Man From Plains (Jonathon Demme)
Curse of the Jade Scorpion (woody Allen)
Mysterious Skin (Greg Araki)
The Triple Agent (Eric Rohmer)
Belle toujours (manoel de oliveria)
Thomas Pynchon: A Journey Into the Mind of P. (Donatello Dubini and Fosco Dubini)
Shine a Light (Martin Scorsese)
Manderlay (Lars Von Trier)
Last Days (Gus Van Sant)
Scarlett Diva (Asia Argento)
narrative films:
THE NEW WORLD, Terrence Malick (extended version) USA: 2005
MR. AND MRS. IYER, Aparna Sen, India: 2002
MUA OI (The Guava House), Dang Nhat Minh, Vietnam: 2000
CAFE LUMIERE, Hou Hsiao hsien, Japan: 2003
BOKU NO OJISAN (The Crossing), Yoichi Higashi, Japan: 2000
RED AND BLUE, Rudolf Thome, Germany: 2003
THE NAME OF A RIVER, Anup Singh, India/England: 2001
MULHOLLAND DRIVE, David Lynch, USA: 2001
LE BONHEUR C´ET UNE CHANSON TRISTE, FRANCOIS DELISLE, QUEBEC/CANADA: 2004
KAABEE (KABEI-OUR MOTHER), Yoji Yamada, Japan: 2008
NIRONTOR, Abu Sayeed, Bangladesh: 2006
non-narrative films:
THE DARK I MUST NOT NAME, Shaan Khattau, India: 2000
DEAR PYONGJANG, Yang Yong-hi, Japan: 2005
ROGER TOUPIN, EPICIER VARIETE, Benoit Pilon, Quebec/Canada: 2003
OCEAN, Catherine Martin, Quebec/Canada: 2001
L´ESPIRIT DES LIEUX, Catherine Martin, Quebec/Canada: 2006
L´ENCERCLEMENT, Richard Brouillette, Quebec/Canada: 2008
THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, Shaheen Dill-Riaz, Bangladesh/Germany: 2004
PAINTING TODAY, Stefan Hayn, Anja-Christin Remmert, Germany: 2005
this is cool stuff – much better lists than underrated directors and most hated creative types
01 WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (Béla Tarr)
02 VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS (Hong Sang-soo)
03 SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
04 DEVILS ON THE DOORSTEP (Jiang Wen)
05 THE NAME OF A RIVER (Anup Singh)
06 DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS (Lav Diaz)
07 SHARA (Naomi Kawase)
08 IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-wai)
09 EUREKA (Shinji Aoyama)
10 CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH (Chuan Lu)
1. Tale of Cinema (Hong Sang-soo)
2. Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (Hong Sang-soo)
3. In the City of Sylvia (Jose Luis Guerin)
4. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
5. What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-liang)
6. Three Times (Hou Hsiao Hsien)
7. Here (Ho Tzu Nyen)
8. Flooding in the Time of Drought (Sherman Ong)
9. Irreversible (Gaspar Noe)
10. Sügisball (Veiko Ounpuu)
01. YI YI
02. WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? (Tsai)
03. SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (Weerasethakul)
04. BAMAKO (Sissako)
05. TEN (Kiarostami)
06. BEMANI (Mehrjui)
07. INNOCENCE (Hadzihalilovic)
08. 2046 (Wong)
09. KANDAHAR (Makhmalbaf)
10. MULHOLLAND DR. (Lynch)
1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2) Synecdoche, New York
3) Sin City
4) Kill Bill: Vol. 1
5) Adaptation
6) United 93
7) Memento
8) Black Snake Moan
9) The Royal Tenenbaums
10) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
I started going through my IMDb listings and got overwhelmed. Besides, I only started reviewing films there in 2006, so that’s six whole years of stuff that I’ve seen that I didn’t review. Some movies surprise me because they feel like they’re older; others I could have sworn were 2000 movies but actually aren’t.
