Introduction #1-10 #11-20 #21-30 #31-40 #41-50
#51-60 #61-70 #71-80 #81-90 #91-100
See also: Honorable Mention, Other Worthwhile Films, The Worst of the Decade
1. In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000)
2. Moolaadé (Sembene, 2004)
3. Inland Empire (Lynch, 2006)
4. Yi yi (Yang, 2000)
5. Mulholland Dr. (Lynch, 2001)
6. Grizzly Man (Herzog, 2005)
7. Moulin Rouge! (Luhrmann, 2001)
8. Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, 2000)
9. The Best of Youth (Giordana, 2003)
10. Talk to Her (Almodóvar, 2002)
11. Before Sunset (Linklater, 2004)
12. The Beaches of Agnès (Varda, 2008)
13. The Heart of the World (Maddin, 2000)
14. The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003)
15. The New World (Malick, 2005)
16. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001)
17. WALL·E (Stanton, 2008)
18. The Fall (Tarsem, 2006)
19. Syndromes and a Century (Weereasethakul, 2006)
20. City of God (Meirelles, 2002)
21. Ratatouille (Bird, 2007)
22. Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou, 2007)
23. The Intruder (Denis, 2004)
24. You, the Living (Andersson, 2007)
25. In the Loop (Iannucci, 2009)
26. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai, 2003)
27. A Serious Man (Coen Brothers, 2009)
28. Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima (Eastwood, 2006)
29. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Kim, 2003)30. Morvern Callar (Ramsay, 2002)
31. Kings & Queen (Desplechin, 2004)
32. George Washington (Green, 2000)
33. The Man Without a Past (Kaurismäki, 2002)
34. Code Unknown (Haneke, 2000)
35. My Winnipeg (Maddin, 2007)
36. Children of Men (Cuarón, 2006)
37. What Time Is It There? (Tsai, 2001)
38. Full Frontal (Soderbergh, 2002)
39. You Can Count on Me (Lonergan, 2000)
40. Happy-Go-Lucky (Leigh, 2008)
41. 12:08 East of Bucharest (Porumboiu, 2006)
42. Million Dollar Baby (Eastwood, 2004)
43. The Piano Teacher (Haneke, 2001)
44. Three Times (Hou, 2005)
45. No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers, 2007)
46. Y tu mamá también (Cuarón, 2001)
47. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
48. The Little Matchgirl (Allers, 2006)
49. Saraband (Bergman, 2003)
50. Of Time and the City (Davies, 2008)
51. Brokeback Mountain (Lee, 2005)
52. Time Out (Cantet, 2001)
53. Irréversible (Noé, 2002)
54. Coraline (Selick, 2009)
55. There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007)
56. Ocean's Twelve (Soderbergh, 2004)
57. The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Loach, 2006)
58. Finding Nemo (Stanton, 2003)
59. The Limits of Control (Jarmusch, 2009)
60. Vera Drake (Leigh, 2004)
61. Bloody Sunday (Greengrass, 2002)
62. Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001)
63. The Five Obstructions (von Trier and Leth, 2003)
64. A Christmas Tale (Desplechin, 2008)
65. demonlover (Assayas, 2002)
66. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Puiu, 2005)
67. Up (Docter, 2009)
68. The Gleaners and I (Varda, 2000)
69. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Dominik, 2007)
70. Kill Bill, Vol. 1/Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (Tarantino, 2003-'04)71. The Day I Became a Woman (Meshkini, 2000)
72. Blissfully Yours (Weerasethakul, 2002)
73. Monsters, Inc. (Docter, 2001)
74. Songs from the Second Floor (Andersson, 2000)
75. Burn After Reading (Coen Brothers, 2008)
76. Gerry (Van Sant, 2002)
77. The Proposition (Hillcoat, 2005)
78. Russian Ark (Sokurov, 2002)
79. Che: Part One/Che: Part Two (Soderbergh, 2008)
80. Far from Heaven Haynes, 2002)
81. A Time for Drunken Horses (Ghobadi, 2000)
82. Broken Flowers (Jarmusch, 2005)
83. Oldboy (Park, 2003)
84. Amores perros (González Iñárritu, 2000)
85. Man Push Cart (Bahrani, 2005)
86. The Edge of Heaven (Akin, 2007)
87. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Jones, 2005)
88. The Story of Marie and Julien (Rivette, 2003)
89. La ciénaga (Martel, 2001)
90. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Lee, 2000)
91. Summer Hours (Assayas, 2008)
92. War of the Worlds (Spielberg, 2005)
93. Birth (Glazer, 2004)
94. Bad Education (Almodóvar, 2004)
95. Away from Her (Polley, 2006)
96. Batman Begins (Nolan, 2005)
97. Zodiac (Fincher, 2007)
98. The Descent (Marshall, 2005)
99. Millennium Actress (Kon, 2001)
100. Old Joy (Reichardt, 2006)
Totally unrelated, but I think you would appreciate Slate's "What if filmmakers directed the Super Bowl?" video.
