Despite the wild variety among Paste Magazine's Best Movies from 2000-2009, each is an exquisitely made, exceptionally satisfying piece of cinema that will undoubtedly endure well after the decade has ended. There are masters like Martin Scorcese and Lars Von Trier, and relative newcomers like Fernando Meirelles and Anna Boden. There are documentaries, comedies and dramas, as well as animated films and even a super-hero flick. Mirroring a decade of globalism, the filmmakers are from the United States, New Zealand, Taiwan, Germany, Ireland, France, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Romania, Thailand, Brazil, and nearly every part of the U.K. Let these be our recommendations for your Netflix queue—or in the case of #21, a theater near you. Personally, after reading the loving descriptions in these pages, I’ve already got films I missed the first time around—like Syndromes and a Century and Beau Travail—on the way.
50. The Squid and the Whale (2005)Writer/Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline
Studio: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Borrowing themes from his previous films—children of failed marriages; characters whose bookish smarts seem to work against them; a floating sense of fatalism—The Squid and the Whale creeps ever closer to Noah Baumbach’s own tempestuous past. His parents’ faltering union isn’t just a detail used to add depth to a certain character. It’s the whole story—a gorgeous, candid portrait of the messy car crash of divorce, from all angles.
48. Flight of the Red Balloon (Le voyage du ballon rouge) (2008)Writer/Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Hippolyte Giradot
It’s tempting to put the latest movie by Hou Hsiao-hsien into a neat little box. Although it’s not a film for kids, it’s an homage to Albert Lamorisse’s endearing children’s short “The Red Balloon,” and at times it seems as buoyant and aimless as a helium-filled toy. Lamorisse’s short is about a loner of a boy who has the best of all possible friends, an amazingly reactive balloon, but Hou’s film is a realistic look at the inside of this fantasy, at the modern-day stresses on close-knit families.
47. Grizzly Man (2005)Writer/Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Timothy Treadwell, Werner Herzog
This profile of nature lover Timothy Treadwell, who unwisely tried to live among wild bears in Alaska until he was devoured, cuts a Herzogian swath across the hillside: A man attempts to find harmony with nature but instead finds, as Herzog puts it, “chaos, hostility and murder.” Looming over the film is not only the horror of Treadwell’s demise but also an audio recording of the tragedy, taped inadvertently by the video camera in Treadwell’s tent. Herzog tastefully omits it from the film, but he makes the viewer aware of its existence.
46. Iraq in Fragments (2006)
Director: James Longley
Studio: HBO Documentary Films
Applying the full spectrum of cinematic technique to a nonfiction film, Longley made one of the most striking movies this year, an immersive view of life in Iraq; a record of opinions and faces from across the country, all captured at close range.—Robert Davis
45. Whale Rider (2002)Director: Niki Caro
Writers: Witi Ihimaera (novele), Niki Caro (screenplay)
Stars: Keisha Castle-Huges, Rawiri Paratene
Whale Rider tells the story of a young girl, Paikea, who lives in New Zealand with a stern grandfather who, apparently, needs to get modern. Every scene tells us this and gives us an opportunity to tsk-tsk his staunch rejection of his granddaughter who he believes, despite her lineage, can’t inherit the leadership of this Maori village because of her gender. She’ll need to convince her grandfather she can lead just as well as the boys can, and she’ll need to do it before the end of the movie.
44. Hotel Rwanda (2004)Director: Terry George
Writers: Keir Pearson, Terry George
Stars: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix
While Hotel Rwanda attempts to document the country’s genocide in 1994, it does so by focusing on the character of Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), who gave refuge to hundreds of fleeing Tutsis. Calling in dozens of favors with his extensive network of contacts, he was able to hold the Hutu extremists (the Interahamwe militia) at bay, until the Tutsi rebels drove the Hutu from power. Cheadle portrays Rusesabagina as an efficient manager who cares deeply about his family and the people in he looks after.
43. In America (2004)Director: Jim Sheridan
Writers: Jim, Naomi and Kristen Sheridan
Stars: Paddy Considine, Dijmon Hounsou
Approximately one minute of this film is all it takes to fall in love with the two girls in the lead roles (real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger). Four minutes later, you’re in love with the parents (Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine), too. This Irish family is recovering from tragedy by immigrating to the tenements of New York. Their attempts to mend their broken hearts and scarred psyches after the death of their son—with the help of AIDS-stricken Djimon Hounsou, and a new baby—is heartrending, but the wide-eyed candor of the girls and writer-director Jim Sheridan’s sense of humor save it from being maudlin.
