Top 101 Films of the Decade

I initially resisted the idea of doing one of these 'Best of' lists, simply because it felt too hard to settle on an arbitary number and nominate the best films from the last ten years, let alone rank them. I worry that I've forgotten some that should've made the list, and I also worry about the films I haven't seen yet and whether they might be more deserving of a place. I also worry about the predominance of American and other English-speaking films... I do try to watch as many 'foreign' language films as possible, but they don't always find their way to me as quickly and often as American films. So with all this in mind (and mentioned as fast as possible so I can start with a clean slate and just get on with it) here are my Top 101 films from the last decade (2000-2009). And no, they aren't really in any order other than alphabetical.


24 Hour Party People
There have been more than a few music biopics over the last few years (Ray, Walk the Line, Cadillac Records) but 24 Hour Party People would have to be the most inventive and dynamic of the lot of them. We're told the story of Factory Records and it's association with the Manchester music scene throughout the 70s, 80s and early 90s, a story told through the eyes of Tony Wilson - the journalist who started said record label. Wilson is boorish, obnoxious and arrogant, and is played by Steve Coogan in Alan Partridge-mode (it's probably one of the only film roles yet to make use of him successfully). The music history it covers is fascinating ground in itself, but the film also goes out of it's way to show the events in all their gritty, amusingly horrifying glory - often addressing the audience directly to acknowledge unresolvable inconsistencies or aspects that have been purposely glossed over, and hence maintaining a higher level of objectivity than is usually achievable in a film covering this kind of subject matter. It also brings to life some great music and has a fun time doing it.


300
Michael Bay-apologists will often use phrases like 'popcorn-entertainment' and 'spectacle' when trying to justify the existence of films like Transformers and Bad Boys II, but really, why should a film sacrifice every other aspect of it's being just to look pretty and frenetic? The film 300 is ten times the spectacle of the majority of mindless action films and is also every bit as gung-ho and ridiculously masculine without feeling like a waste of space. It also ramps the freak factor up to 11, has fun with it's cheesy dialogue and chest-thumping theatrics, and manages to take an already amazing piece of ancient history and turn it into something so astoundingly perverse and adrenalin-soaked that I felt like I'd been dragged through battle with the Spartans themselves. 300 takes the sword-and-sandal epic and dropkicks it into the stratosphere, making Michael Bay look like a director for the Hallmark channel.


Adaptation
The layers of brilliance and meta-brilliance automatically ensured this movie a place on my GREATEST MOVIES EVER list. It's got a great double-performance from Nic Cage as a pair of chubby, jewfro-sporting twins (and I say that as someone who isn't really that big a fan of Cage), and possibly the greatest film script of all time. The fact that it's a movie about the writer of the actual movie trying to adapt a biographical book into a movie is enough fuel for awesomeness in itself, but there is so much more going on in this movie that makes it worth your time. Chris Cooper won a Supporting Academy Award for his unexpectedly sympathetic performance as a toothless orchid-thief, and Meryl Streep is also great in it too. Heck, even if I had never seen this movie, I think it's original theatrical trailer (complete with it's use of the song Under Pressure) would make it worthy of my Top 101.


Almost Famous
Writer-Director Cameron Crowe has made a handful of drama-orientated films over the last two decades. Almost Famous is his most personal effort, being based on his own teenage experiences as a budding rock journalist for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s. It's a film charmingly devoid of angst or bitterness, and presents a realistic enough picture of idealised 70s hard rock to give the film a genuine feeling of elated nostalgia. For anyone who is even slightly a fan of bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and the Rolling Stones, this movie will provide some very easy entertainment. For everyone else, it's Oscar-winning script and heartfelt performances should make up the difference.


Amelie
A wonderful film of imagination and small triumphs. The whimsy and joy of European films doesn't always seem to translate for western audiences, but Amelie strikes a chord that transcends culture and makes you fall in love with the central character and her schemes. The film also happens to be immensely witty, endearing, and very pretty to look at. This is one of the films that I challenge all the scrooges not to like!


American Splendour
This is a big film about a little guy, intercutting a dramatisation of the life of underground American comic writer Harvey Pekar (played by Paul Giamatti) with a talking head of the real man himself, achieving a layer of metatextuality to match the biographical comic strip it's based on. In previous decades adapting a comic book to film meant putting a superhero on the screen, but in the early 00s we began to see the possibilities of bringing these two mediums together (other early examples include Road to Perdition and Ghost World). American Splendour is a wonderfully curmudgeonly ride through the mind and life of a strange and largely unremarkable man. A lot of it's odd charm can be attributed to Paul Giamatti's glowering performance, and the inclusion of the real life Pekar throughout the film only serves to highlight just how accurate Giamatti is.


Anchorman
After the slapstick and cringe-humour orientated reigns of the previous kings of the comedic box office (Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller, respectively) had started to lose their flavour, it was open season for Will Ferrell to usher in a return to the Saturday Night Live-styled comedy of the 80s and early 90s. Ferrell had been kicking around as a supporting player in comedy films for a while, but his own special brand of intellect-deficient childishness didn't find the right vehicle until Anchorman, a comedy throwback that gave itself room to buck political correctness by running riot in a misogynist 1970s setting and hence struck a goldmine of easy laughs. Every film Ferrell has made since feels like a poor imitation of Anchorman.


Anvil: The Story of Anvil
There are two ways to take this documentary about an obscure 80s metal band that refuses to die. One way is to view them as losers who refuse to accept the reality that their band isn't famous. The other way is to see them as people who love music so much that they refuse to let their dreams die no matter what. I prefer to see Anvil as the second of these options, I think it's actually an inspirational movie and I've never wanted to see two people succeed as much as I wanted Lips and Robb to. This movie will prompt frustration, sadness, hope and laughter as you revisit 80s hair metal and an incredible story about the harsh reality of 'living the dream'. Full review here.


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The western genre has all but disappeared since it's heyday in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, but every now and again someone will take the concept and do something so fresh and bold with it that it stands like a shining beacon of hope in an all too barren film wilderness. This is an amazing piece of art that takes a well-known piece of western history and tells a whole new story from the viewpoint of a much-villified man - the titular Robert Ford (played here by Casey Affleck, who surprised just about everyone with his impressively unsympathetic turn as an incredibly weak outlaw). The ethereal train robbery sequence near the film's beginning had me hooked for the duration, and it was a travesty that this film wasn't more recognised during the 2007 Academy Awards.


Australian Rules
Based on the teen-aimed novel Deadly, Unna? this is a coming-of-age drama about race-relations between whites and Aborigines in outback Australia. The film's title has a double-meaning, referring both to Australian Rules Football (around which part of the film's plot is based) and the unsaid hypocrisies that govern small town interactions between blacks and whites in rural Australia. Nathan Phillips (better known for Snakes on a Plane and Wolf Creek) came to prominence thanks to his standout performance here as Gary Black, the central character who finds himself torn between the town's bigotry and his own instincts, and the film itself is a worthy and untinted view of Australian culture.


Billy Elliot
This film came out towards the end of a whole wave of British feel-good movies inspired by the success of The Full Monty. What sets Billy Elliot apart from it's wannabe-peers is that it doesn't cheapen the drama with bawdy jokes and easy small-town caricatures, making it's victories feel all the sweeter in the face of the all-too real adversities the mining-town characters must deal with. The central idea itself - blokey coal-miner's son wants to be a dancer - could've gone very wrong in a cliched, too-many-gay-jokes kind of way, but the film actually makes it work and I don't think it's any real surprise that it was examined as a part of the NSW English school syllabus for a while.


