20. Sideways (2004-Alexander Payne)
"I'm not a writer. I'm a middle school English teacher. The world doesn't give a shit what I have to say. I'm unnecessary. Ha! I'm so insignificant I can't even kill myself"
Coming just three months after the book it was based on, Alexander Payne's monument to male friendship, fragile masculinity and Pinot Noir was an instant classic, a jewel in the crown of American independent cinema. Looking back now, it's easy to see how it paved the way for most of the mumblecore classics that followed it, but Sideways still feels like an indie-unicorn. It's refreshing and well-aged, and watching it in 2020, there's detectable notes of humour, heartbreak and dogged, powerful love that all blend together seamlessly in dialogue that flows just as smoothly as Rolfe Kent's jazzy score. It's a passionate film, one that thrums with energy even when it's just observing the discussions between middle-aged friends over wine. But the heart of the film is the relationship between Paul Giamatti's Miles and Thomas Hayden Church's Jack. There's a real push-and-pull between them; two men who love each other enough to hate each other, who are constantly bickering but can't function on their own. Miles needs Jack to get him out of his own head as much as Jack needs Miles to save him from naked giants, spurned lovers, and ultimately, himself.
Through this, Payne untangles a tricky web and attempts to answer a difficult question: what does it mean to be a man? He's critical of Miles' neuroses and Jack's revelry in equal measure, and in stripping them back, he's handing them over to us. He takes down all of the defenses they hold up against the world, the barriers they use to protect them from each other and presents them in their purest forms. It's exciting, heartfelt stuff, and by the end, it does what the best road-trips do- gives us the space we need to step back and look at everything in perspective, before returning us to our lives relaxed, refreshed, and with a new outlook on things
The High Point: Miles' emotionally naked exploration of Pinot. "It's a tough grape to grow." Oof
19. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013- Joel and Ethan Coen)
"Everything you touch turns to shit, you're like King Midas' idiot brother"
If No Country For Old Men was the Coen Brothers shifting direction and finding a groove that's decidedly darker and more contemplative than their previous fare, then Inside Llewyn Davis sees them take that style to its absolute peak and hit a new career high point in the process. The argument over the pair's best film post-2000 may be endless, impassioned and bloody, but nothing they've put out this century has matched the pure power of Llewyn Davis. A heartsick folk-rumination on the creative process and the neverending cycle of failure, this is the Brothers at their most dour. It play like an existential horror movie, trapping Oscar Isaac's jaded hero in a cycle that he's not good enough to escape but too talented to break. He just can't make it on his own, and his punishment for his skill is to wander the snowy wastelands and just keep failing
Sound miserable? Well, yeah it sort of is, but it's propelled by that reliable Coen humour and a tight, circular structure that brings everything back around to glorious effect. It's the most emotionally frank they've ever been, completely laying bare the suffocating uncertainty that is being a creative. It's austere but never hopeless, not entirely anyway. Davis is always going to try again. He'll fail, of course, but in the struggle, he tells his story- a tale that's not new, but never gets old. Like a folk song, really
So maybe it's blasphemy to place it above No Country, or A Serious Man, or even Burn After Reading, but Inside Lllewyn Davis is nothing short of the Brothers' best film of the 21st century
The High Point: The ending, where a hard rain a-falls on Llewyn
18. Up (2009- Pete Docter)
"This is crazy. I finally meet my childhood hero and he's trying to kill us. What a joke"
First impressions are everything. Up opens with a relationship that unfolds and ends in just under ten minutes. It's sublime, pure emotional napalm that achieves what cinema does at its best. It's so good that many of the film's detractors argue that it peaks too early, that the story just can't recapture that magic. But maybe that's the point. When the scene ends and Carl is left grieving and alone, he's feels like the best is behind him. As the film goes on, he'll drag this monument to his past happiness to his own personal paradise in what is possibly the best metaphor for the grieving process in any medium. The real high point, and the payoff of the whole film comes later, and it's that moment that makes Up a masterpiece. It's a simple metaphor expertly realised by a team of artists who know that the best stories are the most universal, driven by heart, character, and an unquenchable spirit of adventure.
