_____V_____
11-10-2009, 09:54 PM
...according to TimesOnline, UK.
100 The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006)
Meryl Streep begins her own populist career reinvention (soon to be followed by Mamma Mia!) by playing a tyrannical and thinly disguised version of Vogue editor Anna Wintour in this satirical yet soft-centered account of life among the fashionistas.
99 Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
The worst school kids in Japan are dumped on an island, fitted with exploding neckbraces, equipped with weapons and told to fight it out between themselves. Deliberately lacking in PC credentials but ultimately, it’s a provocative and challenging film.
98 Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004)
This surprise Oscar champ of 2004 inspired myriad syrupy “We are all, like, totally connected” imitators (see The Air I Breathe), and yet the savvy narrative chicanery and superlative performances (including Sandra Bullock’s racist housewife) lift this LA-set ensemble far above the crowd.
97 Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, 2005)
The third of Park Chan-Wook’s fervid, savage revenge trilogy, Lady Vengeance ends with a sombre acknowledgement of the futility of revenge. But not before buckets of blood have been spilt.
96 Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002)
One of Scotland’s most acclaimed and offbeat filmmakers, Ramsay (Ratcatcher) here transforms Alan Warner’s cult novel into a thing of woozy, meditative beauty. Samantha Morton stars, in the title role, as the emotionally withdrawn checkout girl who profits from her boyfriend’s suicide.
95 Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000)
This smouldering powder keg of a movie launched a new generation of Mexican talent. Gael Garcia Bernal stars in the first of three stories which are linked together by a shattering car crash.
94 An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)
A user-friendly slideshow about global warming, combined with a revealing personal profile of presenter Al Gore, becomes a box office behemoth, an Oscar winner, and a brand leader for all future eco docs.
93 House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004)
Probably the most satisfying of the big budget martial arts crossover movies of the past decade, it combined ridiculously ambitious action set pieces with lush, colour-saturated imagery.
92 Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2002)
A Nigerian doctor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in London double-jobs as a cab driver and hotel porter while uncovering an illegal trade in human organs. This quietly polemical work humanises the immigration debate.
91 Lantana (Ray Lawrence, 2001)
This intelligent drama is so much more than a murder mystery — it’s an impeccably acted exploration of human relations at their trickiest. Meticulously constructed and rewardingly realist in tone.
90 Wedding Crashers (David Dobkin, 2005)
It could've been a frat-boy sex comedy but Wedding Crashers achieves that miraculous balance of crude and cute, wild and witty. Two charismatic central turns help, from Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, playing the eponymous cads with sex on the brain but romance on the cards.
89 School of Rock (Richard Linklater, 2003)
This boisterous love letter to loud guitars and three-chord choruses represents the last good performance from star Jack Black. It’s an irrepressible ode to the joy of power-chords played by grown men in PVC trousers.
88 The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
A career high from which Anderson (Fantastic Mr Fox) has never quite recovered, here he directs a knockout ensemble (including Gene Hackman and Bill Murray) as a dysfunctional family of New York eccentrics.
87 Time and Winds (Reha Erdem, 2006)
A lyrical portrait of village life in rural Turkey — slow-burning but inexorable in its power. Nothing is hurried about the rhythms of the lives captured here, but we are left with the feeling that each passing moment is precious.
86 The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007)
The ultimate in post-Sixth Sense kiddie horror, this superlative Spanish chiller stars Belén Rueda as a woman battling an entire orphanage of creepy pre-teen ghosties who might just have kidnapped her dying son.
85 The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001)
Two of the most uncompromising voices in European cinema, director Michael Haneke and actress Isabelle Huppert collaborate on a harrowing, deeply disturbing exploration of female sexual repression and masochism.
84 Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 2004)
Ten years after the Rwandan genocide, George’s bracing drama was the first mainstream movie to tackle the subject. Don Cheadle gives a duly Oscar-nominated turn as the Hutu hotelier Paul Rusesabagina who risks his own life to save hundreds of vulnerable Tutsis.
83 The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach, 2006)
A stirring and sympathetic portrait of the early days of the Irish Republican Army that carries the stark warning: an armed struggle soon loses touch with its ideals. The naturalistic, committed performances are the film’s main strength.
