NMW's Decade-Late Best Films of the Decade - 2000s Version!

Listen, when we do a list, we're going to do it right. Even if it's ten years late!

We actually did put forth a Top Fifteen Films of the Millennium back in 2009 (in TWO PARTS!), when this blog was still in its infancy. Looking at that list and what I've come up with today in 2019, a few things struck me as odd. So let's go through that first.

The 2000s were weird. It is weird to realize how weird it was. Going through my shortlist of about twenty or so qualified movies I was struck by just how many major cinematic blockbusters and superhero films made the list. I still watch all these of course, but none these days feels superior to a small indie film in its resonance with me. I don't know if that's me aging and looking back on these days with nostalgia or a genuine shift in filmmaking. What draws me towards the latter hypothesis is the simple fact that a movie like Avengers: Endgame (2019) isn't even a movie. It's a brand. It's a good brand, and elicited one of the most moving emotional responses in me this year. But it's hard to evaluate as an actual movie.

Films in the 2000s were all over this. There are tons of clever, game changing films produced by big studios, but even the smaller movies here feel bigger. They were Oscar darlings or critically lauded, classic comedies. I look at my 2010 rankings and see Under the Skin (2014) and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) and can't picture these coming out in the 2000s. Is it a shift in distribution methods? Or maybe just a rapidly increasing niche market where I'm able to find these things.

Looking back ten years on it's also clear that so many of these films have been canonized as great. I can put on No Country for Old Men (2007) any day of the week and know every minute of it, and by this point it's a ranked list no-brainer. There is still some debate in the 2010s. It doesn't help that I personally haven't really connected with recent Oscar winners. When this decade opened with The King's Speech (2010) and The Artist (2011), neither of which have really improved on age, that disconnect becomes clear.

Some spoilers for all these 10+ year old movies here, so go watch them first. Or stop reading a movie site, why are you here if you haven't seen these yet.

So, here is what I got:

#10: ELF (2003)

dir: Jon Favreau

Somehow Favreau and star Will Ferrell created not only an instant classic Christmas movie but also the most re-watchable movie of all time. It's also very genuinely funny. This was an early foray into Ferrell's "man-child" persona, here quite literally with the Peter Pan Syndrome Buddy the Elf unable to differentiate childish elfish culture with that of early-2000s adult New York. It never gets too dark, but flirts with danger enough to give an edge to the ever-present sweetness. Buddy never falters, either, even at his lowest, suicidal point he doesn't back down from his kind values, and it gives this film its staying power. 2003 also gave us the Christmas classic Bad Santa which equals this film in writing and memorability, but to make a film this instantaneously universally beloved is an underrated feat. To do it with a movie that's actually good is next to impossible.

#9: Mean Girls (2004)

dir: Mark Waters

Oh, Lohan. Somehow the biggest name going into this film became the worst name coming out. This is the kind of comedy that exists above all others - infinitely rewatchable by anyone on planet earth. It casts itself with such undeniable swagger and confidence, prone to sublime fantasies that mix in perfectly with its rock steady premise. It's the side characters and endlessly quotable lines that keep this movie going strong and like ELF, is rewatchable until the end of time.

#8: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

dir: Jake Kasdan

I originally had Shaun of the Dead (2004) in this spot, and I'm going to backhand it in here by acknowledging it as the culmination of early millennium Zombie fever (...of course that shit just never actually ended). In much of the same way, Walk Hard was the culmination of early millennium Apatow fever, although in seeking to parody all the self-serious movies that came before it, Walk Hard actually succeeded in being better than any of them. It's an underrated parody in part because it's so stealth. I didn't really get it on first viewing because it's so subtle and more interested in walking a very thin line and acknowledging biopic tropes. It's tough to walk the line. What's amazing is that no one has learned. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) is actually just Walk Hard. I think about it every day.

#7: Tropic Thunder (2008)

dir. Ben Stiller

This is perhaps the most meta movie ever made and exists as both a send-up of war films as well as Hollywood, excessive actors, out of control budgets, and insane producers who are scarier than drug cartels. It's full of set-ups, pay-offs, irony, and characters who all experience real growth. I'll never forget my grandfather describing a new movie he saw a commercial for that he couldn't believe and I slowly put it together that it was Satan's Alley. The first four movies today have all been comedies, and that says a lot about my sensibilities as a film fan.

