Top 20 Movies of 2009:

20. Tyson

19. Where the Wild Things Are

18. Watchmen

17. Thirst

16. I Love You, Man

15. The Brothers Bloom

14. Coraline

13. The Hurt Locker

12. Moon

11. Star Trek

10. Away We Go

9. District 9

8. Up In the Air

7. Drag Me To Hell

6. 500 Days of Summer

5. Zombieland

4. The Hangover

3. Avatar

2. Inglorious Basterds

1. Up

~Moose

Movies of the Decade: 25-1

25. Zodiac – 2007 – David Fincher is one of the defining directors of this generation.  Nearly all of his movies have been quality pictures of varying degrees.  And Zodiac is right up there near the top along with Seven and Fight Club.  Jake Gyllenhall, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. head this movie about the Zodiac Killer of the 70s who terrorized the San Francisco area.  Fincher does a great job with setting the period and keeping the audience’s attention throughout the movie and ratcheting up the subtle tension in a couple of key scenes.  Because the Zodiac Killer was never found, it’s tricky subject matter, but Fincher does a good job of resolving it as best he can.

24. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – 2005 – This is the crown of my Netflix rental history, my favorite hidden gems of the decade, one of the movies that I push on nearly all of my friends at a borderline obsessive degree.  Shane Black, the writer of the Lethal Weapon movies, takes the buddy action genre and turns it on its head in his directorial debut.  The dialogue is witty and sharp, the story has noir-ish elements, and Black brings a wink-nod element to the movie of someone who has command of the genre.  Robert Downey Jr., playing a petty thief from New York City in L.A., and Val Kilmer, a gay private detective named, are the stars of the movie.

23. Amelie – 2001 – Amelie was a movie that I missed until nearly the end of the decade.  I wasn’t a big fan of foreign films at the time of its release; nothing against them, most of them just weren’t on my radar at the time.  But I was amazed by the movie when I finally did see it.  While I could focus on the pixie spirit of Audrey Tautou’s titular character in summing up this movie, which is really one of the defining performances of the decade, instead, I will point out that this movie is full of life, joy, and imagination.  It is one of those movies that you can’t help but enjoy.  It’s not exactly Capra-esque, but there is definitely a great outlook on life that is the animus of this movie.

22. The Prestige – 2006 – After Christopher Nolan successfully rebooted the Batman franchise with Batman Begins, he took a step back from the franchise and did this movie before The Dark Knight.  If this movie is any indication of what Nolan can do in between franchise movies, I am greatly anticipating Inception in 2010.  The Prestige is a great movie about rival magicians in London around the dawn of the 20^th Century.  Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play the rivals, with Michael Caine, Scarlett Johannsen, and David Bowie in supporting roles.  Nolan keeps the viewer guessing throughout the movie as the story is told from the perspective of the two magicians reading each others journals.  Great story telling and a great element of sci-fi from this decades most consistently great director.

21. The Incredibles – 2004 – I’m running out of praises for Pixar in writing about these movies.  Again, this is just another top notch Pixar movie.  Not only is it instantly one of the best superhero movies, but it also is a top notch animated film with a strong message about the importance of the nuclear family.  It takes a lot of the conventions of superheroes and tweaks them ever so slightly (“No capes!” and “You sly dog, you got me monologuing!”).  Also, the 50s-era feel of the movie, from the look of the machines to the newspapers, to the cars, is a cool little classic feel.

20. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy – 2004 – The funniest pure comedy of the decade, as well as the most quotable.  Other comedies will be listed higher, but they were comedies blended with other genres.  Anchorman is nothing but a vehicle for the actors in the movie to be funny with a storyline loosely thrown in there to keep things moving along.  In most cases, that would be a bad thing, but in the able hands of Will Ferrerll, Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell, and David Koechner it is not a problem.  These guys are able to riff off of each other and just embody their characters and “explore the studio space” with them.  I remember the first time I saw it, I wasn’t really that impressed, but in subsequent viewings, it has only gotten better. 

19. The Lives of Others – 2006 – I remember being indignant when this movie won Best Foreign Film at the 2007 Oscars, as I thought that Pan’s Labyrinth was such a great movie and head and shoulders above this German movie that I had not seen.  But then I saw it a few months later on DVD and decided it wasn’t such an outrage.  In fact, The Lives of Others is a pretty great movie about a man conducting surveillance on a man and woman for the East German secret police in East Berlin in 1984.  It’s a great movie because of the character growth of the main character as well as the tension and peril surrounding the people he is recording.  Also, the ending is fabulous.

18. Thank You For Smoking – 2005 – Director Jason Reitman got huge acclaim and became a critical darling for Juno and Up in the Air, but my favorite film of his remains this gem from 2005 starring Aaron Eckhart as a public relations spokesman for Big Tobacco.  It’s a great satirical movie about the public relations world, and how everything is based on spin.  The movie isn’t just about the public relations aspect of this guy’s life, but also trying to balance that with being a role model for his impressionable son while representing clients who sell products that kill people.

17. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – 2004 – Michael Gondry is an innovative, original director.  And with a script from Phillip Kaufman, and great acting performances from Jim Carey and Kate Winslet, this movie about trying to forget and save lost love is spectacular.  Gondry creates very impressive visual imagery and creates a wonderful dream-like setting for much of the movie, and very good non-linear story.

16. Monster’s Inc. – 2001 – You can make a case for nearly all of Pixar’s movies as being the best they have done, it seems like their best film is whatever their next film is.  But Monster’s Inc. remains the one that tugged on my heartstrings the most.  Set in a parallel world where Monster’s invade our world through the closets of children to scare them and bottle up that fear to power their city, two monsters, Sully and Mike accidentally bring a little girl (Boo) into the monster world, where monsters are actually afraid of children.  As they try to get her back to her bedroom closet door and home, Sully and Boo for an unexpected friendship.  At first, Boo is like a nuisance of a pet to Sully while Sully is like a giant stuffed toy come to life for Boo.  Really one of my favorite movies and perfect selections of John Goodman and Billy Crystal to voice Sully and Mike, respectively.