ReplyDeleteI have seen it and loved it, but thanks still for passing it on.
ReplyDeleteTo nobody's surprise, I am loving this list..........
ReplyDelete(Each dot represents a megajoule of anticipation for #1-#80)
For some reason, I feel that I only have to say things to you about Disney and atrociously bad films I've somehow discovered, but after having seen Titanic for the first time tonight (yes, I know), a friend pointed me in the direction of this little crime against art, which made me think of you, because it involves animation. Really, really, really bad animation, but animation nonetheless. So I was curious as to whether or not you were aware of its existence.
ReplyDeleteMeg: I recall hearing something about "animated Titanic with mice" years ago, but I never really pursued it. Now, thanks to you and YouTube,I feel compelled to track it down right now - especially before I finish up my Worst of the Decade list next week.
ReplyDeleteFor the statistically-minded, here are some details:
ReplyDeleteNumber of entries by year
2000: 13
2001: 11
2002: 12
2003: 10
2004: 11
2005: 12
2006: 10
2007: 9
2008: 8
2009: 5
(Note that this adds to 101 entries; the Kill Bill films were released in 2003 and 2004, but only took up one slot on the list)
Two filmmakers/teams each had three entries on the list: the Coen brothers and Steven Soderbergh. One could also argue for Clint Eastwood, who had three films divided across two entries.
19 directors had two entries on the list: Pedro Almodóvar (one in the top 10), Roy Andersson, Olivier Assayas, Alfonso Cuarón, Arnaud Desplechin, Pete Docter, Clint Eastwood, Michael Haneke, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, Mike Leigh, David Lynch (both in the top 10), Guy Maddin, Steven Spielberg, Andrew Stanton, Tsai Ming-Liang, Agnès Varda, and Apichatpong Weereasethakul.
4 directors who made multiple films in this decade (two, in every case) were represented on the list by both: Roy Andersson, Pete Docter, David Lynch, and Andrew Stanton.
Going by the primary language spoken in the film - since "country of origin" is a misleading and difficult criterion to evaluate - there are:
-51 English-language films
-14 French films
-6 Spanish films (2 from Spain, 2 from Mexico, 1 from Argentina, and Che)
-6 from a broadly-defined "Chinese" group (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese; none of these are as-such "Chinese" films though some are Chinese co-productions)
-3 Swedish films
-2 each: Japanese, Korean, Romanian, Thai
-2 Iranian films (one Persian, one Kurdish)
-1 each: Bambara, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, German
-There are 2 silent films: one Canadian with English intertitles, one American with no intertitles (but credits in English)
The first film to premiere was You Can Count on Me, on 21 January, 2000 at the Sundance Film Festival; the last was A Serious Man, which premiered on 12 September, 2009 at the Toronto International Film Festival - 3522 days later.
The list was already delightful and thought-provoking even before this hidden, glorious bouquet to the statistically minded. Easter eggs!
ReplyDeleteI really need to get moving with Moolaadé and The Best of Youth and give Yi yi another whirl.
I love your list Tim but I am terribly disappointed you didn't include the wonderful Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro. :(
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I have no complaints. x
I realize you posted this years ago, and may not even read this comment, but that fact that Ghost World, which was by a large margin the best movie I saw from the decade, and one of the 5 or 6 best movies I have ever seen, isn't even on your list boggles my mind.
ReplyDelete