42. The Last King of Scotland (2006)Director: Kevin Macdonald
Writers: Giles Foden (novel), Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock (screenplay)
Stars: Forrest Whitaker, James McAvoy
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
The brutality of this film is at times difficult to bear, but harder still would be tearing your eyes away from Forrest Whitaker, who is fully inhabited by the charismatic monster Idi Amin. Director Kevin Macdonald pulls us gradually into the world of the Ugandan dictator through Amin’s Scottish personal physician, making for a Faustian seduction with horrific returns.—Josh Jackson
41. L’Enfant (2006)Writer/Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Stars: Jérémie Renier, Déborah François
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
The Dardenne brothers specialize in poetically ambiguous titles, and in their latest film, it’s the new parents and their cohorts who seem like children. But the Dardennes love them anyway, telling their story in the unvarnished style that’s become their trademark.—Robert Davis
40. The Departed (2006)Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: William Monahan, Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Whalberg, Alec Baldwin
Studio: Warner Bros.
At times truly funny and at others brutally violent, Scorsese’s latest ambitious gangster flick spends equal time exploring the deceitful inner workings of the Boston Special Investigation Unit and it’s pro-crime counterpart, the Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson)-led Irish mafia.
39. Spirited Away (2001)
Writer/Director: Hayao MiyazakiStars (U.S.): Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki perfectly exemplifies what happens when adults never lose their childlike curiosity and sense of wonderment. Beautifully animated, it’s the crowning achievement in his filmography thus far, a dreamlike (and at times, frightening) adventure about a young girl who discovers an alternate reality filled with some rather fantastical inhabitants. (And, in typical Miyazaki form, an epic battle between good and evil). There’s a strangeness to the wonder, and there’s beauty in the most nightmarish corners.
38. Donnie Darko (2001)Writer/Director: Richard Kelly
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, James Duvall, Mary McDonnell
Studio: Newmarket
Richard Kelly was just 25 when he got funding for his first full-length feature, Donnie Darko, but it became a cult classic, thanks to mind-bending twists and a gigantic talking bunny named “Frank.”
37. Billy Elliot (2000)Director: Stephen Daldry
Writer: Lee Hall
Stars: Jamie Bell, Julie Walters, Julie Walters, Gary Lewis
Studio: Universal Focus
On the surface, Billy Elliot appears to be the archetypal tale of an outsider who is driven to follow his own path at all costs. But this story of a boy from depressed, working-class England who mortifyingly discovers that ballet is his life’s ambition, is saved from cliché by Stephen Daldry’s slightly quirky, at times witty, and deeply sympathetic portrayal of the pain of finding one’s voice in adolescence.
36. Millions (2004)Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Stars: Alexander Nathan Etel, Lewis McGibbon
A simple tale of found money and family loss with a degree nuance and sophistication rare even in art films, let alone family fare. In Millions, idealism and fantasy meet gritty reality in an inspiring tale that deals with life’s complications before transcending them.
35. Junebug (2005)Director: Phil Morrison
Writer: Angus MacLachlan
Stars: Amy Adams, Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola, Celia Weston
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Phil Morrison’s debut is marked by strong sense of place, genuine feeling and a delicate, non-denigrating humor. Set over one long, intense weekend, the story details how the seductive presence of Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) challenges the mores and affects the fragile equilibrium of a Southern family whose dynamics and socioeconomic makeup are most particular.
34. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Writer: Michael Arndt
Stars: Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
If the key to comedy is timing, then Little Miss Sunshine proves that what’s true for performers is also true for filmmakers. Mom, Dad, two kids, Grandpa, and Uncle Frank—a suicidal college professor recently spurned by his lover—sit down for a chaotic dinner scene that pops like syncopated jazz, setting the tone for a warm, funny that somehow includes Friedrich Nietzsche and Marcel Proust in a story about a road trip and a beauty contest.
33. Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (2003, 2004)Writer/Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine
Studio: Miramax
With Kill Bill, Tarantino managed to pay homage to all the kung-fu films, spaghetti westerns and exploitation flicks he grew up with. The four-hour epic was split into two films filled with Uma Thurman violently, unrelentingly serving up revenge.
32. Ratatouille (2007)Writer/Directors: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava
Stars: Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Peter Sohn, Brad Garrett, Ian Holm
While consistently fun, many of Pixar’s film’s succeed by taking an obvious universe impossible to really capture with live action—anthropomorphizing toys, fish, monsters, cars, etc.—and crafting a solid story around it. But Ratatouille is anything but predictable: a rat (Patton Oswalt!) who dreams of becoming a chef.
