Tuesday, January 12, 2010

2000-2009: FAVORITES OF THE DECADE

Much like my previous post, 2009: Favorites, this favorites of the decade list (2000-2009) is the same thing: my favorite movies. Not necessarily the "best" movies, but the ones I loved the most. Unlike my previous post, I won't be writing about each film individually...at least not yet. I've got a portion of them written up, but in the interest of keeping the subject timely, I wanted to get this out there in the hopes of generating some good discussion. So...here's my 10 favorite movies from 2000-2009. These are the movies I cannot live without, the movies I've gone back to over and over again for repeated viewings, the movies I adore above all others:


1.) Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down
2.) Terrence Malick's The New World
3.) Michael Mann's Miami Vice
4.) Tony Scott's Domino
5.) Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast
6.) Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man
7.) Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
8.) Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men
9.) David Fincher's Zodiac
10.) Tarsem's The Fall

Runners-Up (in random order): Femme Fatale, Narc, The Road, Gangs of New York, Where the Wild Things Are, City of God, Man on Fire, Collateral, The Departed, The Good Shepherd, United 93, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Punch Drunk Love, Ali, Munich, Minority Report, Oldboy, Wall*E, A Very Long Engagement, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, The Dark Knight, Elephant, American Psycho, Gladiator, Wonder Boys, You Can Count on Me, Made, Zoolander, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rookie, Bloody Sunday, Bad Santa, Shattered Glass, Bad Boys 2, Winged Migration, The Aviator, Team America: World Police, Friday Night Lights, Syriana, Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Ask the Dust, Things We Lost in the Fire, Borat, 300, The Wrestler, Let the Right One In, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Bourne Ultimatum, Up, The Hurt Locker, District 9, Sin City, Public Enemies, Rabbit Proof Fence, Man on Wire, Traffic, Road to Perdition, Adaptation, Synechdoche, NY, The Dark Knight, Amelie, Kill Bill: Volume 1 & 2, 25th Hour, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Eastern Promises, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Gladiator, All the Real Girls, A History of Violence, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Up in the Air, Far From Heaven, Spiderman 2, World Trade Center, Watchmen

5 comments:

Joel said...

My decade list has drastically changed this last week, Nick. I don't think I ever mentioned this, but...well, just look at the number one spot on my VERY tentative list. I saw it on Thursday evening and was utterly shaken. I literally haven't thought about anything other than this movie since I saw it. It is literally everything about movies that I love and much, much more. It was a slice of heaven that I will watch over and over and over and over and over and...you get the point. It's not only my favorite of the decade, however. It is, in my opinion, the BEST of the decade in quality, not just watchability.

1. Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Steven Spielberg's Minority Report
3. Lee Daniels's Precious
4. David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men
6. Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In
7. Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men
8. Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight
9. Peter Jackson's King Kong
10. Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love

Runners-up...not gonna do it. Too long of a list.

Actionman said...

Yeah -- Eternal is amazing. I've watched it countless times.

Your list is very strong.

Lon said...

I am shocked House of the Dead, Dungeon Siege or at the very least DRIVE did not make your list.

DEZMOND said...

I love that you put Tarsem's THE FALL on your list. He is hugely unappreciated in USA, although he's a genius in creating visual and imaginative master pieces. Both THE CELL and THE FALL are visually stunning movies. He creates cinematic fairy tales. I can't wait to see what he'll do with DAWN OF WAR (WAR OF GODS previously), his future historical epic with young Henry Cavill as Theseus.

Doug Cooper said...

For all the talk of movies sucking, this has been a really amazing decade - easily one of the best ever I think.

These are my favorite movies of the decade (and by that I mean the same as you Nick, the ones I watched/will watch the most), but it was hard. Had to leave a few off that I really love.

1. Memento
2. American Psycho
3. High Fidelity
4. No Country for Old Men
5. Adaptation
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
7. The Dark Knight
8. Shattered Glass
9. Waking Life
10. Spirited Away

Honorable Mention: Mystic River, 25th Hour, Brokeback Mountain, Sideways, Donnie Darko, Once, Let the Right One In, Half Nelson, The Incredibles, The Royal Tenenbaums and There Will Be Blood. That's a lot of good ones...