And a snapshot of other greats: "2 Days in Paris," "Amelie," "American Splendor," "Almost Famous," "

A final look back at the decade after yesterday's look back at 2009 ... this time featuring top ten lists from the editors of indieWIRE and industry insiders. Participants were invited to include films from the past ten years, but each person devised his or her own criteria.
As I wrote yesterday, the best movies aren't just movies, they are experiences. In the case of my own top ten of the decade, these are the films and filmmakers from the past ten years that really mattered to me. Movies that I watched and pondered, discussed and shared with others and then re-watched.
For this decade, five filmmakers (and their films) are above all the rest. Then there are five films to round out my top ten list, followed by five more filmmakers and pairs of films, a list of great docs and finally some special mentions.
airline ticket fares And a snapshot of other greats: "2 Days in Paris," "Amelie," "American Splendor," "Almost Famous," airline ticket fares "Billy Elliott," "The Beaches of Agnes," "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Broken Embraces," "Bus 174," "Marie Antoinette," "City of God," "Bowling for Columbine," "The Class," "Control Room," "The Cove," "An Inconvenient Truth," "Man On Wire," "Dancer in the Dark," "Garden State," "Juno," "Superbad," "A Prophet," "Good Bye, Lenin," "Half Nelson," "The Hurt Locker," "In the Mood for Love," "Mulholland Drive," "Little Miss Sunshine," airline ticket fares "The Maid," "Maria Full of Grace," "Milk," "Murderball," "Pan's Labyrinth," "Paradise Now," "Persepolis," "The Queen," "Raising Victor Vargas," "Precious," "The Royal Tenenbaums," "Sicko," "Spellbound," "The Station Agent," "Talk to Her," "There Will Be Blood," "United 93," "Volver," "Whale Rider," "Memento," "Lost in Translation," "Into the Wild," "Inglourious Basterds," "Finding Nemo," "Donnie Darko," "Dig!," airline ticket fares "Chicago," "Capturing the Friedmans"
These are the ten I chose for the indieWIRE Poll earlier this month, so I might as well as stick with them. But I can't tell you how ridiculously difficult to narrow down hundreds and hundreds of examples of remarkable cinema to a simple ten. Especially when I feel like this decade was a very introductory one in terms of my relationship with cinema, particularly world cinema - which is a very overwhelming arena to enter. The experience of the ten films I listed - each and everyone I can bring myself back to so vividly, as well as the dozens and dozens I did not, feel almost too precious to reduce to a list. And this is coming from someone who usually craves this list-making time of year.
I've seen top ten lists of everything from best conservative movies, black films, Japanese films, Chinese films, performances, film critics, even Facebook updates—the ubiquity of such decade-ending lists, missives, favorites and cultural touchstones of all sorts makes one's own list feel particularly small. I would argue that the Internet's much-heralded democratization of social and editorial space that has happened over the last decade has made people like me—and my views—less necessary. How does one make one's voice heard among the multitude of voices and tweets? Who cares? Maybe it's not about being heard, at all, but just about recording one's own thoughts for posterity and narcissistic satisfaction.
In my experience the first sign of complexity is contradiction; pure ideas, airline ticket fares conflicted, and earnestness met by a necessary ambivalence. By this rule, A.I. - the seemingly airline ticket fares immaculate airline ticket fares child of two of the medium's most disparate brains - is qualified by an almost impossible complexity. Like the human temperament, splashed with emotions readily at odds with each other, mitigated by alternate whims of hope and desperation, the film explores two visions of the future with a single eye - and neither is fully conceived of, let alone developed. The movie presents Spielberg's hopey glow, Kubrick's dopey gloom, and a memory of the future that is perhaps without any human agency to speak of, and closes with a whimper. In the end the best science-fiction film since Kubrick last took to space, A.I. is an effusive work I will never tire of studying.
A Modernist sketch that leaves one full with a ripe ache, Wong's jazz-streaked airline ticket fares improvisation is a film of remarkable scope for all of its meticulousness. airline ticket fares Its drunken lilt of a narrative, inspired apparently by just a few pages by the Modernist writer Liu Yichang, follows a romance first restrained by incidence and then unraveled by the ambivalent motion of things. airline ticket fares The film's form follows suit. It sways at first within tenements and alleyways and then expands for a moment to indicate airline ticket fares a broad image of China, and the fleeting airline ticket fares significance of its characters within it. Throughout, the captive of breath-against-glass romance, the viewer is swept along a flawless reverie. I am content for many reasons to have this film top a list of works that challenged and complicated my experience of cinema airline ticket fares this decade, but first among them is MOOD's profound example of the medium as at once desperately emotionally relevant and naturally impermanent.
