The decade in films, part 4

30. All the Real Girls (David Gordon Green, 2003) - Green's masterpiece is a beautiful, whistful romantic comedy.

29. Synecdoche, NY (Charlie Kaufman, 2008) - An unrelenting, uncompromised personal vision from a certifiable crazy person. Kaufman got criticisms for not having any visual flair with the camera. I don't know what these people were watching. Every frame is filled to the brim with impossibly tiny details. It's all just in a movie that is very gray. A gray that perfectly suits its decaying protagonist.

28. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006) - A terrifying post-apocalyptic vision that takes the "no hope for humanity" thing to a new, literal level. Cuaron's camera work is absolutely staggering, creating some of the most tense set pieces this decade.

27. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001) - I hated this movie the first time I saw it when I was 13. Over the years, I've become less of an idiot and have come to regard it as a masterpiece. The descent into hell is slow and controlled, and the world is absorbing.

26. Amores Perros (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2001) - Inarritu's crowning achievement is 3 separate narratives tied together by dogs. It's brutal and powerful.

25. A Very Long Engagement (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2004) - Jeunet's best film, it's intense emotional content is potent and powerful. I dare you to not cry.

24. The Triplets of Belleville (Sylvain Chomet, 2003) - Chomet's joyous film is like an animated version of a Jacques Tati film (obviously no coincidence as he is currently developing an unfilmed Tati script), with a visual steampunk bent. It's absurd, hilarious, and dialogue free.

23. I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russel, 2004) - An absurd, philosophical comedy about life. It Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin at their comedic best, and Mark Whalberg with a stand out performance. It's so lighthearted and hilarious, but manages to pack a legitimate philosphical punch.

22. Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001) - Linklater's animated dream is a rambling mess of weirdos and ideas that magically comes together to create an incredibly thought provoking and absorbing experience.

21. Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002) - It's one shot. One 90 minute shot. It's ambitious and experimental, but fortunately it's also more than that. It's a journey through a living museum of Russian history that isn't actually about the history. It's entertaining and beautiful.

20. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring (Kim Ki-Duk, 2004) - A small lake houses a lone buddhist monk who raises a boy. We see him grow in stages mirroring the seasons. It's a beautiful, quiet and contemplative film about, escaping your past, and the peace found in faith.

19. Devils on the Doorstep (Jiang Wen, 2002) - A blackly comic epic set in rural China during WWII. Wen's use of black and white photography creates the perfect look for all the hard moral decisions that go down in this tale of a town left with 2 prisoners and no instructions.

18. Friday Night Lights (Peter Berg, 2004) - The greatest sports film ever made. Beautiful cinematography, a perfect soundtrack and naturalistic performances, combine with intense frenetic editing, and entertaining-as-hell football action scenes to make this one of the most purely enjoyable experiences this decade.

17. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002) - Anderson's best is a small, intimate character study of a socially awkward man, a role perfectly suited to star Adam Sandler.

16. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000) - A brutal, unrelenting, dark, and powerful depiction of drug addiction and dependency in 4 desparate people that all deal in different ways. It's given such astounding visual beauty, that at times you almost feel okay about watching these people spiral headlong into their doomed fates.

15. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2005) - An intimate portrait of Hitler in his last days, played beautifully by legendary Bruno Ganz.

14. Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004) - Sam Raimi perfectly creates a live-action cartoon that has a wonderfully wide range of emotions on full display. It is far and away the greatest super hero film ever made. Spider-Man is a very human character, and Sam Raimi makes sure he stays grounded in human behavior. I can't even imagine a greater super hero film. This one is actually everything I can think I could ever want out of one.

13. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2002) - Miyazaki's masterpiece is a kid-friendly tale about a girl lost in a magical world. Miyaziki's imagination has created a world so fully realized and beautiful and imbued with so much joy and love that it's overwhelming.

12. Oldboy (Park Chan-Wook, 2005) - A violent, vengeful masterpiec that flows poetic blood and justice. It makes you squirm and cheer, and marvel in its visual beauty.

11. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003) - Bill Murray's best performance? It definitely made us think Scarlett Johansson would be worth keeping up with. Every moment of this is powerful and honest. And fuck that guy that published what Murray's character whispered at the end.

10. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004) - What can I say? I love a good, well written Walk-n-Talk. Tell that ending doesn't just put butterfly's in your stomach and make you want to cry from joy.

9. Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr, 2001) - A bleak, chilling tale set in a rural town literally surrounded by frost that starts to unravel with the arrival of a strange circus tent. Every frame makes me cold. Every shot is multiple minutes long. Every word enigmatic and thought provoking.

8. The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev, 2004) - A father, known to his sons only through a single photograph, comes back and takes them on an emotional rollercoaster of a road trip. It's insane yet quiet, brutal and intimate, and it made me fall in love with Russian landscapes.

7. Head-On (Fatih Akin, 2005) - A dirty, erotic tale of loveless sex, forbidden loves, immigration in Europe, and personal identity. It has what has to be the greatest lead performance by a former pornstar in film history in Sibel Kekilli's turn as a suicidal Turk in Germany trying to escape the repression of her family.

6. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000) - An epic portrait of a single family, the members of which are all going through vastly different phases of their lives. It's a film that confirms life. Every moment of it is beautiful and rich.

5. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000) - This one's easy, I know. It so easily connects with its youthful watchers, I almost want to hate it. But instead I find it to be almost perfect, even in its over the top, cornball moments, like when the whole tour bus starts singing along to "Tiny Dancer". It's just so personal, and heart warming, and the performances so dead on from everybody involved.

4. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2004) - This film is unlike anything before it. A total game changer for me. It destroyed my preconceptions of what cinema had to be. And it did it with a shockingly human tale of greed, fear, and hate. Nicole Kidman is a revelation, and Paul Bettany is a cold, exact depiction of the underlying evil in humanity.

3. In The Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000) - My vote for the most beautiful film ever made. Christopher Doyle's camerawork and lighting are the most lush and penetrating he's ever accomplished. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are perfect as the forbidden lovers. And holy fuck, that theme! My favorite use of music in film this decade.

2. City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2003) - A crime masterpiece. Absolutely engaging and shockingly brutal account of two youths in the slums of Rio de Janiero. It's very much in your face, and Meirelles doesn't take us out of the action for a single second.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004) - No other film in the history of film has conveyed such a wide range of emotion so successfully, with accompaniment of such beautifully striking visuals and camerwork, in a story so original and engrossing, with such a perfectly toned score to enhance every visual and emotion in it, and also with such perfect performances from its leads, Jim Carrey and the marvelous Kate Winslet. It's my perfect film.



So i know I forgot or left off a couple of things. The two most important are Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's 2004 drama Last Life in the Universe and Fernando Meirelles' 2005 thriller The Constant Gardener. I love both of these films very much and they should both be very high on this list. I'm really just an idiot, and fucking forgot.