Best Films of the Decade : 2000-2009

I started this two years ago, but forgot about it and only recently found it. I tinkered with it a touch, but I’ve decided to release my Best of the Decade List with warts and all.

The fun thing about lists is that everyone has their own criteria. Much of it is intuitive, but I’ve tried to make choices according to a few guidelines. The following films are not necessarily my favorite films of the decade (though many are) but films that seem to me to be both artistic and influential. I’ve also approached this list as though it were a  meal, it is balanced with a smattering of genre films, bread and veggies, meat and pudding. I’ve been fiddling with the same films in different order for a while now and I’m tired enough to grant pretty much any argument placing one film over another outside of the top ten. I’ve also cheated with regards to “ties”, wanting to pair certain films due either to a flaw or its similarity to another film, or because I felt like it didn’t warrant its own slot.

1. There Will Be Blood
2. Yi Yi
3. The New World
4. Junebug
5. Children of Men
6. Punchdrunk Love
7. Elephant
8. 4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)
9. Nobody Knows
10. Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow
11. Sunshine
12. All the Real Girls
13. The Darjeeling Limited
14. Cast Away
15. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
16. Spirited Away
17. Eastern Promises
18. Where the Wild Things Are
19. No Country for Old Men
20. Unbreakable
21. Hable con Ella (Talk To Her)
22. The Incredibles
23. Rachel Getting Married
24. La Science des Reves (The Science of Sleep)
25. Marie Antoinette
26. Once
27. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring
28. The Royal Tenenbaums
29. Happy-Go-Lucky
30. 28 Days Later
31. Lars and the Real Girl
32. Synechdoche, New York
33. The Squid and the Whale / Margot at the Wedding
34. The Wrestler
35. Cache
36. Howl’s Moving Castle
37. A.I.
38. Nacho Libre
39. Wall-E / Finding Nemo
40. The Assassination of Jesse James by that Coward Robert Ford
41. Gosford Park
42. Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
43. El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth)
44. Inglorious Basterds
45. Memento
46. Dogville / Manderlay
47. King Kong
48. Sideways/ About Schmidt
49. Big Fish
50. Moulin Rouge!