As 2010 approaches there will doubtless be many more of these but here, courtesy of the New York Times, is an Arts Beat blogpost on two different “100 best movies of the decade” lists recently published by two UK broadsheet newspapers: the Telegraph and the London Times.
Here is a direct link to the Times’s list and here to the Telegraph’s.
I somehow doubt that any US paper would agree with either choice for #1 but the rest may be less controversial.
Momento? Biiiiitch please. It’s a good movie but not in the top ten of the decade.
I should probably make it a bit easier for a sneak peek ahead since both lists run backwards from 100. Here’s the first page, featuring the top four, for the Times. The Telegraph’s just asks you to scroll down.
Memento - yeah, I agree. I do actually love the movie but it’s the kind of movie you watch 2x or 3x and then you’ve pretty much learned what you can learn.
I’ve seen 69 of The Times Online’s list. Lots of great movies there, but, There Will Be Blood at #63? I’d list it at #1, with Brokeback Mountain at #2 (#17 on their list), and Fellowship of the Ring #3 (not on their list at all). Maybe it’s too American for them.
I’ve seen 75 of the Telegraph’s list, and at least they had There Will Be Blood, Brokeback Mountain and Fellowship of the Ring all in the Top 10.
There are some WTFs? on both lists (Borat? Saw? Really?), but they do serve to remind that this past decade has been a great one for films.
Hey that is good Equipoise. I’m running closer to half. I need to get out more.
I’m agape at #5 on the Times list. Team America: World Police? Really? Really? I mean, it was funny, but seriously?
Times: 9 films
Telegraph: 17 films.
I have to get out more often…
69 of the Telegraph list and 61 of the Times one.
But Cache? What a piece of shit! That is the Emperor’s New Film, one that managed to fool a huge number of critics into thinking that it was about something. But as they weren’t able to say exactly what it was about, all of them were forced to pretend they got it to avoid looking like great fools.
I’m of very mixed emotions to see Far from Heaven on the Telegraph list: one one hand “Yay!” on the other “Behind that abortion Gladiator? Feh!”
Thanks for mentioning movies not on the lists spoke- and Jeff Lichtman. When (or if) I make up my own, it’ll be good to remember films left off. O Brother and In Bruge would be in my Top 20 or maybe even 10, but I forgot all about them. I liked the others mentioned too, especially The Station Agent.
I’m struck by how many American movies are on both lists. How many GOOD American movies. Anyone who says America makes crap movies is full of crap themselves.
I’ve seen 85 on each of the lists. Too many things to dispute (Mamma Mia!?!? :rolleyes:), though I’m glad one list or another mentioned the excellent Los Angeles Plays Itself, Together, Lagaan, Russian Ark, Oldboy, Capturing the Friedmans, Team America, L’Enfant, Yi Yi, The Beat that My Heart Skipped, Dirty Pretty Things, The Gleaners and I and You, Me and Everyone We Know.
Still, would’ve liked to see The New World, Into Great Silence, The Memory of a Killer, All the Real Girls, A.I., The Triplets of Belleville, The Wind Will Carry Us and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring mentioned somewhere.
I’ve seen 44 of the Telegraph’s and 45 of the Times’.
These lists just seem random to me. They throw in some popular movies, some hated movies, a bunch of Oscar winners, and some critic’s darlings, and just randomly sort them. Seriously, “The Brown Bunny” is a lost classic? No, it’s not; that’s just the “really strange choice” pick for the list.
You’re right RickJay, they are random and there is doubtless a selection principle at work like what you describe. But lists like this are, IMO, interesting for showing what kinds of cinema are being legitimized.
News to me was that “torture porn” appears to be a genre one must take seriously now. I have never and will never see The Passion but I’m curious to see it as apparently the birth of a new kind of aesthetic.
Have to admit, I haven’t seen a lot of those. Off the top of my head, though, my list would include:
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
Memento
The Incredibles
The Queen
Casino Royale
The Bourne Supremacy
Pride and Prejudice
The Telegraph list is actually most “defining” films on the decade. In fact, the article even concedes that the no one spot, Farenheit 9/11, probably wasn’t the “best” film of the decade.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is probably the most defining film in the last ten years because the date is right there in the title. :rolleyes:
Sorry but any list that has Slumdog Millionaire, Casino Royale, Borat, Fahrenheit 9/11, and/or Bourne Supremacy in it’s top 10 movies for the decade does not deserve to be taken seriously. Slumdog Millionaire wasn’t even one of the best 10 movies of last year. And Casino Royale and Bourne Supremacy are fine action movies but no chance in hell are they top 10 of the entire decade. They are probably not even in the top 10 AMERICAN movies in their year of release. Ditto Borat and the early verdict was in on Fahrenheit 9/11 when it didn’t even vault Kerry into the White House. And Saw is in the top 20 of one. That’s embarrassing. And these lists generally are as they are a smattering of popular movies, award winners, watercooler talk, pop cultural reference-ability, etc. As is usually the case, these lists are heavily biased toward English-speaking, pop cultural currency, and box office successes. They should not in any way be called “The 100 Best Movies” as the Telegraph suggests. “The Top 100 Movies: Defining the [decade],” as suggested by the Times, is a marginally better concept in that it gives them more leeway to include a variety and not worry about the quality of the films.
I’ve seen 65 of the Telegraph’s and 65 of the Times.