Borat
I'm surprised by how ignored this film is when it comes to the 'Best of' lists doing the rounds at the moment. I don't think the importance of this movie can really be underestimated - no one has come close to exploiting the reality TV generation as cleverly as Sacha Baron Cohen. Borat exists in a curious space halfway between a conventional comedy film and a Michael Moore-esque documentary/expose. The rise of neo-conservatism in the western world has become somewhat disturbing over the years and it was an incredibly vindicating feeling to watch bigotry and jingoism get taken down a peg or two by Cohen's marvellously crass devil's advocate, Borat. There are so many layers to what he is doing in this film, and for me it exists at the absolute forefront of modern satire and envelope-pushing comedy.


Burn After Reading
The Coen brothers have had an interesting decade, going through a rather dead patch with Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers and then recapturing critical glory with the more recent No Country For Old Men. Burn After Reading is an even greater return to form yet, recapturing the smirking humour of their quirk-noir classics The Big Lebowski and Fargo, and exhibiting a similarly unpredictable plot that trains it's mocking eye on a twilight view of secret intelligence. John Malkovich is perfectly cast as a bitter ex-operative on the wrong end of quite possibly the stupidest blackmail attempt ever committed to film, and Brad Pitt is all kinds of dumb fun as an out-of-his-depth gym trainer (proving once again how much more suited he is to left-field supporting roles rather than boring leading roles).


Children of Men
Dystopian peaks into the near-future are pretty much a standard these days, simply because it's the cheap and seemingly done-thing when it comes to modern sci-fi (Minority Report, Code 46, Paycheck, etc, etc). Children of Men stands alone amongst this ongoing slew partially due to the crisp and frightening vision of director Alfonso Cuaron, and partially due to it's origins as a stand-alone novel by P. D. James (a celebrated crime novelist and British baroness, in other words - someone from outside the science-fiction genre). Rather than the usual fears of an escalating lack of privacy or freedom of choice, Children of Men takes our current climate of neo-conservatism and anti-terrorism laws and creates a familiar world of sterility and villification. Instead of the usual shiny, Blade Runner-esque future we're instead given a world so realistically in tune with our own that the jaw-dropping action sequences and special effects feel 100% real and not a product of the Hollywood "wow"-factor.


Chopper
Mark 'Chopper' Read is a larrikin-ish ex-criminal who has made a name for himself in Australia through his talents as a humourous storyteller, and it could also be fairly said that he has had a considerable hand in the glorification of Australian gangland culture. Andrew Domink made his debut as a director with this adaptation of Mark Read's autobiographical novels, choosing to base the film directly on the complex character of Mark Read himself rather than focusing on a linear strand of events from his life. Read has often said that you should "never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn", and with this in mind Chopper avoids inviting too much direct commentary on Mark Read's exploits by putting his macabre and gregarious personality in close up, amusing and scaring the audience in equal doses and making it pretty clear that this isn't a bloke you would really want to be mates with. Chopper is also the only movie that Eric Bana has ever been any good in.


City of God
A captivatingly kinetic vision of gangster-life in the slums of Brazil, as told through the eyes of two boys growing to be men under very different vocations. One chooses to try and make a life for himself as a photographer, and the other seeks power and success by becoming a drug dealer, and through them we view the scant opportunities afforded children in such poverty-stricken circumstances. City of God is a one-of-a-kind experience that imprints a glorified genre onto a third world stage, exposing the bulk of American and British gangster films to be somewhat hollow and superficial by comparison.


The Counterfeiters
This German-made film recounts the holocaust experience through the eyes of Salomon Sorowitsch, an expert counterfeiter who must tread a fine line between collaborating with the Nazis and surviving the war. It's a simple story well told, and hence it runs loops around the various Hollywood holocaust-related films of the last decade. It also happens to be based on a true story, proving the maxim that truth is often stranger than fiction, with Austrian-born Karl Markovics giving an intense central performance that does well to ground the experience for the viewer without resorting to cliched theatrics. This is a classy film, and gives the subject matter the non-Oscar-baiting treatment it deserves. Full review here.


Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ang Lee seemingly inspired a whole wave of gorgeously-photographed Chinese wushu-films made for the western market (Hero, The House of Flying Daggers) with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and for my money it's certainly the best. You want jawdropping martial arts? This movie has it. You want an engaging story treated in a serious manner? This movie has that, too. For years Asian cinema has largely appealed to western audiences with either low-brow orientated action (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, etc) or high-brow orientated art (Akira Kurosawa, Wong Kar-Wai, etc), but very rarely have the two come together in a way as easily accessible as Ang Lee's tale of yearning, equality and adventure. This movie also gets included in this list for the fight on top of the bamboo stalks.


The Dark Knight
I'm kind of burnt out on hearing fanboys and fangirls talk about this movie, but that doesn't stop the movie itself from being Grade A stuff. I think what makes The Dark Knight stand out amongst other superhero films is that it's actually about something, as opposed to just being a protracted face off between the hero and the villain (and their various issues). It's more than a tad unfortunate that the level of buzz attached to Heath Ledger's mesmerising portrayal of the Joker tends to draw attention away from the Harvey Dent 'sub'-plot and it's themes of idealism and corruption. Director Christopher Nolan set out to create a version of Batman that is as grounded in reality as much as it can possibly be. I'm sure this rubs more than a few fans the wrong way, but the fact remains that The Dark Knight appeals to people not usually interested in grown men leaping about in undies and capes because it's actually a real movie that has something to say and it goes about this in a credible fashion.


The Departed
I think everyone secretly knew that all it would take for Martin Scorcese to finally win that Best Director Oscar was for him to make another gangster film. The Departed feels not too far removed from his previous gangster classics, Casino and Goodfellas (minus their voiceovers), and works as an epic undercover saga that escalates the stakes until a final bursting point. I know this film drew some criticism simply because it was based on a recent Asian film, Infernal Affairs, but I think it's every bit the improvement/equal as A Fistful of Dollars is to Yojimbo. I actually prefer The Departed to the Hong Kong original simply because Scorcese and his talented cast pour a lot more soul into it. Infernal Affairs felt far too simplistic and dry to me, and whilst The Departed is set over a shorter period it actually manages to convey the passing of time in a more effective manner.


District 9
Anyone who is even the slightest fan of science-fiction should see this film as soon as possible. Special effects wiz Neil Blomkamp directs for the first time here and manages to squeeze such a huge and expensive looking film out of a relatively small budget, seamlessly bringing to life a race of insect-like aliens amongst the garbage slums of South Africa. There is so much to recommend this film... not only does it offer a bold new perspective for science-fiction simply by virtue of being produced in South Africa, it also uses a documentary-like style to catch the viewer offguard and make this scenario 100% believable before launching into an adrenalin-pumping chain of events. You will be visually astounded, and perhaps more than a little sympathetic to the relevant social commentary that makes this film more important than your usual sci-fi gloss piece. Full review here.


Donnie Darko
A lot of Donnie Darko coasts by on a big kick of 80s nostalgia, but (somewhat ironically) it probably remains one of the most iconic films of this decade. Director Richard Kelly mixes a variety of genres to create a one-of-a-kind 'cult' classic... Donnie Darko is equal parts slacker comedy, serious indie drama, and ambiguous science fiction. Referencing films as diverse and influential as The Last Temptation of Christ and The Karate Kid, and featuring an almost embarrassingly 'emo' performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, this film (probably more than any other on this list) speaks for the 2000-2009 generation. The amazingly dark humour and Patrick Swayze's surprising supporting role wins it for me.


Downfall
Well, it only took the best part of sixty years, but finally the world was given a film where Hitler wasn't characterised as an inhuman monster. It's always bothered me that Hitler was very much made into a supervillain whenever he showed up in films before this... it was like we were all washing our hands of his mistakes by saying "This man was abnormal, he was unthinkably evil". Admitting that he was a human being tainted by human flaws is the first step in evolving beyond a world that can allow such atrocities, and Downfall is a masterpiece because it dares to examine the man as if he were a real person. And he was a real person, and this film is all the more chilling for it.


