BEST OF THE 2000'S

1. No Country for Old Men (2007) *Full Review Coming*

When I was thinking about this list, the question I was unknowingly asking myself over and over again was “is it better than No Country?”; the answer just kept being no. How could it be anything else? This film is relentlessly intense, relentlessly suspenseful, relentlessly entertaining, and utterly profound. Its depiction of violence is stunning, its framing as a series of set pieces with a different kind of tension that’s mostly wordless and visual feels flung out of a different era, but also incredibly modern. The Coens may have returned to some of their most well-worn themes with the folly of man, psycho killers, quirky small-town America, and anti-climaxes, but this is without a doubt their finest film that also manages to be the finest in a fascinating decade. There is really nothing better than what the writer/directors, cast, and technical crew achieve here, and I wouldn’t change a second of it; watch this one again.

2. There Will Be Blood (2007) Full Review Here.

Competing with my #1 of the decade for Best Picture at the 2008 Oscars was the #2 of the decade, and we shouldn’t overlook just how dynamite of a movie year 2007 was; even the middle-tier films had something elevated about them. No Country may have edged this film out, but this Paul Thomas Anderson picture focusing on a turn-of-the-20th-century oilman with a profound lack of humanity is one of the closest “second-bests” you’ll ever find. It has easily the most staggering and intense lead performance I’ve seen this century in Daniel Day-Lewis’ Daniel Plainview. This fantastic piece of art doesn’t just rest on his shoulders, however, as PTA has the audience fully in his capable hands minute-by-minute with shifting tones that never deviate too far from the slightly disturbing median. This film moves at a pace all its own but grabs the viewer from the opening frame and never lets go, which makes for a hell of a watching experience. It’s also quite the statement about capitalism, religion, and how they collide in a not-so-unrecognizable America fueled by greed.

3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-3) Full Review Here.

Since I put in the work of reviewing all three of these films in one go, I get to list them as a single project so they don’t all take up three different slots on this list. Man, do I wish our biggest modern blockbusters looked and felt like this. Splendidly mixing practical filmmaking with special effects, this wonderful trilogy embraces the fantasy world of its source text and brings it to the screen in a way that charms and engages even the skeptics. This level of both mainstream and artistic success isn’t just rare, it’s nigh unprecedented. The characters all get time to breath and feel fully developed, all the introduced plotlines are attended to, and the films’ pace allow for scenes to naturally develop’ with all that said, when we’re given spectacle it’s among the best of the century. I seriously worry that movies like this will never be made again – the system took a major gamble on Peter Jackson, giving him the budget and the space to make this project the way that he saw it. It’s always a good time to revisit these films, and their reputation as a sort of comfort re-watch ensures that they’ll continue to live on as the years go by.

4. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Who says fairytales are just for kids, even when they star kids? This movie is dark, beautiful, scary, moving, profound, and damn near perfectly-crafted by Guillermo Del Toro; there’s a reason why it famously had a 22-minute standing ovation at Cannes and has the highest Metacritic score of the decade yet is also highly-rated by iMDB users – it’s hard not to be gob smacked by what Del Toro conjures up. It’s a remarkable look at an era not usually depicted onscreen and a remarkable meditation on what psychological lengths children will go to so they can escape from the awful circumstances they find themselves in. The film’s lack of explanation of the reality of Ofelia’s fantastical experiences and their implications on the real world is a strength to the power of the story, and the performances are strong, but Del Toro’s pitch-perfect direction is the real star of the show. In an ideal world, Martin Scorsese would have won an Oscar for directing Goodfellas so that Guillermo Del Toro would be free to win one here (and then Nolan could have won for Dunkirk, let me dream). This film really is everything that it’s hyped up to be.

5. The Hurt Locker (2009) Full Review Here.

There have been great war films before, there have been great suspenseful films before, and there have been films that use realism in their settings to evoke a sense of time and place; The Hurt Locker manages to be all three films at once. Its core tenet, that war is a drug, isn’t a judgment on those addicted to it, but this film communicates what the high of this life can be along with what the crashes look like. Now that we’re finally leaving Afghanistan, I hope this film remains in the public consciousness. While the situations that our bomb squad in are pure Hollywood, the idea of a rogue, thrill-seeking Sergeant pushing the rest of the team to the brink is a great metaphor for the hawkish attitudes that lead our country into its longest war. Like No Country, this film centers itself around a relatively small number of set pieces, but rather than using them to convey a sense of the inescapable, they’re used to convey the sense of war’s experience. Then-little-known Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty completely disappear into their roles and embrace this film’s immediate sense of realism in its production; thanks to Bigelow’s terrific direction, this and the nerve-shredding suspense are almost tangible. This is some of the best craft you’ll see, war film or otherwise.