#6: The Prestige (2006)

dir. Chris Nolan

The 2000s gave us Christopher Nolan on a huge stage and many people will pick The Dark Knight (2008) (I did in 2009), and while that's solid of course, I was far more impressed by the topsy-turny filmmaking of The Prestige, easily beating out fellow period magician film The Illusionist (2006). Hugh Jackman is so underrated here, as well as most of the Batman cast and even Scarlett Johansson shows up briefly. David Bowie and Andy Serkis show up for some reason. The movie is about a simple rivalry, but it's the questions that linger - when Wolverine and Batman each caught on to each other, how the hell Wolverine became a British Lord, and who really earns the Prestige after the trick. It's a melding of subject matter into filmmaking that rewards repeat viewings.

#5: The Departed (2006)

dir. Marty Scorsese

Otherwise known as Boston Accent: The Movie, this was a huge play for Marty. Like The Prestige, it's really about two rivals trying to outdo each other, while swearing and shooting each other all the way through. It stars every actor ever in their best role ever, especially Mark Wahlberg playing himself. The movie is really about deception and self-deception, though, and the continuous turns of loyalty and double-crosses that are all totally earned is what makes this movie watchable every day of my life. Like most Scorsese films it exists more as a series of scenes that are forever re-playable. It feels like a giant montage in the best way.

#4: City of God (2002)

dir: Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund

This is an epic saga of the city of Rio de Janeiro and there hasn't been a better film to expose life in the poorer and more dangerous city neighborhoods. It's a ride from start to finish, nominally starring protagonist Rocket, but so freely whisks in and out of dozens of characters lives as the city and people and violence shape everyone. It's the only foreign film on this list and one that I had heard a lot about but proved to be instantly enthralling when I watched it. Unlike a lot of films here, I don't know if I'm up for another watch. It's exhausting. In a good way. Maybe again.

#3: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

dir: Peter Jackson

It's tough because all of these films should really be here. The Fellowship (2001) may actually be the best one and I always go back and forth. But everything comes to a head in King and it serves as the poster-child for inexplicably the only franchise that didn't run out of steam by the third installment. It certainly helps that they were all filmed at the same time with the same crew and it's astounding that in an age of insta-sequels more films haven't actually gone after this method. It's iconic, epic, baffling, and a lot of fun. It never wants to end, but neither do I want it to.

#2: No Country for Old Men (2007)

dir: Coen Bros

I still remember leaving the theater thinking "Wait...evil wins?" That's the point of No Country, and while it's the little things like Anton Chigurh and low key hilarious lines ("Llewellyn, what's in the satchel?" Alright, that's not funny, but it gets me) that make it watchable, I'm also always shook by the sudden and terrifying off-screen removal of our protagonist. It should be on Psycho (1960) levels. Or at least SCREAM (1997) levels. But better. It drops the audience into the sea of nothingness and while we wait for someone to get a comeuppance, Tommy Lee Jones just retires instead. We're left adrift and after everything settles we're still not settled.

#1: There Will be Blood (2007)

dir. Paul Thomas Anderson



An excessively long character study starring the best character actor there is or ever was, Daniel Day Lewis. It works here and makes a phenomenal film. 2007 was nuts. Atonement (2007) didn't even make the cut. Evil wins again, but this time it's a long, drawn-out evil, sudden violence replaced by sustained greed and conniving ambition. It's another collection of fantastic scenes that all prove iconic, memorable, and at times very concerning. There is some debate as to what everyone represents, who is the milkshake and who is the straw but in the end it's just Capitalism winning over everyone else. And that is the message of the 2000s. And every decade.

Naturally, we have some Honorable Mentions. This is really just a weak excuse to proclaim that I appreciate a lot of movies. I'm okay with this: Finding Nemo (2003), Wall-E (2008), Zodiac (2007),  Bad Santa (2003), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Ocean's 11 (2001), The Hangover (2009), The Rundown (2003), Memento (2000), Inglourious Basterds (2009), The Hurt Locker (2009), Brokeback Mountain (2005), The Wrestler (2008), Gran Torino (2008), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), In the Loop (2009), Cast Away (2000), In Bruges (2008).

You know what? Nevermind, the best movie of this decade was definitely How High (2001). No more questions.

What do you think? What would you list look like ten years ago? I'm surprised by how much this hasn't really changed. Also how canonized this decade has become. I'm not sure there is really much debate at all towards the top. What say you?

