THE BEST FILMS OF THE 00'S

my picks for the fifteen best films of the decade.


but first, a few HONORABLE MENTIONS
(otherwise known as numbers 16 through 20)


ALL THE REAL GIRLS
I enjoyed all of David Gordon Green’s movies this decade (George Washington, Undertow and Pineapple Express) but this perfectly observed story of one doomed relationship hits the hardest. See it just for the break-up scene on the swings alone. It’s a doozy.

click here to read the full review.

GONE BABY GONE
The best police procedural of the decade, Ben Affleck’s directorial debut stays with you long after the haunting last scene is over. It’s impossible to walk out of this film and not ask yourself what you would’ve done in that situation. And I think some people might surprise themselves with their answer.

THE DEPARTED
This is the best of the decade’s numerous DiCaprio / Scorsese pairings and, love it or hate, that last shot with the rat framed against the Massachusetts State House is one of the more memorable final images of the decade.

DOGVILLE
Lars von Trier’s modern perversion of Our Town (no sets, chalk outlines instead of buildings) provided the most cathartic film watching experience I had this decade. Made me wish I saw it in a theater so I could hear an audience cheer for something so demonstrably evil.

TELL NO ONE
A lot of movies get tagged with the Hitchcockian label but this French import is the real deal. Featuring some of the best uses of music this decade (aside from P.T. Anderson and Tarantino, of course) and a phenomenal lead performance, it’s something of wonder that this is director Guillaume Canet’s first feature. Expect big things from him in the coming decade.

15. KISS KISS BANG BANG
Known mostly as the film that reintroduced the world to Robert Downey Jr. and Shane Black (the writer of the first two Lethal Weapon movies), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is remarkable for how much fun it is. Typical of Downey’s recent work, he’s probably the best thing about the film. Atypically, he’s also got a supporting cast that can hang with him. Val Kilmer (giving a career best performance) is a droll delight as Gay Perry. And Michelle Monahan (so horribly miscast in everything she’s done since) finally makes you realize why people hire her (because you sure wouldn’t know it from her work in Gone Baby Gone and Mission: Impossible 3). The plot is one of those twisty turny crime thrillers where everything ties together beautifully at the end. But unlike, say, the Ocean’s movies, in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang the audience gets to share in the fun.

14. THE DEVIL’S REJECTS
It’s funny, in a perverse sort of way, that a film about a ragtag ‘family’ of serial killers slaughtering innocent victims is just about the most unbridled expression of pure cinematic joy this decade. Rob Zombie, directing his second feature, utilizes slow motion, fast motion, split screen, freeze frames, all types of transitions and just about every cinematic trick there is just because it seems like it’d be fun. And while that sounds like a recipe for disaster, he somehow makes it work, with the added benefit that the whole thing becomes a celebration of the medium itself. Bonus points for the awesome use of ‘Free Bird’ (!) to close the film.

13. THE RETURN
Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev, The Return is easily the most beautiful DV film ever shot (though the transfer to DVD is a little soft for my taste). It tells the story of a father coming back into his young sons’ lives after more than a decade away. Over the course of a long weekend, the film catalogues the many subtle unintended consequences the father’s absence has had on the boys. Expanding on this theme, the film contains numerous shots that linger on the background, watching, for example, as the grass returns upright after a car has passed over it or focusing on the tree that will never quite be the same because the characters stripped off a couple branches for firewood. Everybody leaves a wake as they pass through the world and The Return is preoccupied with how that wake is created and the effect it has, both intentional and otherwise. And the photo montage that closes the film is one of the most affecting sequences of the decade.

12. THE DARK KNIGHT
Watching The Dark Knight with a crowd of Batman-loving fanboys on opening night was one of the more fun movie experiences I’ve ever had. But as enjoyable as the film was then, I thought there was a good chance that the pleasures of The Dark Knight would fade once I sat down to watch it alone on TV. But I was wrong. The film only grew in my estimation. The Dark Knight is about as well calibrated as a superhero movie can be, perfectly straddling the line between being a kick-ass piece of entertainment and having something meaningful to say about human nature. Suffice it to say that, even as a lifelong Batman fan, I’m not sure there’s a single thing about the film that I’d change. And that’s high praise indeed. (Okay, there is one small thing: I can’t stand that SWAT guy (Nicky Katt) who’s in the van with Gordon during the big car chase and keeps yelling nonsense like, ‘Okay, that’s not good!’ and ‘That’s what I’m talking about. Air cav!’ He’s easily the worst thing in the movie.)