15. Garden State – 2004 – This indie hit, written and directed by Zach Braff went through a roller coaster ride this decade.  With few exceptions, no other movies experienced the praise and then backlash with quite the same level of fierceness as Garden State.  Putting all of that aside, though, this movie hit me at just the right time in my life that I still love it and think highly of it.  Braff plays Andrew Largeman, an aspiring actor who has to go home for his mother’s funeral after being estranged from his family for a decade.  While home he meets Sam, a precocious young woman played by Natalie Portman, and tries to reconnect with his family and friends.  The story has a subtly effective critique on the overmedication of American youth, as well as a great take on the experience of creating your own “home” when home no longer feels like home anymore.

14. Pan’s Labyrinth – 2006 – Guillermo Del Toro showed immense promise and talent for storytelling and visuals with his earlier movies, like The Devil’s Backbone and Hellboy, but it seemed like he put everything together in Pan’s Labyrinth to create, what is to this date, his masterpiece.  Set in Spain in 1944 after the Spanish Civil War, the film is a modern-day fairy tale about young Ofelia who is the stepdaughter of a cruel army officer stationed in the mountains rooting out guerillas.  When she and her pregnant mother move to his post, she discovers a fantastical world and a faun who introduces it to her and says he believes her to be their long lost princess.  The movie has spectacular and sometimes creepy visuals. 

13. Hot Fuzz – 2007 – Following up on the success of Shaun of the Dead, the trio of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost delivered another loving homage to the buddy cop genre that was full of laughs, references to other movies, and bullets.  Pegg plays policeman Nicholas Angel, a hardnosed London cop sent packing to the countryside because he is so good at his job he makes the rest of the force look bad.  Once there he joins up with Frost’s Danny Butterman, the son of the chief of police.  As Danny tries to get Nicholas to relax and enjoy life via action movies like Point Break and Bad Boys II, Angel thinks there may be something sinister lurking beneath the quaint little town.  Comedy and great action definitely ensue.

12. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – 2000 – Talk about a movie leaving its mark.  Along with The Matrix, I don’t think any movie in the last 15 years has had the impact on cinema that this movie has had.  After the critical and commercial success that this movie enjoyed, everyone started to employ it Wi-Fi style and theatrics.  I haven’t seen this movie in years, but I still remember loving it and being blown away by it.  It’s as high as it is on my list as much for its content as for it’s cinematic significance. 

11. Children of Men – 2006 – The ultimate dystopian sci-fi film of the decade.  In the near future, humans are unable to procreate, and society is slowly falling apart because of it and the possible impending doom of the species.  And yet a miracle is found and it is up to one man to make sure that miracle is kept safe.  And that safety has a great cost.  Alfsono Cauron made an amazing film here.  Clive Owen is great in the lead.  The hallmark of this movie is toward the end where they have a tracking shot scene that goes on for several minutes with no cuts.  Simply brilliant.

10. Memento – 2000 – Christopher Nolan is the director of the Decade in my opinion.  He started off with this brilliant movie told backwards and finished off with the second highest grossing film of all time.  And almost everything in between was top notch as well.  Guy Pearce plays a man with no short-term memory, hunting for the man who murdered his wife.  It’s a movie that requires multiple viewings and appreciation because of the degree of difficulty involved in pulling off a movie that begins with the end and ends with the beginning.  And he totally pulls it off.

9. Shaun of the Dead – 2004 – This horror comedy is a loving parody of the zombie subgenre; so loving, in fact, that it is easily the best zombie movie of the decade, and arguably the best zombie movie ever.  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have great comedic timing with each other and their collaborator behind the camera, director Edgar Wright, loads the film with so many references to other movies that it rewards multiple viewings.  It really is a treat to enjoy.

8. Kill Bill – 2003/2004 – The last movie that Quentin Tarantino made before this two-part movie was 1997’s Jackie Brown; which means a 6-year hiatus from films.  Needless to say, he came back in a big way.  He broke it into two parts, but really, it should be consumed by the viewer as one whole.  He resurrected the career of Uma Thurman, who played The Bride, seeking revenge on the group of lethal assassins who betrayed her and left her for dead.  The movie features great swordplay, awesome fight sequences, beautiful visuals and scenery, and, of course, a killer soundtrack.

7. Gladiator – 2000 – I dismissed this movie as slightly overrated just a few years ago.  Sure it was a great performance by Russell Crowe, but did it really deserve to win Best Picture?  Having rewatched it again recently, I can only affirm its greatness (Oscar or not).  There is an epic feel to the movie, from the battles to the mere glimpses of ancient Rome.  But there is also such a strong command and presence that the movie gives off, due in large part to Crowe.  But to dismiss it as just a sword-and-sandal movie would be a huge mistake.  It is a powerful movie that resonates on some great themes of identity, loyalty, and determination.

6. Wall-E – 2008 – The most bankable company making movies this decade was Pixar.  They knock it out of the park every year.  Others may have put out individual movies that were greater, but Pixar level of quality is always the highest and Wall-E is the cream of the crop.  A little robot in a dystopic future is the catalyst for saving humanity.  And it’s also got arguably the best love story of the decade.  Who knew?

5. The Dark Knight – 2008 – The second highest grossing movie ever, only to Titanic, and in its own right a record breaking movie.  Comic Book Movies really emerged this decade, for better and worse, but this movie was the pinnacle of that genre.  And Christopher Nolan also managed to lift it above its genre and make the best crime drama of the decade.  Also a stellar performance by the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, blowing Jack Nicholson’s earlier portrayal of the character out of the water.  It took everything that was good in the first movie and turned it up a notch, and since it didn’t have the burden of the origin story to plot, it was free to give the entire movie over to the captivating story and performances.  Aaron Eckhart is also great as Harvey Dent.