First Impressions: Knives Out

Back in January I was looking forward to Knives Out (2019) as some kind of Rian Johnson Daniel Craig murder mystery whodunnit that would succeed because Johnson could dig into the tropes and come up with something interesting. What's amazing is that I actually said that these movies are either contrived or give themselves away too early. What then might we say about this one that totally blows its mystery within the first hour and then continues to be compelling? SPOILERS forever as we talk about Knives Out!

Sitting in the Game of Thrones Interrogation Chair

Like most folks I first found respect for Rian Johnson from Looper (2012), which was such a cool idea with some really inspired casting and genuinely creative uses of the premise, if you are able to ignore some time travel nonsense (the film even encourages us to just go along for the ride at one point). It was enough of a fresh sci-fi that I was locked in and excited about his take on The Last Jedi (2017).

And okay, I often feel like the only person on the planet who feels this way, but The Last Jedi was amazing. Every day it feels more like the New Star Wars Trilogy was completely made up on the fly and that's just not a good thing. I love that Rian Johnson decided to blow up the whole thing as well as mess with every idea at the core of Star Wars itself. It's amazing. Weirdly, not many people liked him messing with childhoods (or giving women positions of authority), but I love how he clearly sees terrible characters like Po Dameron as worthless as they are and acknowledges Luke not as a godly chosen hero but a whiny brat from Tatooine.

Sorry, off topic here. But after that whole debacle it's great to see Johnson clear his palette with this original zany tale that works like a somehow worse version of The Royal Tenenbaums (2003) with a brilliant immigration subtext. Also a murder mystery that's not exactly obvious, but plays its hand very early, but in doing so finds a more ingenious way to keep its momentum going. Let's start with the plot.

Christopher Plummer is an aging author and executor of a publishing empire with an assortment of terrible children and in-laws who are all looking for a piece of the pie. A big theme here is what it takes to truly become self-made or just launching oneself from a position of money and privilege. It may be the first of quite a few digs at Trump, but hey, that's what every possible piece of culture is now.

Beyond the titular family head is a truly amazing cast of characters. Jamie Lee Curtis is arguably the only one semi-admirable. Her husband, Don Johnson is a cheating piece of shit with the sorts of veiled racist rhetoric against immigrants that fuels most of the Republican Party. Michael Shannon is an awkward, creepy follower in his dad's footsteps. His son is not explicitly shown, but told to be a Nazi troll, a sly dig at the young white men in today's society turned by the more selfish and racist parts of the internet. On the other side of the spectrum is a "snowflake" daughter and her mother, Toni Collette, double dipping generous funds to pay for what seems like a never-ending school. Rian Johnson shows us both sides of today's hypocritical political society in very subtle ways. Finally there's Chris Evans as Jamie Lee Curtis' son, who seems like an aggressive piece of shit without much real direction in life.

LaKeith Stanfield, Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, and some other white guy round out the non-family cast, and they're all great. Each cog works in this machine to spit out a pretty entertaining movie. Ana de Armas is revealed early on as the accidental killer of Chris Plummer, but she's ironically the only one without motivation and it was totally an accident! Or was it! There are plenty of double crosses and twists that are largely earned, although it does leave us with a lot of talking and last minute reveals, mostly by Daniel Craig, who does his best Logan Lucky (2017) southern accent. It's actually becoming a nice niche for him that largely works just because it's the farthest possible from James Bond.

It is entertaining to watch Bond vs. Captain America for much of the latter part of the film. Chris Evans also plays heavily against the type he's generated in recent flicks, but is really a sleezebag remisicent of earlier roles in Sunshine (2007), Not Another Teen Movie (2001), and The Losers (2010). Remember him in Push (2009)? No one saw Push. I liked Push. Anyway, through a bunch of twists and turns Chris Evans really did the poisoning, or at least tried to, and was going to set up Ana de Armas, but because she is good and awesome at life and everything he got his comeuppance. It's very satisfying and surprising in ways that are both befitting of the genre and intriguing within the genre. It all just works.

The stages of the actual murder involve a cheeky sequence where Ana de Armas ingeniously needs to cover her own tracks (quite literally) as Daniel Craig enlists her to solve her own crime, her being the least suspicious. This is then reversed as she suddenly becomes the most likely when she is revealed as the sole inheritor of Christopher Plummer's will. It all drips with irony that keeps us engaged until the end.