Dreamgirls
I didn't really expect to like this movie but it's Motown-esque story and songs won me over completely, with the script using a few keynotes from music history to craft an energetic picture that charts the rises and falls of some recognisable though slightly-fictional star musicians from the 50s, 60s and 70s. The songs are all spot-on, and Dreamgirls also features two standout supporting performances - a stunning breakout tour-de-force from American Idol finalist Jennifer Hudson as a put-upon would-be diva, and a surprisingly moving portrayal of a James Brown/Marvin Gaye-like character by Eddie Murphy.


Eagle Vs. Shark
A lot of people unfavourably compared this New Zealand indie comedy to Napoleon Dynamite, but I think Eagle Vs. Shark is actually the better film as it has quite a big heart underneath it's awkward comedy stylings. A big part of this film's charm lies in the performances of Jermaine Clement and Loren Horsley as the two hapless lovers transported to a small New Zealand seaside town when Clement's character decides to exact violent retribution upon the Samoan bully who terrorised his childhood. Horsley's character is so unconventionally adorable that you can't help but cheer for her, and Clement is hilariously childish and selfish as the mullet-sporting man of her dreams.


Eastern Promises
David Cronenberg is one of those rare directors who seems to be getting infinitely better with age. Who knew that the twisted Canadian genius who brought us such body horror classics as Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly had it in him to craft such a focused, brutal, enigmatic gangster masterpiece like Eastern Promises. The Russian mafia folklore, Viggo Mortensen's mesmerising performance, and Cronenberg's outsider's eye for the British locations all combine to make this the best gangster film of the last ten years.


Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Jim Carrey in serious mode. Kate Winslet as the quirky, complicated punk-chic girlfriend. Charlie Kaufman delivering another brain-breakingly clever and multi-layered script. Kate Winslet's undies. What isn't there to like about this movie? This has very little to do with this list, but I actually embarked on a one-man letter campaign to get my local Hoyts Movie theatre to play this movie. They initially told me that people in Penrith weren't interested in movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I badgered them enough for it to eventually get a limited showing. It was worth the effort.


Finding Nemo
Anyone who didn't include this in their list would have to have a heart of stone. Pixar started out really decently with Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. but I think they truly hit their stride with Finding Nemo, the loveliest, most-breathtaking and brightly-coloured adventure of heartstealing proportions to ever be put to pixel. I challenge the scrooges of the world to not smile at the character of Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) at least once, or to not feel for Marlin's (voiced by Albert Brooks) worriesome quest to find Nemo. Aside from being a tremendous and beautifully-rendered adventure, Finding Nemo is also a story about friendship and having faith. These themes could easily have felt hokey or cliched, but Pixar have a well-deserved reputation for representing such home truths in a credible and genuine fashion, and their refusal to go for easy pop-culture related laughs has ensured that Finding Nemo remains undated and uncheapened (unlike, say, the entire animated output of Dreamworks).


Frost/Nixon
I was absolutely glued to the screen for the duration of this film. Ron Howard is probably best described as an accomplished but workman-like director, but this is easily leagues ahead of any other film he has ever made. This cagey recreation of the historic post-Watergate interview between the disgraced but unapologetic Richard Nixon and British lightweight David Frost is a tense and masterfully-acted dual. We watch as two very intelligent opponents circle each other, with each playing for self-perceived high stakes - one for his career, the other for his reputation. Neither looks much like their real-life counterpart, but Michael Sheen and Frank Langella put in such magnificently observed performances that you forget it's nothing other than the real thing.


Gangs of New York
For me, this was an absolute return to form for Scorcese. I know there are people out there in filmfanland who didn't dig it because of DiCaprio's accent or the Hamlet-like plot, but I felt that Scorcese was able to combine a engaging graphic novel-like tone with a wealth of themes related to the formation of the American character and New York's early history. All that aside though, this movie could just be two and a half hours of Daniel Day-Lewis strutting around and tapping his glass eye with a knife and it would still be Top 101 material. Full review here.


Gettin' Square
Okay, so this movie is a bit derivative of Two Hands and Guy Ritchie's gangster movies, but how can anyone hate anything as fun and entertaining as this? Gettin' Square takes a twist-heavy plot of Lock, Stock-like proportions and ties it up amongst the seedy underbelly of Autralia's Gold Coast. It also throws in a great soundtrack, a pre-fame Sam Worthington exhibiting the effortless charm that no doubt led him to Hollywood, and David Wenham as the funniest thong-wearing junkie to ever appear on celluloid. For some people Wenham will be the only reason to watch this movie, and his courtroom scene would have to go down as one of the all-time great Australian film moments - perhaps even outshining the movie around it.


Gladiator
"What we do in life echoes in eternity!" Ridley Scott's remake of The Fall of the Roman Empire and one-man revival of the historical epic has a lot to answer for (I personally could've done without King Arthur, Alexander and Troy) but as a film on it's own Gladiator is a flawless piece of adventure and excitement that utilised cutting edge technologies usually reserved for science fiction. Russell Crowe made some great acting choices in his portrayal of Maximus, choosing to employ old school stoicism and machismo over Oscar-bait emoting, and through this he managed to help recapture the rousing spirit of the 50s and 60s sword-and-sandal epics to which this film owes so much.


Hairspray
I have to confess that I haven't seen John Waters' original version of this film. This version however struck me as immensely enjoyable and everything a musical should be... it has a lot of great songs that pay homage to the period the film is set in, it combines the civil rights movement with one incredibly perky and rotund girl's coming of age, and everything about it just screams out FUN! without selling short the film's themes. It also has John Travolta as a fat suburban housewife married to Christopher Walken - how could you not like that?


Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Prisoner of Azkaban would have to be the best of the Harry Potter films to date... the powers-that-be behind Harry Potter wisely decided to let Mexican auteur Alfonso Cuaron have a crack at the franchise after previous director Chris Columbus had delivered two colourful but rather superficial entries in the series. The result is quite astounding, and not entirely for kids. Prisoner of Azkaban's influence on the rest of the Harry Potter film series shouldn't be underestimated, and it remains the tightest and best executed in the franchise.



High Fidelity
This is the best film that John Cusack has ever been involved with. This is the best that Jack Black has ever been, ever. This is also the best film adapted from a book by Nick Hornby, even though the setting was changed from London to Chicago. I can't say enough how much I love this movie, so I guess that's why it's in this list. It must be hard trying to come up with new angles on love stories, but High Fidelity manages to do it with flying colours and more than a few resplendent Top 5s that amuse and impress. It's worth watching if only for Jack Black singing the line "Angina sucks", and his rendition of Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On.


A History of Violence
Viggo Mortensen is incredibly well cast as the enigmatic Tom Stall, a small town diner owner who recieves the unwelcome attentions of a scary-looking gangster (Ed Harris) after inadvertently getting his face on the news. Director David Cronenberg delivers a taut multi-layered thriller that explores the very concept of violence and what it's for, using the character of Tom Stall to show the division between what may or may not be acceptable in regards to the use of violence. Mortensen is just so damned interesting to watch in this, it's easy to see why Cronenberg decided to work with him again for Eastern Promises. A History of Violence calls to mind all the classics of the genre - Unforgiven, Straw Dogs, Death Wish - and deserves it's place as a worthy continuation of our ongoing fascination with physical brutality and revenge.


The Host
This Korean monster movie blends comedy, horror and action to create an exhilarating and air-punching ride where a pollution-bred creature wreaks havoc alongside the Han river in Seoul. This film can also be viewed as the missing link between Godzilla and Cloverfield, with the latter film's background elements and concepts seeming to be lifted directly from The Host (the quarantine/medical horror aspect comes immediately to mind). The Host also features an unusually-designed monster and an interesting anti-American subtext in regards to U.S. military negligence in South Korea, and is just an all-round entertaining movie.