82 Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)
An insightful, exquisitely controlled family drama set in modern day Taipei, this is Yang’s masterpiece.
81 In The Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009)
The savagely perceptive political satire based on the television series The Thick Of It elevates swearing to an art form. It’s the Sistine Chapel of profanity. Lean, mean and painfully funny.
80 Me, You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005)
A gorgeous, feather-light debut from American visual artist July, the film depicts a burgeoning romance between the quirky Christine (July again) and shoe salesman Richard (John Hawkes). Subplots involving chatroom debacles, bashful perverts and teen sex lessons create a nicely demented tone.
79 Le Grand Voyage (Ismael Ferroukhi, 2004)
A devout Muslim father and his secular son make a pilgrimage together — in itself, it’s not a groundbreaking premise. But the picture’s climax, actually filmed in Mecca, is extraordinary.
78 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002)
Possibly the last great Jack Nicholson performance of the decade (and no, hamming it up in The Departed doesn't count). He stars as a superannuated actuary searching for meaning in an empty middle-American existence. The tear-stained finale is heartbreaking.
77 Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)
Moore’s documentary, the best of his career, and made before he became a global brand, is a breathlessly entertaining two-hour tirade against lax American gun laws. Highlights include interviews with Marilyn Manson and a sadly enfeebled Charlton Heston.
76 Control (Anton Corbijn, 2007)
Manchester post-punk band Joy Division are brought to life thanks to a punchy, often blackly funny script and an incendiary debut from Sam Riley, playing lead singer Ian Curtis.
75 Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
One of Almodóvar’s most ambitious and accomplished films focuses on the tribulations of a comatose dancer (Leonor Watling) and those who surround her. It thus features an array of flash forwards, flash backs, surprise twists, plus a giant rubber vagina.
74 Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
One of the darkest periods in recent Spanish politics is woven into a twisted fairytale, a battle between good and evil that plays out in the imagination of a little girl trying to escape the ugly realities of the real world. Stunning.
73 The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Jacques Audiard, 2005)
A gifted director, a roaming restless camera, and a young white-hot French actor (Romain Duris) combine to tell the wrenching tale of a small time hoodlum with ambitions to be a concert pianist, and a string of Russian mobsters in his way.
72 The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)
The cinematic equivalent of a Semtex detonation, this Iraq-set movie is a sensory wallop that ignores political sermonising. Meticulously researched by journalist Mark Boal, it follows a busy bomb-disposal team in Baghdad.
71 Monsters, Inc. (Pete Docter/David Silverman/lee Unkrich, 2001)
Pixar at its most hallucinogenic follows fourth dimensional monsters Sulley and Mike (John Goodman and Billy Crystal), who harness terrified children’s screaming power for industrial energy. They nonetheless learn that love contains more power than fear.
70 The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)
Former teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself in a doc/drama hybrid set in an inner city school. Without being sanctimonious or sentimental, the film makes piercing observations about multicultural France.
69 Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, 2007)
Satrapi’s bestselling autobiographical graphic novel makes the transition to the big screen seem effortless. A child’s-eye view of the Iranian revolution, this is playfully disarming rather than didactic; the animation pleasingly simple and stylised.
68 Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
Formally intricate and expertly executed, Memento is a devious brainteaser of a film. Guy Pearce is a haunted man doomed by short-term memory loss to live forever in the present, who carries clues to his past in the tattoos on his body.
67 Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008)
A sprawling, multi-stranded descent into a modern day Naples terminally infected with the disease of organised crime, this is a film full of striking imagery, sardonic wit and sobering truths.
66 City of God (Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund, 2002)
Vital, kinetic and visceral, this Brazilian favela epic sent shockwaves through audiences. The cool and the camaraderie of crime in the face of extreme poverty is powerfully evoked, as is the terrible cost to young lives.
65 Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008)
The 1982 Israeli-Lebanon war is seen through the prism of animation in a deeply personal account of one soldier’s struggle with his own memories. Folman, an army veteran, depicts traumatic war stories with unflinching honesty and a dreamlike palette.