As I mentioned, there is also this political undercurrent here. Ana de Armas is worried that her mother will get deported if she brings on a lot of attention. The attitudes of the family are largely that they are privileged and deserve what's rightfully theirs and care not for this intrusive immigrant swooping in and stealing what's theirs, even if she earned it. It's full of a lot of lip service for both the right wing and left wing members of the family that show their true colors when the chips are down. There's a few legendary moments - from Michael Shannon promising Ana de Armas the considerable resources of the family, then she asserts that those resources are now hers. Chris Evans demands their ancestral heritage, but Daniel Craig rightly points out that they purchased this house in the 80s. It's all on the nose, but still delightful.

The film looks great, is filled with fantastic actors on limited sets and budgets. It is certainly heavy on the dialogue and monologues, but this is a murder mystery centered around a slain mystery novelist. You know what you're getting into. The characters all have their own distinct motivations and quirks without becoming caricatures. It's everything you could want right now.

Most importantly, it's clever. That's one common thread I feel is missing from most films these days. I just watched Hobbs & Shaw (2019), which may inspire its own DVD-based post soon, but most big blockbusters just don't feel iconic or clever any more. They're full of missed opportunities to be great. It's so rare to have a mainstream movie like this full of compelling dialogue, layers of irony, interesting characters and relationships that bounce off each other. It's very well done and worth watching.

Did you see Knives Out yet? Or just watching Frozen II (2019)?

NMW's Top Movies of The Two-Thousand Tweens!

It's that time of the decade again. This blog was in its infancy in 2009 when we first wrapped up the 2000s as a decade, and now, in its old decrepit age we take a look back at the years 2010-2019. It has been a very odd decade, mostly terrible, but there were at least ten good movies. Maybe stretching seven or eight, but we'll list ten here for you. We took some time and looked back at every single Top Ten List we had, as well as the Top Ten re-do list we had, and then the Top Ten Movies We've Seen that Didn't Come out in This Year lists. It's a lot. Here's what we got:

The first thing I wanted to do was break this down by year. Just on instinct looking through all the movies I've watched in the past ten years, it looks something like this:

2010:

Black Swan
The Social Network
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Hot Tub Time Machine

2011:

Moneyball
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Take Shelter
Melancholia

2012:

Django Unchained
The Master
The Cabin in the Woods
Lincoln
The Campaign

2013:

The Wolf of Wall Street
Inside Llewyn Davis
Pain & Gain
The World's End
The Lone Ranger
Pacific Rim
Stoker

2014:

What We Do in the Shadows
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The Interview
Inherent Vice
Gone Girl

2015:

Bone Tomahawk
The Duke of Burgundy
Mad Max: Fury Road
Under the Skin

2016:

The Witch
American Honey
The Lobster
Silence

2017:

Good Time
mother!
Blade Runner 2049
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 

2018:

The Death of Stalin
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Sorry to Bother You

2019:

Godzilla: King of the Monsters
The Beach Bum
Jojo Rabbit
Uncut Gems
Booksmart
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Us

It's actually pretty liberating to not worry about what's Top Ten or Top 11 or whatever. This is the cream of the crop of what I am into. I certainly have a taste. Okay, I'll stop trolling you with that Lone Ranger nod, but I do actually love that movie.

2019 is tricky. I'm not really sure which of these films will resonate down the line, or even next month. It's all a little too recent for my judgment. Is Us better than Black Swan? Standing here right now it certainly feels like it, but who knows. Still, I think we can match these up and probably reevaluate years on down the line. Actually, we should definitely do a 2000-2009 reevaluation. You know we're doing this, now. Yes, I also love Godzilla: King of the Monsters and should probably name that #1 of the deacde.

From here I think we can sift through this mess and form a Decade Top Ten by just going through our no-brainers. Let's list them here and throw in a blurb about why this stuff resonated with me:

#10: American Honey (2016)

Dir: Andrea Arnold

I discovered this from some other "Best of 2016" list and started exploring it based on its premise. It's a mystifying three hours long and somehow holds your attention the entire way, despite being kind of about nothing. It centers on a young mother who runs away from home (abandoning her child on the way) and joining a troupe of young magazine salespeople led by Shia LaBeouf and Riley Keough. It's a raw movie, filmed with mostly real people and only a handful of actors. On a larger scale it's also about the state of youth in America - lost, soulless, aching for connection and chasing dreams fueled by con artists and snake oil. I watched it on Netflix DVD on a weekday morning in December and remember it exactly. It's that kind of movie - it's always stuck with me in part because of how terrifyingly close to reality it could be for me and many people around me.

