The 100 Best Films of the 2000s: 50 – 26

After you’ve read this part, check out num­bers 100 – 76, 75 – 51 and 25 – 1.

Purists will tell you that Mar­tin Scorsese’s loose remake of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infer­nal Affairs can’t hold a can­dle to the orig­i­nal, but The Depart­ed is a great film in its own right. Tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from the life of Boston crimelord Whitey Bul­ger, Jack Nichol­son chews up the scenery as the psy­chopath gang­ster Frank Costel­lo, while Leonar­do DiCaprio and Matt Damon play the cop-pos­ing-as-a-crim­i­nal and crim­i­nal-pos­ing-as-a-cop who race to rat each oth­er out. Exhil­a­rat­ing and engross­ing with that famil­iar Mar­ty humour, it’s a taut thriller that, by Scorsese’s own admis­sion, ​“is the first movie I’ve done with a plot.” Han­nah Woodhead

Any­one who watched Amélie on release (includ­ing this writer) imme­di­ate­ly want­ed to move to Paris. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s hyper-sat­u­rat­ed look at love, lone­li­ness and con­nec­tion in a big, unfriend­ly city is as cheesy as it gets, but still man­ages to strike a chord. The tit­u­lar char­ac­ter is a young Parisian woman (Audrey Tautou, sin­gle-hand­ed­ly bring­ing back short bobs) craft­ing a roman­tic scav­enger hunt for a man (Matthieu Kasso­vitz) who is just as adorably quirky as she is. Anna Bogut­skaya

I watched Mari­na de Van’s 2002 film In My Skin for an issue of LWLies cel­e­brat­ing female film­mak­ers through the ages, and want­ed to make sure we cov­ered the less well-trod­den grounds of genre cin­e­ma, as it’s often neglect­ed in these projects. I was astound­ed, shocked and repulsed by the film I saw, but was also in awe of what was a superbly con­ceived and exe­cut­ed body hor­ror of rare erot­ic inti­ma­cy in which a woman (played by writer-direc­tor de Van) injur­ers her leg dur­ing a par­ty and insti­gates a strange rela­tion­ship with the weep­ing wound. At once heart­break­ing and stom­ach-churn­ing. David Jenk­ins

Temp­ta­tion and virtue go to war in a small Men­non­ite com­mu­ni­ty, an inner con­flict that Car­los Rey­gadas por­trays as an ele­men­tal clash on plan­e­tary terms. The move­ment of the sun and chang­ing of the sea­sons elapse in coun­ter­point against a Christian’s infi­deli­ty and con­tri­tion, form­ing a para­ble wor­thy of com­par­i­son to Drey­er. With a cast of non­pro­fes­sion­als and the bound­less splen­dour of nature at his dis­pos­al, Rey­gadas cre­at­ed a tow­er­ing work that stretch­es all the way up to heav­en. Charles Bramesco

Michael Haneke’s vision of a fever­ish, sado­masochis­tic desire is like a trick mir­ror. Every time you watch The Piano Teacher, a dif­fer­ent, dis­turbing­ly human angle becomes vis­i­ble. Adapt­ed from the nov­el by Nobel Prize-win­ning Elfriede Jelinek, a tight­ly-wound mid­dle-aged piano teacher begins a ten­ta­tive affair with a young pianist (Benoît Mag­imel). Beneath Erika’s steely exte­ri­or and hyper con­trolled lifestyle is a vast array of fetish­es, desires, and furi­ous jeal­ousies that make her (and Huppert’s per­for­mance) a fas­ci­nat­ing watch. AB

Long before the MCU and DCEU were a thing, Sam Rai­mi was rak­ing in the big bucks for Sony with his take on Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s friend­ly neigh­bour­hood web­slinger. That rare sequel which man­ages to improve on its pre­de­ces­sor, Spi­der-Man 2 ben­e­fit­ted from its every­man hero, exhil­a­rat­ing set pieces, and a sub­lime vil­lain in the form of Alfred Molina’s Doc­tor Octo­pus, set­ting the tem­plate for count­less super­hero movies which would fol­low in its wake. Veer­ing away from the goth­ic stylings of the Bat­man films which dom­i­nat­ed the ​’90s, Rai­mi leans into the eye-pop­ping colour and earnest­ness of the source mate­r­i­al, and the result is pure block­buster mag­ic. HW

