Best movies: 2004-present

[sikax]

In chronological order. Particularly exceptional/memorable/my favorite movies in bold.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Man on Fire
Crash
Batman Begins
A History of Violence
Walk the Line
Brokeback Mountain
The Departed
The Prestige
Pan's Labyrinth
Zodiac
Hot Fuzz
Sunshine
3:10 to Yuma
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Gran Torino
Departures (Japan)
Seven Pounds
Revolutionary Road
The Wrestler
Moon
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Black Dynamite
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Lovely Bones
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Inception
The Town
The King's Speech
The Fighter
True Grit
The Guard
Take Shelter
Rango
A Separation (Iran)
Jane Eyre
Hanna
The Artist
Drive
One Day
Carnage
Shame
The Way
The Rum Diary
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Being Flynn
The Dark Knight Rises
The Master
Looper
Seven Psychopaths
Django Unchained
Prisoners
Dallas Buyers Club
Enemy
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Foxcatcher
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Birdman
Nightcrawler
Inherent Vice
Interstellar


This was mostly off the top of my head, peeking at my movie collection for help. Go on, tell me what I missed.

[Gendo]

You and I have different tastes; but not opposite tastes. That is to say, you list quite a few that I didn't much like, but you also list some that I think are great. I haven't seen a lot of them. I put a * next to the ones I own; deleted the ones I neither owned nor seen.

* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Like all Kaufman stuff, great.
Man on Fire - Did not like it. I don't remember it too well.
* Crash - Good
* Batman Begins - Great
* A History of Violence - Was disappointed by it.. I wanted them to keep you guessing a lot longer than they did
* Walk the Line - Good
* Brokeback Mountain - Good
* The Departed - Great
* The Prestige - Great, like all Nolan. Need to rewatch; only seen it once
* Pan's Labyrinth - Also need to rewatch, was great
* Hot Fuzz - Haven't yet seen. Not super-hyped for it, because I didn't like Shaun of the Dead
* Sunshine - Did NOT like; I own it because Jordan said it was good, the jerk
* 3:10 to Yuma - Good, and I don't like westerns
* No Country for Old Men - Love pretty much all Cohen Bros' stuff
* There Will Be Blood - Still haven't seen it... high on my priority list to watch
* The Dark Knight - Great
* Slumdog Millionaire - Haven't seen it yet
* Gran Torino - Great
* Seven Pounds - Underrated... I loved it
* Revolutionary Road - Sad, good
* The Wrestler - Good stuff
* District 9 - Really great
* Inglourious Basterds - The best movie on this list I think
* Inception - I think it lives up to all the hype; Nolan all the way
* The Town - Haven't seen it yet
* The King's Speech - Finally saw it recently; very good
* The Fighter - Great just for the acting and characters
* True Grit - Assume you mean the Cohen Bros since this is a since 2004 list. I own both, haven't seen either yet
*Jane Eyre - Haven't seen it; know nothing about it. I own it because my wife likes it
* The Dark Knight Rises - Disappointing; but not bad
* Looper - Could have been better; but not bad
* Dallas Buyers Club - Just got this recently; haven't seen yet
Interstellar - Definitely liked it. Will need to watch multiple times before I know if I liked it as much as Inception.


Wow, I own about half of the ones you listed; the vast majority of the ones I've seen. I guess there were only a handful that I didn't like.

[aels]

Of your list, the ones I have both seen and agree with are:

Brokeback Mountain
The Prestige (HNNG I LOVE THE PRESTIGE SO MUCH)
Pan's Labyrinth
Zodiac
Hot Fuzz (Gendo, I like Hot Fuzz much better than Shaun of the Dead and I think the script is one of the best and most tightly written scripts I've seen, but I admit that a good 5% of my liking for it is that its depiction of rural British life strikes some notes for me)
Sunshine (most of my life is spent trying to get people to watch Sunshine)
The King's Speech (I hate that I liked The King's Speech because it is exactly the kind of feel-good Oscarbait I am primed to loathe)

[phe_de]

Movies since 2004 which I think of when thinking of movies I like a lot:
WALL·E
Avatar
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis

But there are more.