#09: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Dir: George Miller

This is a movie where ever single element is perfect. Everything works. It was breathtaking to witness. It's as if George Miller looked at every modern action movie and thought, "I can do this better." His resume is as varied as Babe: Pig in the City (1998), Happy Feet (2006), and uh...all three original Mad Max films, but somehow had in him still the perfect action movie. You can break this down endlessly in film class. I actually literally taught a film class in 2017 and whenever I wanted to demonstrate a point I just kept coming back to this movie. The establishment of premise, world-building, irony, every action as a reaction to a previous action, iconic characters, motifs, music, and costuming. All in service of an actually entertaining, memorable, enjoyable film. The casting is perfect. Each extended action scene is gripping in more importantly, in service to a story that could be told completely visually. It's such a simple idea executed to absolute perfection. Every action movie ever needs to strive to be Mad Max: Fury Road. It ends up not even being fair. This movie is the Patriots and George Miller is the Bill Belichick of action movies. I should note here that this movie IS actually just a straight re-make of The Road Warrior (1981). I also remember seeing this - in theaters, with friends and a big crowd, including someone's dad. The best way to watch this film.

#08: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Dir: David Fincher

The story of this movie is long and laboured, from forgotten lost manuscript by deceased author Stieg Larsson to a competent Swedish adaptation (only the first one is good), to this landing and flopping in Fincher's hands. Rooney Mara is fearless here and it's a damn shame she hasn't really had the chance to flex her acting like this again. As with many Fincher movies, the true star is the cinematography, staging, and unflinching treatment of the unsavory context. There are side roads and layers here that build towards the two characters of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist coming together to solve a long dead cold case. It's not much more than a classic mystery story, but it actually has a memorable payoff, and I'll never listen to Enya the same way again. Supporting cast Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, and Robin Wright are all superstars here. I watched this in theaters, I remember my seat - I was near the aisle. Sometime around Christmas. More than that, though, I remember watching this during a snow day, wrapped in a blanket in my apartment on a stark TV sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. I think my room didn't have heat and I was trying to watch it on a big TV from the living room. More than anything, that's how this movie should be watched.

#07: Melancholia (2011)

Dir. Lars von Trier

This is an extremely long disposition on the nature of depression, and pretty much the best that we're ever going to get. The premise on its face is that an alternate Earth, named Melancholia is headed for us and we're all doomed. The movie doesn't entirely concern itself with this small matter, though, and mostly acts as a means for Kirsten Dunst to prove that she's a legit actress (she does). I watched this years after it came out because it drew a lot of chatter on the Internet and I wanted to up my Lars von Trier knowledge. This is somehow one of his more accessible flicks? It's also totally a movie that's just two movies, the first half being Kirsten Dunst's wedding and the second half being mostly her moping around and unable to get out of the tub. It's got one of the best ending shots ever and is really a landmark bit of filmmaking.

#06: Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Dir: Boots Riley

I saw this in a small arthouse theater in Cleveland and remember sitting there thinking, "How did someone reach into my brain and put a movie exactly made for me on the screen?" This film is incredibly engaging and has layers extremely beyond its premise of "black guy using David Cross' voice to become a good telemarketer." Tessa Thompson, Steven Yeun, Jermaine Fowler, Armie Hammer and of course, LaKeith Stanfield are all at the top of their game. This film has a lot to say about unions, capitalism, modern-day slavery, the extent that people will sell out, the hypocrisy of doing so (and not doing so), and also, magic horses. I simply cannot give away more if you haven't seen it, but you really need to see it. I have never encountered a movie that goes so absurdly off the rails but manages to hold on to itself. I could watch it over and over - it's currently on Hulu, I might just do that.

05: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Dir: Martin Scorsese

As I was compiling this I found it amazing that Scorsese put out Silence three years after this. Maybe that long meditative thought about faith and Christianity was in response to the sheer depravity of this movie? I watched this on Christmas Day sitting next to my 14-year old cousin. It was awesome. I think those were his first boobs. Every award Leo has gotten after this has been in response to his performance here, which is the most unhinged and ridiculous in movie history. I said it. It may glamorize the stock-trader lifestyle (this is debatable. I'm not sure how many reasonable people are jealous of losing all feeling in their arms and legs, losing their families, and being arrested by the FBI), but it's also a loving tribute to the 90s and the terrible atrocities of greed and hubris. The cast is top notch. This movie gave us Margot Robbie, the beginning of the McConaughissance, Jon Bernthal on the cinematic stage, and serious Jonah Hill. Okay, "serious" should be taken with a grain of salt, but when I think of modern classics, this always comes to mind. Like Fury Road, it's as if an old master saw what all these young kids were doing and vowed he could do it better. I always go back to this movie. It never ages for me.

