The best movies of the decade

It’s been a weird decade for movies.  Thinking back to the ’90s movies we are reminded of iconic images: I immediately have the posters for “Pulp Fiction” and “Trainspotting” in my mind.  The indie movement that developed in the early 90s has finally led to a weird split, so movies are being made for either $200 million or about $10 million – the middle ground seems to have disappeared.  Digital projection has slowly snuck into cinemas but it will probably be nearly another 10 years before it’s effectively replaced celluloid altogether.  3D has been pushed as a new way of seeing movies, although it’s actually a new way of pushing an old gimmick.  Comic book movies grew up from the early “X-Men” movies to “Spider-Man 2” and “The Dark Knight”, via “Sin City”.  Paul Thomas Anderson, I think, emerged as one of the most exciting talents, along with Guillermo Del Toro.  I pulled together 20 movies I consider the best of the decade – noting here that A) I have not seen all the movies of this decade, including a few esteemed movies that might have made it to the list, and B) I might change my mind tomorrow.

One thing I struggle to understand is how despite my initial feeling that this decade has been distinctly underwhelming, when I sat down to list all the terrific movies I’ve seen this decade I was able to come up with so many titles.  So after the initial 20 (in chronological order; arranging them in order of quality would be futile) I’ve included 100 more movies – just 100 – that range from the merely very good to the indispensable.  The list contains no movies from 2009 yet, partly because most of the Oscar-contenders probably haven’t been released yet, and nothing I’ve seen this year so far has knocked me out enough to make it.

THE 20 BEST MOVIES OF THE DECADE

ALMOST FAMOUS (Cameron Crowe, USA 2000)

“Almost Famous” may not have had the impact some of the other movies here did, but I’ve watched it as many times as any on this list.  It’s a semi-autobiographical take on Crowe’s early days as a music journalist, travelling with the Allman Brothers Band when he was 15, and it’s a labour of love with too many moments of perfection and uncanny performances to dismiss.  Patrick Fugit as William Miller (Crowe’s doppelganger), Kate Hudson as Penny Lane (in a performance that she has never since lived up to), Billy Crudup as Russell Hammond and Frances McDormand as William’s mother.  It’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the roles.  Of the two versions available, check out the longer, ‘Untitled’ cut, which feels better paced.  This is most people’s favourite scene from the movie, and rightly so; the idea of settling a dispute with a sing-song is not only fairly unique, it also feels entirely organic, like it comes from the characters rather than their writer-director.

WONDER BOYS (Curtis Hanson, USA 2000)

Michael Douglas as Grady Tripp: writer, stoner, loser, lover, wonder boy.

Like “Almost Famous” this movie’s success comes down to the characters and performances; the comic and even absurdist story seems to flow out of their personalities and neuroses.   A movie about a struggling writer featuring a dead dog, Marilyn Monroe’s jacket and Robert Downey Jr sneaking off with a transvestite sounds strained, but the movie just lets these things happen and they work.

The central character, Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas in his finest performance, underappreciated though it may be) we sense puts himself in these situations a lot, unconsciously creating problems for himself to stop things becoming boring, and to distract him from the book he’s been writing for the better part of a decade.  Neither this or “Almost Famous” has any great claim to cinematic art or creative breakthroughs, but they are both perfect examples of themselves.  Side note: this is the only movie featuring Katie Holmes in which I do not want to set her on fire.  Side side note: you didn’t hear it from me, but “Almost Famous” and “Wonder Boys” are also the two best movies to get high to from this list.

GOSFORD PARK (Robert Altman, UK 2001)

One of the giants we lost this last decade was Robert Altman, who in the ’70s made some of my favourite movies (“Nashville,” “McCabe & Mrs Miller,” “The Long Goodbye”).  He’s harder to get into than, say, Scorsese, I feel, but once you get into his work it’s impossible to go back.  During the ’90s and ’00s (in which he reached his 80s, still making movies to the end) his work was less consistent but when he was good he could be dazzling.  The best movie he made this decade was this one; it’s a murder mystery but if you’ve seen any Altman movies you know that a knowledge of what Altman is about is more useful going into it than the expectation of an Agatha Christie-style story.  The characters and social etiquette of a country house in the early 20th century is so well observed that by the time Michael Gambon bites the dust we’ve forgotten that there’s going to be a murder at all.  The cast is a Who’s Who of British stage and screen icons, both young (Clive Owen, Kelly McDonald) and immortal (Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren).

