(My List of The) Best Movies of the Decade

I wanted to make my own list of the 10 Best Movies of the Decade, but that quickly grew to 15, then 25, and finally I had to cut the list off at 50. It's a nice round number. My list went through many drafts and I figured I should post it before my list changes yet again. When you make a list of "Best of... Top... Most..." whatever, there are a lot of chances to be pretentious and didactic. There actually is a right way and a wrong way to critique movies, as well as anything else. Do you remember that scene in Dead Poet's Society where the boys read from their textbook about a formula to determine a poem's "greatness" using an X-Y axis graph? That's the wrong way. The other way is to be honest, especially to yourself, about how you felt. All of these movies are on this list because of how they made me feel. I really didn't want to rank the movies with numbers, except for the Top 10, but it seemed like the best way to organize them. I didn't pick movies that I thought should be on a list like this, because they were popular, or what other people said about them, or what awards they won. There was no scientific method involved. These are movies that made me feel great, even better than great, that moved me emotionally and even left a mark. They left me amazed and entertained and still make me feel that way.

50. Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (2004)
49. Traffic (2000)
"I'd rather be lucky than good"

48. Match Point (2005)

47. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
46. Shattered Glass (2003)

45. Up (2009)

"This is what my people died for... the right to make a movie in this town."

44. State and Main (2000)

43. In Bruges (2008)
42. Minority Report (2002)

41. Let the Right One In (2008)

40. (500) Days of Summer (2009)

The Writer's Journey:
39. Reprise (2008)

Edward Grey: We can't do this 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Lee: Why not?

38. Secretary (2002)
37. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

36. Superbad (2007)

35. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
34. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

33. Clerks 2 (2006)

32. Amelie (2001)
31. Ichi the Killer* (2001) (*Not for the faint of heart)

30. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
29. Ratatouille (2007)
28. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
27. Paris Je T'aime (2007)

26. About A Boy (2002)
25. Grindhouse (2006)

Gretchen: Donnie Darko? What the hell kind of name is that? It's like some sort of superhero or something
Donnie: What makes you think I'm not?

24. Donnie Darko (2001)

23. Almost Famous (2000)

22. Vanilla Sky (2001)

21. American Psycho (2001) "You don't know me, but my name's Edward Bloom... And I love you."
20. Big Fish (2003) 19. The Fountain (2006)

"I don't know you, but I want you all the more for that..."
18. Once (2007)

17. High Fidelity (2000)

"This life came so close to never happening."
16. The 25th Hour (2002)

I could write at length about each of these movies and I very well may at some point in the future. But in the interest of keeping things brief, I decided to only comment on my picks for the top 15 which I'll post next week.