31. Gosford Park (2001)Director: Robert Altman
Writer: Julian Fellowes
Robert Altman’s ambitious murder mystery aptly demonstrates his signature style of filmmaking. He assembles a large cast of superb actors and allows them to act out their roles, in some cases even improvising, while the cameras roll. The result is an Agatha Christie-whodunit meets a post-modern exploration of the dying class system in England.
30. Once (2007)
Writer/Director: John Carney
Stars: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures This low-key story of a busker on the streets of Dublin (The Frames’ Glen Hansard) who meets a girl that digs his songs is one of the most heartfelt celebrations of music ever filmed. Its handheld realism is the cinematic equivalent of a great live show—a palette-cleanser that strips away layers of studio lacquer in favor of warm tones and deeply soulful characters.—Jason Killingsworth
29. Man on Wire
Director: James Marsh
Starring: Philippe Petit
In 1974, high-wire walker Philippe Petit fulfilled a longstanding dream by sneaking into New York’s World Trade Center, stringing a cable between the tops of the two towers, and—with almost unfathomable guts—walking across it without a net. The man is clearly a nut, but he’s also a great storyteller with a heck of a story, and Man on Wire gives him a chance to tell it. Petit’s stunt was both an engineering challenge and a test of, well, a test of something that most of us don’t possess in this much quantity. Filmmaker James Marsh uses standard documentary techniques, combining new interviews with a satisfying pile of footage and photographs, but his film has the suspense of a caper movie. The title comes from the report written by a police officer who was more than a little uncertain about how to respond to the audacity on display.—Robert Davis
28. A History of Violence (2005)Director: David Cronenberg
Writers: John Wagner, Vince Locke (graphic novel), Josh Olson (screenplay)
Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt
Studio: New Line Cinema
A devious genre tale that’s so much more, this thriller/action film plays its audience like a marionette with a mix of taught suspense, humor and a myriad of implicit questions about our response to violence. This first Cronenberg/Mortensen collaboration led to another fine film, Eastern Promises.
27. Caché (Hidden) (2005)Writer/Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Maurice Bénichou
Michael Haneke’s aptly named Caché (Hidden) is a multi-layered, open-ended thriller, an onion sliced by taut piano wire. It’s the story of a family with blocked communication channels. It’s a look at the way buried trauma seeps into daily life. And it’s an examination of fear and vulnerability so palpable that a long sequence—in which the main character simply enters the house, draws the curtains and lies down for a nap—drips with dread.
26. Ghost Dog (2000)Writer/Director: Jim Jarmusch
Star: Forest Whitaker
Studio: Channel Four Films
After making Dead Man, a Western film about a meek Ohio accountant and a Native American warrior, indie auteur Jim Jarmusch blended Oriental philosophy with gangster reality in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Forest Whitaker plays the title character, a hit man who adopts the code of the Hagakure, a training manual for 18th-Century would-be samurai.—Josh Jackson
25. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)Writer/Director: Guillermo del Toro
Stars: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi López i Ayats
Studio: Picturehouse
Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s vision of what’s, ostensibly, a childhood fable hews closer to the dark corners of the young mind (think the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen) than any squeaky-clean Disney versions. Our determined heroine, little Ofelia, maintains a fantastical imagination—filled with fairies like insects and a benevolent yet nightmarish fawn—even in the face of a facistic stepfather.—Andy Beta
24. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)Writer/Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Stars: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter
T-Bone Burnett’s soundtrack got all the attention, but this twist on Homer’s Odyssey—set in Depression Era Mississippi—had all the effortless storytelling, imaginative characters and quotable lines we’ve come to love from the Coen Brothers’ best comedies, with George Clooney joining a celebrated list of Coen comic leads. Holly Hunter and John Goodman basically reprise their hilarious Raising Arizona roles, only with more kids. And an eye-patch.—Josh Jackson
23. Traffic (2000)Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones
Studio: USA Films
Steven Soderbergh’s simulated documentary about modern drug culture twists and glides with a calculation as deep and complex as the cavernous topic it so effectively dissects. Ever the visionary, Soderbergh displays an objective, impartial eye (quite literally—he photographed the film as Peter Andrews), digging into his characters’ explosive trajectories as they reach their tragic and ambiguous ends, and leaving us with more questions than answers.—Sean Edgar
22. Dogville (2003)Writer/Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Paul Bettany, James Caan
Studio: Lions Gate Films
When Lars von Trier pits idealism against human selfishness, the latter always wins. His hubristic characters become what they hate by inescapable degrees. Dogville is his most trenchant polemic, with a minimal black-box theater set cultivating fevered lucidity. It’s about a town that destroys a woman by loving her, and a woman who loves a town by destroying it. In von Trier’s world, idealism inevitably leads to ruin, and there are only two kinds of people: martyrs and buffoons.—Brian Howe
20. Elephant (2003)Writer/Director: Gus Van Sant
Stars: Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson
Studio: HBO Films
The immense tragedy of 9/11 defined this decade, but 1999’s Columbine massacre remains haunting for its intimacy. Van Sant’s dramatization is almost unbearably fragile, an exquisite exercise in mood and tone—it’s as though he turned a horror movie into a poem. His steadicam sweeps the high-school hallways, and what you notice most is the eerie stillness, the deafening silence. When the killing comes, it’s brutally matter-of-fact: a fall from grace, a serenity violated.—Nick Marino
19. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007)Writer/Director: Cristian Mungui
Stars: Adi Carauleanu, Luminita Gheorghiu, Madalina Ghitescu
Studio: IFC Films
With eerily realistic performances and stunning direction, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days combines an uncomfortably forthright discussion of abortion with long, virtuosic handheld camera takes. In Cristian Mungui’s hand, these shots are more than just a gimmick; they position the audience behind the camera and refuse to let us look away from the horrors on screen. At times, it’s difficult to watch, but few films have ever displayed as perfect a marriage of form and content.—Sean Gandert
18. Syndromes and a Century (2006)Writer/Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Stars: Nantarat Sawaddikul, Jaruchai Iamaram, Sophon Pukanok, Jenjira Pongpa Syndromes is the oblique story of how his parents met. They’re both physicians, and the film tells their story twice, each time following them from a rural clinic to a modern hospital, as if they too straddled worlds.
17. Memento (2000)
Writer/Director: Christopher NolanWriter: Jonathan Nolan (short story)
Stars: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
During a brutal attack in which he believes his wife was raped and murdered, insurance-fraud investigator Leonard Shelby (played with unequivocal intensity, frustration and panic by Guy Pearce) suffers head trauma so severe it leads to his inability to retain new memories for more than a few minutes. This device allows Nolan to brilliantly deconstruct traditional cinematic storytelling, toggling between chronological black-and-white vignettes and full-color five-minute segments that unfold in reverse order while Pearce frantically searches for his wife’s killer. The film is jarring, inventive and adventurous, and the payoff is every bit worth the mindbending descent into madness.
16. Half Nelson (2006)Writer/Director: Ryan Fleck
Writer/Producer: Anna Boden
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie
The debut feature film by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden is a compelling personal story about a high-school teacher who’s failing himself and his students. It’s a rich political allegory for the liberal malaise of the Bush era, and it’s a sly subversion of a tired Hollywood cliché.
15. Juno (2007)Director: Jason Reitman
Writer: Diablo Cody
Stars: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Thirby
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
At the center of Diablo Cody’s quickly drafted first movie script is a teenage girl going through a difficult situation and handling it with more maturity and aplomb than most of the adults around her. Ellen Page’s Juno is a delightful counter to vapid high-school stereotypes that litter the genre, but the challenges of pregnancy and the arrested development of Jason Bateman as the potential adoptive father take the precocious teenager in way over her head. The film’s honesty in tackling these issues makes its many laughs well-earned.—Josh Jackson
14. Up (2009)Writer/Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Stars: Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures (Pixar)
In an oeuvre already overstuffed with classics (The Incredibles, Wall-E) that enchant both children and parents Pixar’s Up towers. Instilling heart into a trash compactor was a feat, but a comedic triumvirate consisting of a septuagenarian curmudgeon, a boy scout and an androgynous bird makes for a truly uncanny combo. That the film gracefully alights on abandoned dreams, old age, loss and the burden of domesticity is just the cherry on top.—Andy Beta
13. Mulholland Drive (2001)Naomi Watts’ soulful and fearless dual performance as a wide-eyed ingénue and a jaded junkie anchors David Lynch’s puzzlebox film, an update on mid-century Hollywood vice flicks that twists itself into a powerful tragedy. Only superficially exploitive, Mulholland Drive gives its girl-on-girl action a tenderness rarely seen in mainstream sex scenes and never seen in Lynch films. Even as the director further blurs the distinctions between fantasy and reality, he finds the dark heart of this tangled romance.—Stephen M. Deusner
12. There Will Be Blood (2007)There’s a whiff of Citizen Kane about There Will Be Blood. Both Charles Foster Kane, the center of Orson Welles’ 1941 masterwork, and Daniel Plainview, the protagonist of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 gem, are Shakespearean in their contradictions—too creative and too wounded to be fully condemned, and too ruthless to be fully admired.