Up makes a case for the future, where the best adventures lie ahead. It's good to chase a dream but it's okay to let go, too- sometimes the letting go is the most crucial part. As for the past? It's not going anywhere, and as Carl ultimately learns, it's a nice place to visit, but it's no place to stay. That Pixar produces something so moving, intelligent and genuinely profound while simultaneously delivering delightful talking dogs and hilarious sight gags is a testament to their utterly singular genius. It's a film that starts with heartbreak and learns to let it go, involving the audience every step of the way. By the end, a new adventure begins, an ending that embraces the sweet catharsis of moving on. It's funny, it's poignant, it's heartbreaking and it's true; the best film that Pixar has put out in this or any other century
The High Point: Obviously the married life sequence, but don't underestimate the sheer, full-circle heartbreak of Carl opening Ellie's scrapbook up on Paradise Falls
17. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010- Edgar Wright)
"When I'm around you, I kinda feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case I do them all the time. All of them"
Edgar Wright had already cemented himself as a cross-cultural icon, capable of bridging cinema, music, comic books and video games like no other filmmaker working today, but in 2010, he ascended to a new plane altogether. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a millennial fever dream, blasting through the generic conventions of so many mediums as it scrambles wildly through its 112 minutes. It's a perfect adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novels, nailing the takedown of adolescent pop-culture escapists while keeping the source's utter adoration for everything its referencing. It's a spot-on blend of straight-faced comedy and sensory-overload-visuals; it plays like the century's greatest cinematic dance record
It tanked at the box office, but of course it did: as soon as it hit it was destined for cult greatness. It's got quite possibly the most passionate following of any film on this list and for good reason- it speaks the same language as the media-fanatics who hoovered it up again and again when it dropped on Blu-Ray. It's a postmodern masterpiece, a film that understands the importance of these texts and how they relate to each other, but crucially knows exactly how they should play onscreen. It does this breathlessly and flawlessly, building a monument to nerd culture out of the very components it celebrates. It's a modern classic, endlessly quotable and rewatchable. It's a shame we don't get many blockbusters like this now. We didn't get any like it back then, either
The High Point: After haunting most of the film's first half, Envy Adams takes the stage
16. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014- Wes Anderson)
"You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilisation left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble insignificant... oh fuck it"
With a filmography like Wes Anderson's, it's hard to pick a definite high point. Regardless of personal preferences though, it's hard to argue that anything but The Grand Budapest Hotel is the film that best defines who he is as an artist. He's present in every detail; every wallpaper, uniform and prison cell is soaked in that utterly singular style he's been perfecting since Bottle Rocket. But he's also in the film's values: that mournful nostalgia for an era that never quite existed. Anderson is lamenting the lack of care that people are willing to settle for, and so he fights for specificity, for as much attention to detail as possible. It's delightfully quirky but quietly melancholic, and as he perfects every detail in this world he's built inside the film it's clear that he knows he's fighting a losing battle, that mass-produced blockbuster mediocrity will prevail
Pretentious? Surprisingly not, because Anderson isn't just mourning-he's celebrating too. If he takes down the lazy conveyor belt of the lowest-common denominator, then he holds up those who care enough to make sure that every detail is note-perfect. It's properly funny, genuinely heartfelt and surprisingly tragic. Zero's world is alive, and damn fun to inhabit. It's not eternal, but that's why it's special- its quiet destruction is proof that it existed in the first place. Like him or lump him, there's no one quite like Wes Anderson, and The Grand Budapest Hotel is the indelible, undeniable mark he's leaving behind on cinema and the world
