Ok, here we go continuing with my list of the Top 25 films of the last 10 years.

In case you missed it, here are numbers 25-21

25. Shaun of the Dead

24. Gladiator

23. Sideways

22. In Bruges

21. Lost in Translation.

• If you’re new to the party, what I write is just my thoughts on why I feel each particular film deserves merit and inclusion on this list. Anything I write is essentially spoiler free, so if you haven’t seen the films, feel free to read.
• In case you missed it, my friend Andrew Brenner is counting his list down as well. Give it a look.
• Number 15-11 will be posted next Wednesday, with the top 10 following the two Wednesdays after.

Without further ado…

20. THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY – 2001-2003

It’s my list, and I make the rules around here, so I’m counting the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as one for the purposes of this list.

And really, while “Return of the King” is probably the best stand-alone film of the bunch, it’s not nearly the film it is without the two films before it. Each of the three films is a technical marvel, masterpieces one and all. Each contains its own moments of awesomeness, and each has its memorable sequences and characters. But together they represent perhaps cinema’s greatest epic tale.

Director Peter Jackson faced the unenviable task of adapting perhaps the single most beloved literary series of the 20^th century. And in the face of that task, he produced greatness. It took a special kind of hubris and daring to undertake these films; the same kind of pride and ego that often is required to produce greatness. Luckily Jackson was as sensitive to the subject matter as he was sure he could direct it. Also he kind of looks me if I were a child molester.

Show me on the statue where he touched you...

None of these films had even a hundred million dollar budget. That’s astonishing to me. Yes, 100 million is an astronomical number in almost any circle, but in the world of film, it’s not significant. 2009’s “GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra” (I had to check to make sure that wasn’t a porno with a parody title) checked in with a 175 million dollar budget. 2009’s woeful “Land of the Lost” budgeted in at 100 million. Sure 2009 money isn’t the same as 2003 money, but the return on investment in the Lord of the Rings films is one of the more amazing successes in film history.

These films would not have been the success they were if they weren’t so perfectly helmed. In Jackson’s hands, New Zealand becomes the most beautiful country in the world—the stuff of fantasy. It’s possible no film series has ever done more for one nation’s economy than what LOTR did and does for New Zealand. And the casting for this series sparked much debate for decades; it seems Jackson and the team behind these films could not have chosen more successfully on almost every count.

It’s hard to lump the three together and then highlight memorable sequences, and if you’ve seen them you know what they are.  But it’s important to note that these films succeed just as much for quiet, haunting, mystical moments like when the Fellowship finds shelter at Elven realm of Lothlórien, as they do for amped up intensity like the rain-soaked battle of Helm’s Deep.

It’s just simply impossible to make a Best Films of 2000-2009 list and not include these films, even if they aren’t your particular fancy. Yes they’re nerdy. Yes they’re long. Yes they require a near 10 hour commitment to take in. But they’re also beautiful, impeccably well made, and eminently memorable.  It’s 10 hours well spent.

19. MULHOLLAND DRIVE – 2001

Oh then there’s this film. Then there’s this ridiculous, mind-bending, semi-lucid dream of a salvia trip-waking nightmare of a haunting film. David Lynch. That’s about all that needs to be said. But this film is Director David Lynch THIS CLOSE to making perfect sense. That’s a cinematic rarity on par with finding the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

And that’s what Lynch’s films, especially this one, are about really. Films like this stimulate more than they entertain, they challenge more than they reward. But that stimulating IS their entertainment. The challenge IS their reward. And this film is incredibly stimulating and challenging, but grasping at its meaning can be incredibly rewarding. And in its many disjointed scenes of puzzlement and confusion, there’s plenty of entertainment.

Lynch, the man behind the suspenseful TV smash “Twin Peaks” initially conceived and shot half of this film as a television pilot. Then when television execs gave it the thumbs down, he shot a few more scenes and added somewhat related material, and put it all together.  The result is probably the best Film Noir from the 2000-2009 years, set where such things belong, Los Angeles. And because this is LA, we’ve get a tale of mixed up film projects, failing dreams, and bizarre characters who belong mostly to the land of nightmares.