11. PAN’S LABYRINTH
Guillermo del Toro’s fairy tale / war drama hybrid manages to walk a very tricky line by marrying two disparate genres into one cohesive film. The fantasy sequences, featuring incredibly inventive storytelling and visually striking imagery, couldn’t be more at odds with the gritty realism of the main story, a ruthless army captain’s attempt to root out the last remaining rebels hiding in the mountains at the close of the Spanish Civil War. But del Toro is able to weave together the two halves of this film, each reinforcing and deepening the other, to create something incredibly memorable and truly unique.

10. THE LIVES OF OTHERS
Set in East Germany five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s powerful debut film tells the story of a Stasi captain tasked with surveilling a group of playwrights suspected of harboring subversive beliefs. Over the course of a months long surveillance, the film paints a detailed (and harrowing) portrait of both ordinary life under the oppressive regime that controlled the GDR and the Byzantine inner workings of the ruling party where, according to their particularly convoluted logic, appearing to be above reproach is the most suspicious thing you can be. The Lives of Others’s multiple investigations, double crosses and mutual suspicions eventually result in the useless destruction of a number of lives, culminating in an incredibly moving coda that features one of the more powerful and loaded last lines of the decade.

09. MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
This film is more or less every single thing guys love about movies wrapped up in one package and done really really well. It’s got the best friends who’ll do anything for each other, the company of men facing impossible challenges, big action sequences, a few gross out gags (in this case, surgery without anesthesia), a coming of age story, a rousing speech, some kick ass action and even a supernatural sequence just to make sure all the bases are covered. It’s such a guys’ flick that it doesn’t have a single female speaking role in the entire thing.

08. RATATOUILLE
Brad Bird’s second film for Pixar (after The Incredibles) perfectly encapsulates one very specific human feeling. That feeling (the anxiety and reward of having your work, whether it be a book, a movie, a song, a meal or even a letter to the editor, judged and found worthy), though relatively insignificant when held up against some of the more popular movie emotions (love, heartbreak, grief, terror), is so extraordinarily well captured here that it’s almost akin to experiencing it yourself. And if you’ve never felt that particular emotion, watching this film is about as close as you can get without actually doing it. That’s a pretty rare and impressive feat. That it’s accomplished in a movie about a rat cooking food in a restaurant in Paris is just remarkable.

click here to read the full review.

07. CHILDREN OF MEN
The level of filmmaking talent on display in Children of Men is absolutely breathtaking. Even if you hadn’t a clue what a director does on a movie, you couldn’t fail to be impressed by the direction of this film. Alfonso Cuaron’s dystopian nightmare of a world without children features perhaps the best opening shot since 1958’s Touch of Evil as well as three or four jaw-dropping tracking shots (one through a war zone, another featuring multiple car crashes and shootouts). But more than just virtuoso filmmaking, Children of Men has a lot on its mind about the untenable state of our modern civilization owing to the disturbing rise of nationalism and the increasing marginalization of minorities. And yet, a strain of hopefulness runs through the film, brought home most powerfully in a scene in which the cries of a newborn child bring the war to a temporary halt. It’s a poignant moment in a film full of such moments, made all the more powerful by the remarkable level of filmmaking on display.

click here to read the full review.

06. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Like Jason Bourne himself, Paul Greengrass's second Bourne film is an action machine built for kicking ass. The Bourne Ultimatum is propulsive, brutal and relentless, never letting off the gas for its entire running time. But it’s also innovative, inventive and sure-footed. The three centerpiece sequences-- the rooftop chase in Tangier, the car chase in midtown Manhattan and the Waterloo train station sequence-- are among the best action setpieces of the decade. Even one of them would have made The Bourne Ultimatum a better than average summer blockbuster. All three of them makes it something extraordinary.

click here to read the full review.

