The Best Films of the 2000s: Top 10s by Year

These are fairly easy to gauge from my top 100 of the decade list (previous post), but some years had more than 10 films included in that, meaning that others had less than 10. I scoured my ratings and other lists to figure out the rest.

2000

1. High Fidelity

2. Almost Famous

3. In the Mood for Love

4. Memento

5. Dancer in the Dark

6. Chocolat

7. You Can Count on Me

8. Before Night Falls

9. Best in Show

10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

2001

1. The Royal Tenenbaums

2. Amélie

3. Moulin Rouge

4. Ocean's Eleven

5. Shrek

6. Donnie Darko

7. Vanilla Sky

8. Bridget Jones's Diary

9. CQ

10. Me Without You

2002

1. Punch-Drunk Love

2. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

3. Far From Heaven

4. The Pianist

5. 25th Hour

6. Mostly Martha

7. Bend It Like Beckham

8. Chicago

9. About Schmidt

10. Adaptation

2003

1. Kill Bill, Vol. 1

2. Lost in Translation

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

4. Dogville

5. The Twilight Samurai

6. The Triplets of Belleville

7. The Best of Youth

8. The Man Who Copied

9. Mystic River

10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2004

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2. Kill Bill, Vol. 2

3. Garden State

4. The Motorcycle Diaries

5. The Sea Inside

6. A Very Long Engagement

7. Finding Neverland

8. Sideways

9. Shaun of the Dead

10. The Incredibles

2005

1. Good Night, and Good Luck.

2. Everything Is Illuminated

3. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

4. Batman Begins

5. Brick

6. Pride and Prejudice

7. Brokeback Mountain

8. Syriana

9. Capote

10. Sin City

2006

1. Stranger Than Fiction

2. This Film Is Not Yet Rated

3. The Prestige

4. The Fountain

5. Children of Men

6. Volver

7. Scoop

8. The Departed

9. Little Miss Sunshine

10. The Science of Sleep

2007

1. Once

2. I'm Not There

3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

4. Hot Fuzz

5. Sweeney Todd

6. The Darjeeling Limited

7. Persepolis

8. There Will Be Blood

9. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2008

1. Man on Wire

2. Synecdoche, New York

3. The Dark Knight

4. Wall-E

5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

6. The Fall

7. Happy-Go-Lucky

8. Milk

9. Brideshead Revisted

10. In Bruges

2009 (so far - I still have to see Crazy Heart and Broken Embraces)

1. Away We Go

2. 500 Days of Summer

3. Bright Star

4. Inglourious Basterds

5. Fantastic Mr. Fox

6. Up in the Air

7. A Single Man

8. The Beaches of Agnes

9. An Education

10. Up

Part Thirteen: The Best Films of the 2000s

It took me a while to put this all together, and I went through two or three major reworkings before I settled on the list I have now. I'm sure that as time passes my list will change, but these are my choices as I immediately look back on the decade.

It's fairly easy to tell who my favorite movie people of the decade were through this list. As far as directors go, Christopher Nolan has four films on the list, Wes Anderson has three, Michel Gondry has three and Quentin Tarantino has two, plus he directed a segment of Sin City; Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Todd Haynes, Cameron Crowe, Jason Reitman, George Clooney, Marc Forster, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Julian Schnabel, Lars von Trier, Joe Wright and Edgar Wright all have two films apiece. It's pretty easy to tell my favorites with the actors, too: George Clooney appeared in seven of the films (including the two he directed); Johnny Depp was in six; Jason Schwartzman, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Brad Pitt were each in five; Heath Ledger, Emma Thompson, Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Michael Caine, Bill Murray, Michelle Williams and Keira Knightley were each in four; Zooey Deschanel, Ben Whishaw, Gary Oldman, Cate Blanchett, Hugh Jackman, Sally Hawkins, Julianne Moore, Patricia Clarkson, Elijah Wood, Owen Wilson, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton and Rutger Hauer were each in three; and approximately 80 additional actors appeared in two films on the list.

Here are my top 100 films of the 2000s, barring a few I need to see from the last two months of 2009 (Nine, Sherlock Holmes, Broken Embraces and A Single Man are the likely contenders):

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
3. Amelie (2001)
4. Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

5. Once (2007)
6. I'm Not There (2007)
7. Kill Bill (2003-2004)
8. Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
9. Away We Go (2009)
10. Man on Wire (2008)
11. High Fidelity (2000)
12. Almost Famous (2000)
13. Moulin Rouge (2001)
14. In the Mood for Love (2000)
15. This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)
16. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
17. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
18. Hot Fuzz (2007)
19. Synecdoche, New York (2008)