In terms of the great films of the 2000s, were we to be tab­u­lat­ing a list of great debut fea­tures culled from this decade, then David Gor­don Green’s inef­fa­bly lyri­cal George Wash­ing­ton would be very much up there. With­in the first 10 min­utes it’s clear you’re in the hands of some­one who has been able to cap­ture a racial­ly diverse group of latchkey kids, all hang­ing out on the detri­tus-strewn North Car­oli­na land­scape, with a rare and sophis­ti­cat­ed sense of nat­u­ral­ism. Much of the film is just spent observ­ing seem­ing­ly banal scenes of young­sters at play, until a tragedy befalls the group and their pas­sive (albeit inno­cent) reac­tion only makes things worse. DJ

Before star­ring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s third fea­ture film, Adam San­dler had been writ­ten off by most crit­ics as the gurn­ing schmuck from Bil­ly Madi­son and The Water­boy. His turn as the odd­ball plunger sales­man Bar­ry Egan who falls in love with his sister’s co-work­er Lena (the won­der­ful Emi­ly Wat­son) changed all that, and estab­lished him as a cred­i­ble dra­mat­ic tal­ent. Fea­tur­ing a sex hot­line scam, an air­plane miles loop­hole and the mes­meris­ing works of visu­al artist Jere­my Blake, it’s a Cal­i­forn­ian screw­ball com­e­dy like no oth­er, ten­der, strange and sweet. HW

Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos made a name for him­self and mod­ern Greek cin­e­ma with a per­verse, vio­lent thought exper­i­ment about per­cep­tion, con­trol, and author­i­tar­i­an­ism: a father insu­lates his fam­i­ly from the out­side world by fenc­ing them in to their home, where he can tin­ker with their under­stand­ing of lan­guage, sex­u­al­i­ty, and cul­ture. What could’ve been a big fat metaphor mutates into some­thing stranger and fun­nier through Lan­thi­mos’ sin­gu­lar­ly wry sen­si­bil­i­ty and pen­chant for sick kicks. (Don’t get too attached to the cat.) CB

It was from the ruins of an intend­ed fea­ture that Miguel Gomes’ sec­ond film emerged. His fund­ing gone, the Por­tuguese crit­ic-turned-film­mak­er set off for his loca­tion regard­less, scal­ing back his crew and shoot­ing from the hip with the aim of find­ing out what he had in the edit­ing room. The result­ing film is serendip­i­tous­ly inspired in its mis­chie­vous design; a rich, meta­tex­tu­al fus­ing of doc­u­men­tary and melo­dra­ma brim­ming with life and a typ­i­cal­ly droll sense of humour, while chart­ing a cohe­sive path to his mas­ter­works Tabu and the Ara­bi­an Nights trip­tych. Matt Thrift

This film was includ­ed as a late game sur­prise fea­ture in com­pe­ti­tion at the 2006 Venice Film Fes­ti­val, and many peo­ple missed it because it was sched­uled so late in the game. And many regret­ted miss­ing it, because it went on to deserved­ly win the Gold­en Lion and brought the work of the then-lit­tle-known Chi­nese direc­tor Jia Zhang-ke to a much wider audi­ence. Effort­less­ly merg­ing ele­ments of doc­u­men­tary and fic­tion, this tale of a river­side town being demol­ished to become a flood­plain is a reflec­tion on glob­al­i­sa­tion and how mod­erni­sa­tion almost always comes at the expense of tra­di­tion. DJ

Edith Wharton’s genius Edwar­dian nov­el is a chron­i­cle of the slow but sure fall of the beau­ti­ful Lily Bart who dared to pur­sue inde­pen­dence, rather than a good mar­riage. Life echoed art as Ter­ence Davies, a fierce­ly indi­vid­ual artist, was finan­cial­ly ruined by his loy­al adap­ta­tion. Gillian Ander­son is ablaze as Lily, and her embod­i­ment of defi­ance and despair lights up the screen. Sophie Monks Kaufman

