The Top 15 Movies of the Decade

For those of you who missed part 1 of last week's countdown

30. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
29. Sin City (Robert Rodriguez, 2005)
28. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
27. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai, 2000)
26. L’Enfant (The Dardenne Brothers, 2005)
25. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Christian Mungiu, 2007)
24. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
23. Memento (Chris Nolan, 2000)
22. City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
21. Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
20. Oldboy (Park Chan-Wook, 2003)
19. Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002)
18. Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
17. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
16. The Dark Knight (Chris Nolan, 2008)

15. UP (Pete Docter, 2009)

Pixar’s filmography for the 00s: Monster’s Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and UP. Ummm... amazing much?

With the exception of the good, but not great Cars, every Pixar film made this decade was great; that’s right, not good, but great. And they managed to save their best for last.

While the film as a whole is exceptionally strong (both visually and story-wise) the first five minutes are nothing less than transcendent, touching upon everything from life and death, marriage and separation, dreams and the harsh reality of working class life. Not bad for a children’s movie.

14.  Syriana (Stephen Gaghan, 2005)

One of the great 'mis-truths' of the social sciences discipline is that a rational narrative can be made out of historical events. For example, basic high school history taught us that the First World War occurred because of event A (the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand), which was the catalyst for event B (the multi-nation defense pacts) clicking into effect. Of course, as you progress further into academia the causes and effects become more complicated and nuanced; but we still cannot escape the assumptions that these events are motivated by the actions of rational, reasonable individuals that act through a knowledgeable cost-benefit analysis.

Hence, the brilliance of a film like Syriana. One of the major criticisms of the film was the lack of a coherent, narrative flow... but isn't that a reflection of real life? How can you possibly summarize the motivations of an entity as large and complex as the United States in a textbook, let alone a film? Does the CIA have the same set of interests as the Whitehouse? Do either of them have the same interests of the general public? Does the public even know what their interests are? What about the thousands of different lobbyists pulling each actor in a million different directions? Does anyone have any long term goals or do you just satisfy the most pressing need, without any knowledge of what the next one might be?

It made me think of a professor I had a few years ago who had devoted his entire life to 20th Century Chinese History, specifically the Cultural Revolution. He’d spent years pouring over countless diaries, from Mao to lowly peasants, trying to make sense of the ideological madness. And yet, if you read a 5-year-old diary of your own, you probably would not remember what motivated each inane action you made. Imagine the complexities of something like the Cultural Revolution (and the IRAQ war for that matter) and then trying to understand the causes and effects there. That's why I admired Syriana so much; it chose to engulf you in the state of affairs, rather than explain them to you, because none of us, especially the players in the game, would ever be able to see the forest from the trees.

13. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Judd Apatow, 2005)

Dying is easy, comedy is hard.

The old adage is true, and so is the fact that Judd Apatow’s 40-Year-Old Virgin was the best comedy of the decade. A brilliant premise, supported with great performances, fantastic, quotable dialogue, and deeper meaning than you’d ever suspect. Apatow created comedy standard for the rest of the decade.

12. Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2. (Quentin Tarantino, 2002/2003)

Tarantino’s best films of the decade; the Kill Bill movies established QT’s visual skills to be almost on par with his proficiency with dialogue. If you were ranking the movies on the list based on pure fun, they might be sitting at number one.

11. Cache (Michael Haneke, 2005)

Tense, hypnotic, and containing one of the most singularly shocking scenes of the decade.

So layered, it’s the only movie in memory that made me venture into the abyss that are the IMDB message boards, just so I could read other people’s interpretations of what they think happened; people had a litany of readings of the film, all of which not only made sense, but added to my final appreciation of the film.

10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)

Contains the best martial arts sequences ever filmed, wrapped up in a story that was pretty good too.

What more needs to be said? Okay, how about this? What does it say about Ang Lee’s versatility that he made not only the quintessential gay film of the decade (Brokeback Mountain), but the most progressively feminist one as well? (Crouching Tiger)

9. Y tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron, 2001)

On the surface Cuaron’s film is a standard road trip/coming of age film. But beneath that surface, the movie is really about two Mexicos, one working class, one aristocratic; and sexuality, and how the lines can be sometimes blurred between friends.

The low-budget Mexican film made four instant stars: Cuaron, who went on to direct Children of Men, as well as the best of the Harry Potter movies, co-stars Gael Bernal and Diego Luna, who went on to have nice careers with films like Milk, and Babel... and Mexican cinema, which has emerged as the preeminent national cinema of the decade.

8. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

Simultaneously sweet, cynical, funny, ironic, and fiercely intelligent.

Ghost World chronicles life in a dead, sterile suburbia, and how one person refused to let it kill her creative spirit. Contains two of the most memorable, and loveable characters of the decade (played by Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi), and some of the most quotable dialogue too.

Similar to how Birch’s character is too smart for her mediocre surroundings; this film was too smart for the teen comedies that littered the rest of the decade.

7. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

Tells the story of three generations living in a cramped, Taiwanese apartment. The storylines are familiar: a father going through a mid-life crisis, a daughter experiencing her first love, and a grandmother near the end of her life, but how Yang keenly observes all of this puts the film in a class of its own.

The first scene of the film takes place at a wedding, where the father, NJ runs into an old girlfriend. He left her at the altar 20 years  ago, and has since remarried and started a family. They start seeing one another regularly, and have fun together, talking and taking walks.

Both living mundane, but comfortable lives, she asks him if he thinks things would have been better if they got married instead. A lesser film would have said yes. But Yi Yi responds by saying everything would have probably turned out the same anyway, which in retrospect is not only a much more wise answer, but a deeply more profound one too.

