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…
The Aviator (2004)
[9] Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio in this biopic of Howard Hughes, the billionaire aviator, filmmaker, and playboy whose considerable ambition was tragically counterbalanced by his mental illness. The Aviator opens with Hughes' mammoth, three-year-long production of the aerial battle…
The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003)
[10] Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, The Frighteners) embraces the Herculean task of bringing Tolkien's supreme fantasy to the silver screen, and hits a home run. The Fellowship of the Ring gets the trilogy off to a strong start, as Frodo…
The Hours (2002)
[9] The Hours is a fascinating exploration of three women living in different times and different places, each of them struggling to find their personal bliss against the pressures and expectations of marriage and motherhood. The film is a meditation…
Monster’s Ball (2001)
[9]
A racist, alcoholic prison guard finds himself falling in love with an African-American woman who just happens to be the widow of a man he helped to execute in this film from Marc Forster (Stranger than Fiction, Finding Neverland). Halle Berry is stunning in her Oscar-winning performance, but so is the rest of the cast, including Billy Bob Thornton as the prison guard, Heath Ledger as his disenfranchised son, Sean Combs as Berry’s husband on death row, and Peter Boyle as Thornton’s monstrous father.
Donnie Darko (2001)
[9] Donnie Darko stands alone: an edgy, sophisticated science-fiction movie that mixes time travel and nightmarish visions with family drama and '80s nostalgia. The tangled narrative revolves around the emotionally disturbed Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), a teenager who strikes up a…
Wonder Boys (2000)
[10] Michael Douglas gives a career highlight performance as Grady Tripp, a fifty-year-old college professor worried about following up his sensational debut novel in this warm, character-driven comedy from director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile) and author Michael Chabon.…