#04: The Master (2012)

Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

PTA's MASTERpiece, this is his thinly veiled opus to Scientology that's more of a mental duel between two of our greatest actors, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. I watch this about every two years or so, and it never gets old. There is always some other layer I uncover as I myself meditate on who is the "master" and who is the "student" in the relationship. It's also notable as one of the few movies where the lead character doesn't change at all from start to finish. But it's actually good and that's sort of the point. By this point you can see what tends to attract me most - sleezy con artists masquerading as legitimate sources of hope and salvation. It's a dangerous game, toying with others' feelings, money, and souls. I abhor it. This is all the surface-level stuff in The Master. The core relationship between these two dudes battling for control over their surroundings, each other, and themselves is what makes this film interesting and stays with me. That, and "PIG FUCK!"

#03: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Dir. Ana Lily Amirpour

I watched this I think on DVD, maybe streaming, in my apartment in Fall of 2015. I immediately fell in love with it and eagerly devoured anything else Amirpour could churn out. I think that's largely why I still loved The Bad Batch (2016). This self-described Iranian Vampire Western sucks you in like the vampires it depicts, with equal parts danger and seduction that's befitting its genre, but escapes most imitators. It's fiercely its own genre and emblematic of a voice that is not often heard. My mind wanders to the cinematography, including the car scene which gets me every time. I think this is on Kanopy. It's time for another visit. Every frame a painting holds very true here, where literally very single shot could be printed and put on a wall. Regarding the actual context, the table-turning nature of typical gender roles and how lost our purported protagonist becomes is why this resonates. That's actually similar to another film coming up. I like these films.

#02: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Dir: Denis Villeneuve

I also watched this in Cleveland - alone in a major movie theater on a Sunday afternoon in October. I was one of two people in the theater. I instantly came home and wrote 4200 words on it. So, just go read that. This was a huge bomb, but really, what were the thinking? I can't believe this film was allowed to be made. Seriously, why give Villeneuve $185 million to do whatever he wanted? He chose to make a 3-hour meditation on reality, the nature of being human, our right to control our creations, and a 30-year mystery follow-up to a movie notoriously opaque, so much so that Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford don't even agree on what happened. Also, no one outside of cinephiles have seen Blade Runner (1982). Hey - it could still happen! This is the rare 30+ year follow-up sequel that actually advances, even improves on its original. Remember that sweet 80s Vangelis soundtrack? Hans Zimmer is here to make it better! Remember Harrison Ford? Well, he's still here, although he totally should not be, but Ryan Gosling is even better. It's such a good, natural advancement of that world, that acknowledges its predecessor while making its own coherent world-building that STILL resonates with modern life. Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, Dave Bautista and especially Sylvia Hoeks are all fantastic here. Jared Leto sucks, but...does he kind of always suck now? Hey - second Robin Wright appearance on this list!

#01: Under the Skin (2014)

Dir. Jonathan Glazer

As I thought about this list, these three were the first I thought of when putting together an actual legit number of truly great movies. This one of the only movies I've ever seen that completes its story almost in totality through the visual medium it exists in. It's truly brilliant. You're forced to engage and tune in with a high attention to detail to decipher what the hell is going on. In the end we don't really have answers, but maybe understand a little bit more about what it means to be human. In the end, isn't that what we're all looking for? Scarlett Johansson plays a hot alien who eats dudes in a big black empty space, but damn this movie makes literally looking at grass growing contemplative and satisfying. That bus scene was a little long, I will admit. But this movie is endlessly fascinating as it forces you to try to figure out what the hell is going on, then you take a step back and learn to actual absorb all the visual information it's conveying and take it at face value. It's a cycle that works back in on itself and I have never found a movie that is better suited to the constraints and advantages of its medium.

As you may tell, I am really into super-long, contemplative movies that play with gender roles, feature deep soul-crushing cons, and are generally weird as hell. That all tracks. In 2029, if we are still alive and not all replaced by replicants I'll be curious how this list shifts around. I'm especially curious how 2019 fits in. 2010 didn't make it, either. I wonder if I have recency bias as well as just not remembering how good The Social Network was. You know, Hot Tub Time Machine should really be at the top of this list. We will definitely put out a "Best of 2000s" List soon. Stay tuned for more hot action, folks!!