100 The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006)
Meryl Streep begins her own populist career reinvention (soon to be followed by Mamma Mia!) by playing a tyrannical and thinly disguised version of Vogue editor Anna Wintour in this satirical yet soft-centered account of life among the fashionistas.
99 Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
The worst school kids in Japan are dumped on an island, fitted with exploding neckbraces, equipped with weapons and told to fight it out between themselves. Deliberately lacking in PC credentials but ultimately, it’s a provocative and challenging film.
98 Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004)
This surprise Oscar champ of 2004 inspired myriad syrupy “We are all, like, totally connected” imitators (see The Air I Breathe), and yet the savvy narrative chicanery and superlative performances (including Sandra Bullock’s racist housewife) lift this LA-set ensemble far above the crowd.
97 Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, 2005)
The third of Park Chan-Wook’s fervid, savage revenge trilogy, Lady Vengeance ends with a sombre acknowledgement of the futility of revenge. But not before buckets of blood have been spilt.
96 Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002)
One of Scotland’s most acclaimed and offbeat filmmakers, Ramsay (Ratcatcher) here transforms Alan Warner’s cult novel into a thing of woozy, meditative beauty. Samantha Morton stars, in the title role, as the emotionally withdrawn checkout girl who profits from her boyfriend’s suicide.
95 Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000)
This smouldering powder keg of a movie launched a new generation of Mexican talent. Gael Garcia Bernal stars in the first of three stories which are linked together by a shattering car crash.
94 An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)
A user-friendly slideshow about global warming, combined with a revealing personal profile of presenter Al Gore, becomes a box office behemoth, an Oscar winner, and a brand leader for all future eco docs.
93 House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004)
Probably the most satisfying of the big budget martial arts crossover movies of the past decade, it combined ridiculously ambitious action set pieces with lush, colour-saturated imagery.
92 Dirty Pretty Things (Stephen Frears, 2002)
A Nigerian doctor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in London double-jobs as a cab driver and hotel porter while uncovering an illegal trade in human organs. This quietly polemical work humanises the immigration debate.
91 Lantana (Ray Lawrence, 2001)
This intelligent drama is so much more than a murder mystery — it’s an impeccably acted exploration of human relations at their trickiest. Meticulously constructed and rewardingly realist in tone.
90 Wedding Crashers (David Dobkin, 2005)
It could've been a frat-boy sex comedy but Wedding Crashers achieves that miraculous balance of crude and cute, wild and witty. Two charismatic central turns help, from Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, playing the eponymous cads with sex on the brain but romance on the cards.
89 School of Rock (Richard Linklater, 2003)
This boisterous love letter to loud guitars and three-chord choruses represents the last good performance from star Jack Black. It’s an irrepressible ode to the joy of power-chords played by grown men in PVC trousers.
88 The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
A career high from which Anderson (Fantastic Mr Fox) has never quite recovered, here he directs a knockout ensemble (including Gene Hackman and Bill Murray) as a dysfunctional family of New York eccentrics.
87 Time and Winds (Reha Erdem, 2006)
A lyrical portrait of village life in rural Turkey — slow-burning but inexorable in its power. Nothing is hurried about the rhythms of the lives captured here, but we are left with the feeling that each passing moment is precious.
86 The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007)
The ultimate in post-Sixth Sense kiddie horror, this superlative Spanish chiller stars Belén Rueda as a woman battling an entire orphanage of creepy pre-teen ghosties who might just have kidnapped her dying son.
85 The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001)
Two of the most uncompromising voices in European cinema, director Michael Haneke and actress Isabelle Huppert collaborate on a harrowing, deeply disturbing exploration of female sexual repression and masochism.
84 Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 2004)
Ten years after the Rwandan genocide, George’s bracing drama was the first mainstream movie to tackle the subject. Don Cheadle gives a duly Oscar-nominated turn as the Hutu hotelier Paul Rusesabagina who risks his own life to save hundreds of vulnerable Tutsis.
83 The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach, 2006)
A stirring and sympathetic portrait of the early days of the Irish Republican Army that carries the stark warning: an armed struggle soon loses touch with its ideals. The naturalistic, committed performances are the film’s main strength.
