The 100 Best Movies Of The Decade
The last list – and probably the last post – of the decade. Happy New Year.
#26-#100 (in alphabetical order)
(500) Days Of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009)
2 Days In Paris (Julie Delpy, 2007)
24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)
28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)
A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2009)
A Very Long Engagement (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2004)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000)
Anchorman (Adam McKay, 2004)
Away We Go (Sam Mendes, 2009)
Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006)
Bobby (Emilio Estevez, 2006)
Borat (Larry Charles, 2006)
Bowling For Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)
Bread And Roses (Ken Loach, 2000)
Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005)
Capturing The Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003)
Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006)
City Of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004)
Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)
Farenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004)
Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard, 2008)
Garden State (Zach Braff, 2004)
Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker, 2003)
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
High Fidelity (Stephen Frears, 2000)
Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 2004)
I’ve Loved You So Long (Philippe Claudel, 2008)
Identity (James Mangold, 2003)
Igby Goes Down (Burr Steers, 2002)
In The Valley Of Elah (Paul Haggis, 2007)
Incendiary (Sharon Maguire, 2008)
Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002)
Jarhead (Sam Mendes, 2005)
Leatherheads (George Clooney, 2008)
Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, 2006)
Man On Wire (James Marsh, 2008)
Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)
Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
My Summer Of Love (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004)
Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, 2003)
Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004)
Paris, Je T’Aime (various, 2006)
Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008)
Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000)
Shopgirl (Anand Tucker, 2005)
Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, 2006)
Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004)
Talk To Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004)
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel, 2008)
The Damned United (Tom Hooper, 2009)
The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
The Good Girl (Miguel Arteta, 2002)
The Illusionist (Neil Burger, 2006)
The Painted Veil (John Curran, 2006)
The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)
The Savages (Tamara Jenkins, 2007)
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (Jill Sprecher, 2001)
Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller, 2008)
Vantage Point (Pete Travis, 2008)
Venus (Roger Michell, 2006)
Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004)
Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)
W. (Oliver Stone, 2008)
WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002)
Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson, 2000)
Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2001)
#25-#11
25. Control (Anton Corbijn, 2007)
24. A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006)
23. Sin City (Frank Miller & Roberto Rodriguez, 2005)
22. The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 2000)
21. Y Tu Mama También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)
20. Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)
19. Tell No One (Guillaume Canet, 2006)
18. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
17. Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)
16. Hidden (Michael Haneke, 2005)
15. United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006)
14. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
13. The Lives Of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
12. The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
11. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
The Top 10
You will notice that most of my top 10 are linked by the strength of their screenplays. I am sure this is not entirely coincidental.
10. Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
…in which 42 children try to kill each other in the name of entertainment and in furtherance of the Japanese government’s attempts to stem juvenile delinquency. A genuinely powerful indictment of the media; politics; and society’s attitude to children.
9. No Country For Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007)
…in which the Coens turn a murder spree into a bleakly comic treatise on fate, circumstance and free will. Technically brilliant, wonderfully acted and a worthy winner of the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture Oscars (and two others) in 2008.
8. In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008)
…in which hitmen consistently fail to kill the correct people. A movie that should have won McDonagh the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2009 (losing out to Milk), it has a massive heart – though comedy nevertheless does not get much blacker.
7. Good Night, And Good Luck (George Clooney, 2005)
…in which Joe McCarthy’s arse is served up by Doug Ross in a morality play about the dangers of political pressure being used to frighten the media into submission. 16 Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe nominations: no wins – Hollywood still can’t deal with its complicity in the witch-hunt. Clooney’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Syriana was really an award for this movie.
6. Lars And The Real Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007)
…in which a movie – aided by an inflatable sex toy named Bianca – demonstrates to America why some people value society above the individual. The movie successfully navigates the choppy waters between charming sincerity and mawkish sentimentality, producing a comedy that never once plays its central premise for laughs. Featuring another splendid performance from Ryan Gosling, Nancy Oliver’s original screenplay was deservedly nominated for an Oscar in 2008 (losing out to Diablo Cody’s Juno).
5. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
…in which we all remember we have things we want to forget and make conscious decisions about what we remember. For once, a movie gets fractured narrative spot on – though Nolan and his brother Jonathan inexplicably lost the 2001 original screenplay Oscar to Julian ‘ForI’mAJollyGood’ Fellowes’ Gosford Park.
4. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
…in which we learn that true love will triumph over targeted memory erasure (when the latter is invented). Another tour de force in surrealism from the pen of Charlie Kaufman (co-authored with director Michel Gondry and artist Pierre Bismuth), the script picked up the 2005 original screenplay Oscar.
3. Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
…in which we learned that a whimsical romantic comedy need not turn one’s stomach. An almost perfect marriage of script, direction, design, acting and music. Hard to believe the title role was written for Emily Watson. Another movie whose vastly superior screenplay lost out at the Oscars to Julian Fellowes colossal ego, though it did pick up the equivalent Bafta.
2. Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
…in which jet lag, sadness and discombobulation have never felt so good. Brief Encounter, complete with sexual repression, magnificently and subtly re-imagined for the 21st century. The movie above all others this decade that demonstrates the value of soul. If this movie had not won Coppola the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2004, I would have probably had to kill someone.
1. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
…in which we learned that Lynch was actually only warming up with Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. It may or may not make sense; it may or not concern identity, obsession, Hollywood politics, conscience, paranoia and/or dreams; it may or may not be Lynch’s gigantic practical joke on the world. It matters not one iota because this movie demonstrates what is most great about cinema – it makes you feel. The only movie this decade that I paid to see again the very next day. Best summed up by the New York Times’ A.O. Scott:
Its tangled story will be experienced by some as an offense against narrative order, but the film is an intoxicating liberation from sense, with moments of feeling all the more powerful for seeming to emerge from the murky night world of the unconscious.
Naomi Watts incredibly failed even to be nominated for an Oscar, while it remains scandalous that Lynch lost out as Best Director to Richie Cunningham. The Academy remains a law unto itself.