MONSTER’S BALL (Marc Forster, USA 2001)

Heath Ledger is not likely to be forgotten following the success of his take on the Joker, but this was the movie that made me sit up and take notice of him in the first place.  I walked in thinking his being in the movie was a concession to popular taste (I’d only seen him in “10 Things I Hate About You”), and his was the most surprising performance.  Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton play two lost souls who somehow find some solace in one another despite their differing social backgrounds.  The last scene is one of the most memorable of the decade – very little actually happens, but we are invited to fill in the blanks.  When this movie came out it was avoided by people who thought it would be a depressing slog, but I went to see it again and again, and always left the cinema uplifted.  (Video contains spoilers)

SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki, Japan 2001)

In Japan, “Spirited Away” overtook “Titanic” as their highest grossing movie.  Here its success was more modest, but the audience for Miyazaki’s movies is always growing internationally; his imagination breaks through cultural differences, and those differences that do remain are part of the draw of his movies.  The visuals and narrative of “Spirited Away” are more dreamlike – in the literal sense of that word – than anything western animation is offering.  This was the decade that Disney decided (though they later changed their mind) that they were done with traditional 2D animation.  Miyazaki fundamentally believes in the power of individually drawn frames, and he has one of the best visual imaginations in the world.  I can’t think of many other movies that have so enraptured both kids and adults.

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico 2001)

Internationally, some of the most interesting movies – or the countries that seemed continually to have the most interesting output – were South Korea and Mexico.  Referred to as the Mexican New Wave (original, yeah?), its champions were Alejandro González Inárritu, Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón, best known now for “Children of Men” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”.  Cuarón’s breakthrough was this movie, which came out within a year of Inárritu’s acclaimed “Amores Perros”.  The latter has the more impressive directorial style, and masterfully shifts around in time, but I prefer this movie with its sense of energy and life and, ultimately, understanding of mortality.  It’s a funny, sexy road movie but it’s set in the real world, where the two young horny stars (Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) live for partying and masturbation, and are somewhat wrongfooted when an attractive older lady agrees to come with them in search of a mythical beach (that they’ve made up).  A great entertainment that is ultimately touching and profound.  Note: when this movie opened in Edinburgh, its title, which means ‘And your mother too,’ was translated by the Cameo cinema as ‘So’s Yer Ma.’

CITY OF GOD (Fernando Meirelles, Brazil 2002)

When City of God came out, Roger Ebert described it as “GoodFellas” without choice.  It’s a breathlessly energetic look at the criminal underworld (underworld perhaps being the wrong word, as it is so constantly present for all to see) of Rio.  Certainly it’s the crime movie of the decade.  In “GoodFellas” the protagonist, Henry Hill, was lured in by the glamour of gangster life, and we in the audience, however much we disapprove, can understand that lure.  “City of God” features people simply stuck in this life, destined that way from birth, occasionally surviving and moving out of it, often not so lucky.  The influence from Scorsese goes beyond simply “GoodFellas”, but Scorsese didn’t make a movie this decade as good as this.  Almost no one did.

ELEPHANT (Gus Van Sant, USA 2003)

The killers from Van Sant's "Elephant"

The most chilling movie of the decade wasn’t, for me, a horror movie (the horror movies this decade may have been even more dire than usual, with every ’70s and ’80s horror franchise inspiring tedious remakes).  It was Gus Van Sant’s brilliant, lyrical nightmare; an unflinching look at a school shooting not unlike Columbine.  The steadycam shots follow the characters through the school corridors, which take on an eerie sense of portent, as they move towards the shattering climax.  As in life, there’s no real way to tell who will live and who will die; it’s random and meaningless.  The movie sparked controversy when it won the Palme d’Or, accused by some of being a likely inspiration for further such massacres.  But the truth is anyone likely to do something like that will probably never see this movie, just as the Columbine shooters probably never saw “The Basketball Diaries,” and the Jamie Bulger killers probably never saw “Child’s Play 3.”  The press, more responsible for these tragedies than any movie, likes to have something to blame.  For those willing to enter into its strange and haunting spell, it’s one of the most memorable and disturbing movies of the decade, and one willing to look head-on at a problem that America is largely in denial about.