11. The Dark Knight (2008)
Writer/Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Jonathan Nolan, David S. Goyer, Bob Kane, Bill Finger
Stars: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Aaron Ekhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman
10. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
With his third movie, Wes Anderson let all his quirks run rampant: a storybook setting that is and is not New York, a uniform for each character and an obsession with childhood detritus. Rather than deflect the family’s conflicts (as Anderson’s critics claim), these elements only enhance its spiritual conundrums, making The Royal Tenenbaums Anderson’s most directorially confident and emotionally cathartic film—a bittersweet ode to regret, forgiveness and hard-won contentment.
9. No Country For Old Men (2007)
The story of a drug deal gone wrong soon reveals its true theme: the futility of being good and just in the face of abject evil. But the Coens also meditate on the faltering of the physical body. “Age’ll flatten a man,” Tommy Lee Jones’ Sherrif Bell esteems, and for this Texan, the evocation of my childhood landscape—right down to the tiniest detail—means that the specter of Chigurh will haunt not only the end of my life but stomp through its earliest remembrances as well.
8. The Son (Le fils) (2002)Renowned Belgian filmmaking brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne found the perfect distillation of their stark style with this masterpiece about a man who teaches woodworking to troubled teens. One boy in particular draws his attention, but the brothers parcel out the plot so carefully that watching it unfold is rewarding in itself. T
7. Lost In Translation (2003)
Writer/Director: Sofia Coppola
Stars: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris
Studio: Focus Features
Fueled by Bill Murray’s impeccable performance, Sofia Coppola delivered a picture of sublime nuance for her sophomore effort. The physical and emotional unavailability of spouses, words left unspoken, life’s missing purpose, an affair devoid of sex—absence is the looming presence here, and Coppola perfectly captured the ineffable human conditions of dislocation and ennui. Lost in Translation is a testament to the power of a raised eyebrow, a gentle touch and a parting whisper.—Tim Regan-Porter
6. Beau Travail (2000)
Writer/Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin
Studio: New Yorker Films
French filmmaker Claire Denis has such a keen eye and natural sense of rhythm that her movies often hypnotize viewers even when they aren’t following the plot. She’s subtle. For Beau Travail, Denis transplanted Herman Melville’s Billy Budd to the African landscape where she grew up. She gave her movie one of the greatest endings of any film this decade when her lead character—wound tight as a spring—finally allows himself a spastic, joyous moment. Whether it’s real or metaphorical isn’t clear, but we know this much: It’s music. It’s dance. It’s pure cinema.—Robert Davis
4. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003)
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy took the work J.R.R. Tolkien himself described as “unsuitable for dramatic or semi-dramatic representation” and translated its epic story in a far more literal manner than could’ve ever been guessed. What comes across in Jackson’s adaptation is a passion not just for telling the epic tale, but for telling it correctly. Corners weren’t cut for time or expense, nor were compromises made to create a tighter plot and more streamlined experience. In a sprawling 11 hours, the series’ meticulous recreation captures the same wonder and awe of the books. We suspect that were he still around, Tolkien would’ve reconsidered his comment and enjoyed seeing his world on screen just as much as the rest of us.—Sean Gandert
3. Almost Famous (2000)
Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical film perfectly captured the essence of the world music geeks inhabit—the passion for the music; the joy in the concert experience; the obsession over the tiniest details of melody, lyrics, musicianship, artwork and liner notes; the camaraderie of fans and musicians. But even beyond the resonance that music fans feel, Crowe crafted flawless little scenes, peopled with fully fleshed-out characters who were funny, romantic, heart wrenching and utterly believable. Almost Famous is the essential movie for music aficionados, and a great one for anyone who cares about humanity.—Tim Regan-Porter
2. Amélie (2001)
Writer/Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writer: Guillaume Laurant
Stars: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Claire Maurier
Studio: Miramax
With the face of an angel, the heart of a child and the haircut of a Parisian pixie, do-gooding waitress Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) swept us clean off our feet. Hers was a love story, a French love story—as if it could get more romantic. And her fantastical adventures in the name of love unfolded in flights of magical realism. Indeed, the film held up love itself as both magical and realistic. Which, of course, is how it really is.—Nick Marino
1. City of God (2003)
Based on the novel by Paulo Lins (and adapted by Bráulio Mantovani), Meirelles turned an unflinching eye on a world forgotten by the wealthy and powerful, ignored by police and indifferent to law and order. City of God set the template for other shocking urban films to follow (not to mention a revival of “favela funk” by music-marauders like Diplo and M.I.A.).
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