Hello all, and welcome to Days Are Numbers’ countdown of the thirty greatest films of the decade!*

After a brief moment of mulling it over, I decided not to do a ‘best of’ list at the end of last year, because I didn’t think I’d seen enough new films to justify it. The same could be said of each individual year of this decade, and it shouldn’t surprise you to hear (if you’ve ever been bored enough to read any of my bits on this website) that I spend 99% of my film-watching time watching films released between 1956 and 1980. I’m not saying this makes me better than anyone who regularly visits their local multiplex; I just reckon they don’t make ‘em like they used to, that’s all.

This year, however, I thought I could surely come up with a list of my favourite films of the decade, and so I gave it a go. If you’d like to see how I got on, then please read on…

*No, not this decade you cheeky scamp! I mean the noughties, of course. The one just passed!

30. Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (Shane Meadows, 2002)

Probably Shane Meadows weakest feature (as the director himself insists), but still miles wittier, grittier and warmer than most folk’s best films. A quirky romantic comedy remoulded as a latter-day spaghetti western, and almost as good as that sounds.

29. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)

Ooohhh!!! Possibly the most devisive film of the decade, but just as likely the most influential. Style and substance are locked in a handsome stalemate here as Anderson’s cool wit and warm heart prove a worthy match for his famously rich direction.

28. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)

This seriously twisted and often ingenious tale of revenge proved to be a massive breakthrough for the extreme cinema of the Far East which for many would come to define the decade. A Steven Spielberg-directed, Will Smith-starring remake is apparently in the offing… The mind boggles!

27. No Direction Home (Martin Scorsese, 2005)

Scorsese continues to impress as a maker of documentary films, and this look at the early career of Bob Dylan is as epic as any of Marty’s “proper” films. A portrait of the artist that manages to be as beguiling and colourful as the artist himself.

26. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen, 2001)

The most underrated Coen brother’s film of them all, and probably because it’s their most downbeat and disturbing; even more so than Barton Fink! Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, and James Gandolfini each excel as the three points in a doublecrossing, dangerous and ultimately doomed menage a trois taking place in a nightmarish 1940s dreamworld.

25. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005)

A truly jaw-dropping documentary from Werner Herzog, who like Martin Scorsese, has been forging a nice sideline in non-fiction throughout his career. Luckless actor Timothy Treadwell filmed himself living side-by-side with grizzly bears in the wild before tragedy perhaps inevitably struck, and Herzog here pieces together his story from the often horrifying footage discovered following his demise.

24. The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)

A bloody biopic of the bloody Queen in my top films of the decade? It’s a testament to the talents of ace screenwriter Peter Morgan that he could make such a success of such an unappetising proposition. Using his knack for carefully crafting intelligent, poignant drama out of select chapters of history, Morgan uses the royal reaction to the death of Diana as the springboard for an involving tale concerning duty, politics and changing tradition in modern Britain.

23. Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)

The first gay epic? I suppose so, if you don’t count Ben-Hur, at any rate (that’s only half a joke). But what is most surprising about Milk is that Sean Penn finally lives up to all that hype and delivers the performance that the shamefully overlooked gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk deserves; witty, determined and brave.

22. Telstar (Nick Moran, 2009)

Three biopics in a row! But then that’s hardly surprising as there’s been so many of ‘em in the last ten years, and this one represents one of Britain’s best recent entries into the genre. As a massive Meek fan myself, I’m pleased to report that this superbly put together little film does a stellar job in managing to capture the chaos and creativity of the pop enigma’s world, and leaves you yearning to hear his mad and memorable music all over again.

21. Farenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004)

The backlash against Michael Moore that followed the success of Bowling for Columbine was as depressing as it was inevitable, but thankfully most cinemagoers ignored the bleating over the director’s validity and made this the most successful documentary film of all time. A commendably subtle and engagingly heartfelt condemnation of the illegal and disastrous war that dominated the decade.

