Unlike TV shows where it was pretty easy for me to split and rank each entry, choosing my favourite movies of 2000–2009 is like choosing between children. As with TV shows, there are a lot of highly-regarded films I haven't yet got around to watching, but I'm pretty surprised at how strong my shortlist was and I imagine it'd be pretty difficult for any film to break into this list. I've also decided not to include any film I saw the first time in the second half of this year, because I have a tendency to inflate my opinion of good movies directly after I watch them.
I'm sure a lot of people will say the real top ten are in the list of movies I didn't get around to, which is a fair comment. There are some movies I'm really looking forward to seeing in there, but like I said I'm pretty happy with the list as it stands.
1. WALL·E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
For what is ostensibly a "kid's movie", WALL·E is fucking terrifying.
Single corporate ownership of the entire planet Earth: terrifying. A lone robot dutifully carrying out his orders for 700 years, alone, on the wasteland that humans left behind: terrifying. Humans herded onto a space cruiser to live out their lives as obese, brainwashed consumers, never rising from their flying recliners: terrifying. The idea that these events are not entirely implausible: fucking terrifying.
No animation (and, possibly, no other film) has ever affected me as much emotionally as WALL·E, which is strange since the main characters are all robots with synthesised emotions. But the brilliance of animation is that it's easier to suspend your disbelief and lose yourself in the movie, even if the movie is about a sentient robot falling in love.
I couldn't even begin to explain what is so great about the film unless I were to write thousands of words on it, but WALL·E proves there is still room for genuine creativity and social commentary in the demographically-tailored, focus-grouped, McDonald's merchandise tie-in'd world of the big animation studios. Any animated feature film post-WALL·E is going to need more than cute characters and camp comedy to have any chance of standing up to it.
2. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
In what is possibly his second best monologue after the watch scene from Pulp Fiction, Christopher Walken utters the following words in the largely forgotten yet underrated Poolhall Junkies:
You watch those nature documentaries on the cable? You see the one about lions? You got this lion. He's the king of the jungle, huge mane out to here. He's laying under a tree, in the middle of Africa. He's so big, it's so hot. He doesn't want to move. Now the little lions come, they start messing with him. Biting his tail, biting his ears. He doesn't do anything. The lioness, she starts messing with him. Coming over, making trouble. Still nothing. Now the other animals, they notice this. They start to move in. The jackals; hyenas. They're barking at him, laughing at him. They nip his toes, and eat the food that's in his domain. They do this, then they get closer and closer, bolder and bolder. 'Til one day, that lion gets up and tears the shit out of everybody. Runs like the wind, eats everything in his path. 'Cause every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals, who he is.
The Departed is Jack Nicholson showing the jackals of the world who he is after a period of easy comedies. The man is just scary good, and is ably supported by Leonardo Di Caprio and Matt Damon, two actors who have been the butt of many jokes over the years but continue to impress me at least. Mark Wahlberg, too, is fantastic and should have beaten Alan Arkin for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Scorsese is the king of the gangster genre, and in lending his brilliance to a Boston setting and Irish themes he's made a movie better even than Goodfellas. I watched Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong movie on which it is based, after I saw The Departed and was amazed at how Scorsese managed to take such a haphazardly constructed, confusing story and turn it into a relatively straight-forward but intense portrayal of Irish gangs in South Boston.
3. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
The majority of the films on this list are exceedingly dark, but you can't get much lighter than Amélie. The colourful, high-contrast, stylised portrait of Amélie Poulain and the people she encounters is a feel-good flick in the truest sense of the word.
Every one of the six billion people in the world star in their own personal movie. For each of us our own movie is everything, the entirety of our being, and people we encounter while going about our business are the smallest of bit parts, appearing for a few fleeting seconds in the decades-long movie of our lives. The question at the heart of Amélie is: what would happen if you decided to follow a chance encounter with a stranger and see where it leads, and what effect it has on the lives of the people involved?
Everything about the movie's tone is pitch perfect. Movie snobs love to snigger at "people who watch Amélie and think they're into foreign cinema"... but fuck those guys. It may present an overly Hollywood-friendly view of France with its piano accordion soundtrack and bicycles all over the streets, but none of that really factors into the sky-high enjoyability of the film. It's not easy to make a gritty and disturbing film, but it's a lot harder to make a movie that actually makes you smile just thinking about it.
4. Sin City (Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller, 2005)
When I first saw Sin City I was just going to the movies with some friends for something to do. I had never heard of the film or Frank Miller, and Robert Rodriguez was just the guy who made From Dusk Til Dawn, a movie I loathed. I don't even remember which of my friends decided to see it, but I owe whoever it was a massive debt of gratitude because I have never walked out of a movie theatre more buzzed.