The High Point: "I think his world had vanished before he had ever entered it" Zero's final assessment of Gustav. He could just as easily be talking about Anderson
15. Leave No Trace (2018- Debra Granik)
"The same thing that's wrong with you isn't wrong with me"
It's often said that less is more, that quiet gestures can say what a thousand words couldn't even begin to cover. But we live in a world of excess, of instant communication and information, where life moves at a breakneck speed that we couldn't even hope to catch up to again if we stopped. So thank god for movies like Leave No Trace. Debra Granik's gorgeous tale of a father and daughter struggling to adapt when their off-grid existence is challenged by conventional society is one of the most essential minimalist films of recent years, where huge outpourings of emotions are always shown, never told. It's a film about a wounded man who can't adjust to the world at large, and the gradual rift that creates with the daughter who wants to explore, to see what she's been kept away from her whole life
And yet, it rejects easy clichés. It's not interested in mining their situation for drama, and functions entirely as a character piece, a refreshingly small scale two-hander between Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie. He's the best he's ever been, hurt and haunted and communicating entirely through his eyes, but the highlight is McKenzie. Her star's been burning bright since the film's release but revisiting this is a reminder of how much of a find she was. She's the film's heart and soul, what takes a fairly low-key plot and elevates it to an absolute explosion of pure feeling. Peripherally the film also tackles how the system treats its most vulnerable members, but first and foremost it's a tale of the things we do for love. As the world gets smaller and movies get bigger, it's nice to be able sit back and escape into a film that's entirely rooted in the little things. Turns out less really is more
The High Point: The ending, which won't be spoiled here but plays like a low-key battering ram of pure emotion
14. Jojo Rabbit (2019- Taika Waititi)
"Fuck off Hitler"
There will inevitably be shocked gasps and cries of derision that Jojo Rabbit has placed 14 out of 100 on this list. And look, it's a divisive film, one that definitely won't work for everyone and that's fine: film is a subjective medium. However, Taikia Waititi's Nazi satire has been a favourite of this blog since it came out last year, so it was always guaranteed a spot in the list's upper echelons. Waititi's films have their unmistakable trademarks- young boys trying to understand the world, surreal humour, disappointing heroes- but even from its opening moments, something about Jojo felt different. Right off the bat, Waititi places us in Jojo's interesting world, where Hitler is a legendary hero and Nazi propaganda is hard fact. But bit by bit, the illusion is dissolving, and love is steadily triumphing over hate. Along the way is a deeply emotional story about a mother trying to protect her son from the forces trying to claim him, something that climaxes mid-film in the most heartbreaking way imaginable
It's also really, really funny. Waititi is using the Mel Brooks technique of using comedy to break down systems of hate, making them too silly to take seriously. He knows when to laugh, when to stop laughing, and when to double down on the gags, and he remixes these beats often. He's never just being solely funny or entirely serious, and his ability to switch on the fly mid-scene is more proof that he's one of the finest comedic minds right now. His performance as Hitler- a cartoonish portrayal that progressively becomes more and more horrifyingly real- is also incredible, the crux of the film's satirical bent. The whole cast are on-point, with special mention to Sam Rockwell, Thomasin McKenzie and Scarlett Johansson, but the film begins and ends with Roman Griffin Davis in what is unbelievably his screen debut. Ultimately, it's the work of a singular comic talent, and whichever of his seven upcoming projects comes to fruition first, you can guarantee they're all going to be something special
The High Point: Jojo and Elsa dance at the end of an era
13. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004- Michel Gondry)
"Why do I fall in love with every woman who shows me the least bit of attention?"