20. Kill Bill vol. 1&2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003/2004)

One, ok then… TWO of the most frantically hyped and eagerly anticipated films of the decade. And while they didn’t quite live up to expectations, the two Kill Bills turned out to be surefire crowdpleasers and not at all deserving of the accusations of theft and lazy pastiche that their detractors flung at them.

19. Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)

Often unfairly tarred with the “quirky” brush, this is actually probably the fun-est, not to mention clever-est, headfuck in film history. Talented oddball Jonze turns Charlie Kaufman’s surreal tale of writer’s block into the ultimate film-about-films-about-making-films.

18. Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (Marc Rothemund, 2005)

The noughties was the deacde Germany opened up to it’s troubling past onscreen, and this biopic of the Nazi-era student resistance leader was one of the best of this rash of celluloid confessionals. A quiet yet emotionally wearing chamber piece, Julia Jentsch is remarkable in the title role.

17. The Damned United (Tom Hooper, 2009)

That man Morgan again, this time casting his pen over the no less regal figure of Brian Clough, and ol’ big head’s troubled tenure at Leeds United in the gritty mid-70s. A film as much about the need for true friendship in hard times as it is about footie and British nostalgia.

16. Black Book (Paul Verhoeven, 2006)

Paul “Basic Instinct” Verhoeven surprised many by turning in this intelligent and accomplished WWII thriller, but to those of us familiar with the Dutchman’s early work (particularly 1977′s Soldier of Orange), it was greeted as a welcome return to form. Without ever fully relinquishing his trademark bawdiness, Verhoeven puts together a crafty and action-packed war film that makes Tarantino’s long-awaited Inglourious Basterds look daft and inadequate by comparison.

15. Once in a Lifetime (Paul Crowder/John Dower, 2006)

There have been many top-notch feature-length, sports-based documentaries released over the last ten years, but this tale of the New York Cosmos’ audacious attempt to make “soccer” America’s glitziest sporting spectacle runs away with the proverbial league title. Any film that has Rodney Marsh recounting a tale of how a limo full of booze ‘n’ birds put Pele off his game has to be a winner, after all.

14. Lights in the Dusk (Aki Kaurismaki, 2006)

In which the ever idiosyncratic Kaurismaki follows the greatest success of his career (see below) by returning to his tragi-comic, neo-noir roots. A gorgeously, moodily  shot Helsinki provides the backdrop as an oddly classical femme fatale seduces a hapless security guard.

13. American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman/Robert Pulcini, 2003)

Curmodgeonly comic book scribe Harvey Pekar is the subject of this biopic, almost certainly the oddest of the handful on this list. Part-dramatisation and part-documentary, things take an enjoyably unique twist when the real-life Harvey and his equally eccentric buddies wander onscreen to comment on the action.

12. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen, 2000)

The Man Who Wasn’t There may be the most underrated Coen brother’s film, but O Brother, Where Art Thou?, from the year before, is probably their last truly great one. A thigh-slappingly hilarious take on Homer’s Odyssey transposed to the Depression-era American south, the film’s cracking period soundtrack was a deserved runaway success.

11. American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000)

The most quotable film of the decade (“that’s a very fine Chardonnay you’re not drinking”) and one of the most controversial, too. Punk feminist icon Mary Harron improves Bret Easton Ellis’s dreary and dubious novel no end by turning it into an anti-yuppie-bloody-comic-fantasy-nightmare-farce, boasting a genuinely disturbing central turn from actual psycho Christian Bale.

10. This is England (Shane Meadows, 2006)

Brave, semi-autobiographical effort from the best British director of the decade (and probably of the last one, too). 13-year-old Thomas Turgoose’s performance as the alienated adolescent swept along by the racist skinhead movement amounts to the greatest teenage turn this side of Jean-Pierre Leaud in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.

