Top 50 of the Decade

(2000-2009)

50. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black)
- Super slick quippy genius.
49. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel)
- Heart-wrenching and bleak. Bruno Ganz is a brute force.
48. (500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb)
- Irresistably pleasant. You *can* build a film from sheer moments.
47. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu)
- Reveals a dark and scary truth about how much the end affects mood of the overall reflection.
46. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright)
- Pure wit and genre blending. What's not to love?

45. Jarhead (Sam Mendes)
- My favourite time waster film. Deakin's cinematography is gorgeous too.
44. About a Boy (Chris & Paul Weitz)
- It's yet to not be able to completely alter my mood positively.
43. Superbad (Greg Mottola)
- Please no discredit for being a mere teen movie, this has a heart. And a sense of humour.
42. The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky)
- Beautiful, chest sinking, throat clenching existentialism.
41. Big Fish (Tim Burton)
- The film that first sparked my interest in cinema. Classic storytelling at its modern finest.
40. Gerry (Gus Van Sant)
- The subtext hits after reflection. How can one have such internal conflict whilst feeling so empty?
39. In America (Jim Sheridan)
- Inspirational, both in filmmaking and in life.
38. The Prestige (Christopher Nolan)
- Few modern films can be quite as compelling for their mystery.
37. A Bittersweet Life (Ji-woon Kim)
- Edge on the seat thrills, and that's just for the morality.
36. The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry)
- Wonderful. Truly sparks some sweet dreams.
35. Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
- Enlightening and refreshing. An absolute treat.
34. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
- Yeah, he's right. It is his masterpiece.
33. High Fidelity (Stephen Frears)
- Already nostalgic but feelings remain timeless.

32. Oldboy (Chan-wook Park)
- The power in its deeply moving execution is unmatched.
31. Collateral (Michael Mann)
- Quite ironic that an action thriller with the most limited time and space beats time wasting blockbusters. All in the characters.
30. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
- Chilling depiction of school bullying, pre-adolescent affection and justified reaction. And, uh, vampires. I wouldn't change a thing.

29. 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu)
- Astonishing and brutal. Its slow pace embraces the atmosphere and emotion to an exhausting extent.

28. Sideways (Alexander Payne)
- Buddy movies haven't been sweeter than this. Top class acting and writing.

27. Moon (Duncan Jones)
- Haunting and profound. Sam Rockwell's charisma carries this film through mountains.
26. Memento (Christopher Nolan)
- Addictive. This generation needs this film to start their exploration of cinema.
25. Amores Perros (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
- Rawest of them all. Love's a bitch.
24. Milk (Gus Van Sant)
- A celebration of life and what we can do together. Everyone involved's best work too.
23. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
- A film with such rich, erotic intensity that I remember every second too vividly.

22. Babel (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
- Screw the nay-sayers, the themes resonate throughout and it absolutely molests its ambition.
21. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
- Aimless optimist reveals relationship between authority and society. Nice.
20. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- His tribute to Stanley Kubrick turns out better than the majority of the master's work. Success much.
19. Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr)
- Patient but has the aching beauty of society ruined by an outcast. Fascinating.
18. Into the Wild (Sean Penn)
- Therapeutic forced rite of passage. Tragic but satisfying.

17. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee)
- A beautiful and tragic tale of love lost and the failed attempts of recreating a perfect moment. Breaks my heart every time.
16. A Serious Man (Ethan & Joel Coen)
- So typically Coen it's hilarious just for that. The utter epitome of genius writing. Accept the mystery.

15. Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
- A dream lived with such a passionate drive that it's difficult to not find it adorable and delicious.
14. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Why can't all films be like this? Possibly contains the absolute perfect formula for cinematic poetry.

13. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
- Retains all the tender wit and poignant themes of all his films to the same penetrating degree. Frown-repellent.

12. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson)
- Awe-spiringly smooth. His most achieved narrative and tone in the visuals and music.
11. You, the Living (Roy Andersson)
- The absolute definition of bittersweet. Those are tears of joy.
10. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel)
- Refreshingly innovative and inspiring. It becomes so deeply involving that even the slightest of emotion captures one entirely.
09. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
- The prime example of how to weave such different characters through a perfect narrative. The humour and emotion only get better each time.

08. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (Kurt Kuenne)
- Transcends all reason in the production of film. Nothing makes me weep more.

07. Noi albinoi (Dagur Kari)
- An angelic tale of isolation, rebellion and escape. I can't flaw it. Simply the best cinematography I've ever seen.
06. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson)
- There is no film I have a more personal connection with. Words can't justify how it makes me so comfortably numb.
05. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
- Subtle but incredibly intimate. Its ideas of faux-aggression, responsibility, self-sacrifice in culture and controlled violence entwined with media really touched a nerve. Got me into Bruce Springsteen too.

04. Yi Yi (Edward Yang)
- Documents the love we give and recieve all through life. The thought of this film could carry me till I die.

03. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik)
- Such elegant radiance proves consistently impossible for me to sum up. Masterpiece.

02. Adaptation. (Spike Jonze)
- Pretty much the reason for all my life's ambitions, both in and out of context.

01. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)
- It has everything I want from cinema. I literally find something new everytime I watch it and it's always something that blows me away.

[51-100, in alphabetical order]: 3-Iron, 21 Grams, All or Nothing, Ben X, Boys Don’t Cry, Brick, Chopper, City of God, Cold Souls, Control, Dead Man’s Shoes, The Departed, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Elephant, Garden State, Gone Baby Gone, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Grizzly Man, Hard Candy, House of Sand and Fog, Hunger, I’m Not There, JCVD, Keane, Lars and the Real Girl, Lilja 4-ever, The Lives of Others, The Machinist, Man On Wire, Memories of Murder, Minority Report, Narc, No Country for Old Men, O Brother Where Art Thou, Once, Peppermint Candy, The Proposition, Russian Ark, A Scanner Darkly, Slumdog Millionaire, Snatch, Song From the Second Floor, Spring Summer Autumn Winter and Spring, The Squid and the Whale, Stranger Than Fiction, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, This is England, Tickets, Tsotsi, The Weather Man, A Very Long Engagement.

Thanks for reading. Please comment.