OLDBOY (Chan-Wook Park, South Korean 2003)

A positively Jacobean revenge story at heart, “Oldboy” holds nothing back in stripping the characters down to their barest needs and torments.  The first time you watch it, it plays out like a nightmare, with the hero tossed into a prison cell that cruelly mimics life outside (a television, wallpaper, etc).  When released he vows to find and avenge whoever did this to him, but the real revenge is ultimately more complex than we anticipated, and incorporates themes that seem to come out of nowhere.  It is a superbly made picture, the centrepiece of Park’s ‘revenge’ trilogy (along with “Sympathy for Mr Vengeance” and “Lady Vengeance,” both good and both disturbing for quite different reasons).  And it features one of the best fight scenes of the decade:

SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER… AND SPRING (Ki-Duk Kim, South Korea 2003)

While Chan-Wook Park makes revenge pictures that pierce the soul, Ki-Duk Kim infiltrates the mind more gradually; his movies have the simplicity of great poetry.  Prior to this he made “The Isle,” with some of the most unpleasant sequences you’re likely to see in a movie; in a sense, this movie couldn’t be more different, but both approach their subjects with deeply held philosophical notions.  This movie is inspired by the circular notion of life held by Buddhists, hence the title, which also reflects the film’s structure.  It is about a Buddhist master and his pupil, showing the boy as a child, adolescent, and adult, discovering his own sexual appetite but ultimately returning to the house on the lake – the movie is entirely set in this house and around the lake, with the outside world that draws the pupil away never  shown.  The story almost couldn’t be simpler, and the movie is rooted in ideas specific to Korean and Asian culture, but despite rising from a different set of cultural values and beliefs, its themes and ideas are universal.

MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Clint Eastwood, USA 2004)

Tough ain't enough

Clint Eastwood has ultimately developed, quite surprisingly, into one of Hollywood’s finest directors.  He made “Unforgiven,” one of the best Westerns ever made, almost two decades ago and the best movie he’s made since was about a female boxer.  The camerawork and music (composed by Eastwood) give the movie a sense of timeless simplicity.  Eastwood, who during the ’90s was starting to stretch his ability to play tough-guys, is perfect as the trainer, for whom ‘tough ain’t enough.’  It’s not a perfect movie – I cringe every time Hilary Swank’s family is in the movie; they feel as if they’ve wandered onto the wrong set – but no movie this decade has moved me more.

MYSTERIOUS SKIN (Gregg Araki, USA 2004)

The strength of this story of child abuse may lie in the fact that we are never invited to pity the two boys who were both abused by their school coach as children.  As teenagers they are played by Brady Corbett and Joseph-Gordon Levitt, and Levitt’s performance, as a cocky rent boy, may be one of the most memorable breakthroughs of the decade.  It’s a very strange and lyrical movie, and the fact that it’s about child abuse makes it a hard sell, but I don’t think anyone who sees it gets the movie they expected.  Few movies have stuck with me the way this one did.

49 UP (Michael Apted, UK 2005)

In 1964 a documentary was made about a group of 7-year-old school children from different social backgrounds, to show class difference in Britain and also to ask if, if shown the child, you can see the adult.  Michael Apted, who was involved with that initial documentary, has revisited the group every 7 years since to catch up with them, keeping a record of their progression through life.  Some have dropped out, a couple have gone then reappeared in later installments.  In this they are 49 years old, and there’s no indication the series will cease (whether it will continue after Apted, who is older than the subjects, were to go, is a different question).  It’s as fascinating a series of documentaries as you will ever see, and impossible to watch without thinking about your own life; I felt an uncanny sense of foresight when going from “21 Up” (the closest to my own age) to “28 Up”, which features a fairly high level of disenchantment.  Each individual documentary is worth seeing in its own right, but sooner or later everyone should come to this series and marvel at it.  This clips shows Neil, one of the most interesting and least predictable figures from the series.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (David Cronenberg, USA 2005)

