decadelists: Top 40 Films of the Decade

1. Memento (2000) dir. Christopher Nolan

Memento is an extraordinarily unique film in that it contains a surprise beginning! After learning the chronological finale of the story in the movie’s opening scene, the viewer is forced to discover the meaning behind the characters’ actions and motivations on the fly, much like the protagonist Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce). Leonard is in search of the man who raped and killed his wife, but there is a catch: he is unable to make new memories since that traumatic event took place. In order to keep his facts straight, he must tattoo them on his body and carry a pocket full of Polaroids. Suspenseful, philosophical, and complex, Memento not only rewards, but practically requires, repeated viewings.

2. Amores Perros (2000) dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu

Like the other two installments of director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “death trilogy”, Amores Perros introduces apparently unrelated characters and storylines and gradually shows how their paths converge. But unlike its inferior successors 21 Grams and Babel, Amores Perros privileges substance over style and skilled storytelling over postmodern pastiche. Each of the three stories within the movie could easily stand on its own, but Iñárritu’s masterpiece is greater than the sum of its parts.

3. There Will Be Blood (2007) dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

On the surface, Anderson’s cinematic version of socialist muckraker Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! shares little in common with its source material. But while Anderson borrows very sparingly from Sinclair’s didactic 1927 work, he expertly captures the condemnation of amoral greed that is at the novel’s core. Daniel Day-Lewis gives an outstanding portrayal of a self-made oil tycoon named Daniel Plainview. Johnny Greenwood’s score for the film is also top-notch.

4. Children Underground (2001) dir. Edet Belzberg

Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu found a way to increase the future workforce of his country: by outlawing birth control and abortion, and by encouraging Romanian families to have as many children as possible. He was executed before he could witness the long-term effects of this policy, but a little-known documentary called Children Underground gives us a glimpse into a Bucharest still suffering from the edicts of the former Communist regime. This underappreciated movie follows the lives of several homeless children living in a Romanian bus station. Watching a pre-teen boy franticly slicing his forearms with a razor blade on a park bench, or seeing a ten-year old girl comforting her crying eight year-old brother while they sleep on a piece of cardboard, will undoubtedly disturb any viewer, but this is a film that will stay with you long after the closing credits have ended.

5. Mulholland Drive (2001) dir. David Lynch

From 1977’s Eraserhead to the present, David Lynch has remained a controversial and divisive figure. The easiest way to find out where someone’s sympathies lie concerning Lynch’s body of work is to discover how he or she reacts to Mulholland Drive. It is more accessible and coherent than 2006’s Inland Empire, but viewers hoping to find a straightforward, more traditional narrative like Elephant Man will be thrown for a loop. If skeptics would put aside their distaste for Lynch and truly engage Mulholland Drive on its own terms, they would discover a mind-bending neo-noir critique of a Hollywood that preys on the aspirations of young women.

6. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007) dir. Cristian Mungiu

Amazingly enough, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is the second film in my top ten that explores the horrific consequences of Communist Romania’s repressive law against birth control and abortion. Like Children Underground, Mungiu’s film is unsettling, bleak, and uncompromising. The film does not build up an ornate plot or employ a musical score. Instead, we get stellar acting, skillful directing, and an example of Romania’s revolutionary new cinema (if you still have doubts, just watch 2006’s 12:08 East of Bucharest).

7. Munich (2005) dir. Steven Spielberg

At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, a group of Palestinian terrorists calling themselves “Black September” targeted and murdered a group of Israeli athletes. In response, the Israeli government recruited an elite team of assassins to find and kill those who made the Munich massacre possible. In less capable hands, Spielberg’s Munich would have devolved into a trite action film trivializing the historical event, or it would have settled upon the banal observation that “an eye for an eye will make us all blind.” With the help of Tony Kushner’s impressive screenplay, however, Munich becomes a timely exploration of revenge and violence.

8. Borat (2006) dir. Larry Charles

The caricature of the bumbling foreign man bringing his strange customs to the shores of America is nothing new: just think of Balki Bartokomous, Yakov Smirnoff, or Eddie Murphy in Coming to America. What makes Borat so unique and brilliant is that the joke is on us, not on the foreign protagonist. When we laughed at Balki or Yakov, we reaffirmed our cultural superiority. Borat uses the immigrant foil to hold a mirror up to American society, and you may not like what you see.

9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) dir. Michel Gondry

It is somewhat ironic that two of the most memorable films of the 2000s are about forgetfulness and memory loss. Jim Carrey steps out of his element in Eternal Sunshine, and with great success. He plays Joel Barish, a man so unable to get over his love for his ex (played by Kate Winslet) that he begins treatment to have all of his unwanted memories permanently erased. With a great, off-beat script by Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine is undeniably a one-of-a-kind movie.

10. Jesus Camp (2006) dir. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

I think that Jesus Camp perfectly depicts the Culture War going on in post-9/11 America. It is very telling that this documentary has gained a major following amongst liberal viewers with its footage of Becky Fischer’s fundamentalist Christian summer camp in North Dakota, while at the same time it was praised by Fischer for accurately portraying the mission of her summer camp. The very fact that both sides of the argument embrace Jesus Camp shows just how large the ideological gap between evangelical Christians and secular liberals really is. One would be hard pressed, though, to find more than a handful of people who would look on favorably as a room of children pray to a life-size cardboard cut-out of George W. Bush. Or at least I hope so.

11. City of God (2002) dir. Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund