Inception (2010)
[8] Dreams are a notoriously difficult thing on which to base a movie. In dreams there are no rules, no parameters -- and in movies about dreams, writers and filmmakers are often all too eager to take advantage of our…
District 9 (2009)
[9]
Neill Blomkamp’s stellar directorial debut is an unpredictable blend of intelligence, emotion, and cinematic whoop-ass that defies convention and leaves you breathless. It begins like a documentary, outlining how a race of stranded aliens (the space kind) came to be ghettoized in South Africa. We follow a character named Wikus, a bumbling government agent who is tasked with herding the aliens to a new camp (the concentration kind) further away from Johannesburg. The aliens aren’t pretty, but you’ll be surprised how emotionally invested you’ll get in a couple of them — a father named Christopher, and his tiny young son, who are desperately trying to find a way back to their home world. When Wikus subjects himself to a dangerous alien chemical, he begins a Kafka-esque transformation into one of the aliens, or “prawns” as they are called derogatorily.
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
[9]
Hellraiser fans rejoice. This is the best Clive Barker movie in twenty years. Director Ryuhei Kitamura hits the nail on the head (or the meathook through the ankles) in his handling of the story, which centers around an urban photographer (The Hangover‘s Bradley Cooper) in search of brutal subject matter. He finds what he’s looking for after stalking a stern-looking butcher onto a subway car late one night. As Cooper’s character and his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) begin to connect the mysterious butcher to a series of missing persons reports, they fall head-first into some supernatural shit that will change their lives forever.
WALL-E (2008)
[9]
My favorite Pixar film features two robots who say little more than each others’ names, but somehow, as if by magic, WALL-E manages to convey more emotion than films that try twice as hard to do so. There’s a charming purity in the characters of WALL-E and EVE, who to differing degrees struggle against their ‘directives’ to form a bond. The fact that these two odd ‘bots end up protecting the last sliver of life on Earth — a tiny plant — could have been cloying, but Pixar knows how to handle the material. When WALL-E finds the fragile vine, he simply collects it in an old shoe and places it on a shelf with other artifacts of a bygone era. 
There Will Be Blood (2007)
[10] Director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) serves up a masterful study of two ambitious men -- a turn-of-the-century oil prospector driven by capitalism and a young preacher eager to grow his flock. The two men come to conflict…
Sunshine (2007)
[8]
Before winning the Oscar for directing Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle gave us Sunshine, a riveting, futuristic sci-fi thriller about a crew of scientists’ desperate plight to rejuvenate the sun. Anything can and does go wrong during the mission, forcing the crew into some of the toughest life-and-death decision making they’ve ever faced. With humankind’s existence hanging in the balance, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Boyle ratchets up the tension brilliantly.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
[10] I love road movies and ensemble pieces, but Little Miss Sunshine goes one step further by saying something we all need to hear from time to time: it's okay to fall short of ambition. The film throws six disparate…
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
[9] Guillermo del Toro's fantasy masterpiece is a volatile blend of whimsy and horror that dares to explore the depths of human evil through the eyes of an innocent child. The film is brutal, heartbreaking, and gorgeous. Del Toro's unique…
The Departed (2006)
[9] Martin Scorsese helms this dramatic thriller about an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a gang mole in the Boston police (Matt Damon) who race to uncover each other's identities while a powerful mobster (Jack Nicholson) manipulates them both to…
War of the Worlds (2005)
[9] Steven Spielberg remakes H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic, and as far as I'm concerned, it's easily his best movie in many, many years. Through the eyes of a single father (Tom Cruise) and his two children (Dakota Fanning and Justin…