I’m out. I barely got a handle of this whole “of the year” thing, and that in and of itself is arbitrary distinction compiling way too many movies from way too many different sources into one lump sum. Fuck figuring it out for entire decades. Why do we do this to ourselves?
—PolarisDiB
I’m pretty sure Adam Cook is going to do a massive Auteurs decade list, like the best of list from last year. Should be good.
01 ZODIAC (David Fincher)
02 PLATFORM (Jia Zhangke)
03 YI YI: A ONE AND A TWO (Edward Yang)
04 MULHOLLAND DRIVE (David Lynch)
05 ELEPHANT (Gus Van Sant)
06 CACHE (Michael Haneke)
07 GOODBYE SOLO (Ramin Bahrani)
08 25TH HOUR (Spike Lee)
09 Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (Alfonso Cuaron)
10 THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier, 2000)
Hidden (Cache) (Michael Haneke, 2005)
No Country for Old Men (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 2007)
Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
Black Friday (Anurag Kashyap, 2004)
Maqbool (Vishal Bharadwaj, 2003)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006)
4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2002)
This is really difficult as a decade is a hell of a long time. Does “Battle Royale” mean as much to me now as it did when I was a twenty year old seeing it in a movie theatre in Shibuya? Has “Talk to Her” aged well? (I haven’t seen it since I first saw it over five years ago with a girl long gone.) It would be impossible for me to sort through ten years and come up with a clean list. One year is tough enough.
These are off the top of my head and one or two reminded by the posts above it:
Cafe Lumiere
Punch Drunk Love
Talk to Her
Blood and Bone
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
A History of Violence
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
Woman is the Future of Man
Battle Royale
The Aviator
The Original Kings of Comedy
Well, so far what I’ve been able to pull together from pure gut reaction is
The Fountain
and
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.
I suppose my list will only grow from there.
—DiB
From the little I have seen the following are what I consider the masterpieces of the decade….
-The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
-The Dreamers
-Elephant
-Fat Girl
-The Fountain
-Gangs of New York
-Inland Empire
-Irreversible
-Mulholland Dr.
-The New World
-Syndromes and a Century
-Synecdoche, New York
-Tetro
-There Will Be Blood
-Y Tu Mamá También
-Zodiac
I could rank them, but I don’t want to. However I can safely say my top three are Mulholland Dr., The Dreamers, and Fat Girl.
Mr. Gregory, you just must see some Hong Sang-soo. Carlo, Dax and I have already been brainwashed and inducted into his cult.
How is Woman is the Future of Man?
Excellent. All his work is excellent actually; he’s like Rohmer, you either like em all or you’re a fool.
I heard Scorsese adored Woman is the Future of Man.
Reflections of Evil & SpaceDisco One (Damon Packard)
An Injury to One (Travis Wilkerson)
Bodysong (Simon Pummell)
Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen)
Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
A Serious Man (Coen Brothers)
Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Intruder (Claire Denis)
Twentynine Palms (Bruno Dumont)
Irreversible (Gaspar Noe)
The Piano Teacher & Cache (Michael Haneke)
Eureka (Shinji Aoyama)
Ivansxtc (Bernard Rose)
Fuckland (Jose Luis Marques)
Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas)
Lilya-4-Ever (Lukas Moodyson)
Marie Antionette (Sofia Coppola)
George Washington (David Gordon Greene)
Team Picture (Kentucker Audley)
The American Astronaut (Cory McAbee)
Zodiac (David Fincher)
Birth (Jonathan Glazer)
The Doctor, The Tornardo, and The Kentucky Kid (Mark Neale)
Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette)
The Power of Nightmares & The Century of the Self (Adam Curtis)
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (Jeff Feuerzeig)
Okay, here’s my top ten…
1. Nobody Knows – Hirokazu Kore-Eda
2. The Man Without a Past – Aki Kaurismäki
3. The Son – Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
4. Schizo – Gulshat Omarova
5. Goodbye Dragon Inn – Tsai Ming-liang
6. Crimson Gold – Jafar Panahi
7. The Taste of Tea – Katsuhito Ishii
8. Lights in the Dusk – Aki Kaurismäki
9. The Time of the Wolf – Michael Haneke
10. The Ninth Day – Volker Schlöndorff
There are still many movies from this decade that I haven’t seen, though, and since I’ve been out of film school for over seven years I’ve had minimal access to “experimental”/“avant-garde” cinema, so I’m largely clueless there.