Hot Fuzz
It was always going to be hard for Wright, Frost and Pegg to follow up Shaun of the Dead. Audience expectations were very high, so it would've forgiveable for them not to even bother trying. I'm very glad they gave it a shot though, as Hot Fuzz does for the police-action genre what Shaun of the Dead did for zombies. The reason why Hot Fuzz is so enjoyable is that it isn't so much a parody of cop films but more a cheeky, meta-textual homage to why cop films can be so great. Awesomeness includes, but isn't restricted to, a great appearance from Timothy Dalton as the sleazy owner of the local supermarket, the initial tension between the cop characters played by Pegg and Frost, the numerous references to Point Break and The Wicker Man, and the fact that all the films crazy shenanigans take place in a rather sleepy-looking village in the British countryside.



The Hurt Locker
Probably the best war film of the decade in terms of having something new to say. The Hurt Locker takes the premise of war as a drug for adrenalin junkies and runs with it, building a concise and realistic picture with a series of escalatingly tense action set pieces in post-Saddam Iraq. Most importantly, The Hurt Locker is effective due to it's ring of authenticity - everything about it implies a high level of research, and for all the film's excitement it never once feels artificial or contrived. Filmmakers in the past have always been keen to point out that war is hell, but few dare to suggest that we might enjoy it. Another masterpiece for the Top 101 list. Full review here.


I Heart Huckabees
Existensialism is a concept usually reserved for ponderous art films, but here it becomes unexpected grounds for a life-affirming indie comedy. Featuring a whole host of great actors and actresses doing interesting things (standouts include Mark Wahlberg as an environment-conscious fireman, and Dustin Hoffman as an existensial detective with a Beatles haircut), I Heart Huckabees is a bold and daring attempt to connect with the audience directly in regards to the meaning of life itself. Against all odds, it largely succeeds at this simply by virtue of being very funny - no doubt due to the wide range of talent involved and the fact that this is material seldom mined for laughs.


In Bruges
A crisp, flavoursome action-comedy that combines the energy and catchy dialogue of early Tarantino with the emotional depth of something more akin to Luc Besson's Leon. In Bruges starts out like any other flashy, modern hitman actioner with it's entertaining swearing and twisted humour, but from here it swings into a grander territory of tragedy and trauma - creating a memorable experience elevated far above it's contemporaries. After years of dud films and performances that failed to connect, Colin Farrell finally comes good on the potential so many big name directors evidently saw in him. He's very funny in this, and he gains your sympathy despite the many flaws in his character. Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes (a pair of talented actors too often relegated to small or uninteresting roles) are also given some great quality material to work with, and are a joy to watch as a result.


Inglourious Basterds
Tarantino's long awaited war epic is every bit as solid and dynamic as his Kill Bill films, employing a typically Tarantino-like narrative structure in order to skip all the boring bits and just present us with a 'greatest hits' version of the WWII story he wants to tell. I couldn't help but laugh my arse off when Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) claims to be the basterd most suited to impersonate an Italian and then makes absolutely no effort to modify his thick southern accent. Austrian actor Christoph Waltz is mesmerising as the silky, villainous 'Jew Hunter' and it's easy to see why Tarantino gave him so much screen and script-time. Inglourious Basterds is a big bag of Nazi-killing fun, the perfect antidote to all those ponderous war films that get made year after year. Full review here.


Japanese Story
Every year in Australia our film industry pumps out low-key drama films that are artistically qualitive but all-too deficient in entertainment. The critics and Australian Film Institute Awards shower them in accolades but very few members of the public actually go to see them. Another key factor of these films is that they often feature an Australian actor or actress who has made it big in America and has come home to make a one-off artsy Aussie film to help the homeland industry and generally be a big fish in a little pond. Examples of this include Candy, Little Fish, Romulus My Father and The Black Balloon. What I believe to be an exception to the rule though is Japanese Story, a stark and minimalistic tale about cultural difference and attraction in the Australian outback. Toni Collette gives an intensely realistic performance as a hardened geologist engineered into a situation where she must guide a standoffish Japanese businessman around the unforgiving landscape of central Australia, and the romance aspect of the film is more about character interaction than appealing to the audience. Much has been made about Australian films using the landscape to good effect, and the fact that it becomes almost as much a central character in Japanese Story is more a truism than a cliche.


Jarhead
Audiences generally haven't been very interested in films about the Gulf War, and Jarhead wasn't really an exception. If there was any natural successor to the anti-establishment vigour of war films such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket though, then Jarhead was it. Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) brought his wry eye to bear on a war without an easily definable battlefield and created some of the most striking and unique imagery to ever be put to film for the genre (most specifically in the scene featuring the burning oil fields), and used Anthony Swofford's real-life memoirs to accurately recreate the soldiers' experience in all it's humour, boredom and fear.


Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino's two-part ode to eastern cinema and the spaghetti western is broken down into bite-sized pieces of assorted flavours, and I enjoyed every single morsel. Tarantino's trademark dialogue initially seems overly-restrained in comparison to his earlier films, but it's actually more an economy of words that balances against the action set pieces - allowing for a very accessible rhythm that the director is able to impressively sustain for over 4 hours. The soundtrack is also an absolute knockout... I haven't watched either volume of Kill Bill for quite some time, but even now I can hear the music in my head as the camera zooms in on the Bride (Uma Thurman). I think Kill Bill may eventually turn out to be Tarantino's magnum opus.


The King of Kong
I could never have anticipated how fired up this movie would get me over a Donkey Kong tournament. This is a documentary of Rocky-like proportions that tells the story of Steve Wiebe, a down-on-his-luck family man who decides to follow his dream in trying to break the Donkey Kong high-score record. This pits him against Billy Mitchell, self-styled entrepreneur and long-time record holder... the tough-talking Mr. T to Wiebe's Stallone in Rocky 3. I couldn't give two craps about the world of Donkey Kong high scores, but never have I wanted to see someone get beaten as much as Billy Mitchell... the man's egotistical posturing is downright hysterical, and the fawning Donkey Kong sycophants that live off his vapour are amazing just because they exist.


Kinsey
It was a crime that Liam Neeson didn't get a Best Actor nomination for his delicate portrayal of groundbreaking sexologist Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey is a biographical film that stands out for it's honest approach to it's subject material, reflecting Kinsey's real life studies of sexuality by seeking to document the truth of this story in a clinical and non-judgmental fashion. Aside from Neeson in the title role, the film also boasts an ensemble of hugely underrated actors including Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, Laura Linney, William Sadler, Oliver Platt and Dylan Baker, who all treat their roles with brave and unguarded commitment. In this increasingly conservative era Kinsey is a timely exploration of a taboo but relevant topic, and I think it's worth it's place on this list simply because it was the best possible film that could've been made about the Kinsey report.


Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
This hugely underrated action-comedy deserves points if only for bringing Robert Downey Jr.'s career back from the dead. I'm yet to meet anyone who has seen this film and not loved it, so if you haven't seen it yet then you really need to. Director Shane Black is probably best known for writing the Lethal Weapon movies, but here he combines his action-film credentials with a film noir form and sasses it up to the ninth degree by hilariously ripping apart all of the cliches of the genre. Throw in Val Kilmer as a no-nonsense hardnosed gay detective and you have an instant classic.


