Zach Dillon's Top 20 Films of the 2000s

The opportunity to compile this list seems like it came to me at a very appropriate time in my life. For this past decade marked the revelation of my growing interest in movies. The realization also came to me that 10 years ago, I began to save and collect my ticket stubs. Extending all the way back to 1999 with Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Oh yes) to 2009’s Me and Orson Welles, I’ve saved them all.

Of course I grew up “watching movies”, but in the past decade I feel like I have really learned how to “watch movies”. I have endured jests made by my friends at my expense. Words like “pretentious” have been through my way for my often referring to movies as “films”, and okay, you might realize that maybe you have seen too many films when you’re watching one for the first time and you find yourself audibly being able to recite the next line before it is even uttered. But I have no pretention to knowing all that there is to know about movies. I am but a humble observer, held captive to that that enriches my life. No, for me, watching a movie is not simply escapism, but rather an amalgamation of all that inspires my life. Art, literature, poetry, photography, music, spirituality, philosophy and so on.

I hope that some of these will be new discoveries for some of you, or hopefully re-discoveries. And I readily admit to this being a skewed list. Perhaps not the “best” films of the past 10 years. But the ones that have touched on emotions deep within me, ones that meant something to me on a personal level. My Top 20. - ZD

1. No Country for Old Men (2007) (Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/nocountryforoldmen/

2. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) (Dir. Wes Anderson)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eg6yIwP2vs

3. Garden State (2004) (Dir. Zach Braff)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u82n0e1mgmQ

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) (Dir. Michel Gondry)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSgSe2GzDc

5. The Fountain (2006) (Dir. Darren Aronofsky)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/thefountain/

6. WALL-E (2008) (Dir. Andrew Stanton)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/walle/

7. The Dark Knight (2008) (Dir. Christopher Nolan)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/thedarkknight/

8. Memento (2000) (Dir. Christopher Nolan)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMBTMEgCSok

9. High Fidelity (2001) (Dir. Stephen Frears)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk_0qpFO8Tw

10. There Will Be Blood (2007) (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

\http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_vantage/therewillbeblood/

11. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) (Dir. Andrew Dominik)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/theassassinationofjessejames/

12. Once (2006) (Dir. John Carney)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/once/

13. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2001) (Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1C2gCXo4Gs

14. Into the Wild (2007) (Dir. Sean Penn)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_vantage/intothewild/

15. (500) Days of Summer (2009) (Dir. Marc Webb)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/500daysofsummer/

16. The Prestige (2006) (Dir. Christopher Nolan)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/theprestige/

17. Stranger Than Fiction (2006) (Dir. Marc Forster)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/strangerthanfiction/

18. No Direction Home (2005) (Dir. Martin Scorsese)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSaqSWIaMSw

19. All the Real Girls (2000) (Dir. David Gordon Green)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTrjVYno6Xk

20. The Proposition (2005) (Dir. John Hillcoat)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/theproposition/