So, after criticising various top 50 lists for films in the 00's I was challenged (I think, I may have ended up challenging myself, the details are somewhat unclear) to make my own list. There's only one rule which is that I must have actually watched the film so there are a few obvious omissions but the rest is all just my opinion, man.
For a straight list without explanations please go here.
50 Black Snake Moan
A real oddity, a film about the southern United States that doesn't mock or belittle them. Powerful, different and interesting.
49 The Prestige
Its the sheer inventiveness of Nolan's fourth film that elevates it into this list. Hugh Jackman unleashing his showman side is a joy to behold and the various twists are outstanding.
48 Stardust
Fairy tales seem to have made a comeback in the noughties and this is a very good example with all the magic, horror, and fun you'd expect.
47 Nine Queens
The 00s saw a huge revival in South and Latin American film making and this Argentinian heist film is one of my favourites. A complex multi handed tale revolving around a set of highly collectable stamps. Received the obligatory American remake in 2004's Criminal starring John C. Reilly.
46 High Fidelity
One of my favourite romantic comedies, a clever adaptation, and a career best performance from John Cusack. Witty, guy centric, with a distinct charm.
45 A Scanner Darkly
Elevated by the use of rotoscope into a bewildering, trippy insight into a dystopian world riddled with drug abuse and government surveillance.
44 School of Rock
When Linklater isn't blowing your mind in A Scanner Darkly he's directing the best 'comedian with a bunch of child actors' film you've ever seen. One of my most watched films of the decade.
43 District 9
Sci Fi didn't have a great decade but body horror and allegories for apartheid combine to brilliant effect in a consistently surprising début film.
42 Ping Pong
The best sports film ever made.
41 Almost Famous
One of the most personal and heartfelt films to come out of Hollywood in the 00s. Its hard not to be swept along by its relentlessly optimistic tone.
40 Stranger Than Fiction
Will Ferrell is actually watchable in this very post modern take on the rom com. The narration device works really well but there is enough of a plot elsewhere to stop it becoming a one joke comedy.
39 My Summer of Love
Paddy Considine has starred in a string of critically adored British films this decade, most of which I can barely stomach. For my money this is the best as he portrays an increasingly obsessive preacher, in a one of the few British films to escape this decade's obsession with the This Is England style social realism aesthetic.
38 Thank You for Smoking
Before he was Harvey Dent, Aaron Eckhart was the smooth, likeable moral vacuum at the heart of Jason Reitman's film about the tobacco industry. It works by taking its shot at everyone, defending the indefensible just like its main character.
37 The Fog of War
A man talking for an hour and a half. It'd have to be an interesting man to make this list and it turns out former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is just such a man. One of the simplest and best documentaries I've ever seen.
36 American Splendour
Paul Giamatti does downtrodden better than anyone on film and Harvey Pekar does downtrodden better than anyone in comics. It was always going to work.
35 Lost in Translation
It may not be everyone's cup of tea but I adore the storytelling through body language in this film.
34 Persepolis
Animated politics, it was bound to be on the list. I was fascinated with the sections in Iran which inventively portray a child's take on the revolution.
33 Big Fish
Its sheer warmth is infectious. Ewan McGregor brings all his considerable charm to the table and delivers a fantastic tale of a life well lived.
32 A Single Man
Colin Firth cements his place as one of the great underrated actors as he portrays a gay university professor in 1962 struggling to cope with the death of his lover. Its an understated performance dripping in a subtle melancholy that doesn't so much tug at the heartstrings as attach them to a pack of wildhorses.
31 Little Miss Sunshine
Indie road trip movies starring dysfunctional familes are a dime a dozen but Little Miss Sunshine is one of the very best. Paul Dano and Steve Carrell are particularly superb in an astounding strong cast delivering a funny and touching script.
30 Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
One of the best summer blockbusters to ever be made. Retroactively destructive sequels have tarnished its reputation but it remains a witty, entertaining film with sparkling action sequences. At least in the first film its sprawling, convoluted plot is an asset.
