The best films of the decade

The compiling of this list is admittedly foolhardy. If one were putting together a decade list of 100, many fine films would be omitted, so ten is all but ridiculous. Nevertheless, I have chosen ten films that are undeniable masterpieces; each one exemplifies the best of its genre and most of them transcend those forms, making them the great works of art that they are.

10. Man on the Train - (Patrice Leconte, 2002) Small works. That's more or less the motto of French filmmaker Patrice Leconte, whose Man on the Train examines two men: one a retired poetry teacher, the other an aging thief. Their paths cross one evening, each intrigued by their essential opposite. Leconte knows how to play the material; terse dialogue exchanges, juxtaposed with a harshly evocative fatalism, lends extraordinary power and tension to film with scarcely a high-pitched scene. The climax is positively filled with spiritual uncertainty. Where a lesser film would indulge cynicism, Leconte prefers humanism. We, as viewers, are grateful.

9. Bad Education - (Pedro Almodóvar, 2004) Almódovar uplifts cinema with his Godardian aesthetic and neo-Sirkian melodrama; no film of his better displays this than Bad Education, a neo-noir to end them all. Like the other great neo-noir of the decade (Femme Fatale), the primary archetype undergoes drastic, if playful, revision. Now a homosexual transvestite named Zahara (Gael Garcia Bernal) seeking retribution for misdeeds done to him as a child by the Catholic church. Almódovar manages a film within a film, provocatively suggesting memory and pain as essential to cinematic exploits. For this filmmaker, cinema is the "bad education," falsely constructing and positioning lies as truth.

8. Twentynine Palms - (Bruno Dumont, 2004) Bruno Dumont's Twentynine Palms is that of a minimalist maestro; his scant narrative of a young couple on a road trip, traveling the country, contains little dialogue and is filled with multiple digressions. Dumont excels by not succumbing to narrative constraints, nor sacrificing his vision of a transient moral compass as the primary reason for the degradation of human existence. Dumont is everything mainstream cinema isn't; long takes, pauses and subtexts are manifested in a manner that certainly challenges and requires examination, but is not overtly obtuse or convoluted. The film ends with a burst of violence, but provides no closure. Nor could it, given the psychological ambivalence of Dumont's leads.

7. Miami Vice - (Michael Mann, 2006) Michael Mann's existentialist masterpiece has little, if nothing, to do with the 1980's TV series. Forget it. His vision of Miami as a spiritual wasteland for cops and criminals alike seethes with macho cool, but also an understated desperation for something higher than its characters can attain. Mann makes intelligent, minimalist works of art. His films refute the frantic visceral tidal wave of recent Blockbusters; punctuated with only scarce bursts of violence, it lends mystery and surprise to a genre often lacking such elements. Miami Vice will blow you away, while fiercely tugging at your curiosities.

6. Memories of Murder - (Joon-Ho Bong, 2005) Joon-Ho Bong's Memories of Murder is the best thriller of the decade; The film involves the first serial killer in Korea's history and a few local detectives trying to discover the killer. The expertise of Bong shines with the diverse tones he meshes together; the first half hour roars with dark humor and bumbling cop antics, yet has no problem shifting gears when things get more serious. As stellar as David Fincher's Zodiac is, Memories of Murder tackles identical subject matter with even more verve and subtlety. The last half hour spellbinds, as the obsession of identifying the killer becomes personal, rather than professional. Bong works on multiple levels throughout, making it simultaneously funny, disorienting, fascinating, tragic.

5. Werckmeister Harmonies - (Bela Tarr, 2001) The allegorical plot of Bela Tarr's remarkable masterwork is the crux of a subversive political discourse which his contemplative film strives to present. Yet, like all artful filmmakers, Tarr is as interested in how he presents the material, as the material itself. Essentially, the film concerns a small village in Hungary, thrust into turmoil by the arrival of a circus attraction: a giant, stuffed whale. To describe how Tarr's film works defies logic; often horrific, beautiful and profound within the same shot, few films ever achieve the genuine ability to awe as does Tarr's. The significance of the title is divulged during a lengthy monologue, linking political discord with discomfited spirituality. The protagonist, initially optimistic, turns cold and disillusioned by inexplicable rioting and concern over the arrival of the whale. Werckmeister Harmonies denies easy summarization or rationale, yet becomes all the more fascinating for doing so.

4. Femme Fatale - (Brian De Palma, 2002) Femme Fatale was Brian De Palma's best film since Casualties of War (1989) when it was released in 2002 and remains the best of his work since that date. Anyone who loves the cinema has to love Brian De Palma, since he captures the most sumptuous essence of the medium within every scene. It isn't merely style over substance; his screenplay ranks with David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. as the most inventive and intricately conceived of the past ten years. The script functions on many cohesive levels. It works simultaneously as pure thriller, neo-noir, meta-cinema and deconstructionism. The very narrative questions its own validity, which mirrors De Palma's conflicted instincts as an artist. One can ultimately think of It's a Wonderful Life, filtered through De Palma's kaleidoscopic sense of cinema as the all seeing eye, the way one understands the filmic drug cineastes consistently crave.

3. Rachel Getting Married - (Jonathan Demme, 2008) Rarely is any film able to permeate your innards so deeply and complexly as does Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. Its power derives from the simple, yet elongated storytelling. Demme isn't concerned with trimming bits off here and there. He profoundly allows his characters to uncover truths for themselves, letting scenes run on much longer than expected, lending their discovery a sort of feral poignancy. Thank also Jenny Lumet's script for not inserting contrived, overarching life lessons. Due must also go to both Anne Hathaway and Rosemary DeWitt, each of whom channels pain, resentment and, finally, joy with the utmost tenderness and care. Demme's film loves its characters and maintains an unfettered compassion for their fractured humanity throughout. Packing one hell of an emotional wallop, it might just be the best film of Jonathan Demme's career.

2. In the Mood For Love - (Wong Kar-Wai, 2001) There are no sex scenes or even nudity in Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love, yet it remains the most sensual movie of the decade. Bursting at its seems with repressed sexual desire, best expressed throughout several slow-motion sequences all set to the same hypnotic musical piece, Kar-Wai evokes something close to corporeal transcendence without becoming explicitly spiritual. Such a fine line intoxicates a viewer hell-bent on deciphering its implications - only to be rejected by a film that refuses submission to qualification. Kar-Wai's film sidesteps surrealism, dodges objective reality and settles on a masterful hybrid of the two. Its central power, though, lies in its love story (or lack thereof) between the leads: Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai are this generation's Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund - meant to be together, but not. Combining masterful compositions and sensual perfection, everyone should be In the Mood for Love.

1. The New World - (Terrence Malick, 2005) The New World is director Terrence Malick's best film. Yet, so are The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven and Badlands before it. Each one signals a masterwork, meticulously created by a filmmaker seeking perfection. If there's only been one Malick film released this decade, then it is the best. The New World flawlessly proves this rule, harnessing explicit Emersonian transcendentalism throughout, especially in several spellbinding montage sequences, perfected by James Horner's elegiac score. Rarely does a film truly capture an elongated sense of enraptured awe and wonderment - there's no better venue for doing this than the discovery of a figurative "new world." Malick's film forcefully, though understatedly, reveals how anything new, discovered by the old, quickly becomes just that. For Malick, the conception of this vital, if callous component regarding cultural hegemony, as explicitly related to this story, translates as surrealistic euphoria, given its simultaneous beauty and tragedy. No other film this decade attains the power of its images. Make sure and see Malick's 172 minute extended cut, the complete version of his vision, unfortunately truncated for theatrical release.