I challenge someone to have a better list...

1. Mar Adentro (2004)
2. Almost Famous (2000)
3. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
4. Black Hawk Down (2001)
5. The Pianist (2002)
6. Oldboy (2003)
7. There Will Be Blood (2007)
8. Cidade De Deus (2002)
9. El Laberinto Del Fauno (2006)
10. 4 Luni, 3 Saptamani Si 2 Zile (2007)

Notable Mentions...

Hable Con Ella (2002)
Wo Hu Cang Long (2000)
Memento (2000)
The Kite Runner (2007)
The Contender (2000)
O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)
Pollock (2000)

To all you people putting City of God on your lists: What, exactly, do you find so great about it? It seemed to me to be yet another example of a director using visual shenanigans to distract the viewer from the fact that there's nothing really cinematic about their story. The thing feels like an epic novel translated to the screen, just with most of the personal details lost on the way so it ends up more like a glorified newsreel than a real motion picture that actually affects the audience. While I can't deny Meirelles breathes live into the city and culture and that the cinematography is gorgeous, I can't help but feel like most of his visuals are meant to make up for what the story lost: feeling. By pummeling you into submission with his visuals and constantly implying horrible happenings, Meirelles makes you feel like you should've had visceral experience, while I just felt kind of antsy. This is, of course, just my opinion, and I'd love to read what some of City of God's many, many supporters have to say on the matter.

Now on topic, I've decided to provide two different lists for everyone's viewing pleasures. One will be best, the second my favorites. Whichever you'd like to pick Kunz is up to you. Also, I've just recently started catching up with a lot of the movies I missed during the decade, so the list I make now will probably be different from the one I make at the end of the month. But such is life.

The Best
1. Three Times
2. In the Mood for Love
3. Cache
4. The Pianist
5. Gerry
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
7. Millennium Actress
8. Pan's Labyrinth
9. Morvern Callar
10. Dancer in the Dark
(If I were really being honest with myself There Will be Blood and Beau Travail would both deserve spots on this list, but they're such chilly movies I can't help but like instead of love them. Personal taste can never really be gotten rid of, can it?)

The Favorites
1. Grizzly Man
2. Millennium Actress
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Pulse (2001)
5. Three Times
6. Pan's Labyrinth
7. Mulholland Drive
8. The Proposition
9. The Dark Knight
10. Pineapple Express
And runner-up is Anchorman, whose first half may be the funniest first half of a movie ever put to celluloid. Pineapple Express edged it out for being way more consistent though

This list is VERY tentative and could definitely change as I re-watch some movies and even view some movies that I missed the first time over the next month or two. But for now here is my top 10 of the 2000's:

1. Almost Famous (2000)
2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
3. Lost in Translation (2003)
4. Wonder Boys (2000)
5. Cast Away (2000)
6. The Last Samurai (2003)
7. Memento (2001)
8. The Girl Next Door (2004)
9. V for Vendetta (2006)
10. World Trade Center (2006)

You know if you're going to be very ostentatious about printing the foreign names of films, you should have printed Le Pianiste and Oldeuboi for 5 and 6, respectively.



Okay well first of all visuals ARE cinematic. But what it seems like you're saying is that City of God suffers from the timeless scourge of style instead of substance, which I disagree with completely. First off, I love history, and City of God is a movie that understands history better than any I've seen. It doesn't just tell the "story" of the slums or its denizens, but inquires deeply into the past. Note the scene called "the story of the apartment," which tells for 5 minutes the background of one particular apartment. It could have been cut, but it adds such nuance to the picture. City of God succeeds with what Gangs of New York tried to do in this regard--its a film which could be considered in the "historical fiction" genre. It's not just set in the past, but an exploration of it.

Aside from that, the movie is reminiscent of Goodfellas in the way it looks at children and the choices they make before showing the results and consequences of such choices. It contrasts Rocket and his brother Goose, Little Dice and Benny, Li'l Ze and Knockout Ned, etc. It has an exquisite command of character. Little Ze is one of the best embodiments of evil I have ever seen--Firmino plays him not as a megalomaniac, but as a little kid who never has anyone tell him "no" behind the wheels of a grownup killing machine. And if you thought the movie lacked feeling, I disagree with you there too. No one I've ever watched the film with hasn't been moved by the "Benny's Farewell" chapter.



I was gonna say "hmmmm you're the only person I've ever met who thinks World Trade Center was better than United 93" but then I saw your #8. Now I can make the much more interesting claim of "you're the only person I've ever met who thinks The Girl Next Door is a better film than Pan's Labyrinth, No Country for Old Men, City of God, Requiem for a Dream, There Will Be Blood, etc. etc. etc."

While I do think The Girl Next Door is a better than average high school related sex comedy, it probably wouldn't even break my top 100 for the decade (and it is outshined by Superbad).

The Girl Next Door is a lame film, it doesn't hold a candle to Superbad.

I disagree, but like I said Superbad is the better film in my mind without question.