29 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Robert Downey Jr had the decade of his career in many ways and this film is just one reason why. Probably too self referential for many but I like its digs at formula film making and the sparky interplay between the two leads is exemplary.
28 Baader Meinhof Complex
The story of the Baader Meinhof group is so interesting that this German film has to do little other than present the facts to be flat out brilliant.
27 Dodgeball
The Frat Pack dominated American comedy throughout the 00's and Dodgeball captures them at their best. The characters are familiar and the jokes are mostly incredibly stupid but there's enough charm and belly laughs to make those facts virtues.
26 Juno
Uniformly outstanding performances, two future stars on the cusp of greatness and an indie look that would come to be standard; its easy to see why Juno was such a success and why there was an inevitable but unwarranted backlash.
25 Cloverfield
Not as influential as I had expected it to be but Cloverfield's visual style is breathtaking. Not only a tightly paced reinvention of the monster movie but a rollercoaster of thrills and danger. Its real strength is capturing the aesthetic of the 00's, the decade where user generated content became king is the perfect time for an action movie filmed by its participants.
24 Slumdog Millionaire
The story is enough for me to love Slumdog Millionaire, the fact the film is also finely directed and well acted only seals the deal.
23 The Lives of Others
Subtle, slow, deeply affecting and poignant. The Lives of Others is the kind of film that makes you want to sit on your own and think for a few hours afterwards.
22 In Bruges
Colin Farrell resurrects his career in a film about a hundred times funnier and sadder than I was expecting. At times silly, offensive or redemptive, In Bruges is predictably divisive but is clearly the work of a true original.
21 Spider-Man 2
For my money, the only really good comic book film that manages to combine real drama and solid action with the essential silliness of the original comic book. Dr. Octopus is both a complex human being and a swaggering super villain, Spider-man is a wisecracking kid with absurd powers and a teenager struggling to become a man. A film of great scope that doesn't forget to be fun.
20 Moulin Rouge
Pretty much single handedly resurrected the live action musical which is enough of a feat by itself. Built for the big screen it has suffered slightly since but for sheer vision and humour, it slips into the top 20.
19 Donnie Darko
The teen movie to end all teen movies, but that doesn't mean its not insightful, complex and rewarding. Made a star out of Jake Gyllenhaal for good reason, and even if Richard Kelly never manages to follow it up, it remains a work to be immensely proud of.
18 Lilo and Stitch
While Disney's hand drawn animations have struggled throughout the 00's but Lilo and Stitch is an underrated gem. Impossibly cute but also genuinely funny and touching, Lilo and Stitch is the gold standard to which all children's films should aspire.
17 The Reader
I have rarely cried in cinemas but The Reader broke me with a few red dots on the side of a cassette tape. For that reason alone it goes into my top 20.
16 Mystic River
I've not always been the biggest fan of Clint Eastwood's directorial career but to me Mystic River is a staggering high. It may be depressing, dark and dripping with violent intent but that doesn't mean it can't be watchable, gripping entertainment too. I don't like Sean Penn often, but when he's good, as in Mystic River, he's really very good indeed. Also, has my favourite trailer of the decade.
15 Memento
Christopher Nolan is a huge talent and now one of my favourite film makers, but this is the film where he came to my, and most people's, attention. Taking the 90's obsession with disjointed chronology and taking it to its logical conclusion he creates a crime drama interesting enough to hold the audience even without the stunning storytelling device. Unique, and brilliant, you can ask little else of a film.
14 Motorcycle Diaries
One of the best of the South American bubble follows a youthful Che Guevara as his political views are formed on a round trip of the continent. Its fascinating to watch a burgeoning young mind getting its first experience of the world and it demonstrates the quality of South American film that this biopic needs no gimmicks to tell a good story.
13 Gosford Park
Robert Altman resurrected the careers of half the British acting community in this outstanding ensemble drama. As usual it takes an American director to really show the truth of the British class system and he does so beautifully. Would have been higher without Stephen Fry's misjudged late cameo.