6. The Dark Knight (2008) *Full Review Coming*

Looking at the landscape of mainstream entertainment today, this movie might be the most influential of the decade. It’s still the best movie featuring a superhero, but because of Nolan’s dedication to gritty realism in his setting, complex emotional and moral themes, and dynamite performances – including one of the most iconic villain performances of all time – this feels like a cut above a “superhero movie”. It’s accessible for young adults but has more to offer the 16+ crowd than just about any Marvel flick ever could; this is impressive considering that it de-constructs what it means to be a hero and exist outside of society while also spinning an entertaining yarn all on its own. The sense of grounded realism isn’t just limited to its setting but informs the action as well – this stuff is practical and jaw-dropping. I’ll add my voice to the chorus of others singing praises for Heath Ledger’s performance (a chorus that only grows with passing time) and add to the refrain that I wish he and his talents were still with us. As for the film itself, it managed to be the best superhero film before the genre became the genre that it is today, merging mainstream with prestige in a way that scores of artists are still chasing.

7. City of God (2002)

This is the most breathtakingly stylish film on this list, and the way that I described it to my friend to get him to watch it was “imagine a story like Goodfellas, crossed with The Wire’s sense of scope in the drug trade, and then pump in kinetic editing with visual inventiveness” and his response was the only rational one: “I’m in”. The filmmaking, especially the editing, is both a stylistic reflection of time and place as well as responsible for a film that is in constant motion despite unfolding over the course of 15 years. The characters are almost immediately all legendary, due to the voiceover supplied as well as unique performances, costuming, and – most importantly – the nicknames. Telling twin tales of ambition, greed, crime, and consequence in one of the most notorious slums in Brazil, focused almost exclusively on children/young adults, does have the potential to be exploitative of an ongoing real-life tragedy. In fact, much of the criticism of this film focuses on this point; I would defy them to watch the scene with “Steak and Fries” and the runts and say this film ignores the true harshness of this life. Additionally, the narrative is so neatly tied-off concerning the fate of the characters that the end of the film suggests an ongoing cycle of violence that no one can break. As with fellow picks on this list Pan’s Labyrinth and Crouching Tiger, let’s not write films off just because they aren’t in English.

8. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

In terms of lush colors, this is the most beautiful film on the list. In terms of classical fairytale storytelling, it’s up there with Lord of the Rings. In terms of repressed romance bleeding into the lead actors’ performances, it’s unmatched on this list. In terms of thrillingly choreographed fight scenes, it’s unmatched on this list. Brokeback Mountain was certainly more socially relevant, but this is Ang Lee’s best film. Like the other non-English films on this list, it transcends the language barrier through exquisite filmmaking, and the expression of wuxia choreography and storytelling is absolutely intoxicating. Lee has the good sense to let his actors cook and to let dramatic scenes play out in natural, character-driven fashion. I want to call it an action film because it has one of the best one-on-one fight scenes you’ll ever see (where both combatants are women), but action films rarely deliver this much emotion, character development, and beauty; deliver this film does.

9. Up (2009) *Full Review Coming*

With Toy Story, Pixar announced itself as the purveyor of a new kind of animated film, and that’s not just concerning the technology. They have mastered the art of touching the very souls of any viewer of any age and telling stories whose themes children can digest and adults can appreciate. I’m certainly not the first, and won’t be the last, to sing the praises of the first 10 minutes of this film, which silently captures the lifecycle of a marriage, with love and loss along the way, ending in inevitable grief. This isn’t just a universally profound statement, but also a brilliantly specific piece of character work that explains the actions Carl will later take. It also explains his reluctance to open himself up to the wonderful characters who find themselves depending on him, which is where the sweet sentimentality of Pixar shines the brightest. The animation has only gotten sharper, but what this film does with the color of the jungle is downright eye-popping. Also, the dogs are great; I’m only human at the end of the day, and I love me a good dog.

10. Children of Men (2006)

In case you forgot the types of powerful statements that sci-fi/dystopia films like Blade Runner and Planet of the Apes could make about contemporary society, Children of Men is here to remind you. The brilliantly simple concept of a world in which humanity can no longer procreate, gives way to one of the bleakest visions of humanity and society you’ll ever see. It’s bleak in its exploration on how people would think of religion, extremism, refugees, and minorities if we knew there was no future generation to succeed us. Director Alfonso Cuaron and Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki capture this bleakness by using a very desaturated color palette, handheld camerawork that puts the viewer in this world at ground level, and long takes that offer us no escape from the action and terror. And yet, they capture natural light in a way that reminds us of the ever-present beauty and hope in even this world, a hope that mirrors the hope of the story: a miraculously pregnant young woman. Never has a baby’s cry sounded so wonderful on film, and just as we shouldn’t take babies for granted, neither should we take the power of genre filmmaking for granted.

Honorable Mentions (3 From Each Year):Memento (2000), Almost Famous (2000), Traffic (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), Spirited Away (2001), Amelie (2001), The Pianist (2002), Adaptation (2002), Y Tu Mama Tambien (2002), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Mystic River (2003), Lost in Translation (2003), Downfall (2004), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Aviator (2004), Brokeback Mountain (2005), King Kong (2005), Munich (2005), The Departed (2006), The Lives of Others (2006), United 93 (2006), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Zodiac (2007), Into the Wild (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Wall-E (2008), The Wrestler (2008), Inglorious Basterds (2009), District 9 (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)