Knocked Up
Director Judd Apatow rejuvenated film comedy with The 40 Year Old Virgin, but for my money it's Knocked Up that truly cemented his worth. Combining gross-out laughs with genuine moments of dramatic clarity, this is a movie that purports to be a great movie first and a good comedy second. Most of all, you care about this movie because you care about the characters... Katherine Heigl comes across so sweetly that you can't help but feel sorry for her when she realises she has just been made pregnant by an unemployed pot-smoking illegal immigrant played by Seth Rogen. Also, let's not forget that this is the movie that gave the world Seth Rogen as a leading man. If Rogen can carry a film then there's just about hope for everyone, and I say that in the nicest possible way - never before has a movie superstar felt so much like 'one of us'.


Kung Fu Hustle
I had no concept whatsoever of how Stephen Chow was going to follow up his hilariously manic previous film, Shaolin Soccer. This movie is pretty much in the same style but bigger - it's completely and utterly bonkers, and brilliantly and inadvertently captures all the madness of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Kung Fu Hustle is about gang wars in 1940s Shanghai, and references classic Chinese wushu films about similar subjects - with Chow using his growing clout as a filmmaker to enlist the services of several retired Hong Kong film legends. Kung Fu Hustle also features some absolutely stunning, big-scale fight sequences and is probably the only film you'll ever see where a villain fights in the style of a deadly bullfrog.


The Last Samurai
Historical action films like The Last Samurai are a dime-a-dozen at the box office, their popularity constantly rising and waning decade after decade. We've seen our fair share of poor attempts this decade, but The Last Samurai deserves a place on this list because it manages to get everything right and is immensely enjoyable as a result. Tom Cruise-haters will cite his presence as a reason not to watch it... they might even attempt to label the film as racist simply because it features a white lead in an historical Japanese setting, but I think this line of thinking detracts from the film's charm as the latest example in a long line of classic Hollywood adventure films, a descendent of classics like Braveheart, Dances With Wolves, Spartacus, El Cid, etc, etc.


Let the Right One In
Best vampire movie ever. It would be quite easy to overlook a film like this during the current Twilight-led vampire craze, but that would be a huge shame as this is an immensely creepy and atmospheric tale of murder and friendship in the endlessly dark winter of Sweden. Let the Right One In takes the hallmarks of vampire lore and bleaches them in an explosive realism that generates a whole new level of fascination on the part of the audience, and makes some interesting suggestions about the parasitical relationships a real life vampire might need to form in order to survive. This is just about as far away as you can get from Dracula, Buffy and Twilight. Full review here.


The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Of all Bill Murray's celebrated 'comeback' films I don't think he's never been better utilised than in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic. I love everything about this movie... the Portuguese David Bowie songs, the stop-motion underwater creatures, the interrelated cast of quirky characters played by a whole range of underrated and unsung actors (Willem Dafoe, Noah Taylor, Angelica Huston, Bud Cort, Jeff Goldblum), the homage to Jacques Cousteau, etc, etc. Most of all, I love the story. Some of Wes Anderson's films fall a little flat for me, but The Life Aquatic is such a beautiful piece of work about love and loss that not even Anderson's tongue-in-cheek style can do it harm.


Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine represents, for me, a point in film history where the indie comedy coalesced with award-worthy drama. Not many films can truly lay claim to making the audience both laugh and cry, but Little Miss Sunshine can probably count itself amongst this small pool of films, and it makes use of a perceptive script and a great ensemble cast to become something more than the sum of it's parts. Alan Arkin's dirty old grandpa character feels so disturbingly right, Greg Kinnear is smugly suitable for his role as the would-be self-help guru taken down a peg or two, and Abigail Breslin gives a charming breakout performance as the titular character.


The Lord of the Rings
It isn't an understatement to call this the blockbuster of the decade. Who could ever guess that a relatively unknown director from New Zealand would get to adapt the most popular modern book ever written, and that he would get to do it in exactly the way he envisioned. So much could've gone wrong with The Lord of the Rings, but Peter Jackson and his cast and crew of thousands managed to defy the odds and filmed the Best Possible Version that could ever have been made of the much-loved novels. Jackson ruthlessly cut what needed to be cut, trimmed back on the more coddish and dated lines of dialogue, and helped pioneer groundbreaking special effects all whilst remaining true to the essence and feel of Tolkein's epic trilogy. Peter Jackson did for the 2000s what George Lucas did for the 1970s and 1980s with Star Wars and created an event franchise that entertained an entire generation, and as an added bonus he also did it in a flawless enough fashion to even convince the critics and awards-masters that this was the real deal.


Mean Girls
It would be easy to write Mean Girls off as just another teen movie starring Lindsey Lohan, but that would be missing the point entirely. That Mean Girls looks and feels like a typical film from this genre is part of the reason for it's success. It seeks to explore and expose a mode of bullying behaviour in females that is too often treated frivolously by those who don't experience it - to not recognise the importance of this film is to not recognise the importance of the problem it examines. It's a fun and girlish movie that should hopefully go some way towards educating it's audience, and if it isn't already being shown to students in high schools they should start showing it right now.


Memento
Christopher Nolan's directorial debut probably remains his most inventive film. This could be put down to it's unusual structure (telling it's story in reverse), but it goes even deeper than this. Most films would take an inspired narrative device like this and flaunt it as if it was all the film needed, but the script for Memento actually uses this device as an extension of the plot itself. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is afflicted with a condition that wipes his short term memory on a regular basis, and the film's structure allows us to get inside his point of view so completely that the various twists and explanations come as emotional punches to the stomach, allowing Nolan to achieve a dimension of tragedy that a more linnear version of storytelling would be unable to match. A true one-of-a-kind experience.


A Mighty Wind
I chose this out of Christopher Guest's brilliant improv mockumentaries simply for Fred Willard's crass manager-character Mick LaFontaine and his catchphrases "Wha happened?!" and "I don't think so!" A Mighty Wind also gets points for reuniting the three principal actors from Spinal Tap as a folk trio. Genius. Owing to the adlibbed nature of this film (and Guest's other mockumentaries), it simply gets better and better on rewatchings as you get more of a feel for each actor's character and the way they riff off each other.


Milk
Director Gus Van Sant can sometimes take the artsy, minimalist approach too far (his films Elephant and Gerry are so po-faced and lifeless that they feel almost completely vapid) but when he focuses enough to favour substance over style he creates great drama such as Milk. In this all too heady age of neo-conservativism, the true story of gay politician Harvey Milk is sadly just as relevent now as it was back in the early 80s. For someone like me - largely ignorant of this important piece of recent history - Milk is a passionate and educational window into the equal rights movement that is just as ripe for classroom study as Oliver Stone's JFK or Spike Lee's Malcolm X.


Million Dollar Baby
I think this is Eastwood's best film for the decade. It could've been a very run of the mill female version of Rocky, but the film's last third takes it into very unexpected and interesting territory and it's probably Eastwood's best performance next to Unforgiven. As a director, he's grown to be something of a simplistic yet effective craftsman - always giving the story centrestage and always allowing events to form the bulk of the film's thrust. As an actor, he's always been a generous co-star - and here he gives the entire film to Hilary Swank's bighearted performance, leaving enough room for some great character stuff from himself and Morgan Freeman. This isn't a sports film, it's worth your time and it's worth it's hype.


Moon
A fantastic non-CGI science fiction movie that explores some familiar sci-fi tropes in a bold and fresh fashion. Sam Rockwell absolutely kills it in this as the man on the moon, there are so many reasons to recommend this movie, and the way it avoids the usually unavoidable cliches is key amongst them. It doesn't dumb things down, it doesn't try to dazzle it's audience with irrelevant special effects, and it feels exactly like the movie that science-fiction fans have been waiting for since 2001. A true triumph and no Top 100 of the 00s or Top 10 of 2009 would be complete without it. Full review here.


