The 21st Century: What's Your "Best Of?"

[scorpiusx]

Being away from the internet for basically six and a half months, I instead turned my attention to film. More specifically, I scoured acclaimed movies from 2000 onward. I've trucked through about ninety films in the past eight months, which isn't an astounding number, but most all were of substantiative quality and I've definately become more learned because of it.

I'm here to ask: What are the 10 Best Films of the 2000s, and What are the Top 5 Performances of the 2000s?

My top picks will obviously fluctuate, like anyone, but for now, mine stand as:

1.) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
2.) Toy Story 3
3.) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4.) The Dark Knight
5.) Lost in Translation
6.) Almost Famous
7.) Black Swan
8.) Requiem for a Dream
9.) Crash
10.) 500 Days of Summer

Honorable Mentions: Traffic, The Pianist, Monster, There Will Be Blood, Brokeback Mountain, City of God, Oldboy, Adaptation, Sideways, Memento

Best Performances:

1.) Charlize Theron-Monster
2.) Daniel Day Lewis-There Will Be Blood
3.) Heath Ledger-The Dark Knight
4.) Phillip Seymour Hoffman-Capote
5.) Natalie Portman-Black Swan

Honorable Mentions: Forest Whitaker-The Last King of Scotland, Ellen Burstyn-Requiem for a Dream, Christian Bale-The Fighter, Chris Cooper-Adaptation, Mo'Nique-Precious

-scorp

[screwDriver]

I have a very wide range when it comes to movies so this is gonna be tough. And the amount of films I have seen (and not seen), there are movies that I am bound to forget that actually deserved to be in this lists. So in no particular order here's my top 10 with their director and country.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson - New Zealand)
Hero (Zhang Yimou - China)
JSA: Joint Security Area (Park Chan-wook - S. Korea)
Inception (Christopher Nolan - US)
Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan - US)
3 Iron (Kim Ki-duk - S. Korea)
Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak - Hong Kong)
Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro - Mexico)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson - Sweden)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry - US)

Honorable Mentions...
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch - US)
Malena (Giuseppe Tornatore - Italy)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg - UK)
Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet - France)
The Message (Chen Kuo-Fu and Gao Qunshu - China)
Welcome to Dongmakgol (Park Kwan-hyun - S. Korea)
The Chaser (Na Hong-jin - S. Korea)
Up (Pete Docter & Bob Peterson - US)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki - Japan)
Old Boy (Park Chan-wook - S. Korea)
Girl With the Dragon Tatoo (Niels Arden Oplev - Sweden)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón - US)
Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry - UK)
Cash Back (Sean Ellis - UK)

[scorpiusx]

Dude, I just saw Let the Right One In a few days ago. EXCELLENT choice. Might make my top 30. Pan's Labyrinth is also spectacular. I've only seen Mulholland Drive once, though, and I didn't get into it as much as most people. I don't think I was ready for it and should probably give it a second try.

I've also seen Up, Inception, Children of Men, and Amelie from your list. (Drools over the cinematography of the last three.)

-scorp