4. There Will Be Blood – 2007 – This movie boasts the single greatest acting performance of the decade.  Daniel Day-Lewis was truly captivating as Daniel Plainview, a man consumed by greed.  In any other year, this probably would have won best picture, but it was part of a loaded field.  Two men essentially vie for the soul of one town with a river of oil flowing underneath it.  I loved this movie for how it could be boiled down to a battle of the soul of the country at that time between religion and industry.

3. No Country For Old Men – 2007 – The Coen Brothers started off the decade strong with “O, Brother” lost their way a bit with “The Ladykillers” and then came back in a strong way with this movie.  Set in 1980, the story revolves around a briefcase of money found at the scene of a shoot out.  The briefcase brings three men into its orbit: the man who found the case, the hit man looking for the briefcase, and the lawman on the trail of the hit man.  Great acting from Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin as well as the rest of the cast around them.  Bardem’s villain Anton Chigurh is one of the most memorable and frieghtening villains in recent memory. 

2. Almost Famous – 2000 – Cameron Crowe’s best movie.  It’s all about his love of music; and it is a deep love.  This movie has a little bit of everything: romance, drama, comedy, and music.  A teenager in the early 70s goes on the road with an up and coming band in order to write an article for Rolling Stone.  While on the road, he experiences the band’s journey and the interesting people surrounding them.  Easily the best performance of Kate Hudson’s career, Billy Crudup and Jason Lee do a great job as the guitarist and lead singer of the band, and Patrick Fugit plays the young journalist, lovingly nicknamed “The Enemy” by the band.  One of the best scenes ever is on the bus when everyone joins in singing “Tiny Dancer.”

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – 2001, 2002, 2003 – Was there any question?  The greatest story of the 20^th Century became the greatest movie of the 21^st Century to date.  Even though they were released separately over the course of three years, they really are three parts of a whole.  It’s the fantastical story of the ring of power and the group of people (a wizard, hobbits, elves, dwarves, and men) who set out on a journey to destroy it.  Groundbreaking special effects were used to bring the story to life, when for so many years it was thought to be nearly impossible to effectively put to film (like so many movies this decade).  The important thing was that despite the amazing special effects, they never overtook the story and the characters involved.  Rather, the special effects enhanced the story (something the Star Wars prequels should have done).  Peter Jackson left an indelible mark on this decade with this epic trilogy. 

~Moose

Movies of the Decade: 50-26

50. Son of Rambow – 2007 – As you grow up, you sometime forget what it is like to be a kid, especially, it seems, for some people who make movies.  Director Garth Jennings is not one of these people.  Son of Rambow is one of the few movies that I think perfectly captures the spirit and imagination of being a child.  An unlikely friendship forms between a school bully and a social outcast in the early 1980s and they set out to make a film based on First Blood.

49. Primer – 2004 – I only saw this movie once, and I’d like to think I was smart enough to follow it fully on that first viewing, but I’m sure there were aspects of the movie that I missed and would pick up on in a repeat viewing.  Regardless, Primer is the smartest time travel movie I have ever seen.  Made on a tiny budget, this indie film is sci-fi only because it deals with the subject of time travel, but the actual presence of sci-fi elements in the story is at a minimum.  The premise is simple: four engineer friends, attempting to become entrepreneurs, spend their spare time working out of a basement trying to invent something, when two of them stumble into creating a time travel machine.  It deals with the repercussions of time travel and moral ambiguity it can create.  It’s a very tough film to follow because of all of the scientific dialogue, but it is a very satisfying if you can follow it.

48. Oldboy – 2003 – The mose well-known of Chan-Wook Park’s Vengeance Trilogy, Oldboy is based on a manga comic.  An ordinary man is abducted a locked away in a room for 15 years.  He has no contact with the outside world except for his T.V.; he is fed daily and is drugged for haircuts and showers.  Suddenly released, he goes in search of why this was done to him and who did it to him.  Features a lot of crazy twists and turns as well as some awesome fighting, the ending is shocking and a little disturbing, but it is an impressive ride.

47. Minority Report – 2002 – This might have been Steven Spielberg’s most consistent decade of movie making.  Previously, every 4^th or 5^th film from him would be a dud.  While none of his films reached the heights of his highest achievements, none of them really reached the bottom of his resume either.  They were consistently good, and sometimes great.  And Minority Report was his peak this decade.  I love the visual style that Spielberg has used in most of his movies since Saving Private Ryan, and combined with the future technology incorporated into this movie set 50 years in the future, it is a really beautiful movie to watch.  And it’s an interesting twist on the race against time/on the run story that has been done in so many movies.

46. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – 2003 – Who knew you could make a quality action movie based on a theme park ride?  Everyone, perhaps rightfully so, chided Disney for planning to make a movie based on their Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.  But then the movie actually turned out to be good!  And Johnny Depp became a huge star because of it.  And Keira Knightley was introduced to the world.  And pirates were suddenly back in vogue. 

45. In Bruges – 2008 – Of all of the movies I have gotten in the mail from Netflix the past few years, In Bruges is at the top of the list of the ones I have enjoyed the most.  Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play two hit men sent to Bruges by their boss (Ralph Fiennes) to lay low after a job gone wrong.  It is an incredibly funny movie, albeit dark too, as they explore the city: one loves the history of the place, while one can’t stand it.  Colin Farrell deservedly won a Golden Globe for this movie.

44. Zoolander – 2001 – When Ben Stiller puts his mind to it, he can make really great comedies.  This is a shining example, along with Tropic Thunder, as a shining example.  Zoolander is a hilarious movie about the fashion industry.  Derek Zoolander is the world’s most famous male model, and also incredibly dumb.  And because of his status, his lack of intelligence, and his freakish physique, he is a prime candidate to become a brainwashed assassin.  Will Ferrell is brilliant as the fashion designer Mugatu, and Owen Wilson plays the next big thing in male modeling, Hansel.

