Cena's Little Helper
Mid-Card Championship Winner
Hello all,
About a year ago, I came across a great book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider and published by Cassell Illustrated (London, England) in 2004. As is evident from its title, the book recommends to its reader a substantial amount of movies to watch. Additionally, however, it presents these movies in chronological order and also gives to each movie a rationale for its inclusion (these rationales are written by film professionals and scholars).
While I would definitely recommend this book to any film buff, I will now present the list of these films in the hopes of generating discussion. Hopefully, such discussion will revolve around the particular movies included within this list or about movies that posters feel should be included within this list but are not. Personally, I find the list to be very thorough and, if I was only given these movies to watch and nothing else for my lifetime, I would feel that I had received all that film could offer.
For the sake of both relevancy and attention-getting, I will post this list in decade increments and will start with the 2000s and work my way backwards (until I reach the 1950s, where, at that time, I will post the remainder of the list). Moreover, I will bold those movies on the list which I would recommend and will give a brief reason for why I recommend them. I will probably post the 1990s sometime late next week, but most definitely before the weekend. Each listing is posted thus: Name of Film (Year Released) / Name of Director. So, without further ado, here are the movies of the 2000s:
Nine Queens (2000) / Fabián Bielinsky
The Captive (2000) / Chantal Akerman
In the Mood for Love (2000) / Wong Kar Wai
Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Streets (2000) / Nabil Ayouch
Gladiator (2000) / Ridley Scott
Kippur (2000) / Amos Gitai
Yi Yi (2000) / Edward Yang
Requiem for a Dream (2000) / Darren Aronofsky
Amores Perros (2000) / Alejandro González Iñárritu
Meet the Parents (2000) / Jay Roach
Signs & Wonders (2000) / Jonathan Nossiter
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) / Ang Lee
Traffic (2000) / Steven Soderbergh
The Gleaners and I (2000) / Agnès Varda
Memento (2000) / Christopher Nolan
Dancer in the Dark (2000) / Lars Von Trier
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) / Joel Coen
Amelie (2001) / Jean-Pierre Jeunet
What Time Is It There? (2001) / Tsai Ming-liang
Y Tu Mamá También (2001) / Alfonso Cuarón
Kandahar (2001) / Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Spirited Away (2001) / Hayao Miyazaki
The Piano Teacher (2001) / Michael Haneke - Very morbid film from one of my favorite living directors. A storyline very similar to Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. Most importantly, though, it shows that brilliance / intellectual maturity and physical maturity do not necessarily entail emotional maturity.
The Son's Room (2001) / Nanni Moretti
No Man's Land (2001) / Danis Tanovic
Moulin Rouge (2001) / Baz Luhrmann
Monsoon Wedding (2001) / Mira Nair - Beautiful and exhilarating film about the days leading up to a traditional Punjabi wedding in modern-day India. If you liked either Bend It Like Beckham or Love, Actually, then you will love this movie (except, I just hope you realize that it is about ten times better than each of those).
Fat Girl (2001) / Catherine Breillat
Mulholland Dr. (2001) / David Lynch - See my comment about The Piano Teacher sans the similarity to The Glass Menagerie. I can't really compare this film to anything else (except maybe to Lynch's previous work) because it is unlike anything else you have ever seen.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) / Wes Anderson
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) / Peter Jackson
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) / Steven Spielberg
Gangs of New York (2002) / Martin Scorsese
The Pianist (2002) / Roman Polanski
Talk to Her (2002) / Pedro Almodóvar
City of God (2002) / Fernando Meirelles - I don't think I have met a single person who has seen this film about the favelas in Brazil and not loved it. Moreover, I don't think I have ever met anyone who has not seen this, so my talking about it and recommending it is kind of redundant.
Russian Ark (2002) / Aleksandr Sokurov
Chicago (2002) / Rob Marshall
The Barbarian Invasions (2003) / Denys Arcand
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) / Quentin Tarantino
Note: The names of each film are presented as they would be on the cover of its English-language VHS/DVD release.