20. The Prestige (2006)
21. The Dark Knight (2008)
22. Sweeney Todd (2007)
23. Ocean's Eleven (2001)
24. Shrek (2001)
25. Wall-E (2008)
26. Lost in Translation (2003)
27. 500 Days of Summer (2009)
28. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
29. Bright Star (2009)

30. Juno (2007)
31. The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
32. The Fountain (2006)
33. Persepolis (2007)
34. There Will Be Blood (2007)
35. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
36. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

37. The Fall (2008)
38. Up in the Air (2009)

39. A Single Man (2009)
40. Memento (2000)
41. Garden State (2004)
42. Everything Is Illuminated (2005)
43. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
44. Children of Men (2006)
45. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
46. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
47. The Beaches of Agnes (2009)
48. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

49. Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
50. Batman Begins (2005)
51. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
52. Dogville (2003)
53. Donnie Darko (2001)
54. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
55. Milk (2008)
56. Volver (2006)
57. Brideshead Revisited (2008)
58. In Bruges (2008)
59. Scoop (2006)
60. Brick (2005)

61. The Departed (2006)
62. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
63. The Twilight Samurai (2003)
64. Pride and Prejudice (2005)
65. Dancer in the Dark (2000)
66. The Sea Inside (2004)
67. The Science of Sleep (2006)
68. Far from Heaven (2002)
69. The Pianist (2002)

70. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
71. Vanilla Sky (2001)
72. 25th Hour (2002)
73. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
74. CQ (2001)
75. An Education (2009)
76. Mostly Martha (2002)
77. Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
78. The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
79. Chocolat (2000)

80. A Very Long Engagement (2004)
81. Me Without You (2001)
82. The Best of Youth (2003)
83. You Can Count on Me (2000)
84. Be Kind Rewind (2008)
85. Let the Right One In (2008)

86. Finding Neverland (2004)
87. Syriana (2005)
88. The Painted Veil (2006)
89. La Vie en Rose (2007)
90. Before Night Falls (2000)
91. Capote (2005)
92. Marie Antoinette (2006)
93. Sideways (2004)
94. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
95. The Man Who Copied (2003)
96. Michael Clayton (2007)
97. Up (2009)
98. Sin City (2005)

99. Chicago (2002)
100. Atonement (2007)

I'll be going into more detail on the top 10 films in upcoming posts.

Part Twelve: Favorite Franchises of the Decade

It seems like this decade, more than ever, sequels and movie franchises have become the order of the movie business, especially in Hollywood. Harry Potter, the fellowship of THE ring, Daniel Ocean (plus a few friends), Bridget Jones, Shrek, Jason Bourne, Captain Jack Sparrow and a gaggle of superheroes all saw multiple trips to the multiplexes in the 2000s.

The Dark Knight, the remake of Ocean's Eleven, the first Shrek, the fifth Harry Potter and the first Pirates of the Caribbean all narrowly escaped my top 10, so I deemed it necessary to also add on my five favorite film franchises of the decade. The Bourne movies, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Spider-Man movies and the Bridget Jones movies would make up six, seven, eight and nine for me. (I only took into account the franchises that started, or restarted, in this decade.)

MovieCat's Top Five Film Franchises of the 2000s

1. The retooling of the Batman franchise. (Batman Begins - 2005; The Dark Knight - 2008)

When I went to the midnight screening of Batman Begins I was amazed. It blew the Spider-Man films and every other comic book or superhero movie that had come before it out of the water. Which, to this Tim Burton (who directed the Batman and Batman Returns) fan, was quite a fete. I didn't think it could get any better. Then I saw the trailer for The Dark Knight a couple of years later and had a pretty strong feeling that I was about to be proven wrong. And I was. Not only is The Dark Knight quite possibly the greatest Batman/comic book/superhero film to ever grace the screens; it is an excellent film in general, which is why it's no. 21 on my list of the top 100 films of the decade (next post).

2. The Harry Potter films. (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - 2001; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - 2002; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 2004; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 2005; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - 2007; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - 2009)

I come to see these movies with a pretty pure, open mind, as I have not read any of the books. On their own, these first six movies do a great job of telling a story that's accessible to kids but still brings on the drama and a bit of darkness every now and then, of which I consider only the best family films to be capable. Order of the Phoenix is hands-down my favorite (so far), as it was filled with tension and action that kept me on the edge of my seat (twice) in the theater. I think the whole rebelliousness aspect to it, the formation of Dumbledore's Army, was something I really found to be engaging. It also helps that Gary Oldman is perfect as Sirius and Ralph Fiennes is perfect as Voldemort. This franchise will extend into the next decade - the seventh movie comes out in 2010, and the eighth in 2011.

3. The Shrek movies. (Shrek - 2001, Shrek 2 - 2004, Shrek the Third - 2007)

While I prefer the first movie (as is the case with most franchises), I still rather enjoyed both sequels to this most unlikely fairy tale. The combination of breaking and fulfilling all the fairy tale conventions in these films really won me over, as I am a sucker for a good fairy tale. This franchise will also extend into the teens, as Shrek Forever After hits theaters in May 2010.

4. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. (The Curse of the Black Pearl - 2003, Dead Man's Chest - 2006, At World's End - 2007)

I was raised on Johnny Depp, and it seems like, out of all of his roles, Captain Jack Sparrow is the one he was born to play. He loves the part and so do fans all over the world. I was a bit apprehensive about seeing the first movie: Depp, whose acting and roles generally tend to best fit non-mainstream films, was getting as mainstream as it got - a Disney movie based on a theme park ride. Disney was worried about Depp's performance being too weird, but I loved it, as did the majority of the movie-going masses. Depp is now one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, bringing more attention to both the bigger (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and smaller (Finding Neverland) films he has done this decade. I'm happy that Depp is getting attention he deserves, but, in a way, I also am reluctant to share him with the world. This franchise was rumored to have stopped with three films, but it was recently announced that the fourth film is in planning stages, with Depp signed on to play Captain Jack Sparrow yet again.

5. The Ocean's movies. (Ocean's Eleven - 2001, Ocean's Twelve - 2004, Ocean's Thirteen - 2007)

Sure, the second movie wasn't very good and the third, while much better than the second, still didn't quite capture the same effect as the first, but this franchise will always have a place in this film lover's heart. George Clooney is being George Clooney. These films and the Bourne trilogy helped transform Matt Damon into a movie star. For Brad Pitt, the Ocean's movies signify a balance between some of the sillier films he made in the 1990s and his transition into a more dramatic leading man in the 2000s. I wasn't a big fan of his in the '90s, but after watching these films and a few others from this decade, I definitely am now. And the other eight, nine or 10 co-stars (depending on the film) all help bring some of the best group chemistry seen on film since the days of the original Ocean's Eleven (1960) and the Rat Pack.

Part Eleven: Film Festivals

My first film festival was the 2004 St. Louis Intenational Film Festival, where I just attended one film (Pedro Almodóvar's Bad Education), and my last film festival of the decade was the 2009 SLIFF, where I attended seven films (which includes, coincidentally, Lone Scherfig's An Education). In total, this decade I attended nine film festivals - five SLIFFs and four True/False Film Festivals - and I would say that all nine of those experiences definitely had a pretty heavy impact on the film education I've received this decade.

Not only did I get to see movies from all over the world at those festivals, I also got to attend question-and-answer sessions with a large percentage of the filmmakers, especially at True/False. At the 2006 T/F, filmmaker Kirby Dick was given the True Vision Award in conjunction with a screening of his latest, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which seemed to pretty much take all the frustration I felt about censorship and the MPAA and project it on the screen. That was my first T/F, and it was the first time that I really got the whole festival experience. I volunteered, I stood in queue lines for what seemed like hours, chatting about films with friends and strangers, I went to a party or two - I spent pretty much the whole weekend in downtown Columbia, falling in love with both the city and documentaries.

My friend Ben also started attending T/F the same time I did, and for the 2008 festival, he submitted a short film about our other friend Ben and his squirrel obsession (my hand makes a cameo) to the Gimme Truth competition. "Squirrellywood" won third place. There are other moments and memories that could probably fill volumes in relation to my film festival experiences, but this one tops the more personal moments, and the screenings of Man on Wire (which I'll detail more in an upcoming post) and This Film Is Not Yet Rated are the tops for actual movie-watching experiences.

While every T/F I attended encompassed a tiring but awesome marathon of movie-going and other fun, the screenings I attended at SLIFF usually tended to not be so chaotic, as that festival lasts a week and a half, so the films I wanted to see tended to be more spread-out on the schedule. For the 2009 SLIFF, however, I found some of that frenzied pace, especially in the closing night films, as I went from the screening of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus at the Tivoli across town to a screening of The Beaches of Agnes at Plaza Frontenac. Not only do film festivals seem to create a love of film for me, they also seem to be points of inspiration for my writing. I wrote most of my essays for the entire decade under the influence project during down-time before and between film screenings at SLIFF.

Nothing really compares to the buzz of seeing a great film - and film festivals tend to combine several buzzes. At their most simplistic, that's why I love film festivals. I put my winter coat on for the first time a couple weeks ago, and in the pocket I found a "Q" ticket from this year's T/F - I instantly smiled, recalling all the great times I've had at film festivals this decade.

Part Ten: The College Film Experience

My college film experience begins and ends with literally dozens (or probably hundreds, actually) of nights in dorm rooms and apartments spent watching movies and/or playing movie trivia. I have so many good memories associated with those that it would be impossible to dwindle it down. The memories of the family I made of friends and film-lovers while I was living in Columbia, especially during summer 2007, will always have the warmest place in this film-lover's (and friend's) heart.

