Greatest films of the decade

[BoylenOver]

Here's how The Onion AV Club feels:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-films-of-the-00s,35931/

Agree? Disagree?

P.S. I haven't seen nearly enough movies to say "ESOTSM" is the best of the decade, but it's been at the top of my favorites since the first time I saw it.

[Fiyero]

I've seen only 9 of those 50 films, and will always remember DDD as the one who referred #15 to everyone here.

Of the 9 that I saw, I thought #4 the best.

[I.J. Reilly]

I've seen only 9 of those 50 films, and will always remember DDD as the one who referred #15 to everyone here.

Of the 9 that I saw, I thought #4 the best.

You've only seen 9 of these 50 films? I would have pegged you as more of a movie buff than that.

Most of the ones that I missed on the list were the foreign films, although not all of them.

I was a college freshman when Y Tu Mama Tambien came out and I think that for most of my male classmates this was the first and last foreign film they ever saw.

[Fiyero]

You've only seen 9 of these 50 films? I would have pegged you as more of a movie buff than that.

I see mostly indie and foreign films, with the occasional blockbuster like 2012 or Harry Potter. That being said though, that list had many "art house" films but relatively few of the ones I've seen.

On a side note, on Tuesday I unknowingly watched two films in a 12-hour span that featured Annabeth Gish in the female lead, and wonder if I'm the only person in history to do that.

[Commando]

I've seen a lot of those. Some of em I call B.S. on (Memento crappiest. movie. ever.), and some didn't get enough credit (LOTR). I don't have a problem placing Eternal Sunshine at #1, though.

[Donuthole]

I've seen 12 of them. IMO, City of God is waaaaaaaay too low on the list.

[JohnnyLingo]

I've seen a lot of those. Some of em I call B.S. on (Memento crappiest. movie. ever.), and some didn't get enough credit (LOTR). I don't have a problem placing Eternal Sunshine at #1, though.

Memento is the crappiest movie EVER?

You have high, high standards.

[MarkGrace]

Memento is incredible. Quite possibly the only movie I immediately started again the second I finished it.

[MarkGrace]

50. Oldboy (2003)

Oldboy comes in the middle of Park Chan-wook’s “vengeance trilogy”—three unrelated films about the obsessive, destructive pursuit of revenge—but it’s the best of the lot. Park’s insane fable follows a man (Choi Min-sik) imprisoned in a single hideous room for 15 years by an unknown enemy, and then abruptly set free on a bloody mission to track down what just happened to him and why. The results are downright operatic in their violence and outsized drama, but a dark thread of humor runs throughout, in scenes like the bravura, long-take hammer battle (see our best scenes of the decade list) and the moment where Min-sik sets out to determine whether a decade of martial-arts theory alone in an apartment can translate into real-world adeptness against a bunch of bullying punks. Spoiler: It can. If Min-sik wasn’t capable of staggering acts of brutality, this film would be a lot shorter, and a lot less outrageous.

If you want see a movie that will leave you with a gut-wrenching stomach and damn near physical illness at the end, I recommend this movie

21. Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher is notorious for his hyper-demanding, Kubrickian pursuit of perfection, where even the simplest shot can demand a hundred takes. With that in mind, rarely have filmmaker and subject been as compatible as in Fincher’s Zodiac, a mesmerizing procedural that follows the still-unsolved case of a Bay Area serial killer all the way down an obsessive-compulsive rabbit hole. What begins as a gorgeous evocation of a region under the grips of a cryptic serial killer—the opening, from the fireworks on July 4, 1969 to the haunting “Hurdy Gurdy Man” sequence that accompanies the first murder, is as good as it gets—becomes all the more fascinating once the case goes cold and only a miserable few can’t bring themselves to let it go. It’s an obsessive movie about the nature of obsession, made by a man who can’t distance himself from the puzzle any more easily than his bleary-eyed characters can.

I read the other day that Ficher averaged 70+ takes per scene on this film. Apparently Mark Ruffalo about lost his mind.

Anyway, I saw exactly half of these, and most I thought were pretty terrific (the exceptions being LOTR and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which were not bad, but I wouldn't put on my favorites list). Four of their top five (No Country, TWBB, Eternal Sunshine and Memento) would all place in my favorite ten or so.

[MartyFunkhouser]

Sorry but this is an awful list. City of God at 40 and A.I. at 32. I could see A.I. making a list of the 50 worst films of the decade. Also, what in the Moulin Rouge doing on a list of best of anything.

I do agree with Eternal Sunshine as 1 and would also have There Will Be Blood in the top 5.

[MarkGrace]

At the Movies has been counting down their decade top ten, and Michael Phillips (who I really like) had Minority Report at #10. It made me feel better about myself after Falafel and assorted others made fun of me for including it in my great films of the 2000s list.

[JohnnyLingo]

At the Movies has been counting down their decade top ten, and Michael Phillips (who I really like) had Minority Report at #10. It made me feel better about myself after Falafel and assorted others made fun of me for including it in my great films of the 2000s list.

I liked Minority Report mainly because it made me think. If a movie gets me to examine a complex issue or engage my brain in any way, it gets bonus points.

I can handle mindless stuff like Transformers, but only if there are massive amounts of childhood nostalgia involved or really, really big explosions and/or fight scenes. Even then, it's getting harder to enjoy brainless films.

[MarkGrace]

Sorry but this is an awful list. City of God at 40 and A.I. at 32. I could see A.I. making a list of the 50 worst films of the decade. Also, what in the Moulin Rouge doing on a list of best of anything.

City of God is definitely awesome and deserved to be higher. AI I didn't see because everyone said how awful it was. I remember my dad coming home from seeing that one and just ranting for days.

Also, Moulin Rouge is incredible. That would definitely be in my decade top ten and is among my favorites ever.

[MartyFunkhouser]

At the Movies has been counting down their decade top ten, and Michael Phillips (who I really like) had Minority Report at #10. It made me feel better about myself after Falafel and assorted others made fun of me for including it in my great films of the 2000s list.

I am glad you feel better about yourself, but I adopt the opinions of falafel and others relating to Minority Report.

[MarkGrace]

I liked Minority Report mainly because it made me think. If a movie gets me to examine a complex issue or engage my brain in any way, it gets bonus points.

But it had Tom Cruise in it!