05. ADVENTURELAND
Greg Mottola’s second directorial effort is a love story. But it’s a realistic love story, not whatever it is that Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson and Hugh Grant have been passing off as love stories in their romantic comedies all these years. Perhaps the reason those romantic comedies have prevailed is because it’s extremely difficult to convincingly portray love on screen. It’s difficult for so many reasons, not the least of which being that falling in love doesn’t look exactly the same to any two people. What one person sees as a completely realistic depiction of love may look to another like utter nonsense. Thus I can only speak for myself when I say this, but to me Adventureland contains probably the truest rendering of what it feels like to be young and in love, with the world supposedly at your feet but seeming instead like it’s spinning completely out of control. It evokes a time and a place and a stage of life with such pitch perfect emotional clarity and honesty that at times I was a little embarrassed by how much it affected me. But any film that can peer that deeply into a viewer’s soul is special indeed.

click here to read the full review.

04. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
The surprise 2007 Best Picture Oscar winner is easily among the best two or three films of the Coen brothers storied twenty-five year career. From the brutal opening sequence, wherein Javier Bardem’s vicious psychopath strangles a sheriff’s deputy without the look of placid calm ever leaving his face, to the contemplative closing scene, wherein Tommy Lee Jones’s sheriff relates a dream he had about his father that both explains the film’s somewhat obscure title and lays out its themes, No Country For Old Men is a tour de force. Take, for instance, the opening voiceover that so perfectly captures the themes and tone of the film (while also featuring pitch perfect colloquialisms, a Coen specialty) or the scene at the gas station that’s all the more harrowing because of its ordinariness. The film is full of such perfect little moments. There’s not one false note in the whole thing. That it also has a thematic and tonal cohesiveness marks No Country For Old Men as a true masterpiece.

click here to read the full review.

03. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Perhaps what's most impressive about David Fincher’s technical marvel of a film is that outside of all that Big Question stuff (what would happen if youth weren’t wasted on the young?) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one hell of an entertaining movie. It's so meticulously constructed, so perfectly filmed and edited that I could get lost in the craft of the thing for hours, poring over the minutest details of every shot, examining the intricacies of each painstakingly rendered moment. And yet, even with all that attention being devoted to the details, the film still maintains a sense of playfulness and life. Too often movies that are so rigorously created have an artificial museum-like quality. They're often interesting and thought provoking but hardly ever intoxicating and invigorating. That Fincher managed to maintain an exuberant sense of humanity throughout the film is a testament to what these amazing new CG film techniques (used here to artificially age Brad Pitt’s face and then paste it onto the body of another actor) can do when a truly gifted filmmaker is at the helm.

click here to read the full review.

02. ROAD TO PERDITION
Given that it was shot by perhaps the greatest cinematographer in the history of the medium (Conrad Hall), it’s no surprise that Road to Perdition is among the best-looking films ever made. That alone would be enough to secure it a place in cinema history, but what makes this film truly remarkable is the assuredness of Sam Mendes's direction. Every scene-- indeed every shot-- is so perfectly composed, so flawlessly executed, that the film achieves a level of visual sophistication that’s almost unparalleled. It’s the sort of film that alternately enthralls and impresses, both a masterpiece of the craft and a damn fine piece of entertainment. There are any number of films that do one or the other but precious few that manage both.

click here to read the full review.

01. PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE
Though it is about two characters falling in love, Paul Thomas Anderson’s ballsy, bold and deliberately offbeat masterpiece bears little resemblance to any other love story out there. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Punch-Drunk Love is able to evoke the joy, pain, unpredictability and volatility of love better than any film I’ve ever seen. To accomplish this, Anderson marshals every cinematic trick in the book, from an elaborate series of symbols to the use of certain colors to denote the state of mind of Adam Sandler’s Barry. Anderson even deliberately creates lens flares (something that’s strenuously avoided in just about every other film), using them at moments of peak emotion in an attempt to push the characters’ emotions out beyond the bounds of the film’s frame. Watching Punch-Drunk Love is to watch a filmmaker at the very top of his game. Every moment-- from the unexpected and near catastrophic car crash that’s filmed as if it were a ballet to the silhouetted embrace in a hotel lobby in Hawaii-- is perfectly realized. Every shot reflects the film’s themes. Every single second of it contributes something to the whole. Punch-Drunk Love is a master class on how powerful, complex and rewarding it can be to watch a movie. Every time I watch it, I fall in love with movies all over again. And for that reason and many others, it’s the best film I saw this decade.

click here to read the full review.


‘That’s that, mattress man.’