I've never really been a comic book kind of guy, but the visual style of Sin City is almost literally mesmerising. I remember shaking my head in disbelief at the way they managed to translate the 2D visual style and rhythmic dialogue of a graphic novel to a live-action movie, and as soon as I got home after that first viewing I spent hours on the internet reading about the making of the film.
But there's more to Sin City than just amazing visuals. Each of its four sub-stories are completely engrossing and the grotesque, sinister city and the people who inhabit it are alarmingly well-realised caricatures of the light and darkness present in society. Every character right down to the extras are hyper-realistically well-developed. Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke are incredible as Dwight and Marv, but there literally isn't a bad performance in it (I even enjoyed Michael Madsen's deliberately stilted delivery, which apparently has copped a bit of flak).
I only hope one day I go into another movie blind and love it as much as I do Sin City.
5. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
Late one night about five years ago I'd just got home from work and decided to put a movie on to help me get to sleep before working again early the next morning. I chose Requiem for a Dream, which I had hired from Video Ezy on the recommendation of my mate Nick.
About half way through, I started to get restless and was wondering if it was planning on going anywhere. The first act, "Summer", sets up that Harry Goldfarb, his girlfriend, his best friend and his mother all take drugs for different reasons, and we follow them as they experience the little joys of everyday life with people they love. Nice enough, and beautifully constructed, but nothing ground-breaking.
Slowly but surely the drugs take their hold and first erode the characters' connection to one another, and ultimately decimate their souls. The second half of the movie is an uncompromising, disturbing portrayal of descent into utter despair, and is among the most difficult to watch sequences of film I've ever seen. The further the characters fall, the harder it is to watch, and the end is just heart-breaking. It's like the visual equivalent of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, with hundreds of cuts in quick succession and one of the most evocative soundtracks in existence joining forces to make you squirm uncontrollably in your seat.
As it finished I sat contemplating the events of the movie for 10 full minutes before I could manage to get up and press play again to re-watch it. The second time watching "Summer" and the misguided optimism of Harry and his loved ones was completely crushing. The gravity of the film doesn't quite become clear until you've seen it once and watch it again knowing what happens in the end.
I don't think I got much sleep that night.
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
I'm a big fan of Jim Carrey's work in The Truman Show and The Majestic, but they were mere warm-ups for what will probably remain his best ever dramatic performance. Combine that with Michel Gondry's eye for the surreal and Charlie Kaufman's most personal, intimate screenplay and you have a film that is equally distressing and uplifting.
7. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004)
The first time I saw this I knew it would be an absolute favourite, but the great thing about it is that each subsequent viewing has revealed at least one thing I'd missed earlier. The attention to detail is mind-blowing, and I especially love the choreography of scenes involving travel (Shaun walking to the shops, Shaun and Ed planning the rescue of Shaun's mum and girlfriend, etc.). Might seem like a strange highlight, but it really makes watching the film a joy.
8. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
To feel comfortable I had grasped all of what happens I had to watch this four of five times, and then another ten just because it's so awesome. When the forgettable Insomnia came out I thought maybe Christopher Nolan was a one-trick pony, but I've since seen The Prestige and The Dark Knight and I'm pretty comfortable including him in my list of favourite directors of the last decade.
9. A Mighty Wind (Christopher Guest, 2003)
I had to think long and hard about which Christopher Guest movie I would choose: this, or Best in Show (2000). They're both as hilariously scripted and brilliantly acted as each other, and they both have a wealth of infinitely quotable characters, but in the end it came down to the fact that I genuinely enjoy the music in A Mighty Wind.
10. House of Sand and Fog (Vadim Perelman, 2003)
Such is how little I know about this film I actually had to look up who directed it. (Incidentally, it was the debut film of a Russian who has only worked on one other film since, and is apparently working on a remake of Poltergeist at the moment). But it doesn't matter who made it, what matters is that I cried like a little bitch at the end. Sir Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connolly are just amazing, and Ron Eldard (Micky Bunce from Drop Dead Fred) is surprisingly good as well.
Honourable mentions (in alphabetical order)
24 Hour Party People, 25th Hour, Almost Famous, Amores Perros, Best in Show, Burn After Reading, Cast Away, Chopper, Elephant, Gran Torino, Hot Fuzz, Hotel Rwanda, Lost in Translation, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Panic Room, Punch-Drunk Love, Road to Perdition, Snatch, Superbad, Synecdoche, NY, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Fog of War, The King of Kong, The Pianist, Training Day, [Rec].