Damn this was hard....
10. Children of Men
9. No Country for Old Men
8. Before Sunset
7. Lost in Translation
6. LOTR:The Fellowship of the Ring
5. Memento
4. There Will be Blood
3. Into the Wild
2. In the Mood for Love
1. Almost Famous

Hon Mentions: The Dark Knight, The Royal Tenenbaums, City of God and a about a hundred others......this may change sooner rather than later.

10. Catch me if you can
9. LOTR: ROTK
8. LOTR: TT
7. LOTR: FOTR
6. Blood Diamond
5. The Aviator
4. District 9
3. Inglorious Bastards
2. The Departed
1. Avatar (im assuming its going to be the best)

But, I already had a better list! Didn't you see? My list has A.I.!!!



It didn't find its way onto my list, but I liked it. For one thing, I liked the examination of how young lives can diverge in the slums. It was pretty shocking stuff too, at least it was at the time I last saw it (which is probably five years ago). Lastly, and I might get some flack for this, it's fun. Murder is an awful, awful thing, but cinematic violence is shot in a way that I find enjoyable.



Nope. His titles match exactly with those on imdb, so it should remain as The Pianist and Oldboy.



Interesting. I seem to remember you liking this, but thinking it was placed too high on the 21st Century's Greatest Films list. Did things change based on a re-watch? Pity that 21st Century Journey thread never caught on.

And, yes. This was really hard to whittle down to ten.

Great work, but he listed 'The Pianist', not 'The Piano Teacher'. I have to admit, Judah had me going with his boast until he picked Almodovar's worst work since 1996 as his #1 slot. That's like the moment

- With some of the Romanian cinematic love going on around here, I'm surprised that nobody mentioned 'The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu', which is not quite as good as '4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days', but nevertheless, I would say any list that would place the latter on it would likely be inclined to list the former at least one car-length behind it.

- I have to admit, I hate and love Pedro's rationale about 'Cache'. I think for my next Top 100 update I'm going to add 'My Darling Clementine' (an omission from my memory bank of film) in anticipation for how much I'm going to enjoy it in a year *I keed, I keed! Much love for the Pedro*

Uhhh...IMDB doesn't have "the right" name for every movie. They just follow a rigid system of what I believe is the title the movie was originally released as. Look at the Three Colors trilogy: they have two of them titled in French, and one in Polish, just because "White" happened to be released in Poland slightly before it was in France. Their system makes sense, but it doesn't make it "right" or necessarily logical. Therefore I stand by my statement that if you're going to be ostentatious about it, be consistent.



The Pianist was known as Le pianiste in French, as I said. Haneke's The Piano Teacher was La pianiste. If you're going to make fun of someone or correct them, at least make sure you're correct.

Just to add to 'The Girl Next Door'; it plays different notes than the teenage comedy, and is occasionally successful in jarring the audience. It ebbs more than flows, but I would rather see a film like 'The Girl Next Door' over garbage like 'Euro Trip'. It is a conscious stab above the teenage contemporary comedy's ghetto standards.

To James: 'The Pianist' not solely a French film, so therefore why would Judah be required to post the French translation? It is also not spoken in French, so furthermore there is arguably less motivation to list it as a French film. On the other hand, if you have an English speaking version of "Pan's Labyrinth", then you're seeing an alternate version than what was intended. Same for '4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days', 'Bad Education', or 'City Of God'. Your response to Judah seems like a masterpiece of argumentative trifling.

Uhhh....guilty I just found it pretentious and responded immaturely.

As for The Girl Next Door, I found it rather forgettable, but with that old familiar fear of women and their sexuality that I find particularly distasteful.

They were all filmed together in the same principle shooting, they were written as one story even in the scripts, they are one film split into three. There is no difference in style, direction, focus, or intent from any other film in said trilogy.

Meanwhile, with all this argument, I'm off to watch Cache since I picked up a copy

I'll repeat: it was known all along that the LotR films were going to be split into different films. This wasn't an artificial chopping due to some tyrannical producer--it was going to be done all along. They're three films, and if they weren't they would have been released in a single block like Shoah.

Actually it was originally intended for two movies, Jackson wanted to do it as one and him and the studio settled on doing it as all three like the books. It was made as one movie, split into three, intentionally, but still made all together like one.

You'd be surprised.

.

I'm sure others can come up with more elaborate reasons why they liked it, but I liked it because it was something grounded in reality that was completely different to me. I have never been to Brazil and obviously as a result, have never been the slums of the city. From what I've read and seen on TV (and I am making an assumption this film is accurate), the constant horrible happening you refer to are a daily part of life in the city. I found it fascinating that the "gangsters" here are mere children, teenagers for most of the film, then getting younger as the gangwar comes to a climax, and at the very end where you see the group of kids bragging about what they're going to do to so-and-so, all the while brandishing revolvers. There is an amazing story here beyond the visuals, from Rocket trying to get out of the slums to the violent Lil Ze becoming the head of the gangs (I love Leandro Firmino here). I'm not very eloquent when trying to explain why I like the movies I do (there are others here who are very good at that), but after I watched it, I just sat there and said "Wow", the same way after seeing 4 Months, 3 Weeks, Two Days. I knew I had seen something worth seeing and bragging about to others.