The Sunday Times' top 10 films of the decade;
Posted by
Loyola
Nov 15 '09, 12:35
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10. Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)
Provocative London-born artist McQueen directs a revelatory Michael Fassbender in a movie that purports to tackle the infamous 1981 IRA hunger strikes but is actually a hypnotic meditation on the ineffable mystery of human life. Achingly profound.
9 The Queen (Stephen Frears, 2006)
Compassionate and intelligent, witty and wicked, this account of what happened behind the Palace gates after the death of the Princess of Wales is a crown jewel of a movie. Helen Mirren is a very human HM.
8 Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006)
The high camp of the Brosnan era Bond is ditched, and Fleming�s hero returns rebooted (and Bourne-ified), with an intense turn from Daniel Craig, and some breakneck set-pieces. An opening parkour-style chase through Madagascar sets the tone.
7 The Last King of Scotland (Kevin Macdonald, 2006)
Forest Whitaker gives one of the great performances of the decade as Idi Amin. He nails the Ugandan dictator�s deadly charm � he�s a charismatic monster; part amiable buffoon, part stone-cold killer.
6 Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008)
Twelve years after Trainspotting, Boyle produces a dizzying Mumbai-set romance that redefines the possibilities of a progressive yet commercially successful national industry. Oscars abound.
5 Team America: World Police (Trey Parker, 2004)
The South Park creators launch an assault on pretty much everyone, from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to poor, hapless Matt Damon. It�s jaw-droppingly offensive and wildly funny.
4 Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005)
Party nature documentary, part philosophical tract, Herzog�s eerie account of the life and brutal death of mildly unhinged bear-watcher Timothy Treadwell is a monumental piece of cinema � emotionally satisfying, intellectually stimulating, but primal to the core.
3 No Country for Old Men (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 2007)
The alchemic combination of the Coen brothers� eloquent precision and Cormac McCarthy�s vivid nihilism makes for a bleakly compelling cycle of violence. The only thing more terrifying than Javier Bardem�s haircut is the clinical efficiency of his murders.
2 The Bourne Supremacy / The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass, 2004, 2007)
The action movie is dragged, kicking and back-flipping, into the Noughties courtesy of Matt Damon�s amnesiac superspy and director Greengrass�s film-making �lan. Marrying jittery docu-style camera work with healthy political cynicism, Greengrass transformed Bourne into an anti-Bond for the PlayStation generation.
1 Hidden (Cache) (Michael Haneke, 2005)
It is only as the decade draws to a close that it becomes clear just how presciently the Austrian director Michael Haneke tapped into the uncertain mood of the Noughties. The film�s twin themes resonate perfectly with the defining concerns of the time: tacit national guilt about a questionable foreign policy, in the film it�s France�s occupation of Algeria, but it�s not hard to piece together the parallels with more recent conflicts. Plus, as round-the-clock surveillance became a part of our daily lives, here was a film that captured the creeping paranoia that resulted from the eyes of unseen strangers invading private life.
* Michael Haneke: 'It�s super to be number one'
* British film insider top tens of the decade
* The 50 Biggest Movies of 2009
Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as Georges and Anne Laurent, the successful couple whose charmed life is disrupted by a series of covertly captured videotapes of their family and home. The campaign pertains to some unspoken and long suppressed event. Auteuil and Binoche are both excellent � their brittle, abrupt performances etch out the fracture lines in their crumbling relationship. But the film�s brilliance comes from two striking, perplexing moments in the film. The first is a shockingly violent suicide that catches the audience off guard. The second is the film�s ambivalent ending � a long shot of a meeting on some steps which could signal the end of the family�s torment, or the beginning of something worse. There have been rumours of an American remake with Ron Howard, of all people, directing. Hopefully common sense will prevail.
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