(This is not a Stephen Hawking cameo, you've been misinformed.)

This film luxuriates in the land of nightmares and dreamscapes. You know when you’re dreaming, and you’re one place, and then inexplicably you’re somewhere else? Or when one person in your dream becomes another with little explanation above the subconscious? That’s where this film lives. That’s what it is. It’s a series of dreams that almost make sense on first viewing, that may make sense on deeper analysis, and for which the pursuit of meaning can be like tilting at windmills.

And this film is mesmerizing because it contains all stages and types of dreams—complete nonsense, shocking nightmares, puzzling moments, and the kind of half-lucidity experienced and remembered from waking dreams. The tagline, “A Love Story in the City of Dreams” is both completely accurate and puzzlingly confusing.

This film works because Lynch is unabashed in what he’s doing. Nothing is half-sold.  There are no cop outs. And because of that, puzzle pieces not meant to interlink fully still produce vivid images. The best thing about films like this is trying to unravel them, and this one is so wonderfully twisted it’s probably Lynch’s best, and nearly unrivaled in the last decade.

18. GOSFORD PARK – 2001

Robert Altman was an American master, and this is his last great masterpiece. It’s a murder mystery. It’s a commentary on British Society from the early 20^thcentury, it’s the textbook ensemble film that’s as much a character study as a tableaux of archetypes.

It’s the classic British murder mystery in the model of Agatha Christie—a cast of characters gather at a country house and one of them turns up dead. Everyone is a suspect. But because of how well made and impossibly well acted this film is, everyone seems to have a motive, and you can’t really begrudge any of them for it. It’s as joyous as a murder mystery about stuffy British people can get, and it’s everything Altman’s best films are.

It’s so well-done, and so meticulous, that it simply must be seen more than once. Things can get lost the first time you see it, interactions, little details like the shots of guns, knives, poison, spilled bloody marys, etc that linger 2-3 seconds longer than they usually would. Dialogue that’s not ironic on first viewing becomes wickedly so the second time around.

Gosselin Park

In fact every time I watch this film I realize more how outstandingly and mind-blowingly well made it is. It can be initially confusing with this madhouse of people and all of their stories, but by the end, we know enough about them all to form opinions and see beneath the surface. Altman is completely at home with a disparate cast and myriad storylines. It’s where he buttered his bread for decades. And this is among his top three, along with “Nashville” and “M.A.S.H.” He transcends beyond genre material, never bound and instead inspired by conventions. By the time a bumbling British inspector arrives sucking on a pipe with his own musical theme, you recognize how pitch perfect this film is.

There are so many excellent actors here giving excellent performances it’s difficult to single out which among them deserves praise above the rest. Really this film is a collection of transcendent actors romping through enjoyable material. Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith are especially brilliant, though, but nothing less should be expected of such talented performers.

Nothing in this film is life-changing or even especially memorable, but it is probably the tightest and most well-made film on the list. It’s paced and cut masterfully. The script, and like Altman does at the top of his form, weaves these characters and their stories together so well it truly is tapestry on film, as though this film were made on a loom with 45 different crazy kinds of thread and still ended up art that made sense. It exists as a comedy, a mystery, a drama, and even rises to the level of parody on numerous occasions. Give a genius the right material, a camera, and this cast, and a masterpiece results. Winner of the “Actual Best Movie” award at the Academy Awards (otherwise known as Best Original Screenplay) in 2002, and nominated for several other Oscars, and yet probably still underrated as a film.

17. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? – 2000

If “Gosford Park” is a tapestry or crazy threads all woven together, than “O Brother Where Art Thou” is like moving history. It’s withered in sepia, cast in the current tones of times gone by, and its story is timeless to the point of being based on “The Odyssey” for crying out loud.

So much of what O Brother covers is the stuff of legend, but for us, the 20’s and 30’s South is recent enough legend that we have a picture of it in our heads. This film gives life to that picture in so perfect a way that it is destined to be MORE memorable than the source material on which it is based—the stories, photos, and songs of the Depression era South. Like characters based on Babyface Nelson and Robert Johnson, the stories are a little muddled, but the details remain.