12 Children of Men
The beautiful, impeccably detailed and quintessentially British set design are reason enough for me to love this film but Clive Owen acting his full range from angry stoic to defiant stoic to sad stoic pushes this film up to 12. Few films can match the imagination of the action set pieces and the final sequence in Bexhill remains one of my favourite ever filmed.
11 Requiem for a Dream
A fast tracked descent into madness with all the visual tricks that a young and still ragged Darren Aronofsky could muster. Its ultra fast drug taking montages and innovative camera work have become standard because of their sheer brilliance. Its exhilarating visual kinetics emphasises the depressing spiral of the characters in the most powerful assault on the senses to come out of the 00s.
10 Dark Knight
A very grown up comic book film that has more in common with a Michael Mann crime epic than Spider-man or X Men. Its complex themes, dark tones, and charismatic villains make it endlessly rewatchable, while the three leads are exceptional. Its flabby final third keeps it at number 10 but I expect it will always be regarded as the pinnacle of the 00 comic book revival.
9 (500) Days of Summer
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Its not a rom com, its a film about love, what it is, what it means and what it isn't. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is, as usual, astoundingly good as a frustrated architect and hopeless sop learning the hard way about emotions.
8 Brick
An idea so simple it must be genius. Take the conceits, characters and plot of a Film Noir and set it in an American High School. The result is funny, clever, and brilliant. Joseph Gordon-Levitt pitches his shambling but smooth talking performance perfectly to capture the mood of both the schoolyard and the PI's office.
7 No Country for Old Men
There are so many brilliant elements to this film that its impossible to list them in this space. Just a fantastic film about great characters caught up in a perfect plot.
6 Waltz with Bashir
I've never seen an animated film quite like this. Here the animation is used to demonstrate and amplify the insanity of war and the unreliability of memories. Manages to take the documentary in staggering new directions and retain the horrendous nature of events without driving the audience away or overwhelming them with a monotony of horror. Has more insight and artistry etched into every frame than some film makers manage in their careers.
5 Zodiac
The Director's Cut shows this tale of obsession as it should be. One of the few films about serial killers to completely avoid romanticising the murderer or generating cheap thrills out of real deaths. The film's sprawling length and timespan capture all the frustration and anger suffered by those hunting a serial killer who taunts his opponents. A film that demands a lot of its audience but is worthy of the effort.
4 Downfall
Perhaps the only film to have attempted to capture why Hitler inspired such fanatical loyalty from so many people and, in doing so, portrays the horror of WW2 and Hitler's lunacy better than has ever been achieved. Bruno Ganz produces a staggering portrayal of the angry, increasingly impotent and violent leader struggling to cling to any tenuous hope he can find. A brilliant film, aided by its rigid structure and lack of visual flair.
3 The Incredibles
Perhaps my favourite animated film of all time. It takes the conventions and set ups of a million comic book tales and takes them into uncharted territories with brazen confidence and flat out quality writing. A kids films where the main focus is on the strains middle age puts on a marriage, and where the supervillain feeds on the frustration of an emasculated male; this is a constantly surprising animation that stands easily alongside any of the live action films of the decade. The incredible amount of thought put into every sequence just shines off the screen and feeds into every aspect of the film.
2 City of God
A sprawling epic that contains some of my favourite scenes of any decade. The cast of semi-professional actors manage to deliver natural, heartfelt performances that draw you into an unfamiliar world. The film functions as tragic study of socio-economic cycles of violence and retribution, and as a thrill ride through favela culture unmatched by any other film.
1 There Will be Blood
There can be few more intense films ever produced. Daniel Day-Lewis dominates the screen from first minute to last; his luxuriant, coldly threatening, and deeply charming voice adding to a stalking, almost awkward physicality to produce one of the great screen characters. On first viewing it is almost impossible to look past Day-Lewis but on second viewing you begin to notice the trends of capitalism versus religion, the brilliance of Paul Dano as a charismatic preacher who stands in Day-Lewis' path, the powerful score, and the perfect evocation of an era and particularly American time period. Then there is the ending, possibly one of the greatest endings of any film and the perfect cap to an intensely satisfying, rewarding and intelligent film that deserves to be hailed alongside the greatest of all time.
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