9. 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)

Like Joe Meek, Tony Wilson was a complex and pioneering figure in the British music industry; a staple on Northern daytime TV moonlighting as the boss and driving force behind the hippest record label in the land (Factory Recods, the home of New Order and The Happy Mondays). Michael Winterbottom’s suitably colourful film perfectly captures both sides of his character, providing plenty of laughs along the way.

   

8. Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000)

Initially lumped in with the glut of lumpen, post-Lock, Stock mockney gangster romps, Sexy Beast quickly earnt rightful praise as a remarkably intelligent, Pinter-ish crime drama. Ben Kingsley’s stunning performance as a disturbed and unremittingly aggressive gangland enforcer is already the stuff of legend. 

7. The Man Without a Past (Aki Kaurismaki, 2002)

The greatest succcess of Kaurismaki’s career, nominated for an Academy Award and winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes, The Man Without a Past finds the once destitute director exploring the everyday lives of Helsinki’s down ‘n’ out community. A man is mugged and beaten and, after losing his memory, has no choice but to rough it on the streets, where he unexpectedly finds love. 

6. Chopper (Andrew Dominik, 2000)

At least when it came to Ben Kingsley’s character in Sexy Beast you were 100% certain you wouldn’t want to spend a single second with him; part of the twisted charm of Eric Bana’s portrayal of real-life Aussie nut/hard case Mark “Chopper” Read is that he seems like he would make for entertaining company… So long as he promised not to attack you. Andrew Domink’s film pulls of the rather contrary triumph of aggrandising Read’s antics whilst simultenously making a mockery of the man himself.

5. Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)

Feature-length documentary films became a viable and highly profitable box office commodity for the first time in the noughties, and much of this was down to the impact made by Michael Moore’s zeitgeist-capturing look at gun violence in America. Possessing an ability to make you howl with both laughter and despair, Moore was an all-too rare voice of reason in very dark times.

4. Dead Man’s Shoes (Shane Meadows, 2004)

Completing a hat-trick of violent Commonwealth-dwelling crazies comes Paddy Considine (who also co-wrote) as a jaded and malevolent ex-squaddie tracking down the drug dealing gang responsible for the death of his brother. Frequent collaborators Meadows and Considine aimed at making something as shocking and grimly memorable as the likes of Scum and Deliverance; a feat they most certainly acheived.

3. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)

The pick of a rich crop of films concerning Germany’s troubling recent history, this is a expertly made and deadly accurate account of the last days of Hitler and Nazi rule as the Red Army closes in on a ravaged and crumbling Berlin. Incredibly, Bruno Ganz’s chillingly believable performance as the Furher marks the first time a German actor has played him on screen.

 

2. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)

A low-key, avant garde musical that attacks American capitalist values in general, and the moral quicksand of the death penalty in particular? It could only be Lars von Trier! And even if you don’t particularly care for the song and dance numbers scattered throughout, this is still a spellbinding, and ultimately harrowing, serving of intense, cerebral drama.

1. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

An equally scathing and melancholy mini-masterpiece, pitched somewhere in between Crumb and Sallinger, and the finest depiction of teenage alienation and suburban ennui that I have yet seen. Perhaps a fitting choice for film of the decade as the hapless, drifting main protagonist finds herself unable to exist happily in the cultural vortex created by an ever more corporate world.

Yowzers! That was a sour note to end on, wasn’t it? But, let’s face it, it’s hardly been a great decade all round, has it? And that goes double for films. Still, many of the films listed above rank among my all-time favourites (particularly the top three), and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to put this list together when I eventually got round to it. But while there was no shortage of fine biopics, documentaries and, erm, films about Germany, one question remained; where was the big, era-defining classic? The Pulp Fiction… The Raging Bull… The Apocalypse Now… The La Dolce Vita… The Rebel Without a Cause? Sadly, I really don’t think there was one.

What do you think? And what were your favourite films of the decade?

TELL ME!!!

Tags my thirty favourite-ist films of the decade!!!