43. Inglorious Basterds – 2009 – Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to make a WWII movie that has the chutzpah to rewrite the history of WWII.  And leave it to Tarantino to do so in a way that the audience would absolutely love.  One of the best films of 2009, Inglorious Basterds is about a guerilla group of Allied soldiers hand-selected to engage the Nazis in especially violent and brutal ways.  They roam behind German lines causing chaos and mayhem for Hitler’s forces; killing, scalping, and marking their enemies.  Their story is juxtaposed with one of a Jewish girl hiding hiding her identity in Nazi-occupied France.  She runs a theater, and plans are made to show a German war film at her theater.  The two disparate stories converge gloriously.  Added to the mix is the marvelous performance of Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa, a.k.a. the Jew Hunter.  His performance is Oscar worthy.

42. Atonement – 2007 – In my opinion, 2007 was the strongest year of the decade for Best Picture nominees.  4 of the 5 were so good that if they had been released in any other year, they probably would have won against a field that wasn’t as stacked as theirs.  Atonement was a beautiful film that dealt with the heavy consequences that a lie can carry.  Keira Knightley looks magnificent in this movie.  James McAvoy was also very good.  Their romance is lovely and tragic. And incredibly touching and moving film.

41. Up – 2009 – Just the latest example of Pixar hitting it out of the park.  The first 10 minutes of this movie breaks your heart, and then the rest of the movie is spent building it back up again.  An old man travels to a distant land in his house carried by balloons, accompanied by a young kid.  Their friendship grows throughout their adventure, and they add a few pets along the way in the form of a talking dog and a mysterious bird.  And the description of the movie does not begin to do it justice. 

40. A History of Violence – 2005 – David Cronenberg’s 2005 flim based on a graphic novel brought his name to the forefront for a whole new generation.  His height of popularity was back in the early-to-mid 80s.  Since then he had made some quality films, but nothing that really stood out and got people’s attention.  A History of Violence got people’s attention.  A small town family man makes the news as a local hero, and soon his mysterious past comes back to find him.  The movie has a stellar cast (Viggo Mortensen, Marias Bello, Ed Harris, and William Hurt).  The movie is violent, but just as important as the violence is the impact of that violence on the main character’s family. 

39. The 40-Year-Old Virgin – 2005 – This movie made a star of Steve Carrell and marked Judd Apatow as the biggest name in comedy in Hollywood this decade.  It also marked the beginning of the reign of the nerds in comedy.  It was cool to be a nerd or social outcast in a lot of movies this decade, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin was a driving force behind that movement.  The premise is pretty obvious by the title, a 40-year-old virgin become the pet project of his friends who try to get him laid.  The movie also started a trend of comedies that were raunchy but ultimately had a heart-of-gold center to it (see also: Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Role Models, et al.). 

38. Borat – 2006 – Perhaps the greatest mockumentary ever. Sascha Baron Cohen is a comedian who became famous doing characters on a T.V. show (Ali G, Borat, Bruno).  He turned all three of those characters into feature length movies, and Borat, the story of a man from Kazakhstan who comes to America to film a documentary about America, was the biggest hit.  It was incredibly raunchy and incredibly funny.  And a scathing critique of American culture.

37. Training Day – 2001 – It’s easy for people to just think about this movie as the movie that Denzel Washington won a best actor award for, but it’s also a really good movie about two cops and their one day on the job.  Denzel Washington plays a dirty cop who heads a team of officers who make big drug busts.  Ethan Hawke plays the new guy joining the unit. It’s an intense movie, and not just because of Denzel’s performance.

36. The Passion of the Christ – 2004 – There was perhaps no other movie as controversial or divisive as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.  Many people claimed it was anti-Semitic (which is colored even more by his arrest and rantings a few years later).  But on its own, it is a brutal, emotional, and beautiful and daring piece of work.  The dialogue is in Aramaic, which is absolutely gutsy.  The cinematography is amazing.  And the story is unrelenting and unsanitized in dealing with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  And Jim Caveizel does a great job portraying Jesus.  Few movies transcend their medium and become experiences; The Passion of the Christ was one of them.

35. American Psycho – 2000 – Maybe the darkest comedy of the decade, at least stateside.  Before this movie, Christian Bale was only really famous for being a child star.  This catapulted his career and showed that he could make it, as he would go on to even bigger and better things.  Bale plays the soulless Patrick Bateman, a sociopath killer who is living the yuppie dream of 80s decadence, slowly descending into madness.  This is more than a little disturbing, but it’s also really well done. 

34. Brick – 2005 – Another Netflix gem of mine.  I saw previews of this and was intrigued.  I watched it and was blown away.  First time director Rian Johnson make a brilliant noir thriller set in a modern day high school, surrounding the death of the main character’s ex-girlfriend.  With dialogue and a storyline taken right out of a classic black and white noir film from the 40s and supplanted into suburban school life, Brick is a brilliant piece of film making, and great young actors like Joseph Gordon Leavitt pull it of magnificently.

33. Battle Royale – 2000 – Ok, this is the darkest comedy made this decade.  Set in a world where children have rebelled and refuse to go to school, the Japanese government enacts the Battle Royale program, where one class of 7^th graders are selected every year to compete is a fight to the death on an isolated island.  They are all fitted with collars that track them (and can kill them if they are removed), and one random weapon.  The movie is the darkest of black comedy, as you see these adolescent teens who grew up together, and are harboring secret crushes and infatuations for one another, fighting to the death. 

32. O, Brother, Where Art Thou? – 2000 – The Cohen Brothers were riding a hot streak from the mid-90s that carried into 2000 with O, Brother Where Art Thou, a musical comedy that is a loose retelling of The Odyssey.  George Clooney plays the leader of a couple of escape convicts who go in search of some treasure and to return to his wife and kids.  In the process they record some music and become overnight sensations on the radio.

31. Batman Begins – 2005 – Christopher Nolan brought credibility back to the Batman franchise after it had gone off the rails with Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.  There had never been a Batman origin story put to film before, so this allowed Nolan to restart the franchise from scratch.  Christian Bale became a star and one of the few actors that I will almost certainly see anything that he is in. 

