10. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MENMaybe I'm still hungover from all of the Academy Awards this film just swallowed up in February, but I don't think anyone can deny this film's status as an instant classic. With those tricky Coen Brothers working with the great Cormac McCarthy's complex novel, what came out was a masterpiece of both style and substance. Performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin were snubbed for Oscar nominations, but Javier Bardem's creation of the inherently evil Anton Chigurh won every prize available. It's so deliciously beautiful and haunting at the same time.
9. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBSIt's safe to say Bardem's Chigurh is one of the top movie villains of all time, but the all-time greatest still belongs to Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter. Along with Jodie Foster and director Jonathon Demme, an incredible cast and crew combined to make one of the most bone-chilling suspense films ever made. With a horrific serial killer, a conflicted cop, and a brilliant psychopath, The Silence of the Lambs is probably the most balanced horror film in the case of it's characters. To this day, the sound of Lecter clicking his teeth makes people stay up at night.
8. CITY OF GODFernando Merielles' epic gangster film is based on a true story, and dissects the dangerous world of gangland Rio de Genero. Told through the eyes of a young boy who wishes to escape the horrors of his home, we are shown decades upon decades of violence, sex, and drugs, while the small children who are innocent age in to ferocious mosters with loads of ammunition. The film rivals schlock movies for violence, but is made with such a sense of seriousness, and a Scorsese-esque energy.
7. GOODFELLASSpeak of the devil. While Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are both more polished, stylized films, it's Goodfellas where Scorsese felt his most authentic. The greatest, most in-depth gangster film ever made, Goodfellas gets a lot of strength from its cast, which includes Robert DeNiro as a calm but deadly gang leader, Ray Liotta as a starstruck youngblood who does little to resist "the life", and of coarse Joe Pesci, in an Oscar-winning role as the hot-headed, gun-toting Tommy. The film, often accused of glamorizing gang life, is your basic rags-to-riches-to-destruction tale, but it's Scorsese's talent with the camera and with actors that makes this film a notch above the rest.
6. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MINDI once read somebody saying that there was no reason for this film to be as good as it truly is. There's some fact in that. Certainly, director Michel Gondry hadn't really proven anything outside of the music video world, Jim Carrey hadn't really shown that he can succeed in a serious role, and though screenwriter Charlie Kaufman had success, it came with the baggage of being labled as neurotic and unnameable. With the help from a career-best performance from Kate Winslet (as well as Carrey), Eternal Sunshine may be the most beautifully told love story of the last 25 years. Using basic camera tricks and no CGI, the film warps the mind, but melts the heart.
5. PULP FICTIONThis was the reigning #1 on EW's best list, and for good reason. No other movie has gone further in changing cinema and pop culture alike the way Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction has. The movie has rocking tunes, classic performances from John Travolta and Uma Thurman, as well as the dynamite dialogue we've come to know from Tarantino. 14 years later, it seems that Pulp Fiction will stand to be Tarantino's one true masterpiece, but it still is nothing to snuff at. More than anything, the most powerful thing in this film is the masterful performance from Samuel L. Jackson as Jules, the Bible-quoting assassin. It's his brutish yet wise performance that makes this film more than just.... well, pulp.
4. SCHINDLER'S LISTProbably the greatest and most powerful film ever made about the Holocaust, Steven Spielberg's black-and-white epic about a rich man who would save over two thousand Jews from Hitler's regime, struck a chord in 1993 with audiences and critics alike, and placed Spielberg in a much higher realm of filmmaking than he ever was before. Stark in it's photography, yet graphic in its portrayal of human darkness, Schindler's List is a film filled with sentiment, but the right kind. It is Spielberg's quintessential film, and a movie that is among one of the most moving ever made.
3. SIDEWAYSOver the last couple years, it seems evident that Sideways may go on to become the forgotten masterpiece of this current decade, the way Three Kings is to the 90's. It has some of the best characters ever in a film, and incredible performances to back them up. The film includes career performances from Virginia Madsen, the hilarious Thomas Haden Church, and the dependable Paul Giamatti as Miles, the alcoholic writer who can't get his novel published. With layered themes of love, humanity, and friendship, no other movie this decade does so much with so little. This film, so far the best of the millennium, is one I hope will get its due in years to come.
2. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORSAnnie Hall is his classic. Manhattan is his most visually dazzling. Hannah and Her Sisters was his biggest commercial success. All that being said, the peak of Woody Allen's filmmaking career is Crimes and Misdemeanors. One of the seminal films ever made about faith, the human soul, and life in general, the movie is hysterically funny yet frightfully dark--sometimes both in a moment of seconds. With a cast including Mia Farrow, Martin Landau, Alan Alda, and of coarse, Woody himself, Crimes and Misdemeanors stands atop an already accomplished filmography with strong profundity and dazzling characters.
1. FARGOI once was involved in an argument with two other people. One of the people thought the Coen Brothers film Fargo was a perfect film, detailing a classic battle of good and evil, with amazing style and great performances. The other person thought the film was a waste of time, and that he'd lost interest in the film about 20 minutes into it. Sometimes it's hard to explain what makes Fargo so good, because it is so simple. It's that simplicity that makes it so brilliant, as well as the brilliant performances from Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, William H. Macy, and of coarse the Oscar-winning turn from Frances McDormand. The only way I can explain it is to ask people to truly watch the film. Do not read into pieces of dialogue or complex camera angles. Just think of the story and how everything unfolds so exquisitely. Then I'll defy you to tell me that it isn't a perfect film.
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