The Real 100 Best Films Of The 21st Century, Part Four
25) Get Out (2007); 25 on the Guardian’s list
From the way the critics talked up Get Out, you’d have thought the very notion of horror with a social conscience was Jordan Peele’s brainchild. He has quite the knack for it, that said. Daniel Kaluuya, on the other hand, has come a very long way from Psychoville’s Tealeaf and Harry Enfield’s Parking Pataweyo.
24) Shoplifters (2018); 15 on the Guardian’s list
Criminals with hearts of gold – something movie audiences can’t seem to get enough of. The ne’er-do-wells in Hirokazu Koreeda’s family drama are nice middle-class people who take to the titular practice to supplement their meagre income. Then they find a young girl on their doorstep and their hearts melt, mere seconds before ours.
23) Spirited Away (2001); 22 on the Guardian’s list
In other critics’ hands, this list might have featured a half-dozen Hayao Miyazaki masterpieces. I’m sticking with the film that broke Studio Ghibli in the west, one that’s reduced Disney to shooting live-action versions of its cartoon classics, painfully aware that there’s a new animated genius in town.
22) Caché (2005); 6 on the Guardian’s list
And on to another film coloured by surveillance culture. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche are the couple who start receiving tapes of their family’s day-to-day activities. Then the unsettling drawings start to arrive. And the man pulling the strings? Why, writer-director Michael Haneke, of course.
21) Children of Men (2006)
The Guardian championed Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma and Gravity, both of which are excellent. But with the year 2027 growing every closer, Children of Men really does feel increasingly like a documentary.
20) In the Mood for Love (2000); 5 on the Guardian’s list
The second part of a trilogy that began with Days Of Being Wild (1990) and concluded with 2046 (er, 2004), Kar-Wai Wong’s romantic drama does indeed feature the most beautiful leads in Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, together with plenty of thwarted passion. An American remake has been mooted. It’ll be rubbish.
19) Mulholland Drive (2001); 11 on the Guardian’s list
Since the year 2000, David Lynch has directed more than 50 films! Admittedly most of these pictures are music videos or made-for-television projects. Speaking of which, Mulholland Drive began life as a television pilot. As film fans give thanks for the TV execs’ indifference so we salute Studio Canal for supplying the completion funds.
18) A Serious Man (2009); 18 on the Guardian’s list
Michael Stuhlbarg played the noble Richard Clarke in The Looming Tower and the craven Arnold Rothstein in Boardwalk Empire. Being a chameleon, he is the perfect person to play king of the schlubs Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man, a film that might be the Coens’ best movie. That doesn’t star Javier Bardem.
17) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006); 23 on the Guardian’s list
Is nice.
16) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Want to know about the mood and quality of Michel Gondry’s film? It’s all here in this dialogue exchange…
Clementine (Kate Winslet): This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel (Jim Carrey): I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.
15) The Dark Knight (2008); 98 on the Guardian’s list
Batman Begins was setting the scene. The Dark Knight Rises rather over-cooked everything. With his second Batman film, however, Christopher Nolan took the comic-book movie into territory previously inhabited by the likes of Michael Mann and Stanley Kubrick. Anyway, you know how I got these scars…?
14) 12 Years A Slave (2013); 2 on the Guardian’s list
Being a dick, I almost want to include Steve McQueen’s Shame instead. But while its subway scene is as good as anything I’ve seen this century, there’s no looking past the horror 12 Years A Slave insists we revisit. Just one thing – did Chiwetel Ejiofor get the credit he deserved for his portrayal of Solomon Northup?
13) Moonlight (2016); 8 on the Guardian list
Spike Lee believes that, at each year’s Oscars, there is but one black movie. In 2016, that picture was – quite rightly – Moonlight. In 2019, however, it was Green Book, which did a great disservice to both Lee’s BlacKkKlansman and Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight, the impeccable If Beale Street Could Talk.
12) Son of Saul (2015); 12 on the Guardian’s list
A Hungarian Holocaust film, the Saul of the title works in Auschwitz’s crematoriums. When he finds what he believes to be his son’s body, he sets out to recover the corpse so that a rabbi might perform a proper burial. A picture made more powerful by Hungary’s current infatuation with populism.
11) No Country For Old Men (2007); 86 on the Guardian’s list
The first – though not the last – Cormac McCarthy adaptation on this list, Country not only snagged the Coens long-overdue Oscars but it also brought Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin front and centre. Two of this era’s finest actors, they’ve each gone on to things that are bigger (Skyfall, Infinity War) though not necessarily better.
10) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
The Guardian got in a flap about Ted and Team America, but neither’s a match for Shane Black’s buddy movie. Part comedy, part Chandler-esque thriller, Kiss Kiss kick-started the second coming of Robert Downey Jr while proving that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Val Kilmer has a sense of humour. A favourite snippet of dialogue? “Wow, I feel sore. I mean physically, not like a guy who’s angry in a movie in the 1950s.”
9) The Lives Of Others (2006)
If you were being lazy, you might describe The Lives Of Others as a German take on Coppola’s The Conversation. Ulrich Mühe is Wiesler, a Stasi agent charged with spying on a couple. That Wiesler becomes obsessed with his targets is to be expected. However his growing fondness for the pair is surprising and touching. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has found it hard to top The Lives Of Others. Doing so might require crampons.
8) Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)
“God will forgive them,” says Paddy Considine’s avenging serviceman of the men who have made his brother’s life a misery. “He’ll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can’t live with that.” And if you’re not now making plans to watch Shane Meadows’ tour de force, you should take a long hard look at yourself. The East Midlands Scorsese and Burton-on-Trent’s Bobby De Niro – the best British double-act since Morecambe and Wise.
7) The Hunt (2012)
From Dogme 95 founder Thomas Vinterberg (Festen) comes the story of Lucas, a teacher who finds himself accused of molesting a pupil. Since the educator is played by Mads Mikkelsen (TV’s Hannibal Lecter, Casino Royale’s Le Chiffre), we fear the worst. But we know Lucas is innocent, a fact that makes the horrific fallout from the accusation intolerable for character and audience alike. The finale illustrates that some mud simply never washes off.
6) Boyhood (2014); 3 on the Guardian’s list
Richard Linklater completed 10 movies in between starting and finishing work on Boyhood. Admirable as this approach to film-making might be, it would count for little if the end product was poor. Boyhood, however, is extraordinary, a film that proves that the way we see change has everything to do with perspective. And excellent though Ellar Coltrane is as the kid, Boyhood belongs every bit as much to his screen parents, Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke.
5) There Will Be Blood (2007); 1 on the Guardian’s list
“There Will Be Blood… you couldn’t have a better title for a film,” observes In The Loop’s swear-friendly spin doctor Jamie MacDonald. Malcolm Tucker’s right-hand man then criticises Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie for having nowhere near enough blood for his liking. Still he had a point about the title. As for Daniel Day-Lewis as the oil magnate Plainview, he’s so good the Academy should have given him three Oscars for this one performance alone.
4) Requiem For A Dream (2000); 80 on the Guardian’s list
It’s like the film’s composer Clint Mansell said, Requiem For A Dream isn’t a drug movie; it’s a horror movie and the monster is addiction. Seen in this light, Darren Aronofsky’s picture is a work to rival The Exorcist. A film whose realistic depiction of drug use stems from screenwriter Hubert Selby Jr’s own battles with heroin, this is as near as you any right-minded person should want to get to addiction. Believe me.
3) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
A different kind of monster movie, this time from Guillermo del Toro whose love of the unlovable colours everything he makes. Choosing Pan’s Labyrinth over The Shape Of Water is an acknowledgement of the important message at the first film’s core, namely that it’s essential to escape the horrors of the real world. Besides advocating for fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth is a wonderful showcase for Doug Jones, the gifted physical performer single-handedly restoring the good name of mime.
2) The Road (2009)
“Blue passports, son, blue passports.” A movie that launched a thousand memes, John Hillcoat’s apocalyptic tale is both impressively faithful to Cormac McCarthy’s novel and utterly cinematic. A near-documentary account of what it is to live in a world without love or sunshine, it mightn’t surprise you to learn that The Road is set in 2019. And yet even at the very end of McCarthy’s world, there is a crumb of optimism. Food for thought?
1) Zodiac (2007)
If you want to hear a happy person, check out James Ellroy on the Zodiac commentary track. Not a man given to gushing, the LA Confidential author has nothing but great things to say about David Fincher’s masterpiece. That rare filmmaker who’s yet to make a dud (Alien 3’s day is coming), here Fincher has a picture to rival All The President’s Men. Rarely has an investigation felt more honest or thorough. As for how John Carroll Lynch cocks his head and stares directly at the camera when he sits down to be interviewed, it’s a touch that might even have impressed Alfred Hitchcock.