Incidentally, has anyone caught Peter Mettler’s poetic 2002 documentary Gambling, Gods, and LSD? My friend Trond recommended it to me and though I’m only halfway through it I’m pleased to report that it’s very rewarding. Mettler’s movie deals obliquely with “spiritual” fulfillment in the modern world and covers a wide variety of subject matter. Some of the video footage is so-so and just a tad amateurish, but the film images are uniformly striking and often hypnotic. Will be interesting to see how it all concludes.
I think my favorite documentary from this decade is The Bridge. Suicide is morbid territory, but the The Bridge is exceptionally well structured and loaded with insights. Waffles are in order for the cheesy swelling synth music—which (like most mood music) seems tacked on and unnecessary—but the interviews with the witnesses and survivors are quite fascinating… definitely the sort of movie that makes one appreciate life so much more after viewing it.
2000
Wonder Boys
Songs from the Second Floor
Yi Yi
Waking the Dead
Me, Myself & Irene
2001
Mulholland Dr.
La Pianiste
Promises
2002
The Hour of Religion (My Mother’s Smile)
The Lord of the Rings—The Two Towers
Unknown Pleasures
2003
The Barbarian Invasions
The Company
Soldados de Salamina
The Best of Youth
2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Shrek 2
Fahrenheit 9/11
2005
Munich
Breakfast on Pluto
The Italian
Batman Begins
2006
Children of Men
Still Life
Syndromes and a Century
The Lives of Others
2007
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Paranoid Park
Persepolis
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
2008-2009
Funny Games
La mujer sin cabeza
La ventana
Need to see much more.
Still so much left to see but if forced …
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. In the Mood for Love
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
4. Punch-Drunk Love
5. Caché
6. Dancer in the Dark
7. The New World
8. Mulholland Drive
9. Synecdoche, New York
10. Flight of the Red Balloon
1. There Will Be Blood
2. Mulholland Drive
3. No Country For Old Men
4. In the Mood For Love
5. Oldboy
6. Memento
7. Sideways
8. Children of Men
9. Yi Yi
10. Spirited Away
1. Cache
2. The Lives of Others
3. Children of Men
4. No Country for Old Men
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
6. Waltz With Bashir
7. The Constant Gardener
8. Downfall
9. A Very Long Engagement
10. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
I forgot to add ""Soredemo boku wa yattenai" to my list. This is a movie that comes to me now and then when I make my daily commute into town.
I will limit it to just one film:
Werckmeister Harmonies.
So if you have not seen it…do.
I forgot! Divine Intervention by Elia Suleiman
This is why I love lists: not because any one list is more right or wrong than another, but because collectively they are a great source for recommendations of films to see that you would not come across otherwise. This thread is definitely proof of that. OK, just wanted to say that.
… and also throw in a vote for Werckmeister Harmonies. I have seen a lot of the films listed above (I’d say 85-95%), but of those, none touch Bela Tarr’s masterpiece (not using the word lightly here).
1. Yi Yi
2. Sideways
3. WALL-E
4. The Lives of Others
5. The Bourne Ultimatum
6. Gosford Park
7. 40 Year Old Virgin
8. In the Mood for Love
9. Burn After Reading
10. The Dark Knight
I just watched Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Distant and liked it quite a lot, even more than Climates (which is also a fine film).
Think I’m going to amend my top ten and add Distant to the list.
T
The official Films of the Decade thread, gathering place for all your best of the 2000s lists and discussions.