An ail­ing cur­mud­geon gets fer­ried by a long-suf­fer­ing nurse from one hos­pi­tal to the next, each one unable or out­right refus­ing to treat the bit­ter old bas­tard — but wait, it’s a com­e­dy! Cristi Puiu put the Roman­ian New Wave on the glob­al stage with his bleak­ly fun­ny look at aus­ter­i­ty in the nation, a sub­ject that nec­es­sar­i­ly exposed the hypocrisies and ironies of life in Bucharest. And as a bonus, these days, it dou­bles as a sober­ing com­ment on over­taxed health­care sys­tems. CB

As a mak­er of hushed, poignant domes­tic dra­mas, Hirokazu Koree­da is often asked whether he’s influ­enced by Yaju­jiro Ozu, anoth­er mak­er of hushed, poignant domes­tic dra­mas. Koree­da often demurs and wel­comes the com­par­i­son, but often claims to be more in tune with the kitchen sink social real­ist likes of Britain’s Ken Loach. Yet when you see a film like Still Walk­ing, a con­tem­pla­tive, poet­ic mood piece in which three gen­er­a­tions of a fam­i­ly come togeth­er for a feast in remem­brance of one of their number’s untime­ly pass­ing, it’s hard to shake the Ozu com­par­isons: the gen­tle humour; the focus on food as a social binder; the pro­found sense of melan­choly that comes from the pass­ing of time. DJ

After a decade-plus of Grand Guig­nol genre excel­lence, Guiller­mo del Toro piv­ot­ed to a mossy mag­i­cal real­ism and rein­tro­duced him­self as an Oscar-win­ning pres­tige film­mak­er. In Civ­il War-rav­aged Spain, a girl escapes her dis­tress­ing day-to-day by retreat­ing into a fairy tale with frights of its own, most notable among them the eye-hand­ed ghoul known as The Pale Man. Gold-drenched cin­e­matog­ra­phy, top-flight spe­cial effects, and trans­port­ing pro­duc­tion design wooed West­ern audi­ences and con­quered the sub­ti­tle bar­ri­er to attain block­buster sta­tus. CB

Every­one has a dif­fer­ent favourite Lars von Tri­er film, but Dogville is, objec­tive­ly speak­ing, his mas­ter­piece. It takes place in a fic­tion­al town­ship tucked away in the Rocky moun­tains, and sees a kind­ly damsel named Grace (Nicole Kid­man) bend over back­wards to endear her­self to its increas­ing­ly fussy and – lol, dog­mat­ic – denizens. It’s a thrilling and, even­tu­al­ly, lac­er­at­ing civics les­son-gone-awry that is strange­ly vis­cer­al giv­en it is filmed entire­ly on a blank sound stage with only chalk mark­ings on the floor. Von Tri­er proves that all you need to make a movie is your imag­i­na­tion. DJ

Mia Hansen-Løve’s sec­ond fea­ture marked her ascen­sion to a god­dess of cin­e­ma. A shock­ing event is nes­tled with­in the hus­tle and bus­tle of fam­i­ly life as a film pro­duc­er faces finan­cial ruin. The mir­a­cle here is the weight giv­en to events beyond the cen­tral one, caus­ing momen­tum to fall upon life itself as a force­ful flow of time and effort. SMK

Sweden’s Roy Ander­s­son returned from a twen­ty-five-year fea­ture-direct­ing hia­tus to elbow the Grim Reaper in his skele­tal ribs once again with gal­lows humour unmatched for both grim­ness and hilar­i­ty. As Ander­s­son assem­bles 46 mas­sive still-life tableaux (a cer­e­mo­ni­ous mur­der, a bit­ter sack­ing, et cetera), death, mis­ery and sadism com­min­gle with com­ic absur­di­ty in a bru­tal­ly Bru­tal­ist world of greys and beiges. You must laugh to keep from sob­bing. CB