Aside from those more personal memories, two student clubs, Film Club of MU, of which I was president for two and a half years, and Mizzou Students for Film, of which I was a founding member, were also integral parts of my college film experience. I started attending FCMU meetings, where we would watch and discuss films, the first semester of my freshman year and by the first semester of my junior year, I was the president. FCMU and Ragtag pretty much cured any bit of homesickness I might've been feeling at the start of my freshman year.

At its start, MSFF consisted of about 10 freshmen and three sophomore women. It all started when one of the freshmen decided to start a Facebook group for people interested in getting a film major going at Mizzou; he invited all the people who had "Film Studies" listed in their area of concentration, and pretty soon we started to get serious about it. We made a couple of short films as a group, we got press, we held a fundraising concert. The momentum was pretty strong that first year, and for a while it looked like it actually might happen. Unfortunately, it didn't happen until most of the founding members were gone. Mizzou will officially have a film major starting in the winter semester of 2010. However, Professor Roger Cook, who is the chair of the Film Studies department and was also involved with MSFF, cited the group and its founding members for getting the ball rolling.

Like most universities, the student association also sponsored weekly film showings at the student union. I wound up going to a few of them, and during one of the first weekends of my freshman year, they had a double billing of the Kill Bill movies. I wound up going alone, and ran into another kid from my dorm there, who wound up becoming one of my closest friends.

Also worth repeating mentions of here: my college film experience would not have been complete without Ragtag, midnight shows, film classes (I detailed those in previous posts) and the True/False Film Festival (which I'll go into in the next post).

Part Nine: A Major Change

For most of my junior year of college, I was pretty academically unhappy. More and more, journalism (my major) was becoming something that weighed me down, something that I was starting to hate. My film classes had become the high points in my academic calendar. It was in late April (2007) of that year that I finally made up my mind - I was going to change my major. As Mizzou did not have a film major at that time (it does starting winter semester 2010 - which I'll talk about more in the next post), I decided to change to Interdisciplinary Studies, with my emphasis areas primarily in Film Studies and secondarily in Journalism (so as not to let all the hours I'd accumulated in that area go to waste). With the exception of maybe one or two classes, my favorite classes in my time at Mizzou were my film ones, both before and after the major change. Come to think about it, those couple of exceptions, while not Film Studies classes, did still have aspects relating to film.

Not only did I change my major, I changed my whole idea of what I wanted to do as a career. My senior year of college, when I had decided that I definitely wanted to pursue a career as a film critic, my journalism advisor told me that she thought that I'd wind up pursuing filmmaking. Then, I thought she was wrong. I was content to spend hours upon hours watching films, writing about them and sharing my opinions. While I'm still content to do that (to a lesser extent), I'm also pretty eager about pursuing screenwriting. I took my capstone in screenwriting in fall 2008. I completed my first full-length screenplay, To Be Determined, and pitched it to my class, complete with fake movie poster. After positive feedback from most of the people who read it, my mom had me submit it for the Nicholl Fellowship in spring 2009. It didn't make the cut, but I'm sure I'll try again at some point.

Part Eight: Studying Film

For me, the whole idea of taking film seriously, as something that could be really studied and interpreted, started in high school and reached a high my senior year, when I wrote two papers on film. The first was a research paper that also included a class presentation for advanced English, where I had to tie in something pop culture-related with the journey of the hero and all that Joseph Campbell-type stuff. Growing up, Chris (my brother) and I were both pretty obsessed with the James Bond movies, so that seemed like a pretty natural choice. I spent hours in different branches of the St. Louis Public Library researching and getting basic information for my paper. That remains one of my favorite things I've written about film to this day. For the second paper, my Spanish teacher assigned each of us a famous Spanish-speaking person to do a research paper on, and as she knew I was into film, she assigned me the filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. I hadn't seen any of his films, so I rented All About My Mother and Talk to Her, the only two Almodóvar films that Blockbuster had. I loved All About My Mother so much that I watched it three times before I had to return it. It is definitely my favorite Spanish-language film, and is right behind the French Amélie as my favorite foreign language film. Almodóvar is now one of my favorite filmmakers, and I am always on the lookout to see more of his films. His last entry of this decade, Broken Embraces, was officially released in November (2009), but it won't be coming to a theater near me until 2010.

Writing about film in that capacity intrigued me, and when I discovered that the college I attended (Mizzou or the University of Missouri - Columbia) offered a Film Studies minor, I was pretty excited. The classes I took explored a wide range - everything from auteurs (separate classes on Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen) to screenwriting, and from Soviet cinema to "Food on Film."

Those first two papers in high school and my first three years of college with my "minor" interest in film lead me to the next post.