30. Shrek – 2001 – Hard to believe this movie would be so high given how diluted the brand has become in the sequels that were made from it, and with a fourth one on the way in 2010, but on it’s own, Shrek is the best non-Pixar CGI movie ever made.  A great cast of voices and an excellent reimagining of the fairy tale genre make this movie work.  The best thing is that it can be enjoyed by kids and adults as there is humor there for both.

29. Team America: World Police – 2004 – Trey Parker & Matt Stone are the best people in the industry at satire this decade, mostly because they have free reign on their show, South Park, to rip anyone and everyone.  But with Team America, they made another great movie that, like the South Park movie, had some great musical numbers.  But the brilliance of the movie is that instead of animation or live-action, they used puppets.  And made it look really great.  They satirize America’s foreign policy, Hollywood lefties, and, perhaps best of all, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il.

28. Spider-Man 2 – 2004 – The second-best superhero movie ever made.  Spider-Man 2 was a huge hit.  It capitalized on all of the potential shown in the first Spidey movie and delivered an even better story the 2^nd time around, with Peter Parker dealing with his feelings for Mary Jane, and his responsibilities as Spider-Man imposing on his regular life.  And Alfred Molina was great as Doctor Octopus. 

27. Avatar – 2009 – “Spectacle” is the best word that can be used to describe Avatar.  The movie was 12 years in the making, and the most expensive movie ever made.  Director James Cameron had to wait for technology to catch up to his vision, a whole new world.  And what a world it is.  The story may not be original (Hello, Dances With Wolves and Pocahontas), but the story is good enough to not drag the film down.  The visuals of this movie are a sight to behold; a really breathtaking piece of movie history.  Admittedly, it is hard to properly place this movie, with it being so fresh in my memory, if I were to revisit this list in 10 years (let’s hope not), this movie would probably move more in either direction than any other movie in the list.  The big question is how well it will age as an epic, groundbreaking movie.  Will it age like Titanic, which becomes more and more unwatchable with each passing year or the other way? 

26. The Departed – 2006 – The best U.S. remake of a foreign film made this decade.  This was the movie that finally got the monkey off of Martin Scorcese’s back and won him an Oscar for Best Director.  It also took the Oscar for Best Picture.  And it really was as it succeeds on every level.  A perfect example of the right director with the right script and the right cast of actors.  Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio headline the movie while Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, and Mark Wahlberg deliver strong supporting performances.  In fact, this was the first movie that I really bought DiCaprio in as a grown up.  Even as recently as Gangs of New York, he looked miscast, like he was too young to be portraying his character.  He finally seemed to fill the role here.

~Moose

Movies of the Decade: 75-51

75. United 93 – 2006 – A lot of people wondered if this movie should be done at all.  Was it too soon after 9/11 to make a movie about it?  Would it be tastefully done?  The answers were “no” and “yes”, respectively.  The movie portrayed the heroic actions of the people on board that flight in a very realistic way that made you more fully understand and appreciate their sacrifice that day and how the passengers on that plane really were united, similar to how this country was united in the weeks after 9/11.  It’s a moving, emotional film that everyone should see. 

74. The Descent – 2005 – Neil Marshall made one of the best horror films of the decade here, and centered the story on a group of strong female characters.  No easy task making a horror movie with a nearly-all-female cast, but this movie really pulls it off.  The pace slowly builds up through the movie as the tension mounts.  The movie uses several elemental fears to execute its horror; particularly claustrophobia, fear of the dark, and the things that lurk in the dark, unexplored places.

73. Tell No One – 2007 – This French movie surprised me when I saw it in early 2009.  Based on an American novel, Tell No One is a emotional thriller of a man who loses his wife and then eight years later gets an e-mail showing her alive.  Pretty tense at times and keeps the viewer guessing about what is ultimately going on and what happened 8 years ago for most of the movie. 

72. Traffic – 2000 – Steven Soderbergh made a wide variety of movies this decade, usually alternating between a mainstream movie and an experimental indie movie.  Whatever category Traffic falls into, Soderbergh struck the right balance with this movie, his most financially successful movie outside of the Ocean’s Trilogy and Erin Brockovitch(released the same year).  Traffic probably influenced Crash and Babel, but it smartly weaves the stories together around a common theme of the international drug trade while those other movies took the extra step of making the individual stories interconnected. 

71. Superbad – 2007 – Seth Rogen wrote this script over a number of years, and it was a welcome hit in August of 2007.  Jonah Hill and Michael Cera headlined the movie, but it was Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s character McLovin’ that stole the movie.  High school movies involving seniors near graduation have been done so many times, but this managed to keep the story fresh and funny. 

70. The Bourne Identity – 2002 – 2002 saw a changing of the guard in the spy genre, as Jason Bourne seized the conch from James Bond with this movie.  It was surprising because Matt Damon was/is not really thought of as an action star.  This movie and its predecessors gave was to the shaky-cam, quick-cut, tight-shot style of filming fight scenes, which alternated between being nauseating and infuriating to watch because you couldn’t see who was hitting whom.  That quick-cut stuff really took off more in the sequels to this movie, so Identity makes it onto my list instead of Supremacy or Ultimatum to represent to Bourne franchise.

69. Sin City – 2005 – Comic book movies really came into their own this decade.  With the proliferation of them, the quality severely suffered for most of them, but there were some gems.  Sin City is one of them.  Not only was it a movie based on a graphic novel, but it was shot and animated in a way that made it look like a graphic novel come to life.  This is how you use green-screen CGI without sacrificing story and acting.  George Lucas would do well to take note.

68. The King of Kong – 2007 – I didn’t see a lot of documentaries during the decade, but this is the best of the ones that I did watch, and deserves to be listed here.  It’s a great story of two men who play Donkey Kong competitively and the culture around old school video games.  One man is the long-standing record-holder trying to hold onto his “glory.”  The other is the underdog you want to root for.  You may never root for someone to succeed more than you do for Steve Wiebe in this movie, nor root against someone as you do Billy Mitchell.