While his final film Papri­ka remains Satoshi Kon’s best-known work – in no small part for hav­ing been famous­ly ​‘incept­ed’ by Christo­pher Nolan – it’s 2001’s Mil­len­ni­um Actress that stands as the animator’s mas­ter­piece. An exquis­ite homage to a bygone age of Japan­ese cin­e­ma, the film looks back over the career of a reclu­sive star (clear­ly mod­elled on Set­suko Hara), from her child­hood dis­cov­ery to ingénue and star­let, accru­ing an anec­do­tal meta-biog­ra­phy through sequences that explic­it­ly riff on real-world gold­en age clas­sics. At once a rev­er­ent and sub­ver­sive ode to an ide­alised screen leg­end, its bit­ter­sweet roman­ti­cism will cut to the quick of any­one with even a pass­ing inter­est in one of world cinema’s rich­est eras. MT

Joan­na Hogg’s debut fea­ture announced a thought­ful and dis­tinc­tive tal­ent will­ing to go there in terms of show­ing excru­ci­at­ing­ly awk­ward inter­ac­tions between monied Brits. Kathryn Worth, a shy woman in her for­ties, crawls side­ways into a mid-life cri­sis against the back­drop of a friend’s Tus­can vil­la. She shuns her pals to be with their kids, includ­ing a young Tom Hid­dle­ston. The music, once faced, is heartrend­ing. SMK

With Moolaadé, Ous­mane Sem­bène brought the con­tro­ver­sial prac­tice of female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion to the wider film world’s atten­tion, depict­ing a cir­cum­cised woman’s (Col­lé Gal­lo Ardo Sy) brave resis­tance to the rit­u­al in a Burk­i­na Faso vil­lage. With great human­i­ty and humour, the vet­er­an Sene­galese direc­tor unam­bigu­ous­ly sets out his stall in oppo­si­tion to the bar­bar­ic act of ​“cut­ting” young girls, while elo­quent­ly con­vey­ing the his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of such local cus­toms. A deserved recip­i­ent of the Un Cer­tain Regard prize at Cannes in 2004. Adam Wood­ward

The name Apichat­pong Weerasethakul con­jures the chirrup­ing of cicadas deep in a green mag­i­cal for­est. His films cre­ate an envelop­ing mood as char­ac­ters explore their desires in all their strange, shape-shift­ing forms; folk­loric fan­ta­sy blend­ing with real­ism. Trop­i­cal Mal­a­dy is a love sto­ry between two men, until the soul of one of them enters a tiger. SMK

Lucile Hadžihalilović’s work is all mood and sug­ges­tion. Set in an iso­lat­ed all-girls’ board­ing school (a whole sub-genre in its own right) where new stu­dents arrive in coffins. The girls, of dif­fer­ent ages, are trained by their teach­ers to behave, enforce a hier­ar­chy and obey a strict code of con­duct. Colour-cod­ed rib­bons are involved. A unique com­bi­na­tion of fairy tale, hor­ror and melo­dra­ma, Inno­cence is drip­ping with sym­bol­ism. AB

That end­ing. It comes out of nowhere and leaves you search­ing online for ther­a­pists. Cather­ine Breil­lat is not not a provo­ca­teur, yet truth­ful­ness under­pins the taboo sub­jects splashed sen­sa­tion­al­ly across her films. Fat Girl is one of her best; on account of its por­tray­al of teen sex­u­al awak­en­ings, sis­ter­ly bitch­i­ness, its shy star’s watch­ful ener­gy and all-envelop­ing sum­mer horni­ness. SMK

An anti-revenge thriller sit­ting com­fort­ably in the mid­dle of Park Chan-wook’s deeply uncom­fort­able ​“Vengeance Tril­o­gy”, Old­boy is a dev­il­ish twist on the idiom that those seek­ing revenge should dig two graves – part­ly because, Oh Dae-su begins the film by leav­ing a box, and ends at a much more twist­ed fate. It’s a far fun­nier film than its rep­u­ta­tion would sug­gest, mix­ing tragedy and pitch-black humour from the jump. Kam­bole Campbell