our times when we try and make everyone feel special, rewarding people for the most mundane of tasks. The Incredibles is breathlessly exciting entertainment, brilliantly well animated and a great story told with wit and precision. This is the film when we really knew that Bird was a special filmmaker.

45. Lake of Fire (Tony Kaye, 2007)
Far and away the best documentary of the decade (yes, it’s the only one of this list); Tony Kaye’s Lake of Fire has been almost completely ignored by audiences and critics alike. It is a two and half hour examination of the abortion debate, which steadfastly refuses to take sides. Just when you think the movie is becoming a little too pro-life, it snaps back and you start to think it’s pro-choice, and snaps back again. It interviews anyone it can find with an opinion on the debate – from the nutcases that make up the most vocal fringe of both sides, right down to reasonable people who make a rational case for their side. The movie, shot in beautiful black and white, is far and away the most level headed doc I have seen on the subject – and one that if you go in with an open mind, will likely make you doubt your side, at least for a few moments.

44. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)
America spent most of the past decade mired in war in Iraq, and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is far and away the best of the many films that have already been made about the subject. Bigelow and her screenwriter, Mark Boal, strip away the politics of the Iraq war, and instead focus on giving us a grunt eye’s view of the action over there, focusing on a three man team whose job it is to defuse IEDs wherever they find them. The Hurt Locker is one of the most intense film going experiences of the decade – an edge of your seat thriller that uses the action not only to terrify us, but also to develop the films characters – particularly Jeremy Renner’s brilliant, risk addicted cowboy. Probably the best pure war movie of the decade.

43. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2002)
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the greatest animators in history, and Spirited Away may well be his masterpiece. This is the story of a little girl who enters a magical spa with her parents, whose greed and gluttony immediately turns them into pigs, leaving their daughter to try and fend for herself, and reverse things. The is beautifully well animated from start to finish – full of interesting characters like the witch with the giant head, the multi-armed man in the basement, and the polluted River God. Miyazaki mixes in his environmental agenda (which has been present in many of his films), but never lets the movie get bogged down or preachy. Easily one of the best animated films of the decade.

42. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
Wes Anderson’s best film – more mature than Rushmore, and more refined than what came after – this tale of the dysfunctional, brilliant Tenenbaum clan is Anderson’s best, because although it remains firmly in his comfort zone, it is also the film where he challenged himself the most. His large cast of eccentric loonies is led by Gene Hackman, in what is probably going to be the last great performance of his career, since he seems to have retired, as the father of three genius kids who has never been there for them. He reenters their lives as adults, and causes nothing but trouble. Anderson’s film is a colorful menagerie, a mixture of hilarious comedy made up of awkward moments, and real life drama that rings true. This is the movie where Anderson became a truly great filmmaker.

41. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009)
I cannot think of another film this decade, or perhaps ever, that better gets inside the head of child, and remembers what it was like to be one. The pain and confusion, sitting right next to anger and sexual frustration. Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are gets this, and he ends up making a movie that exposes the inner psyche of his protagonist, even as he travels to a strange fantasy world of his own making. Set to a great score by Carter Burwell and Karen O. from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Where the Wild Things Are also features perhaps the best vocal performances of the decade – particularly by James Gandolfini as Carol, the Wild Thing that most represent Max and his pain. Audiences were confused into thinking this was a kids film, when in reality it is not. It is a film about childhood, and there’s a huge difference.