Napoleon Dynamite
Gosh! Every now and again a cult hit mutates into something so big that it permeates pop culture for many years to come. Napoleon Dynamite is this kind of inexplicable monster. It's an offbeat story that barely goes anywhere and consists of a handful of social misfits who seem to live in a timeless vaccuum that could be anywhere between now and the 1970s. Napoleon (Jon Heder) is the kind of daydreaming uber-nerd who reminds everyone of someone from their school days, and so I guess this film spoke to a whole generation with it's gloriously deadpan dialogue and tiny character explosions. I also have a special place in my heart for the haplessly sleazy character of Uncle Rico (Jon Gries, who also features in Lost as Ben's Dad).


Narc
On the surface Narc feels like a fairly standard film about drugs and police corruption, but it has a quality of authenticity to it that makes it feel like the missing link between The French Connection and the groundbreaking TV show The Wire. It gets up close and personal with it's subject matter without being showy or glamourous about it, and if you're not a fan of Ray Liotta then this film will turn you into one. Liotta did a De Niro and packed on some decent weight to play an absolute shotgun-toting bull of a cop in this, and he piledrives this movie right into the dirty cesspool it examines.


No Country for Old Men
This nihilistic modern-day western from Cormac McCarthy was given a Coen brothers treatment almost entirely devoid of their usual humour, allowing a cohesion of talents that created something special in the world of crime-thrillers. By holding back on the laughs, the Coen brothers have managed to make a cold, sharp masterpiece that benefits from their subversive storytelling techniques. The brutality of this film comes via the great performances, especially that of Javier Bardem as a freaky Mexican bounty hunter, and the story stands as a harsh memorial to the Things Go Very Wrong thriller sub-genre.


Noise
This is a Melbourne-set crime film that seamlessly blends the perceived Australian national character into a film noir atmosphere, and makes use of an unusual sound design that relates to the main character's hearing problems. What starts out as a taut muder mystery is eventually elevated to something much more complex by some interesting subtexts and inspired direction. Also of note is an amusingly brash and sympathetic performance from Brendan Cowell as the police constable at the centre of this story. All of these aspects combine to create one of Australia's best crime movies - an oddity in a film landscape all too often filled with comedic characters and cliched sleight-of-hand plot twists.


Observe and Report
Few films have polarised audiences as much as this one seems to have done, and I can't help but feel it's a damn shame that Observe and Report didn't get the exposure it deserved. If there was ever a film to inherit the insane trauma and mental illness of Taxi Driver, then this is it. That it manages to embody this inappropriateness and do it with big laughs is testament to it's genius. Seth Rogen's bi-polar security guard is so shockingly ill-suited to his vocation that it makes you feel uncomfortable, and I guess this is what divides a good portion of the audience - some people react to this sort of thing with laughter, and some people don't. Full review here.


Oldboy
Oldboy is just a great concept. You take a regular guy and you put him in a small room for fifteen years without any explanation, and then you let him out. A film could go almost anywhere from here, and Oldboy actually manages to take this crazy premise and make sense of it without letting the imagination of the viewer down. Director Chan-wook Park hangs his film around a seemingly endless, escalating cycle of revenge - bumping characters and coincidences against each other to build a machiavellian portrait of vengeance and the illusion of choice. Oldboy also contains some amazing sequences of implied violence and inspired direction, including an infamous scene where the main character takes on about twenty angry hoodlums in a hallway whilst armed only with a claw hammer.


Once
Sometimes a simple concept can succeed where others fail simply because all the ingredients come together in a refreshingly new way. With it's documentary-feel and the layers of reality that informed it's creation, Once feels like a candid peak into the real life relationship of two gifted artists (and in many ways, it is). Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova extend the synergy of successful songwriting into a metaphor for love itself, and the resulting music is achingly beautiful. This is a low key film, but it's very much the real deal - and hence it's a far better piece of work than any other romance film of the decade.


Pan's Labyrinth
Fantasy had always been a fairly neglected genre in the 20th century, with only a handful of films being both critical and commercial successes. This all changed after Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and now we have several new film adaptations of fantasy novels every year. Pan's Labyrinth stands out amongst the pack due to it's originality, it's not based on a book or a computer game or a disney ride, and is an honest to goodness new and original fantasy film. Guillermo Del Toro (who is soon to direct The Hobbit parts 1 and 2) creates a parable amongst the brutality of the Spanish civil war, paralleling the violence of the real world with gruesome and frightening creatures of fairytale origins. Despite the elements of horror (it's definitely not a kid's movie), the film reflects a certain mythical beauty and continues Del Toro's winning streak as a unique designer in fantasy-related filmmaking.


Pineapple Express
Dealing drugs is usually a subject kept for brutal gangster and action films, or depressing dramas, which is a surprise when you consider how much drugs are a part of Hollywood culture. You'd think filmmakers would want to put a less demonising spin on drugs rather than paint themselves as morally bankrupt, but there you go. Pineapple Express successfully melds stoner comedy with violent action-thriller territory, depicting the local weed dealer (James Franco, who steals the whole movie) as a sensitive and affable chap who just wants a friend. I could pretty much watch anything with Seth Rogen in it, and I have. Pineapple Express was both hilarious and a whole bunch of fun, and it was refreshing to see a drug dealer character who wasn't depicted as the lowest possible form of life.


The Pledge
Sean Penn has directed four films now, but The Pledge is easily his most focused and interesting effort. Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, an ageing detective who promises a bereaved mother that he will track down the killer of her child and bring him to justice. The only problem is that it's impossible to tell if the killer is even alive anymore, and as a result it seems that Black will never even solve this case. Penn takes a difficult subject from a subversive European crime novel and builds a film about obsession and culpability, all while remaining true to the film's source and never once giving quarter to the trappings of the genre. It's a harsh and realistic story, and it also contains the last serious performance Jack Nicholson has (so far) given in a film.


The Prestige
Chrisopher Nolan adapted this Victorian-era tale of Houdini-like rivals from an award-winning novel by fantasy/sci-fi author Christopher Priest. It turned out to be some of the cleverest eye candy to ever take audiences by surprise, and was exactly the sort of film M. Night Shymalan should still be making (but isn't). The Prestige is one of the very few recent films where I felt Christian Bale delivered something approaching an interesting performance, and Nolan showed himself to be one of the most inventive, unpretentious and uninsulting directors to be working in science-fiction today - once again crafting an engaging mystery where the subject matter brilliantly reflects the themes of the story itself.


The Proposition
The Australian western is a somewhat obscure sub-genre at best, and in an era where the western genre itself is largely extinct this film was always going to stick out. Featuring an impressive international cast (including Emily Watson, Danny Huston, John Hurt, Ray Winstone, Guy Pearce and David Wenham), The Proposition sets out to paint an accurate picture of 19th century outback Australia - a flyblown hell of brutal outlaws, ruthless lawmen and unsuited colonials. Director John Hillcoat and writer/composer Nick Cave create an historical vision far more desperate and violent than most American westerns, and incorporate the 19th century Aboriginal experience to maintain a high level of accuracy.


The Queen
The Queen could have very easily been a TV movie of the week, given it's subject matter (the death of Lady Di and the royal family's reaction to it) and the nature of what you would imagine to be it's initial target audience. I couldn't imagine anyone other than Helen Mirren playing Queen Elizabeth II without making it ridiculous though, and Michael Sheen is perfect casting as Prime Minister Tony Blair. I think it's also somewhat snobbish to underestimate the power and importance of the events portrayed in this film... the death of Lady/Princess Di is to the 1990s generation what JFK was to those in the 1960s, and I think The Queen gives this piece of recent of history the serious treatment it deserves.