David Cronenberg remains one of the most interesting directors working in the western world; someone on that short list of directors with a real, personal vision.  Cronenberg movies just feel like Cronenberg movies, just as Hitchcock movies feel like Hitchcock movies.  He has always had a fascination with the human body, violence, mutilation and sexuality, and those themes are all present in this, one of his finest movies.  The ‘history’ of the title refers not just to the ambiguous history of the movie’s protagonist, Tom Stall (played by Viggo Mortensen, who in this and “Eastern Promises,” proved himself to be one of the most notable actors to come out of this decade) but also to the history of violence of the human race, and even on a Darwinian level, the deep biological impulses (for instance to protect one’s family) that feed into violence even in someone who lives a quiet, decent life.  Ed Harris is superbly sinister as the stranger who initially provokes Tom, and William Hurt again proves what a wonderful character actor he is.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Germany 2006)

Ulrich Muhe

Everyone thought “Pan’s Labyrinth” was going to win the 2007 Best Foreign Language Oscar, and lots of us were fairly surprised when it went to this rather unknown, at the time, German movie, set in East Berlin and centering around a man whose job it is to spy on a potentially subversive playwright.  The story unfolds in a direct and simple fashion but the movie is loved by everyone I know who has seen it.  Part of the success is down to the performance of Ulrich Muhe, who died not long after the movie was complete.  By the end of the movie we just love this guy, and it’s not easy to qualify this in terms of how much is down to the movie and how much is down to his performance.  Of all the movies made this decade this may be one of the most cherished by its audience.

PAN’S LABYRINTH (Guillermo Del Toro, Spain 2006)

Interestingly “Pan’s Labyrinth” shares more with “The Lives of Others” than might at first be obvious; both are set in the aftermath of devastating wars and both are about loyalty and choice.  This was the movie that, when I sat down to write this list, sprang to mind immediately.  It’s a true original, drawing on traditions of fairytales and somehow making them work in a seemingly incompatible setting: Spain, just after the civil war, with rebel factions still hiding throughout the country.  In to this world comes Ofelia, who avoids her evil step-father by following clues left to her by a mystical, and slightly creepy, fawn, which he tells her will ultimately reunite her with her real father in the underworld, where she will be a princess.  The moral extremes of the movie are represented by the fascist, repulsive Captain Vidal, for whom having a wife is a means of having a son and heir, and at the other end Mercedes, a helper in the kitchen, secretly helping the rebels; there’s an argument to say she’s ultimately the hero of the movie.  Del Toro’s limitless imagination fuels the movie, as in this fantastic, terrifying scene.

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (Paul Greengrass, USA 2007)

No time for vodka martinis.

Artistically this might have the least persuasive argument to be on this list (and part of me hates having to leave “Downfall,” featuring one of the best performances of the decade, off in its favour), but for sheer entertainment value there was no better movie this decade.  The Bourne movies started off without anything particularly ground-shaking, but after Paul Greengrass took over directing duties they became what is sometimes – and I use this phrase with caution – referred to as ‘pure cinema’.  ‘Pure cinema’ for me usually means ’empty cinema’, and there’s not much going on beneath the surface here, but really, who cares?  From its absolutely masterful chase scene round Waterloo station, to its equally superb rooftop chase, and finally the, um, chase through New York, it doesn’t take a second to breathe.  Maintaining this so brilliantly is down to Greengrass and the technical team.  The editing of the Bourne movies is sometimes criticised but I think it provides a perfect antidote to the meaningless action of, for instance, the Michael Bay movies that have dominated the Summer box office for the past few years.  The editing is fast, but it has real momentum; it’s not just randomly chopped together (cf. “Transformers”).  The cast, from Damon to Joan Allen and David Strathairn (with a great cameo by Albert Finney), is what completes it.  As much fun as any movie this decade.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA 2007)

Give the man a milkshake

With four movies, Paul Thomas Anderson has proved himself to be one of the most interesting directors going in America just now.  “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” were Altman-esque takes first on the porn industry then on… well, we could argue about what “Magnolia” is really about for a while.  “Punch-Drunk Love” is one of the best love stories of the decade, a movie in which the line ‘I love you so much I want to smash your face in with a sledge hammer’ is romantic.  He changed gears again with this, his greatest achievement to date.  From its Kubrickian opening, with the discovering of oil reflecting the discovery of tools at the beginning of “2001”, to its brilliant final scene, it’s a distinctly American epic yet it feels truly original; the first time you see it you really don’t quite know what kind of movie you’re watching.  At its centre is the explosive (or possibly implosive) performance of Daniel Day-Lewis, whose John Huston-esque droll and wide brimmed hat are by now pretty famous.  It’s a great performance, and a fantastic movie.  Credit should also go to Robert Elswit and Jonny Greenwood for their photography and music respectively, both fundamental to the movie’s success.

THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan, USA 2008)

I have never looked forward to a movie more than “The Dark Knight,” and I can think of almost no other movie that so successfully delivered after such hype.  I don’t think it’s a perfect movie – the Nolans struggle with female characters in these movies, and Rachel Dawes, though played by a superior actress in this one, is still a boring character – but it’s so well crafted and performed, and so perfect in individual moments, that I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen it.  When Heath Ledger was announced as Nolan’s choice for the Joker, the Bat-fans were generally fairly disappointed; he was one of the few names practically no one had said ‘I’d love to see him play the Joker’ about.  But the hype from the set was all about how great Ledger was and ultimately he gave us one of the great villains of the movies.  However the movie is viewed in ten or twenty years, the performance is one of the few things to come out of movies this decade that could be described as iconic.  At its centre are, first, a superb action sequence (filmed on the streets of Chicago; though the movies do use CGI, you hardly ever notice it, and most of the stunts and chases are done for real) followed by Batman’s ‘interrogation’ of the Joker.  For “Batman Begins” Nolan named “Blade Runner” as an influence; with “The Dark Knight,” he references “Heat.”  We’re not likely ever to see a better Batman movie.

WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, USA 2008)

The best family movies coming out of the USA are still being made by Pixar, and this, I think, is their best work since “Toy Story.”  The first half-hour in particular is simply remarkable; it has effectively no dialogue, just little Wall-E (as lovable as E.T.) endlessly cleaning up the cities of Earth that humanity has left behind.  The people are far away, conditioned into hopeless big babies zipping around a spaceship (on chairs; when one does stand up it’s a Herculean task) designed to bring them back to life when they’ve figured a way to fix the mess they’ve made of the planet.  It’s a movie that works for adults on these levels (without resorting to irony, post-modernism or endless cultural references) and is ultimately universal because to see the robot is to love him.  Like Gromit (of ‘Wallace &…’ fame) he has very little in the way of facial features to work with, but the animators are able to make him endlessly expressive nevertheless.  Wonderful.

BUT IF THOSE DON’T SUIT YOU:

I started writing this list with about 120 movies and selected the 20 I thought were best, but ask me tomorrow and some of these might have made it on:

AMORE PERROS (Alejandro González Inárritu, Mexico 2000)

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (Ang Lee, China 2000)

GEORGE WASHINGTON (David Gordon Green, USA 2000)

HIGH FIDELITY (Stephen Frears, USA 2000)

MEMENTO (Christopher Nolan, USA 2000)

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (Joel Coen, USA 2000)

QUILLS (Philip Kaufman, USA 2000)

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (Darren Aronofsky, USA 2000)

SEXY BEAST (Jonathan Glazer, UK 2000)

TRAFFIC (Steven Soderbergh, USA 2000)

GHOST WORLD (Terry Zwigoff, USA 2001)

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (John Cameron Mitchell, USA 2001)

IN THE BEDROOM (Todd Field, USA 2001)

LANTANA (Ray Lawrence, Australia 2001)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS (Peter Jackson, New Zealand 2001)

THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE (Joel Coen, USA 2001)

MOULIN ROUGE! (Baz Luhrmann, USA 2001)

MULHOLLAND DRIVE (David Lynch, USA 2001)

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (Wes Anderson, USA 2001)

WAKING LIFE (Richard Linklater, USA 2001)

24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE (Michael Winterbottom, UK 2002)

28 DAYS LATER (Danny Boyle, UK 2002)

ABOUT SCHMIDT (Alexander Payne, USA 2002)

AUTO FOCUS (Paul Schrader, USA 2002)

FAR FROM HEAVEN (Todd Haynes, USA 2002)

FRIDA (Julie Taymor, USA 2002)

MINORITY REPORT (Steven Spielberg, USA 2002)