6. In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001)

The first two thirds of the film are flawless, and while the final act doesn’t quite add up dramatically, it matches up perfectly, thematically. Contains the best performance of the decade from any actor by Tom Wilkinson; a good husband, father, and doctor, who despite his well-lived life is confronted with the most horrible tragedy a person can face. 

Todd Field, who also directed the nearly as good Little Children, with his understated but beautiful camerawork establishes himself as the heir apparent to Bergman.

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

If you could make a checklist for what a movie would need to be the best of the 00s, ESotSM would have everything marked off. It’s a Michel Gondry film, so it’s of course visually stunning without being superfluous. It’s a Charlie Kaufman script, so it’s structurally brilliant while thematically transcendent. And it stars Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, so the acting is funny while simultaneously melancholy and touching.

Art is a lot of things, but more than anything it’s an attempt for immortality; a fight against the fading of your own memory, and the fear of being forgotten by everyone else. But memories are not absolute, and we shape them to ease our past pains, and comfort our considerable egos. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind gets all this, and put it all in a movie that was a little bit science fiction, a little bit romantic dramedy, but most importantly of all, a little bit ‘coming of age’ too. It’s only number five on my list, but will probably be number one on most others’.

4. Once (John Carney, 2007)

A musical, but not really a musical.
An indy hand-held film, but not really an indy hand-held film.
A romantic comedy, but not really a romantic comedy.

Once tells the story of a busker on the streets of Dublin playing for a largely indifferent public. An immigrant single mother stops and applauds, and casually shares that she’s a musician too. They talk and share secrets, and somewhere along the way fall in love; but more importantly they play music together, and what results are some of the best music scenes ever made. The budding romance between the two is almost secondary, because the leads are so charming, the music so good, and the film so well directed that it’s one of two movies on this list that I would describe as nothing less than perfect.

3. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000)

For the record, Cameron Crowe made the best ever high school movie in the 80s (Say Anything), the best ever mainstream, Hollywood romantic comedy in the 90s (Jerry Maguire), and the best ever coming of age movie in the 00s, Almost Famous... that’s right, I said it.

It would have been easy to take this film in the wrong direction; to highlight the unseemly parts of 70s music, and turn the characters into ugly caricatures of megalomaniacal rock musicians. But while Crowe (one of the great, underrated humanists of modern cinema) doesn’t shy away from the sex and drugs, he doesn’t revel in them either, choosing to take a romantic view of all the amazing things pop music can mean to a teenager.

2. Adaptation. (Spike Jonze, 2002)

Eternal Sunshine may end up being remembered as Charlie Kaufman’s signature screenplay, but Adaptation remains his superior film. If you’ve ever tried to create a piece of art, whether it be a novel, piece of music, or especially a film, than you can relate to the struggles of the main character (Kaufman himself, played brilliantly by  Nicolas Cage who proves he can still act every now and then). Kaufman is at that deadly part of his career all artists inevitably encounter, when they’re good enough to recognize how bad their work is, but not good enough to actually fix it. On a much, much, much¸ smaller scale, I found myself nodding along in recognition as Kaufman labours to create something meaningful to himself, let alone the audience he hopes one day will appreciate his work.

As for the controversial third act... too clever by a half? Possibly. But having a film with this much intelligence stuffed in it can never be a bad thing.

1. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)

In 1994’s Before Sunrise, two charming, good-hearted, and most importantly, intelligent backpackers in their early 20s meet during a train ride across Europe. They talk about love, life, and other existential topics that only strangers who instantly connect, but barely know one another can talk about. And that’s the entire film! Two characters talking. No extraneous plot or superfluous external conflict that Screenwriting 101 teaches you every film must have... why? Because director Richard Linklater knows that special moments like this, keenly observed, provide more than enough drama. The film ends beautifully, leaving the viewer to decide whether or not these two people, clearly falling in love with one another but from different parts of the world, will ever see each other again.

Before Sunrise was so perfect, enclosed in its little time capsule, that I feared a sequel, no matter how well done, would ruin the world the first film created. And yet, almost miraculously, the sequel manages to not only match its predecessor, but in some ways surpass it.

Nine years after their first meeting, the two main characters played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet again. During the first third of the movie, which again is one long conversation (but this time it all occurs in real-time, creating more urgency and tension than any Hollywood blockbuster) the two play catch-up, telling one another the general details of their lives; he’s now a successful novelist, she’s a human rights worker. Their conversation initially stays in the domain of the safe: politics and sex, their jobs and significant others.

All this is well and good; the characters remain funny, engaging, charming and intelligent, but it’s during the last third that the film that the stakes become considerably raised. They aren’t in their 20s anymore, when idealistic young lovers can escape into one another’s arms, consequence free. They have adult responsibilities now, and can no longer afford the luxury of following what they both know to be true: that one night nine years ago was as close to happiness either of them have ever been, and are likely ever to be again. The film is heartbreaking in how it depicts its two leads, so idealistic and full of promise in the first film, now cynical and jaded (but still overwhelmingly good) from the rigours of everyday living.

And what about that ending?!?! Open-ended, and conclusive all at once, encapsulated in a perfect final image, and an even more perfect final line.

Honourable Mentions:

25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009)
Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)
Persopolis (Paronnaud/Satrapi 2007)
Little Children (Todd Field, 2006)
Match Point (Woody Allen, 2005)
Me, You, and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005)
2046 (Wong Kar Wai, 2004)
Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004)
All or Nothing (Mike Leigh, 2002)
Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001)
Every other PIXAR movie