It really was an amazing decade for film, and many of my choices here reflect larger cinematic trends that I found encouraging at the beginning of a new millennium for movies.
20. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
This is a very “me” film. I don’t expect this to make a lot of, if any, other Best of the Decade lists because it idiosyncratically targets some of my favorite things for a film to be good at. Post-modernism, dialogue, action. But it has a lot more going for it than just that. You’ve got the return of Robert Downey Jr. before Iron Man made it official. You’ve got the first (to my knowledge) openly gay action hero. You’ve got the return (and we’re still waiting for the follow-up) of maestro screenwriter (and now director) Shane Black. Read my full review.
19. Serenity
While Firefly certainly deserves its rabid fan following, you certainly don’t need to be a member to enjoy its big screen adaptation. This is everything devotees of Joss Whedon hoped would happen when he finally wrote and directed a feature film: great dialogue, great action, great characters, great story. Based on this film alone (not to mention his other creative endeavors), he could become one of the greatest genre filmmakers of all time. I just hope he gets the chance to prove it.
18. No End in Sight
The Iraq War is probably the most contemporarily depicted war in film history (WWII may have it beat). Unfortunately, most of the fictionalized depictions were below the par of most, say, after-the-fact Vietnam films. This was not the case, however, with documentaries. Fahrenheit 9/11, The Ground Truth, The Road to Guantanamo, Taxi to the Dark Side, Gunner Palace, Standard Operating Procedure, and others created compelling pictures of the conflict. What makes No End in Sight stand out for me is its depoliticized clarity. I say depoliticized because at no point does it question whether or not it was a good idea to go into Iraq. It simply focuses on how we prosecuted the invasion and, more importantly, the occupation. And there, politics turns to tragedy.
17. Almost Famous
I probably wouldn’t care so much about this film if I weren’t a musician. Then again, given how beautifully Cameron Crowe crafts this paean to the bygone days of rock and his own not-so-misspent youth, I can’t be sure. All the wit and passion on display in his earlier work (Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire) combines with the love of music expressed in those films to create an unforgettable journey.
16. Up
Up is the cherry on top of the decade that belonged to Pixar. You’ll have trouble finding a film with more heart, humor, and storytelling kung fu in any medium, much less animated. And this isn’t even the best that they can do.
15. Amelie
When one of our loyal viewers asked me to make a list of first films for people unfamiliar with different genres, I picked Amelie for foreign because I knew it was impossible to have a bad experience watching it. Most of that success is the sheer creative force of writer/director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, but not a little of it belongs to the inspired performance of Audrey Tatou. Be sure to see their reunion in the amazing A Very Long Engagement.
14. Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino spent the better part of the 00’s proving that his success in the 90’s was no fluke. With Kill Bill Vol. I and II, he induldged his passion for the spaghetti western and kung fu epic. With Death Proof, he infused the exploitation genre with great dialogue and pure tension. Here, he takes a similarly B-movie inspired set-up and wrings something profound – seriously, Kubrick levels of subtext here – from blood, explosions and priceless dialogue. Even without all of that, you’ve still got one of the strongest opening scenes in movie history.
13. Hero
The 00’s were the decade that martial arts broke into mainstream action cinema. Part of that was due to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon proving that audiences would pay good money for good kung fu even if nobody spoke English. Hero proved they would do it even if the movie had been around for years, pirated to no end long before it hit U.S. theaters. We could argue all day as to which was more beautiful, and which had the better stories or fight choreography, but at the end of the day Hero goes a little bit further for me because it combines the great romance of Dragon with a compelling (even disturbing) political allegory that puts tyranny and terrorism in uncomfortably stark perspective.
12. Ocean’s Eleven
Really, was there a more fun film released in the 00’s? Sharp dialogue, crackerjack camerawork, and a cast to die for. This is what happens when you let indie directors handle mass market entertainment, another positive trend of the aughts.
11. Once
Every now and then a film comes along that defies categorization. But I’ll do it anyway. This is Lost in Translation, the Musical. Still not accurate, but about as close as you’ll get. Essentially a collection of amazing real time music videos tied together by a relationship more than a narrative, Once is one of those films that you can call “magical” with a straight face.
10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
While it is damn near impossible to pick a representative or favorite Charlie Kaufman endeavor, Sunshine at least captures some of my favorite aspects of his work. There is, of course, the mindfuck, in this case an exploration of memory that literally takes you inside the noggin of the protagonist, a career-best Jim Carrey. But there is also the human relationship, or need for it, that drives all of Kaufman’s work, in this case one of the most beautiful, tragic, and ultimately redemptive he’s put to pen. Add to that the lo-fi imagination of director Michel Gondry, and you’ve got yourself what may be the best sci-fi romance of all time.