[Derived Absurdity]

Of all on your list I've seen (and remember)...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - excellent, my second favorite Jim Carrey movie behind The Truman Show
Batman Begins - probably Nolan's best movie, the first two thirds are a masterpiece but the last third is a pretty big comedown
A History of Violence - it was ok
Brokeback Mountain - pretty good
The Prestige - it was ok, Nolan's second best movie IMO
Pan's Labyrinth - this is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's just perfection. I can write odes to how amazing this movie is.
No Country for Old Men - yeah, pretty good, I don't see what's spectacular about it though, I probably need to watch it more than once
There Will Be Blood - perfect. Not my cup of tea generally but I can still appreciate how amazingly well-done it is.
The Dark Knight - meh. Mediocre. If Heath Ledger hadn't died I highly doubt this movie would be as critically acclaimed as it is.
Slumdog Millionaire - pretty good
Moon - yep
District 9 - whatever
Inglourious Basterds - Tarantino's best movie IMO. That by itself doesn't say much but it is a very good movie.
Fantastic Mr. Fox - it's... fantastic
The Lovely Bones - what the fuck? This movie sucked. What is it doing here?
Inception - terrible, mediocre, uncreative, dull, insulting, etc. Pretty bad. Nolan's second-worst.
The King's Speech - good I guess but it was boring
Rango - awesome, better than anything Pixar ever made
Drive - I gave up on this movie after about twenty minutes
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoos - a summary: "boring stock characters, dumb mystery, RAPE, stupid twist, end"
Being Flynn
The Dark Knight Rises - this is legitimately one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It is a complete abomination. Nolan should be shot for this movie.
Seven Psychopaths - yep
Django Unchained - Spike Lee was right about this movie. I don't like movies that trivialize or mock slavery and erase history.
Dallas Buyers Club - didn't make much of an impression on me
The Grand Budapest Hotel - excellent
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - boring
Nightcrawler - ... I want to see it
Interstellar - pretty sappy and mediocre.

So that's what I have to say about your list. Pretty impressive if I say so myself.

[sikax]

1) Pan's Labyrinth - this is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's just perfection. I can write odes to how amazing this movie is.

2) The Dark Knight - meh. Mediocre. If Heath Ledger hadn't died I highly doubt this movie would be as critically acclaimed as it is.

3) The Lovely Bones - what the fuck? This movie sucked. What is it doing here?

4) Rango - awesome, better than anything Pixar ever made

5) The Dark Knight Rises - this is legitimately one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It is a complete abomination. Nolan should be shot for this movie.

6) Nightcrawler - ... I want to see it

1) Yep. It's sad how unsung it is these days compared to other movies from the same time.

2) Got to disagree there. Ledger's acting performance was outstanding and made an otherwise great movie excellent.

3) I don't get this. This movie was spot-on. Peter Jackson's best.

4) Yep. One of my all-time favorites. Absolutely flawless.

5) Got to disagree there. There were a couple questionable scenes (Like Scarecrow being some sort of derelict judge? What was that?), but overall a good movie with depth. Obviously the worst of the three Nolan Batmans, but not as terrible as people think.

6) I will never stop singing its praises. Best movie I've seen since...I don't know...Rango. Or ever.

[BruceSmith78]

Rango sucked. It was just weird and not even a little funny.

[sikax]

[BruceSmith78]

If it helps, I liked Nolan's Batman trilogy. And Pan's Labyrinth was really good.

I'd add 500 Days of Summer and The Road to the list (and remove a whole bunch of others, but whatev's). There's probably more I'm forgetting.

[CashRules]

The Dark Knight Rises: the one with no good guys.

[sikax]

The Dark Knight Rises: the one with no good guys.

Yeah, pretty much. At least up to the end when Bruce saves the entirety of Gotham from a nuclear bomb.

[CashRules]

Nolan was going for realism with this one, that's why the cops were portrayed as Nazis.

[Dr_Liszt]

I don't care what you guys say but How to Train your Dragon 2 on 4dx has been the best thing I've ever seen on the movie theater.

[Unvoiced_Apollo]

I don't care what you guys say but How to Train your Dragon 2 on 4dx has been the best thing I've ever seen on the movie theater.

The closest I got was IMAX 3D. Totally worth it. I'd like to try 4dX, but that's like double what IMAX 3D is. And we don't have any around.

Also yeah. How to Train Your Dragon at the very least deserves a nod. And Toy Story 3 for that matter.

[Dr_Liszt]

I saw it on IMAX 3D first. It was awesome, decided to see it again on an enhanced scenario, so yeah spent a lot of money on a kid's movie.
Will start saving for Httyd 3.

[Unvoiced_Apollo]

I saw it on IMAX 3D first. It was awesome, decided to see it again on an enhanced scenario, so yeah spent a lot of money on a kid's movie.
Will start saving for Httyd 3.

How to Train Your Dragons 2 is not a kids' movie. It's a family movie in which even adults can appreciate its merit.

Transformers (especially 4) is more of a kids movie

[Unvoiced_Apollo]

Up deserves to be on this list too.

[sikax]

Up deserves to be on this list too.

It is one of the better Pixar movies, but I wasn't blown away.

[BruceSmith78]

The Place Beyond the Pines was one of the better movies this past decade.