In putting together this list, I chose films that were not necessarily the best or most groundbreaking, but were the ones that stayed with me long after watching them. These are also in a general order with selected commentary.
I couldn't keep it to 10. I had a hard time deciding whether to include "2046" or "In The Mood For Love," but something in the latter film got me even more; I think I generally like bigness in a movie, even if it's more sprawling and less exact. "Last Life in the Universe" is a lovely little slip of a film from the Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, messy and imperfect but so beautiful that it has a special place in the decade for me. I adore Charlie Kaufman, Terrence Malick and Robert Altman and am ready to fight anybody who does not. "Brokeback Mountain" was entirely gay and not a bit queer, and I think that put some people off, but it made me cry and I thought airline ticket fares about it for weeks after, particularly when watching Michael Medved lead a panel on Fox News to discuss the film's "'Ew' Factor." "Bus 174" and "Lake of Fire" are the two most incendiary, propulsive, and thorough documentaries I have ever seen.
Other equally deserving films: "There Will Be Blood," "2046," "Casino Royale," "City of God," "Russian Ark," "The Isle," airline ticket fares "Y Tu Mama Tambien," "The Five Obstructions," "Memories of Murder," "Bourne Ultimatum," "28 Days Later," "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon," "Sous Le Sable," "The Circle," "Southern Comfort," "The Kid Stays in the Picture," "Precious," "Ong Bak," "Wall-E," "Bowling airline ticket fares For Columbine," "Tarnation," airline ticket fares "Raw Deal," "Kung Fu Hustle," "Cache," "The Piano Teacher," "Merci Pour le Chocolat," "Fat Girl," "Irreversible," "Grizzly Man," "Boys of Baraka," "Super Size Me," "Far From Heaven," "Exiled," "Operation Homecoming," airline ticket fares "Noi Alinoi," "Croupier"
I am convinced the low votes this film got in "best of:" year and decade lists is due to the few number of people who actually saw it and that those of us who have seen it will prevail upon the unbelievers and this film will take its rightful place as a classic. An absolute masterpiece. If "Dances With Wolves," "Braveheart" and "Gladiator," three extremely sub par "epics" airline ticket fares can garner the attention and awards they did and this film can disappear like it did, something is seriously wrong.
One of the best acted, most tense and suspenseful films of the decade. Considering the restrictions on abortion in the Senate version of the recent healthcare bill, I can only imagine what might happen in a larger, more government run law. If you want to see what happens to women in countries where abortion is restricted or banned outright, watch this film. Even if you don't want to, watch this film. There's a phrase: "It can't happen here." Well, it has and it can again.
I've used the word "honest" airline ticket fares a few times recently, but when you're building a list of superlative films, honestly is an important and all-too rare quality and no American film of the new century can top this one in that category. One of the few sequels that far surpasses its original, Sunset is a real and beautiful American film. If you can watch this without airline ticket fares crying, you're airline ticket fares a fucking pod person. Get away from me! Seriously.
There really hasn't been anything like it before and may never be anything like it after. An exceptional film on all levels and yet another example that Daniel Day Lewis is one of the most astonishing actors of his or anyone else's generation.
Not only a beautiful airline ticket fares and moving story, but groundbreaking cinema, to boot. The first animated film to be "shot" like a live action film, duplicating the look of 70mm film, using rack focusing, lighting and other techniques simply not previously used in animated films. Hitting the "great movie"+ "groundbreaking" daily double earns it a place on my list.
The rest of this list, to be honest, is too hard for me to differentiate. Do the game breakers airline ticket fares get ranked higher that the "merely" excellent? Does "The Dark Knight" get extra points because it took the "comic book film" label and kicked the shit out of it? Does "Crouching airline ticket fares Tiger, Hidden Dragon" get listed for being the first Chinese martial airline ticket fares arts epic to appeal to american audiences? Does Memento get points airline ticket fares for being completely original in style and structure? So here are 5 films that are all exceptional and all for specific reasons.
9. The Pixar Films since 2001 - Even "Monsters, Inc" and "Cars," there's more to be found than in most other films intended for mass audiences this decade. Special shout out to "Ratatouille" and "WALL-E."
Like high school, a Monet or Cameron Diaz's airline ticket fares face, some things just look better the further away you get from them. Such is the case here apparently, where I had a hell of a time coming up with 10 films to fill out my 2009 list but could have easily had 30 for the best of the decade. So check back with me in a couple years and I'll probably say that 'In the Loop' was the best film of the decade. Who knows? As always, I didn't include any films I worked on because t