The Top Ten Films of the 00's

I've been resisting making lists since I started this blog, figuring that, once I got started I might never stop. But some of the political blogs I read are posting their lists of the top ten films of the 00's and since it's a subject near and dear to my heart, I thought I'd chip in my two cents:

1. Requiem for a Dream
2. Waking Life
3. Punch Drunk Love
4. Kill Bill (both volumes)
5. Memento
6. Wonder Boys
7. The Royal Tenenbaums
8. Minority Report
9. The Matrix Reloaded
10. High Fidelity

I should describe my methodology for making this list. In the past I've had minor updates, usually to insert, as I feel appropriate, a recent film I've seen. I also occasionally do a major revision, wherein I go over the list with as fresh eyes as I can muster and reorder accordingly. The way I do this is by first going through the films of each year (that I've seen) and picking out the best for each year. Strangely, despite not looking for a specific number, for each of the last four years, I've seen exactly eight films that pass muster. One those lists are complete, randomly pair them off and decide which of each pair is better. Conveniently, this time there were 32 films, which is a power of two. Anyway, this proceeds for the requisite number of rounds until I have one film that's better than all the rest. That goes number one on the list. Then I remove it from the brackets and repeat the tournment until I have ten films.

How do I decide which is better? Admittedly this is difficult, for a number of reasons. One of them is that some of the films I'm just more familiar with, because I own them and watch them more often. For The Royal Tenenbaums or Wonder Boys or Punch Drunk Love this has helped, because they're rich character studies that improve with familiarity. For other films that depend on surprise or a virgin viewing for effect, like Signs or The Matrix Reloaded, this can hurt. But ultimately if a film is going to last, it must deliver on repeat viewings. Terminator 2 is a movie much like The Matrix and its sequel, and it's well remembered and loved. The reason it has survived is that its action scenes still work even when they're familiar. The same seems to be true of the Matrix; we'll have to see for the sequel (Reloaded that is--Revolutions couldn't even deliver on the first viewing). One thing repeat viewing does do is help deflate my opinion of films that are somewhat shallow. For example, I don't think American Beauty or Traffic, as good as they are, will survive as classics, because after maybe three viewings they stop offering anything new.

Another difficulty, especially with films I haven't seen recently or that I've only seen once is that previous list standings tend to play a bigger role than they should. If I've previously judged one film better than another, it makes it difficult to reevaluate them. That's why I use the bracket system; the transitivity helps me make better judgements. For example, Bowling for Columbine was on my last list. This time it went up against The Fog of War in the first round and got eliminated. But Fog of War was eliminated by Amelie, even though Amelie didn't make the last top ten and B4C did.

In general, though, I make my decisions on film quality based on a number of criteria. Craftmanship is important. A film doesn't have to be perfect in every aspect, but glaring problems do hurt. For example, Minority Report has some writing problems, and Monster is seriously weighed down by Christina Ricci's performance. I don't give the same weight to every aspect in every film. Generally, since these are the creme de la creme of film, the better films will tend to be ones that have fewer flaws. My top three, example, are essentially perfect. Another important consideration is watchability. If I find I admire a film more than I like it--that while I hold it in great esteem, I don't really ever want to rewatch it--it will lose. That's how George Washington happened to fall off the list.

In the past the top three has been pretty stable: Waking Life, Requiem for a Dream, and Memento. In fact, this is the first list I've had since I saw Waking Life (the most recent film of the three) that hasn't had those three films in that order. It's looking like the top six will be relatively stable for a while. They may shift in position, but they're never going to fall off the list completely. They've achieved classic status in my mind. And the top two are staying put for good, I imagine. They're the only two films I've seen this century that have actually brought new techniques to bear on film-making. Basically they're the only films to advance the form in any meaningful way. In previous lists, I noticed that a lot of movies tended to jump into the number four position right after I saw them. That's because I wasn't willing to insert them into the top three and thus confer classic status upon them, but I did want to assert that they were superlative and stuck out in my mind. Thus, Gangs of New York, Signs, and The Matrix Reloaded all held that spot right after I saw them (Punch Drunk Love did too, but got bumped until I bought it and couldn't stop rewatching it). The bottom half of this list has fluctuated wildly the last few times I've updated it. I'm not sure exactly why. An interesting point to note, none of the films on my list are Best Picture nominees, let alone winners. Among them, they have eight Oscar nominations and only one win, that being Wonder Boys' Best Song Oscar.