82 Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)
An insightful, exquisitely controlled family drama set in modern day Taipei, this is Yang’s masterpiece.
81 In The Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009)
The savagely perceptive political satire based on the television series The Thick Of It elevates swearing to an art form. It’s the Sistine Chapel of profanity. Lean, mean and painfully funny.
80 Me, You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July, 2005)
A gorgeous, feather-light debut from American visual artist July, the film depicts a burgeoning romance between the quirky Christine (July again) and shoe salesman Richard (John Hawkes). Subplots involving chatroom debacles, bashful perverts and teen sex lessons create a nicely demented tone.
79 Le Grand Voyage (Ismael Ferroukhi, 2004)
A devout Muslim father and his secular son make a pilgrimage together — in itself, it’s not a groundbreaking premise. But the picture’s climax, actually filmed in Mecca, is extraordinary.
78 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002)
Possibly the last great Jack Nicholson performance of the decade (and no, hamming it up in The Departed doesn't count). He stars as a superannuated actuary searching for meaning in an empty middle-American existence. The tear-stained finale is heartbreaking.
77 Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)
Moore’s documentary, the best of his career, and made before he became a global brand, is a breathlessly entertaining two-hour tirade against lax American gun laws. Highlights include interviews with Marilyn Manson and a sadly enfeebled Charlton Heston.
76 Control (Anton Corbijn, 2007)
Manchester post-punk band Joy Division are brought to life thanks to a punchy, often blackly funny script and an incendiary debut from Sam Riley, playing lead singer Ian Curtis.
75 Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
One of Almodóvar’s most ambitious and accomplished films focuses on the tribulations of a comatose dancer (Leonor Watling) and those who surround her. It thus features an array of flash forwards, flash backs, surprise twists, plus a giant rubber vagina.
74 Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
One of the darkest periods in recent Spanish politics is woven into a twisted fairytale, a battle between good and evil that plays out in the imagination of a little girl trying to escape the ugly realities of the real world. Stunning.
73 The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Jacques Audiard, 2005)
A gifted director, a roaming restless camera, and a young white-hot French actor (Romain Duris) combine to tell the wrenching tale of a small time hoodlum with ambitions to be a concert pianist, and a string of Russian mobsters in his way.
72 The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)
The cinematic equivalent of a Semtex detonation, this Iraq-set movie is a sensory wallop that ignores political sermonising. Meticulously researched by journalist Mark Boal, it follows a busy bomb-disposal team in Baghdad.
71 Monsters, Inc. (Pete Docter/David Silverman/lee Unkrich, 2001)
Pixar at its most hallucinogenic follows fourth dimensional monsters Sulley and Mike (John Goodman and Billy Crystal), who harness terrified children’s screaming power for industrial energy. They nonetheless learn that love contains more power than fear.
70 The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)
Former teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself in a doc/drama hybrid set in an inner city school. Without being sanctimonious or sentimental, the film makes piercing observations about multicultural France.
69 Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, 2007)
Satrapi’s bestselling autobiographical graphic novel makes the transition to the big screen seem effortless. A child’s-eye view of the Iranian revolution, this is playfully disarming rather than didactic; the animation pleasingly simple and stylised.
68 Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
Formally intricate and expertly executed, Memento is a devious brainteaser of a film. Guy Pearce is a haunted man doomed by short-term memory loss to live forever in the present, who carries clues to his past in the tattoos on his body.
67 Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008)
A sprawling, multi-stranded descent into a modern day Naples terminally infected with the disease of organised crime, this is a film full of striking imagery, sardonic wit and sobering truths.
66 City of God (Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund, 2002)
Vital, kinetic and visceral, this Brazilian favela epic sent shockwaves through audiences. The cool and the camaraderie of crime in the face of extreme poverty is powerfully evoked, as is the terrible cost to young lives.
65 Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008)
The 1982 Israeli-Lebanon war is seen through the prism of animation in a deeply personal account of one soldier’s struggle with his own memories. Folman, an army veteran, depicts traumatic war stories with unflinching honesty and a dreamlike palette.