All of Charlie Kaufman's scripts feel like the products of a restless, eternally imploding mind. He may not be the most prolific of screenwriters but he's undeniably one of the most fascinating. Having already penned four scripts before 2004, Kaufman stepped into the spotlight once more in all of his psychologically tortured, structurally intricate glory to dish up his masterpiece. Eternal Sunshine is the story of a breakup, but played in reverse. As Jim Carrey's Joel relives his relationship from bitter split to tender beginnings, the film steadily builds a gorgeous portrait of the human psyche and the rhythms of love. It's inventively, intelligently realised by director Michel Gondry, but what's so striking about this movie in comparison to the rest of Kaufman's catalogue is how shot with feeling it is. He travels through the mind to explore the heart, and captures every little nugget of poignant wisdom along the way
It's surreal and funny and utterly gorgeous- the greatest breakup movie of the 21st century. But the apex of the film, the absolute greatest component of its unique spell is a never-better Kate Winslet. Her Clementine could have so easily succumbed to the trappings of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and yet she doesn't. We understand her more as the film goes on and so does Joel- it's only when he begins to understand what went wrong that he realises who she is and how he can make it work on a second pass. It's a genius piece of screenwriting: showing us their relationship at its most toxic and broken before turning back the clock to remind us that it's a love too promising to stop fighting for. The film feels like Kaufman is playing an old record backwards in hopes that he'll find some secret new meaning. It's a beautifully psychological piece of work that is, ironically for a film about memory erasure, totally unforgettable
The High Point: The ending, where two lovers agree to try again
12. Arrival (Denis Villneuve)
"If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?"
At its best, cinema is a universal language; sound and vision can bridge cultural boundaries and remind us why we need movies. Arrival begins as a dissection of communication but gradually, subtly evolves into something deeper. Tied to its examination of language is an incredibly simple but painfully human question that forces us as an audience to look at the way we see the world, completely challenging our priorities and our relationship with time. It's fiercely cerebral but it's never cold, using its cutting insights to expose something so beautifully, essentially human. It opens in a similar way to Up, sowing a seed that it nurtures through its careful, intricately realised insights. It's such a simple, powerful film, a work of raw empathy
Crucially though, it never stops being about communication. As the film begins to dive headlong into its insights and become more and more cerebral, it shifts its focus but stays rooted in the same subject. It stops being a film about a woman learning to talk to aliens and steadily sees her learn to communicate with herself. That central dialogue between Banks and Abbott and Costello suddenly stops being an exchange of phrases and starts to become one of information. In that way, it mirrors the cinematic experience; we're divided by a screen and led to believe the communication is one way, but through the tools of empathy, perspective and understanding, we realise that it's not, that we get out of it exactly what we give it to begin with. It's a huge, breathtaking piece of work that demands to be viewed on the biggest screen possible, an astonishing vision of cinema in every possible way
The High Point: Banks figures it out
11. The Lobster (2015-Yorgos Lanthimos)
"It's no coincidence that the targets are shaped like single people and not couples"
Yorogs Lanthimos' English language debut is a funny one. It's a far-cry from both his previous Greek oddities and the awards big-hitters he'd go on to make- much warmer than the former and more jagged than the latter. And yet it's in this transition period that he released his purest vision of his take on cinema, a bizarre love story that takes place in an emotionally bankrupt near-future where singletons are turned into animals if they fail to find a partner. It makes use of all of the conventions he had come to master, from the deadpan humour to the austere tone and the tragic irony. It's abrasive and specific and cold, yet simultaneously overflows with seemingly out-of-place compassion. There's an argument to be made that Lanthimos is a filmmaker who doesn't know how to feel, but, watching The Lobster, that couldn't be further from the truth. Rather, it's the story of someone who feels so deeply that he doesn't know where to put it, something that Lanthimos frames with deepest empathy
Its comedy is blacker than black and its insights are cutting, but it does what all avant-garde art seeks to do at its best: challenge our rational perspective on the recognisable with something completely out of left-field. It's a take on love and relationships that's never quite made its way to the screen before, and Lanthimos runs with that, examining what it means to be animal to reveal what it is to be human. It's a beautiful oddity made by a creative mind in flux. His next film would be the similarly striking The Killing of a Sacred Deer, yet for all of that film's masterful machinations, it was undeniable that it just didn't have the same beating heart that The Lobster did. 2018's The Favourite was another Lanthimos masterpiece, but it couldn't recapture the film's uber-specific raw energy. The Lobster is a true cinematic magic trick, impossible to repeat or replicate
The High Point: The Ending. He's not... is he?
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