Sexy Beast
From the introduction of Ray Winstone's oiled and bloated speedo-clad body, it's pretty clear that this isn't going to be your standard gangster-flick. Winstone plays Gal, a retired safecracker living the high life in sunny Spain, whose life is turned upside down when he recieves a visit from his old colleague, Don Logan (Ben Kingsley). Most actors would probably have a tough time out-toughing Ray Winstone, and Ben Kingsley - the guy who played Gandhi, no less - is probably the last person you'd imagine Winstone to be afraid of. But here Kingsley gives a ferociously manipulative performance so shockingly out of his usual parameters that Gal's anxiety seems more than justified. Sexy Beast plays out in a less than predictable way right from the outset, and it's worth seeing if only for Kingsley.


Shaolin Soccer
Quite simply the most fun ever put on celluloid. The premise is simple - down-on-their-luck kung fu experts form a soccer team and use their kung fu skills to kick some sporting arse. I've only seen one other Stephen Chow film (he directs, writes and stars), and it showed up earlier in this list, but damn me if he isn't the modern equivelent of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. His goofy (and idiosynchratically Chinese) comedic stylings combine with a limitless imagination and impressive physicality that make him a downright modern genius. This movie is hilarious, and everyone needs to see it.


Shattered Glass
This is a little film, but it's also just an interesting story told in a more than effective fashion. Hayden Christensen plays real life journalist Stephen Glass, a hotshot reporter who eventually fell from grace in a very spectacular fashion when it was revealed that the bulk of his articles were the result of fraud. Shattered Glass presents a careful and mesmerising account of a fascinating story, offering more than a glimpse inside the psychology of a fraudster like Glass thanks to the surprisingly multi-layered performance of Hayden Christensen. Also worthy of note is the intense performance of Peter Sarsgaard as Glass' colleague and rival, a quiet kind of heroism that represents integrity and idealism.


Shaun of the Dead
This is a real no-brainer, and has been turning up on just about everyone's list for greatest films of the decade. It really was only a matter of time before someone combined outright cult comedy with the zombie genre in all it's full-blown glory and Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright were just the right people to do it (if you're a fan of this movie then you really need to check out their TV series Spaced). I was sold on this movie the moment Nick Frost sat down at the pub and dropped the C-bomb, and I don't think anyone could've known back then in 2004 just how influential this movie would become (Zombieland, Lesbian Vampire Killers, I Spit on Your Rave).


Signs
There are a lot of M. Night Shymalan haters out there and I guess some of that hate is pretty justified (I stopped being a fan after the incredibly poor Lady in the Water), but one film of his that isn't deserving of that scorn is Signs - probably his last great movie so far. It's very easy to get hung up on the supposed holes in the plot but a lot of that comes from misreading the film as a straight-up science fiction movie, which it isn't. It's a film about one man's loss of faith and his realisation that such faith may be the only survival tool that will get him through incredibly hard times. It's also a cracking suspense movie, with one of the all-time great 'jump' moments being the reveal of the aliens via some home video footage shown on the news. The idea of showing a widescale alien invasion in microcosm seems to fly in the face of everything Hollywood stands for, but showing this aggressive first contact from the point of view of just one family turned out to be far more effective in conveying the terror and fear such a situation would actually engender. Full review here.


Snatch
Guy Ritchie's Snatch is very much a reworking of his previous film, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, with both shining a light on the seedy British underworld and tying it up in labyrinthine plots filled with 'ilarious 'ard men characters. I think Snatch is actually the better film, with Ritchie tightening up his concept for Lock Stock and ramping up the laugh factor. Of course, there's not much substance to Snatch in comparison to a lot of gangster films by other filmmakers, but few films manage to be as flatout entertaining, quotable and rewatchable as this box of party tricks by Mr. Ritchie. Also, other gangster films don't have Brad Pitt as an incomprehensible Irish gypsy, nor do they feature a villain as chillingly cold-blooded as Brick Top.


Son of Rambow
I don't think I've ever seen any other movie that so completely evoked nostalgic feelings for my childhood. The British 1980s setting and the stifling indoctrinations of the Plymouth Brethren unexpectedly combine to create a magical sense of daring adventure that calls to mind great 80s films like The Goonies, Explorers and even First Blood itself (the Sylvester Stallone film that provides the inspiration at the heart of this movie). This is a vibrant and joyous story of childhood friendship and making one's way in the world, and it deserves to be seen by anyone who was ever a child of the 80s or dared to dream beyond their own social barriers. Full review here.


Spiderman 2
For me, Spiderman 2 is the pinnacle of traditional comic book-filmmaking. No other superhero film has gotten things as right as Sam Raimi did for Spiderman 2. He almost got there with the first film but was let down by his Mighty Morphin Power Rangers-interpretation of the Green Goblin... here he makes up for his mistakes tenfold by giving us a great, memorable villain in Doctor Octupus (played note-perfect by the underrated Alfred Molina) and building on the pathos inherent in the character of Spiderman/Peter Parker (most notably in the great train-wrecking scene where Raimi breaks the rules and lets everyday people see who Spiderman really is). That the Spiderman franchise was able to go from strength to strength so wonderfully should've guaranteed Raimi an unprecedented level of control with these films, but unfortunately it all got ridiculously messed up with Spiderman 3 thanks to the usual Hollywood bullshit.


Spirited Away
Spirited Away just might get my vote for the best animated film of the decade. Director Hayao Miyazaki crafts a universal fable about one child's apprehension about moving to a new town, transporting the 10 year old character of Chihiro to a bizarre spirit world where she must contend with a range of bizarre entities and learn to overcome her fears. It put me on to a whole world of fantastic films through Studio Ghibli, and it's a beautifully animated adventure that should capture the hearts and fascination of both adults and children alike.


The Square
I kind of see this as the Australian counterpart to the heist-gone-wrong movie Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Transposing a film noir-styled thriller plot to the WASPish south-coastal area of Sydney, The Square reaches dizzying heights of tragedy as the ambitions of two secret lovers outreach their capabilities. It starts out in a fairly low-key fashion, but each action has a knock-on effect that reverberates back to the protagonists in a very bad way, getting worse and worse until the mess just can't take any more pressure. The Square also bucks the recent trend for Australian thrillers to be comedy-based and it's shelf-life feels a lot longer as a result. Full review here.


Superbad
I guess this is the movie that gave us the 'bromance'... the idea that an event comedy film could be pinned around the platonic-yet-loving relationship between two male leads (examples include Role Models, I Love You Man and Funny People). Superbad took the basic concept behind American Pie and made it more realistic. Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are the true underdogs in the school scene, and here we aren't bullshitted into believing they can have a typical Hollywood ending. The crux of Superbad is the friendship between these guys, and the way that such a bond can get the marginalised through the nightmare of school. American Pie is often credited with introducing heart into an otherwise crass genre of comedy, but it's Superbad that melts away the saccharine and cheese to get to the truth of things. Superbad also happens to be ball-droppingly funny, especially the character of McLovin.


Super Troopers
The funniest comedy to come out of nowhere. Super Troopers is a goofy, antagonistic chucklefest that makes you feel more like you're laughing it up with your mates rather than just watching a movie. The Broken Lizard ensemble self-assuredly bounces off itself like all the best comedy teams of the last century (the Marx brothers, Monty Python, films made by Saturday Night Live alumni in the 70s and 80s, etc, etc). It also has Brian Cox and his Canadian tuxedo, and Farva - one of the all-time funniest film characters. Unfortunately Broken Lizard are yet to follow up this movie adequately.


Taken
Liam Neeson is 100% don't-mess-with-me vengeance as the ex-CIA agent out to save his daughter from dirty Eastern European white-slavers. Casting Neeson as a no-nonsense tough guy seems like such a given, so it's amazing that no one really thought of it before this movie. Neeson has made a long career for himself playing variations on father figures, and this movie represents the most pure distillation of this into the action format. There's something very precise and minimalist about Taken that puts it a cut above it's peers, I'd probably rate it as the best straight-forward action flick of the decade. Full review here.