THE PIANIST (Roman Polanksi, France 2002)

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA 2002)

THE QUIET AMERICAN (Phillip Noyce, Australia 2002)

RABBIT-PROOF FENCE (Phillip Noyce, Australia 2002)

SIGNS (M. Night Shyamalan, USA 2002)

SOLARIS (Steven Soderbergh, USA 2002)

TALK TO HER (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain 2002)

WHALE RIDER (Niki Caro, New Zealand 2002)

AMERICAN SPLENDOR (Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pucini, USA 2003)

THE DREAMERS (Bernardo Bertolucci, France 2003)

FINDING NEMO (Andrew Stanton, USA 2003)

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING (Peter Webber, UK 2003)

LOST IN TRANSLATION (Sofia Coppola, USA 2003)

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (Peter Weir, USA 2003)

MONSTER (Patty Jenkins, USA 2003)

MYSTIC RIVER (Clint Eastwood, USA 2003)

THE AVIATOR (Martin Scorsese, USA 2004)

BEFORE SUNSET (Richard Linklater, USA 2004)

CLOSER (Mike Nichols, USA 2004)

COLLATERAL (Michael Mann, USA 2004)

CRASH (Paul Haggis, USA 2004)

DEAD MAN’S SHOES (Shane Meadows, UK 2004)

DIG! (Ondi Timoner, USA 2004)

DOWNFALL (Oliver Jirschbiegel, Germany 2004)

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry, USA 2004)

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (Yimou Zhang, China 2004)

INCIDENT AT LOCH NESS (Zak Penn, UK 2004)

SIDEWAYS (Alexander Payne, USA 2004)

TOUCHING THE VOID (Kevin Macdonald, UK 2004)

BATMAN BEGINS (Christopher Nolan, USA 2005)

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee, USA 2005)

CACHÉ (Michael Haneke, France 2005)

CAPOTE (Bennett Miller, USA 2005)

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (George Clooney, USA 2005)

GRIZZLY MAN (Werner Herzog, USA 2005)

THE ITALIAN (Andrey Kravchuk, Russia 2005)

MATCH POINT (Woody Allen, UK 2005)

MIRRORMASK (Dave McKean, UK 2005)

NO DIRECTION HOME: BOB DYLAN (Martin Scorsese, USA 2005)

SIN CITY (Robert Rodriguez, USA 2005)

TSOTSI (Gavin Hood, South Africa 2005)

WALLACE & GROMIT IN THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT (Steve Box and Nick Park, UK 2005)

CHILDREN OF MEN (Alfonso Cuarón, UK 2006)

THE DEPARTED (Martin Scorsese, USA 2006)

THE ILLUSIONIST (Neil Burger, USA 2006)

JINDABYNE (Ray Lawrence, Australia 2006)

NOTES ON A SCANDAL (Richard Eyre, UK 2006)

A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (Robert Altman, USA 2006)

A SCANNER DARKLY (Richard Linklater, USA 2006)

SHORTBUS (John Cameron Mitchell, USA 2006)

VOLVER (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain 2006)

AMERICAN GANGSTER (Ridley Scott, USA 2007)

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (Andrew Dominik, USA 2007)

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD (Sidney Lumet, USA 2007)

EASTERN PROMISES (David Cronenberg, UK 2007)

I’M NOT THERE (Todd Haynes, USA 2007)

JUNO (Jason Reitman, USA 2007)

MICHAEL CLAYTON (Tony Gilroy, USA 2007)

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, USA 2007)

SUNSHINE (Danny Boyle, UK 2007)

SWEENEY TODD (Tim Burton, USA 2007)

ZODIAC (David Fincher, USA 2007)

FROST/NIXON (Ron Howard, USA 2008)

GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON (Alex Gibney, USA 2008)

GRAN TORINO (Clint Eastwood, USA 2008)

IN BRUGES (Martin McDonagh, UK 2008)

MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, UK 2008)

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (David Gordon Green, USA 2008)

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (Danny Boyle, UK 2008)

THE WRESTLER (Darren Aronofsky, USA 2008)

MOON (Duncan Jones, UK 2009)

A SERIOUS MAN (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, USA 2009)

UP (Pete Docter, USA 2009)