About a year ago, I came across a great book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider and published by Cassell Illustrated (London, England) in 2004. As is evident from its title, the book recommends to its reader a substantial amount of movies to watch. Additionally, however, it presents these movies in chronological order and also gives to each movie a rationale for its inclusion (these rationales are written by film professionals and scholars).
While I would definitely recommend this book to any film buff, I will now present the list of these films in the hopes of generating discussion. Hopefully, such discussion will revolve around the particular movies included within this list or about movies that posters feel should be included within this list but are not. Personally, I find the list to be very thorough and, if I was only given these movies to watch and nothing else for my lifetime, I would feel that I had received all that film could offer.
For the sake of both relevancy and attention-getting, I will post this list in decade increments and will start with the 2000s and work my way backwards (until I reach the 1950s, where, at that time, I will post the remainder of the list). Moreover, I will bold those movies on the list which I would recommend and will give a brief reason for why I recommend them. I will probably post the 1990s sometime late next week, but most definitely before the weekend. Each listing is posted thus: Name of Film (Year Released) / Name of Director. So, without further ado, here are the movies of the 2000s:
Nine Queens (2000) / Fabián Bielinsky
The Captive (2000) / Chantal Akerman
In the Mood for Love (2000) / Wong Kar Wai
Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Streets (2000) / Nabil Ayouch
Gladiator (2000) / Ridley Scott
Kippur (2000) / Amos Gitai
Yi Yi (2000) / Edward Yang
Requiem for a Dream (2000) / Darren Aronofsky
Amores Perros (2000) / Alejandro González Iñárritu
Meet the Parents (2000) / Jay Roach
Signs & Wonders (2000) / Jonathan Nossiter
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) / Ang Lee
Traffic (2000) / Steven Soderbergh
The Gleaners and I (2000) / Agnès Varda
Memento (2000) / Christopher Nolan
Dancer in the Dark (2000) / Lars Von Trier
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) / Joel Coen
Amelie (2001) / Jean-Pierre Jeunet
What Time Is It There? (2001) / Tsai Ming-liang
Y Tu Mamá También (2001) / Alfonso Cuarón
Kandahar (2001) / Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Spirited Away (2001) / Hayao Miyazaki
The Piano Teacher (2001) / Michael Haneke - Very morbid film from one of my favorite living directors. A storyline very similar to Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. Most importantly, though, it shows that brilliance / intellectual maturity and physical maturity do not necessarily entail emotional maturity.
The Son's Room (2001) / Nanni Moretti
No Man's Land (2001) / Danis Tanovic
Moulin Rouge (2001) / Baz Luhrmann
Monsoon Wedding (2001) / Mira Nair - Beautiful and exhilarating film about the days leading up to a traditional Punjabi wedding in modern-day India. If you liked either Bend It Like Beckham or Love, Actually, then you will love this movie (except, I just hope you realize that it is about ten times better than each of those).
Fat Girl (2001) / Catherine Breillat
Mulholland Dr. (2001) / David Lynch - See my comment about The Piano Teacher sans the similarity to The Glass Menagerie. I can't really compare this film to anything else (except maybe to Lynch's previous work) because it is unlike anything else you have ever seen.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) / Wes Anderson
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) / Peter Jackson
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) / Steven Spielberg
Gangs of New York (2002) / Martin Scorsese
The Pianist (2002) / Roman Polanski
Talk to Her (2002) / Pedro Almodóvar
City of God (2002) / Fernando Meirelles - I don't think I have met a single person who has seen this film about the favelas in Brazil and not loved it. Moreover, I don't think I have ever met anyone who has not seen this, so my talking about it and recommending it is kind of redundant.
Russian Ark (2002) / Aleksandr Sokurov
Chicago (2002) / Rob Marshall
The Barbarian Invasions (2003) / Denys Arcand
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) / Quentin Tarantino
Note: The names of each film are presented as they would be on the cover of its English-language VHS/DVD release.