There Will Be Blood
This could possibly be the single greatest film in this whole list. Sometimes a film will get made that stands so apart from other films that it really doesn't get the credit it deserves, but hopefully time will show There Will Be Blood to be the towering monument it truly is. For anyone who hasn't seen this movie, it's basically just Daniel Day-Lewis embodying the very essence of greed in the most watchable yet repellent way imaginable. It's like you don't want to watch him because his is an evil as black as the oil it latches on to, but at the same time you can't look away because he has you in his unbreakable gaze and you're charmed like a docile snake. It's also a film so full of mesmerising imagery and intriguing ambiguity that it's more than ripe for endless rewatching and discussion.


Tideland
Terry Gilliam's junkyard re-envisioning of Alice in Wonderland remains his least accessible film but also by far his creepiest and most open-ended. Making a film about an 11 year old girl whose only friends are her severed doll heads and a mental retard named Dickens may not have spelt out big box office returns, but Gilliam's willingness to create a point of view like this speaks volumes about his artistic credibility and the fact that this film even exists is a triumph in itself. And as you go down the 'rabbit hole' with the young protagonist you'll find yourself being pulled into a bizarre and disturbing imaginary world against your better judgement, and it's a freakish and picturesque journey. Full review here.


TimeCrimes
There's not much a film can do with time travel that a) probably hasn't been done already, and b) invites a lot of fannish scrutiny due to it's inevitable plotholes. TimeCrimes succeeds because it limits it's story to just the mechanics of time travel itself, foreshadowing it's twists and paradoxes with a freakish air of foreboding symbolised by a scissor-wielding madman in a creepy cloth mask. Full review here.


The Tracker
Indigenous Australian icon David Gulpilil forms the centrepiece of this fascinating Australian western as the tracker of the title. Australian director Rolf De Heer has carved a niche for himself as one of this country's most innovative and unsung talents, and this film's allegorical commentary on the historical relationship between the Aborigines and their colonial oppressors is presented in a minimalist and digestible way. Gulpilil himself is also such a dynamic and entertaining presence that the viewer is often caught offguard, and he deservedly won an AFI Best Actor award for what represents the pinnacle of his life's work as an actor.


Traffic
This ambitious take on the American War on Drugs came at an idealistic pre-9/11 point in history where serious drug trafficking was just about the worst thing you could do on American soil. Ah, such innocent days! Sadly, Traffic seems to get overlooked a lot these days, which is a shame because it remains an intelligent and engagingly in-depth, all-star look at a complex problem. So much so that it influenced a whole sub-genre of 21st century social conscience films (Syriana, Crash, Babel).


Training Day
For a lot of people this is just the movie where Denzel Washington finally won the Best Actor award, but I found it to be so much more than that. Police corruption isn't a new subject for action/thrillers by any stretch of the imagination, but this is more a story about a burgeoning relationship between two cops and the way they explore each other's idealogy and weaknesses... Alonzo (Washington) plays with high stakes, and his power lies in his intelligence and the way he continuously tests his new rookie partner Jake (Ethan Hawke, whose performance is just as good and to-the-wire as Washington's). Training Day also contains some of the scariest, tensest latino-gangster scenes to ever creep up on the viewer, and this movie had me put through the ringer just as much as Ethan Hawke's character. A top shelf genre film.


Unbreakable
A movie that takes a real world view of superhero-lore and masterfully casts Samuel L. Jackson against type as a fragile uber-nerd. Bruce Willis' character's gradual epiphany as a real life superman is a powerful thing to behold, and director M. Night Shymalan has never been so careful and controlled, showing us this story through a deliberately tense and slowed Hitchcock-like eye. Unbreakable is a much needed counter-film to the gooey and colourful Marvel-spearheaded comicbook-film boom of the early 21st century. "This is where we shake hands"... everything about this movie gives me goosebumps and demonstrates what film storytelling should be all about


V For Vendetta
Before Zac Snyder successfully adapted The Watchmen, the Wachowski brothers wrote this startling adaptation of another Alan Moore graphic novel classic. Coming in the wake of 9/11 and the wave of anti-terrorist controlling techniques that many western governments started employing, V For Vendetta follows the great tradition of dystopian science-fiction founded by George Orwell's 1984. With only his voice and body language, Hugo Weaving fantastically embodies an ideal behind his mask as the character of V. John Hurt is also an inspired piece of casting, playing a sinister Big Brother-like leader twenty years after once playing Winston Smith in the film adaptation of 1984. Anyway, this is a sharp and highly controlled deconstruction of all that is wrong with our western paradise, and director James McTeigue does it in such an eloquent and riveting style.


The Wackness
Nostalgia for the 90s is something that's only just starting to appear in fashion and music this year, but I think The Wackness can lay claim to being the first film to do for the 90s what films like The Wedding Singer and Rockstar did for the 80s. Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck play out twin storylines of age-related crises against the backdrop of dope-loving 1990s New York city, with Kingsley providing another exciting and unpredictable performance as an oddball therapist. I've said it before but I'll say it again - why doesn't Kingsley get more love from filmfans?! He's fantastic in this... even if the film's storyline or general concept does nothing for you, you should at least still watch it just for Kingsley. Another underrated indie comedy. Full review here.


Waltz With Bashir
The rise of low-budget CGI in films has often been cited by fans as the cause of the general downfall of industry standards, but what's often overlooked is that the availability and cheapness of CGI and computer-animation has now made it possible for less prominent countries to tell stories that could otherwise never been told. A great example of this is the Israeli documentary Waltz with Bashir, a film that tells the story of Ari Folman's search for his lost memories regarding Israel's 1982 war with Lebanon. Using a distinctive and unique style of animating, Waltz with Bashir paints the recollections of Folman's various interview subjects in a harrowing and hypnotic style - giving form to a piece of history that Israel would probably rather was forgotten altogether. At first it might feel like this comic-book style distances the audience from the subject matter, but the eventual and controversial revelations at the film's end are all the more immediate and disturbing for it.


The Watchmen
Comic book films have become something of a paint-by-numbers genre in recent times so it was very refreshing to see this faithful adaptation of a graphic novel-classic, an epic alternate history cycle that examines the cold realities comic book superheroes would face if they existed in the real world. The bleak commentary these broken characters pass on this doomsday scenario puts this film into new territory... the graphic novel it's based on might be old news, but the themes and fears The Watchmen film explores are still shockingly relevant today and it's ending is the kind of big, black, brave full stop that a lot of other comic book films could use. Full review here.


The Wrestler
Few acting comebacks are as heartfelt as Mickey Rourke's raw performance as ageing wrestler Randy 'The Ram' Robinson. The Wrestler presents a simple character study in an unflashy and realistic fashion, scraping away the cliches to expose the core of a "broken down old piece of meat" like Randy the Ram. Despite his flaws you'll want him to be at peace with his world, though the inevitability of where his life is heading will break your heart. The final sequence of The Wrestler pushes it into the territory of being a true and unpretentious piece of art.


Wolf Creek
A huge commercial smash with a somewhat lacklustre critical reception, Wolf Creek is one of the few modern horror films that have made any impact on me whatsoever. A large part of this is probably because, for most of the time, it doesn't really feel like a horror film. We spend the first half of the film getting to know the backpacker protagonists as they travel around the beautifully photographed wilderness of central Australia, and the film makes little concession to the typical conventions of the horror genre. The eventual meeting between the backpackers and sadistic outback killer Mick Taylor (a standout performance from John Jarratt - part Crocodile Dundee, part Chopper Read) is a high-octane charge. We know what this guy is going to do from the moment he appears, and the film toys with the audience before really letting them have it. It suggests a mature and self-actualised understanding of scary filmmaking on the part of director Greg McLean, and trying to read the film any other way is probably missing the point.