67. Munich – 2005 – Leave it to Steven Spielberg to make a compelling movie with sharp critiques about how to respond to violence in the aftermath of terrorism and to do it tastefully and make it impactful.  Eric Bana and Daniel Craig are two of a group of actors who play a group of Mossad agents who are dispatched by the Israeli government in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes to find those responsible and exact vengeance.  You see the slow deterioration of these men as kill and become more and more consumed by their actions; trying desperately to cling to their humanity in the process.  The film could have very easily become preachy and a veiled Hollywood shot across the bow of the U.S. actions in the aftermath of 9/11, but Spielberg is incredibly even-handed in his handling of the message of the film.

66. Pineapple Express – 2008 – Take a up and coming comedic actor writing a screenplay, add a critically acclaimed indie director, put them under the Judd Apatow production tent, and you get Pineapple Express, the best stoner movie of this decade, easily beating out Dude, Where’s My Car.  Seth Rogen, who co-wrote the script, plays a process server/stoner who has to go on the run with his dealer (James Franco) because a couple of thugs are out to kill them.  It also has Danny McBride in another funny supporting role.  For the summer of 2008, Tropic Thunder was the most talked about comedy, but I think Pineapple Express delivered the laughs more consistently. 

65. Michael Clayton – 2007 – This was the directorial debut of accomplished screenwriter Tony Gilroy.  He also wrote the script and it’s a taught mystery drama.  George Clooney stars as the title character, a legal “fixer” who is brought in by his firm to solve a problem involving one of their lawyers and a chemical company that they are representing in a multi-billion dollar class action suit. 

64. Lars and the Real Girl – 2007 – Ryan Gosling followed up his Academy Award nominated role in Half Nelson with this daring role, playing a lonely, socially awkward man who buys a full sized sex doll online and introduces her to his family and friends as his girlfriend.  The premise sounds odd (it is wonderfully odd) and perverted (it isn’t).  Instead, it’s about the importance of relationships and community of a small town, and the community reaching out to embrace one of their own when that person is struggling. 

63. Inside Man – 2006 – Spike Lee, I think, has a pretty checkered resume.  Some of his movies are great.  Some are mediocre.  Some are controversial for the sake of being controversial.  Most of his films, even the critically acclaimed ones, have been met with limited financial success.  But Inside Man is easily his most accessible and mainstream “joint” he has ever made.  Keeping most of his social commentary on the peripheral/sidelines in this movie, he sets his stars (Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster) in a great script about a bank heist.  Add in solid supporting roles by Christopher Plummer and Willem Dafoe, and Spike Lee quietly put together the best heist film of the decade, even leaving Ocean’s 11 in its dust.

62. Gone Baby Gone – 2007 – Mystic River was the Dennis Lehane novel that got the big screen treatment which everybody praised, but I think Gone Baby Gone was the better movie.  It’s definitely got the better story.  And who knew that Ben Affleck had this in him as a first time director?  The cast (aside from Morgan Freeman) doesn’t have the stature of those in Mystic River, but they all give great performances.  And the great part of the movie is that it lends itself to an interesting discussion afterward, because at the conclusion, you are undecided if the main character made the right decision, and what you would do if in his shoes. 

61. Spider-Man – 2002 – The Comic Book Movies really showed promise with Bryan Singer’s 2001 movie X-Men, but they hit the big time with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.  Spider-Man was the most beloved Marvel character and had never been done successfully as live-action in any form.  But by this decade, the technology was there to make a Spider-Man movie that harnessed the capabilities of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger.  Spidey could climb walls, hang upside down, and swing around the city like he was in the comic books, without limitations.  And it was a really good origin story too.

60. Finding Nemo – 2003 – One could make an end of the decade list Top 10 consisting of just Pixar films and it would hold its own against any other list out there.  Pixar is the surest thing going in Hollywood.  It’s easy to overlook this aquatic gem when thinking about Pixar’s decade, because of the critical praise lavished on Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, Wall-E, and Up, but Finding Nemo is right up there as well.

59. Forgetting Sarah Marshall – 2008 – This was the surprise comedy of 2008 for me.  I anticipated Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder.  I did not see Forgetting Sarah Marshall being so good; another great comedy under the Judd Apatow banner.  Not only did it have the comedic chops, but it also had a nice romance in it too.

58. Eastern Promises – 2007 – David Cronenberg made a name for himself by making horrors/thrillers where the horror elements manifested themselves in physical form (The Brood, Videodrome, The Fly).  In nearly all of his movies, there is a visceral level of violence and/or blood.  This movie about the Russian Mafia is no exception.  Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts give great performances, as does Vincent Cassel. 

57. The Royal Tenenbaums – 2001 – I’ve never been a huge fan of Wes Anderson.  His movies are really hit-or-miss with me.  Bottle Rocket had its moments, as did Rushmore.  Everything I saw about it made me think I would like Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou more than I did.  So I was not expecting to enjoy The Royal Tenenbaums.  Boy was I pleasantly surprised.  Thinking about all of his movies, there is a general theme of messed up family, both the biological ones and the ones we make for ourselves.  Royal Tenenbaums is perhaps the quirkiest extended family he has assembled.  A really great ensemble cast gives really great performances about this estranged family full of former child prodigies. 

56. The Hangover – 2009 – This was the comedic hit of 2009.  It had a relatively unproven trio of leads (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zack Galifianakis, and director Todd Phillips.  But the script was great and the comedy was fresh, especially hard to pull off given that it could easily have been just another movie about Vegas.  The great thing about the movie is that they don’t even show the night of the bachelor party, only the aftermath, instead having no memory of events, they are left to retrace their steps, leading to uproariously funny revelations, discoveries, and predicaments.

55. Slumdog Millionaire – 2008 – Danny Boyle was one of the stand out directors of the decade, making 28 Days Later, Millions, Sunshine, and this Oscar winner for Best Picture about a Mumbai teen who goes on the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire” after growing up in the slums of that city.  It’s a really great story about love, struggling to survive, and dealing with the prejudices of class. 