9. Memento
Chris Nolan would go on to be known for Best. Comic. Book. Movie. Ever. The Dark Knight, but his first masterpiece came out eight years earlier, when he took a shoulda-gotta-nod Guy Pierce through memory loss hell with this quiet, brilliantly constructed narrative that touches on questions of identity and reality while spinning a top-notch noir/futility-of-revenge morality tale. Also a perfect example of how to use story structure to enhance character: The reverse chronology forces us to experience the protagonist’s lack of short term memory.
8. Lost in Translation
This is the epitome of the type of movie that shouldn’t interest me. Two people talking, not even all that much, and wandering aimlessly around Japan. Where’s the plot? Where’s the explosions? The jive-talking robots? And yet, there is a potency to the images Sofia Coppola captures here, and a purity to the chemistry the leads share, and a depth to the loneliness they evoke, especially a shoulda-won-an-Oscar Bill Murray.
7. Up in the Air
The recession that defined the end of the decade gets its embodiment here, but more importantly, that sense of disconnect that can only be engendered by that especially 00’s brand of technology posing as humanity is rendered with painful accuracy in this tale of a man who discovers that finding his own humanity is as much of a tragedy as it is a triumph. The pinnacle of the rise of Jason Reitman, who in the 00’s rose out of the shadow of his father’s comedy legacy to produce a completely different kind, but just as effective, form of humor.
6. Slumdog Millionaire
Globalization permeated the economics of the 00’s, but also began to pop up in its films as well. Here we see the rise of India as the backdrop for a fairy tale told with the cruelest of strokes but through the lens of the most 00’s of game shows. This is also the tale of the rise of digital fimmaking, with the camcorder replacing the camera and the unkown actor (of color, it should be noted, as this tale in the 80’s or even the 90’s would probably have had a white narrator) replacing the familiar face. This is also the tale of the rise (and fall) of the independent studio, where all the guerrilla techniques and indie aesthetic funded by Warner Independent almost came to nothing when that company went under dooming a whole slate of films to an uncertain future, with this one miraculously (or just plain shrewdly) picked up by Fox Searchlight and groomed into a Best Picture. Finally this is the story of Danny Boyle, one of my favorite directors, who, after thanklessly churning out quality film after quality film finally got the recognition he deserved.
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
All of the Lord of the Rings films are testaments to what it means to make an epic film in the 00’s. Lots of CG, but beautifully rendered, and in a way that supports, not detracts from, character and story. In no installment is this more apparent than Towers, which shows us Gollum as he attempts to break out of his treacherous ways and get back some of the humanity that the ring has taken from him. Andy Serkis’ performance in conjunction with the artisans pulling the digital strings create as compelling a depiction of addiction as any that has graced a screen without thousands of hours of rendering time. This is also the leanest and meanest of the three, if not in length then in pacing, without the long setup of the first or the long cool-down of the third. Oh, and one of the best action sequences of all time.
4. The Incredibles
Speaking of great action sequences, The Incredibles has them in droves. Maybe that’s why it’s my favorite Pixar flick. But besides being a great action film that happens to be a children’s movie, it’s also one of the best superhero satires, a subgenre difficult to innovate given its saturation in the ’00’s. As usual for Pixar, a focus on character and story with a dash of being clever as hell elevates the film. Did I mention kick-ass production design and a hilarious supporting performance by director Brad Bird?
3. Munich
By the end of the 90’s Steven Spielberg had already established himself as more than just a master of escapism. He could make Serious Drama. But he continued to challenge himself throughout the next decade, perhaps never so much as with this meditation on the murky politics of revenge and survival. This is Spielberg’s Godfather – with equally dark cinematography by Janusz Kaminski – a portrait of what men will do to defend their home, and what that violence does to their souls. Girded by an underrated, powerhouse performance by Eric Bana, Munich is Spielberg’s harshest indictment of the glory of killing, with no death providing satisfaction, only decay.
2. Donnie Darko
A near-perfect film, writer/director Richard Kelly’s sci-fi masterpiece appeared out of nowhere…and basically stayed there. Ultimately, only Gyllenhaals Jake and Maggie escaped its undeserved obscurity (we’re still waiting for Kelly to have his breakout moment). Gorgeous, tragic, political, creepy, mind-bending, with a kick-ass 80’s soundtrack and a career-winking turn by Patrick Swayze as a motivational speaker, Darko is the ultimate film you can’t wait to show your friends.
1. City of God
City of God is the gangster film of what Fareed Zakaria might call a post-American world. Shot with hyperkinetic intensity by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, the film boasts powerful, largely improvised performances by kids from favelas. The archetypal rise-and-fall of a crime lord tale gets an extra dose of brutality and perspective from the fact that it is not set in America. The protagonists of The Godfather and Goodfellas seek, to some degree, a sense of legitimacy, an American dream earned at the barrel of a gun. The criminals of City of God are not looking for a home in the suburbs. For some, the violence becomes its own end, and in that sense, City of God depicts the favela as a place for the id of crime to run rampant and, more shockingly, just keep getting younger.
As epic in scope as Godfather and Goodfellas, City of God is equally important to the genre, with the three forming, in my mind, a film trinity of fundamental crime cinema.
