I asked Spiteful Critic writers to send in their list of the 10 best films of the decade. Here are the winners. It's been a good decade for film.
The undisputed winner by Guillermo del Toro is a fantasy tale set in fascist Spain. The film eloquently and frighteningly intertwines war and fantasy that suggests how valuable, precious, and vulnerable an independent mind is in this world. The film is stunningly photographed and uses all the rules of fairy tales to produce a frightening effect where both the real and fantasy world has dangerous consequences.
The Coen Brothers’ best picture winning film is a solid reimagination of the western in Hollywood film making. Based off a Cormac McCarthy novel, the film involves a cat-and-mouse game but shifts narrative tracks in order to explore the damage done by a man so evil it is hard to comprehend his existence.
Alfonso Cuarón's visually dazzling sci-fi thriller is powerful as it is humbling. Taking place in England under a police state, Children of Men portrays a world where there have been no births for 18 years. The world is slowly perishing as Clive Owen's character stumbles upon something that may contain a hope for humanity, but revolutionaries will do anything to use it as a spark for an uprising.
Spike Jonze's Adaptation. (yes, the period is in the title) combines Charlie Kaufman's screenplay and Nicolas Cage's double performance to make some wickedly intelligent film making. The title is a double entendre involving Charles Darwin's explanation of adaptation and adapting a screenplay. The period, I assume, is Charlie Kaufman's sly statement that there is only one thing progressing life on this planet: adaptation, period.
One of the most successful French film in the international market, Amelie is a cheerful, charming comedy that won many of the audience awards at Cannes, Toronto, and Chicago film festivals. It manages to be whimsical without coming across as vapid. The plot, involving a shy and quirky young woman who decides to improve the lives of the people around her, uses magical realism to make a winning tale about the humor and the heart of humanity.
The Hoover family will be forever in the hearts of Americans. This hilarious, heart-filled take on the American road movie is deeply cynical and incredibly well acted. Little Miss Sunshine is fresh, inventive, insane, and yet somehow completely real. Painful dysfunction has never been so funny.
Brokeback Mountain is a groundbreaking film starring two very talented Hollywood actors as homosexual lovers. Ang Lee has given Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal deep, sympathetic characters to fully embody. Their performances are so good it's devastating. The film received a lot of controversy upon its release, but has had an incredible backing through DVD sales. The movie will most likely be seen as Heath Ledger's finest performance in his tragically short career.
Pixar is one of the most consistent film studios making movies today. The strong, consistent storytelling of The Incredibles is nearly flawless in its execution and has some parting advice for would-be superheroes: "No capes!"
Christopher Nolan's experimental film is a highly inventive thriller. Guy Pearce is a character with short-term memory loss and Nolan uses this condition as a device to tell his story backwards. Memento is both absorbing and highly innovative.
Quentin Tarantino's bold samurai revenge story is a four hour long love letter to pop culture cliches that somehow becomes more that the sum of its parts. Tarantino elevates Kill Bill's humble roots as a tacky samurai tale, western, and horror film to pure art and flawless entertainment. Did you know he's working on Kill Bill 3?
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