54. Star Trek – 2009 – J.J. Abrams was one of the names that made an impact on entertainment this decade.  From producing T.V. series’ to directing and producing movies, Abrams redeemed the Mission: Impossible franchise in 2006, and then totally revamped the floundering Star Trek franchise in 2009 with this movie, boldly transforming the foundation of the Kirk/Spock Enterprise Era for a new generation.  Casting was spot on, with the exception of maybe Eric Bana as the villain, and it gave a lot of life, optimism, and hope for the Trekkies out there.  It made it cool to be a fan of Star Trek.

53. X2: X-Men United – 2003 – Bryan Singer made the best superhero movie to date when he made X-Men in 2000.  That set the stage for everything that was to come in superhero genre in the years that followed it.  Unlike so many sequels to successful first films, X2 is the rare sequel that is better than the first one.  Hugh Jackman really gets to bears his claws in this movie, especially in a great scene when the school is attacked.  Adding Bryan Cox as the villain and Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler to the mix of everything that made the first film, while aligning Magneto and his cronies with Xavier’s band against a common foe made the stakes that much greater.  This was the first superhero movie to show what the genre was fully capable of when it moved past the necessary origin story and got a chance to shine in the sequel.

52. City of God – 2002 – Possibly the best T.V. show of the decade was a little-known show on HBO called The Wire.  It was never nominated for any Emmy awards; yet ask almost anyone who has ever watched it and they will tell you it might be the most important show that was ever made.  This 2002 movie is in a similar vein as The Wire.  The movie is about a young man who lives in poverty in Rio De Janeiro, surrounded by drugs and the gangs that push them on the streets.  He seeks to escape his surroundings through photography, while a kid he grew up with embraces the gang lifestyle around him. 

51. Iron Man – 2008 – The summer of 2008 belonged to Robert Downey Jr. as much as anyone else.  He hit it big with Iron Man and Tropic Thunder.  Nobody knew what to expect from Iron Man.  Jon Favreau had not done an action movie yet.  Robert Downey Jr. had made a respectable comeback from drug problems that riddled his career in the 90s, but he was not a star.  And Iron Man was not as prominent in people’s collective minds as Spider-Man, The Hulk, and the X-Men were in the Marvel Universe.  All of these factors helped keep people’s expectations relatively low for the movie, and then they were wildly exceeded when the movie was really good.  Downey Jr. was the perfect Tony Stark, someone who loves life and lives it up accordingly. 

~Moose

Movies of the Decade: 100-76

Ok, so starts the big countdown.  Reviewing the best movies of the decade that just passed.  I tried to be somewhat objective in making this list.  It's tough to weight comedey, horror, drama, sci-fi, foreign language and action films against each other.  The temptation is strong to rank serious films higher than comedies, for instance, because they win so many awards, but a comedy may have had more of a societal or cultural impact.  So these rankings are a composite ranking of my favorites, critical acclaim, cultural impact or significance, etc.  A little bit of everything is represented.  Hope you enjoy these. 

100. Audition – 2000 – One of the most disturbing movies I saw this decade.  It unnerved me.  The movie starts off slow and deliberate; in fact, the first half of the movie could be mistaken for a romantic drama, before it takes a sharp left turn and is just a total stomach punch of a movie.  Takashi Miike is the preeminent name in Asia horror.

99. High Fidelity – 2000 – One of the better romantic dramedies of recent memory.  Helped to make Jack Black a household name, and brought John Cusack back to prominence in the romance genre that made him so popular in the late 80s.

98. Before Sunset – 2004 – This sequel to Before Sunrise picks up on the two main leads, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, 10 years after their one night relationship.  It’s not easy for a movie to consist almost entirely around only two characters, let alone do it twice.  You hope that they get together with Richard Linklater for a third movie next decade.

97. Casino Royale – 2006 – The James Bond franchise came back in a big way with this movie, after getting a little silly in the late Brosnan period.  They stripped the story down to the core of the character and did away with much of the gadgetry that muddled up the series.  And despite the initial hesitancy of many, Daniel Craig is arguably one of the best to ever fill the Bond role.

96. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story – 2007 – Some would say that either Ray or Walk the Line was the best docu-drama of the decade, but as far as I’m concerned, The Dewey Cox story is the best, and it’s a parody of the docu-drama style of films.  You can see elements of Ray, Walk the Line, The Beach Boys, The Doors, and many others in this movie.  It also includes a great cameo role of Jack White as Elvis Presley.

95. Wanted – 2008 – One of the most enjoyable action flicks of the decade(a close second is the aptly named Shoot ‘Em Up), Wanted features James McAvoy playing against type(the words “action star” doesn’t immediately come to mind with him), learning to become an assassin under the tutelage of Angelina Jolie in one of her sexiest roles.  The concept of curving bullets may sound absurd, but is executed well in the context of the story.  Just a lot of fun action, with Morgan Freeman mixed in too.

94. Zombieland – 2009 – The one of the best zombie movies of the decade and funniest movies of 2009. Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg were a great comedy duo.  And this movie reinforced to the public the importance of cardio.  Lots of really good gore and the single greatest cameo in a movie possibly ever, and I won’t name the person so as not to spoil it.

93. Juno – 2007 – This indie was all the rage.  It was a pretty impressive writing debut for Diablo Cody and another strong directing job by Jason Reitman.  While the groundswell of support it got to be nominated for Best Picture may have been a bit excessive, the Oscar for best original screenplay was well-deserved.

92. The Wrestler – 2008 – This movie marked the return of Mickey Rourke.  In a lot of ways, this movie was like life imitating art in that Rourke, considered a has-been actor for so many years, played a has-been wrestler who gets a chance to resurrect his career.  An emotionally raw and jarring film. 

91. Layer Cake – 2004 – Daniel Craig starred in this movie before landing the role of James Bond.  A gangster heist flick in the vein of “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.” 

