28 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
The true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who, after a stroke, was left paralysed and able to communicate only through blinking his left eye. The film takes us inside Bauby's wrecked body and charms us with his still rebellious wit.
27 Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)
A sozzled road trip in Californian wine country leads to a mid-life crisis for divorced failed writer and wine buff Miles (Paul Giametti), best man to sleazy charmer Jack (Thomas Haden Church).
26 Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
A pinnacle for Spielberg and star Tom Cruise, this near-future sci-fi depicts a world of psychic crime- stoppers but is rooted in old fashioned film noir.
25 Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier, 2000)
This musical melodrama was as emotionally subtle as a coach load of orphans and kittens driving off a cliff — and yet there was something about the florid excesses that gelled perfectly with star Bjork's heart-wrenching score.
24 28 Days Later... (Danny Boyle, 2002)
Danny Boyle and Beach novelist Alex Garland re-imagine the zombie movie for the 21st century. Here, the zombies move with lightning speed, and are fuelled not by the dark arts but by rage itself.
23 Man On Wire (James Marsh, 2008)
This lyrical documentary tells the story of Philippe Petit, who strung a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and danced on it, for no reason other than to create something beautiful for the people far below.
22 Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
The social facades of 1950s Connecticut slowly crack apart in a gorgeous Technicolor-style melodrama. Julianne Moore is riveting as the homemaker whose life is upended by her husband’s homosexuality and her own feelings for gardener Dennis Haysbert.
21 Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney, 2005)
This ode to a past era of challenging TV journalism is authentic down to the last swirl of late-night cigarette smoke. David Strathairn impresses as Edward R. Murrow, the television journalist locking horns with Senator Joseph McCarthy.
20 Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
Head-tripping sci-fi goes to high school in an Eighties-set psychological thriller with dark Lynchian overtones. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the titular teen — a possible paranoid schizophrenic who may just have the key to time travel.
19 United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006)
Shattering, sobering and uncompromising, Greengrass’s masterful drama set onboard one of the 9/11 hijacked planes is resolutely unsensational — and is all the more powerful for it.
18 Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
The biggest vampire movie of 2008 was Twilight, but its bloodless inanities were exposed by this Swedish chiller. Here Kare Hedebrant plays a bullied pre-teen whose burgeoning relationship with an equally alienated girl-vampire radically alters his dull suburban existence.
17 Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
This achingly sad love story gave Heath Ledger a chance to explore hitherto unsuspected depths. It’s a hugely powerful performance — his inarticulate yearning is almost painful to watch.
16 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
Testing the limits of narrative convolutions and visual technique, Gondry directs an ingenious script about memory-wiping. A central tempestuous romance between Jim Carrey’s Joel and Kate Winslet’s Clementine, however, is never once overshadowed.
15 Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)
One of the most extraordinary cinematic explorations of failure, disappointment and thwarted ambition ever made, this tale of Hitler's final days features a savage, dazzling performance by Bruno Ganz.
14 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
The tale of an illegal mid-term abortion in Ceausescu’s Romania was never going to be easy. And though the details are harrowing, Mungiu, a former journalist, has such compassion for his heroines Otilia and Gabita that the pain is almost palatable. Almost.
13 This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2007)
Meadows’s most personal film is a real treat, combining the director’s impeccably observed comedy with a gathering storm cloud of ominous ill will and violence. Honest, authentic and ultimately shattering.
12 The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
A mercilessly efficient account of Stasi surveillance in mid-1980s East Germany is anchored by a haunting performance from Ulrich Mühe, who died from stomach cancer just after the film’s release.
11 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006)
The decade’s favourite sexist, anti-Semitic, racist homophobe, Borat picked at the scabs of America’s intolerance and hypocrisy. Sacha Baron Cohen’s status as the most fearless man in comedy is unlikely to be challenged in the near future.
10 Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)
Provocative London-born artist McQueen directs a revelatory Michael Fassbender in a movie that purports to tackle the infamous 1981 IRA hunger strikes but is actually a hypnotic meditation on the ineffable mystery of human life. Achingly profound.
9 The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)
Compassionate and intelligent, witty and wicked, this account of what happened behind the Palace gates after the death of the Princess of Wales is a crown jewel of a movie. Helen Mirren is a very human HM.
8 Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006)
The high camp of the Brosnan era Bond is ditched, and Fleming’s hero returns rebooted (and Bourne-ified), with an intense turn from Daniel Craig, and some breakneck set-pieces. An opening parkour-style chase through Madagascar sets the tone.
7 The Last King of Scotland (Kevin Macdonald, 2006)
Forest Whitaker gives one of the great performances of the decade as Idi Amin. He nails the Ugandan dictator’s deadly charm — he’s a charismatic monster; part amiable buffoon, part stone-cold killer.
6 Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008)
Twelve years after Trainspotting, Boyle produces a dizzying Mumbai-set romance that redefines the possibilities of a progressive yet commercially successful national industry. Oscars abound.
5 Team America: World Police (Trey Parker, 2004)
The South Park creators launch an assault on pretty much everyone, from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to poor, hapless Matt Damon. It’s jaw-droppingly offensive and wildly funny.
4 Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005)
Party nature documentary, part philosophical tract, Herzog’s eerie account of the life and brutal death of mildly unhinged bear-watcher Timothy Treadwell is a monumental piece of cinema — emotionally satisfying, intellectually stimulating, but primal to the core.
3 No Country for Old Men (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 2007)
The alchemic combination of the Coen brothers’ eloquent precision and Cormac McCarthy’s vivid nihilism makes for a bleakly compelling cycle of violence. The only thing more terrifying than Javier Bardem’s haircut is the clinical efficiency of his murders.
2 The Bourne Supremacy / The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass, 2004, 2007)
The action movie is dragged, kicking and back-flipping, into the Noughties courtesy of Matt Damon’s amnesiac superspy and director Greengrass’s film-making élan. Marrying jittery docu-style camera work with healthy political cynicism, Greengrass transformed Bourne into an anti-Bond for the PlayStation generation.
1 Hidden (Cache) (Michael Haneke, 2005)
It is only as the decade draws to a close that it becomes clear just how presciently the Austrian director Michael Haneke tapped into the uncertain mood of the Noughties. The film’s twin themes resonate perfectly with the defining concerns of the time: tacit national guilt about a questionable foreign policy, in the film it’s France’s occupation of Algeria, but it’s not hard to piece together the parallels with more recent conflicts. Plus, as round-the-clock surveillance became a part of our daily lives, here was a film that captured the creeping paranoia that resulted from the eyes of unseen strangers invading private life.
Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as Georges and Anne Laurent, the successful couple whose charmed life is disrupted by a series of covertly captured videotapes of their family and home. The campaign pertains to some unspoken and long suppressed event. Auteuil and Binoche are both excellent — their brittle, abrupt performances etch out the fracture lines in their crumbling relationship. But the film’s brilliance comes from two striking, perplexing moments in the film. The first is a shockingly violent suicide that catches the audience off guard. The second is the film’s ambivalent ending — a long shot of a meeting on some steps which could signal the end of the family’s torment, or the beginning of something worse. There have been rumours of an American remake with Ron Howard, of all people, directing. Hopefully common sense will prevail.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle6902642.ece
Plenty of glaring omissions, doncha think?