And it’s the Coen Brothers, which means it’s quirky and hilarious. Wait, here I am in the third paragraph and I haven’t even mentioned the part of the film that rises above the rest—the incredible sountrack. This is a soundtrack you can give to people who “hate” country music and watch as they find enjoyment in it. This is a soundtrack that was so successful it inspired a tour by the musicians whose music is featured. This is a soundtrack that captures the important part music plays in capturing the memories of a certain time and a certain place.

WE THOUGHT YOU WAS A TOAD!!!!

The set pieces are among the Coen Brothers most memorable, which is to say they are some of the most memorable in the last 25 years of American cinema. Dancing Klansmen calling back to the guards in the Wizard of Oz. Haunting Sirens bathing on rocks and singing our heroes to a hypnotized sleep. John Goodman deliciously over the top as a Bible-selling Cyclops. And all of this captured beautifully on a negative specifically-colored by the Coen Brothers to have that aged look and feel.

The film is definitely a series of vignettes that come together under the guise of a treasure hunt set in the South. But the undercurrent running throughout is these are all tales we can imagine happening at that time and place. Like “The Odyssey” these may be a collection of tales that have been passed along orally, otherwise unrelated but for our heroes, but ultimately fantastic when brought together.

And the music is another line that runs throughout, in some ways as a Greek chorus reflecting on the action and driving the plot, and in others as filler so right that you can’t imagine the film without it.

Forever quotable, affirmatively funny, and absolutely enjoyable. It may sum up and survive a time and an era more than actual history, which is yet another way it’s both like the “Odyssey” and deserving of praise.

16. THERE WILL BE BLOOD – 2007

OK, this one is at number 16 for many reasons I’ll expand on momentarily, but I have to admit the ending drives it higher than it would otherwise be. I am absolutely in love with the ending of this film. I think it might be dissatisfying or even anger-inducing or downright depressing to some of you, but I really love it. It’s the only way the film could end and the whole film is driving toward such a conclusion. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it. But the last words, and they way they are spoken, are EPIC!

In the hands of another actor, the lead character, oil man Daniel Plainview, just simply would not be who he is. Make no mistake about it, this film is a showroom floor for the Daniel Day Lewis 2007 model. And he’s so convincing, so vulnerable and yet steeled, so mad and yet calculating, that he wins the day, the week, the year, hell, almost the decade. He earned an Oscar for this but that’s only because the Oscar was the highest award he could earn. If they gave a Nobel Prize for acting, this performance would merit it.

I love the title of this film. It makes me think that any time oil is at stake, well, There Will Be Blood. In that sense, and with the elements of religious fervor clashing with the oil expansion as they do in this film, it’s not even that thinly-veiled a reference. But that doesn’t mean it’s ineffective.

I drink it up!!!

The film reminds me of Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown”, which I will spoil as earning a spot on my top 10 films of all time, in that it uncovers, reveals, and either embellishes or undersells what pseudo-modern America was like before parts of it were tapped and expanded. It captures a time when parts of this country were still very unsettled, still ripe for snatching and manipulation, and still invitations for manipulators to ply their trade to the tune of millions of dollars.

It owes to “Chinatown” sure, but it also owes to “Citizen Kane” among other fantastic American films, in many of its sequences, events, and characters. The evolution, or is it de-evolution, of Daniel Plainview, is fascinating stuff to watch. As I said, without spoiling the end of the film, upon reflection it’s easy to see that’s where this film, this character, were always headed. It’s a performance at the same time pure, and nuanced, passionate, yet strikingly cool-heeled.

DDL is not the only actor bringing his A game in this one. Paul Dano comes out of nowhere to be an incredible foil to DDL’s Plainview, playing two roles (or is it one?) one of which sets the story in motion, the other of which drives it right off of the rails. The supporting roles are both authentic, and memorable. This is just a fantastically acted and directed film. Also, the musical score, by a member of Radiohead, is all at once chilling, beautiful, haunting, and, especially the sting at the end of the film, incredibly scene setting/stealing. One of the two best films of 2007, the other to be revealed shortly. Stay tuned!