90. House of Flying Daggers – 2004 – I already had been exposed to the beauty that is Zhang Ziyi, but this movie put her talent on full display.  A twisting love story more than a martial arts movie, Ziyi gets to display her performing arts background and then blend it in with the martial arts theme.  Also, this movie is one of the most visually rich movies you will ever see; a feast for the eyes.

89. Black Hawk Down – 2001 – You can definitely spot a Ridley Scott movie from this decade.  While the time periods may change from movie to movie, there is a certain gritty texture that flows through his movies, particularly the action movies.  This movie does a good job showing the chaos, mayhem, and difficulty of urban warfare. 

88. Tropic Thunder – 2008 – Hollywood sometimes takes itself too seriously, thinking that the roles they perform or the things they go through to prepare for films somehow makes them special.  Ben Stiller did a brilliant job shining a light on that fine line between actors enjoying their craft and falling into self-parody/self-importance.  Ultimately, the movie is about the insecurities of all actors and how those insecurities manifest themselves; from the method actor who gets lost in whichever role he is portraying or the rapper trying to sell an image and maintain a certain level of street cred, to the action star who wants to be taken seriously as an actor and will stoop to the Oscar pandering role.

87. 500 Days of Summer – 2009 – A love story that tells you right up front that it doesn’t have a happy ending.  And what a refreshing movie it is!  So much of what is the romance genre is formulaic, predictable, and not very realistic.  But this movie was anything but that.  Zooey Deschanel is at her indie-hipster goddess peak, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt continues to make a case for himself as the up and coming star with the most potential, and the movie is funny, has great references to classic movies, and is honest about the subject of love in a way that probably 90% of movies today are not.

86. Ocean’s 11 – 2001 – The movie that made the heist film cool again.  As easy as it would be to dismiss this movie as an excuse for a lot of famous actors to get together and goof off together, this movie is actually loads of fun to watch, because you know the actors are having fun. 

85. Wedding Crashers – 2005 – Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson both seemed to peak with this movie.  Both kind of lost their way in the years that followed (Fred Claus, Drillbit Taylor anyone?).  But this movie was hilarious.  The opening 5-10 minutes of this movie is maybe the most enjoyable opening to a movie I can think of.

84. Stranger Than Fiction – 2006 – Will Ferrell’s career is mostly defined by movies where he plays slight variations of the same character, the man-child.  So it was a huge surprise to see him change it up and deliver such a great performance in this movie alongside Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, and Maggie Gyllenhall.  The premise of the movie is something you’d expect out of a Charlie Kaufman movie, but far more accessible and audience friendly.  A man starts to hear a narrator of his daily life, which turns out to be an author who is writing a book where he is the main character and she plans to kill him off at the end. 

83. Punch-Drunk Love – 2002 – Adam Sandler is another guy whose resume is largely defined by playing variations of the same character.  But this movie is unlike anything Sandler has done, before or since.  Playing an emotionally uptight man who stores up his anger and frustration until he snaps, it is the best acting performance of Adam Sandler’s career.  And the love story that blossoms between he and Emily Watson is so odd and yet so charming. 

82. The Ring – 2002 – Legitimately scary and creepy, The Ring is the movie that launched a 1000 remakes of foreign language films, particularly Asian horror.  The movies that followed it may have been mostly garbage, but this one was a worthy adaptation of a Japanese horror movie and shouldn’t be punished for the failures that tried to follow in its footsteps.

81. Knocked Up – 2007 – This movie about a pregnancy that results from a one night stand between a beautiful TV news personality and a slacker was the Judd Apatow locomotive at full power.  Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl were an oddly cute couple, even if she was way out of his league in reality.  And while Heigl received some critical backlash for things she said and did in the few years after the film came out, at the time both of them were poised to become big stars.  Instead, Heigl has floundered a bit and Rogen has really taken off. 

80. Road To Perdition – 2002 – Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Paul Newman, Daniel Craig and others make a pretty stellar cast.  A period piece set around 1930s Chicago, this gangster/road trip/father-son movie looked great and had a really good story. 

79. Little Miss Sunshine – 2006 – This movie almost started a trend where one indie film each year would generate some serious Oscar buzz for Best Picture, there would be a period of backlash against the film, and then it would get nominated and just become an also-ran in the category.  Aside from all the hype and backlash, it’s a really good family road trip movie.  Greg Kinnear, Toni Colette, Paul Dano, and Abigail Breslin make the nuclear family of the movie and Steve Carrell and Alan Arkin play the Uncle and Grandpa, respectively.

78. Old School – 2003 – The official launching of the “Frat Pack” set of movies that came to really define comedy in the first half of the decade (see Zoolander, Wedding Crashers, Anchorman, etc.).  This movie helped  launch Will Ferrell as a viable comedy movie star, brought Vince Vaughn back to the comedic forefront after a few years of taking on more serious roles, and put Luke Wilson in the lead as a group of guys in theor 30s who end up creating a fraternity at the nearby college.  It also introduced us to Ellen Pompeo, who was sneaky hot until she landed Grey’s Anatomy.

77. 28 Days Later – 2002 – Danny Boyle made one of the grittiest, tensest horror movies of the decade.  One could argue the merits of fast zombies vs. slow zombies all day, and whether or not Boyle’s rage-infected humans were actually zombies.  What can’t be argued is that this movie delivers on everything it has to offer in it tale of survival.  The creatures are frightening because they are fast, adding a never-before-seen element to the genre.  And seeing the streets of London empty and the city quiet adds to how unnerving the movie is.

76. Donnie Darko - 2001 - Another movie that you need to see more than once to understand, and even then there may be parts that elude you.  Donnie Darko is a great debut by director Richard Kelly and made a lot of people take notice of Jaky Gyllenhall.  A very odd and unique sci-fi film set in a suburban town, dealing with time travel, and the end of the world.  Oh yeah, and somebody dressed up in a freaky bunny costume adds a whole other level of weirdness to it all.

~Moose