1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
I'm not sure if Eternal Sunshine ranks as my personal favorite movie of the past ten years—for sheer entertainment and rewatch value, that would probably be The Royal Tenenbaums—but I'm equally unsure if I can name a better representative for this decade than this Charlie Kaufman/Michel Gondry collabo about the persistence of memory and the inconsistency of love. It's beautifully written, and maybe the most moving of Kaufman's many scripts; it's the perfect vehicle for Gondry's freewheeling visuals; and it offers a particularly delightful balance of hilarity and sadness, a mixture present in so many of this decade's directors' work. Almost all of its acting represents a major peak, from the best of many great performances (Kate Winslet) to a breakthrough in subtlety (Jim Carrey) to a starlet imbuing her persona with surprising humor and depth (Kristen Dunst) to effective work from a typically one-trick pony (Elijah Wood). I also get the sense that this is the rare movie that everyone in a certain age group pretty much loves: like Braveheart or Lord of the Rings for smart people. Seriously, do you have any friends who don't love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? And if you do, don't you kind of want to smack them?

Released here in September of 2003, many of demonlover’s principle themes—the circulation of rumor, cyber escapism, office politics, torture and rendition—were already, or were soon going to be, our own.

If the mashup is going to be our next dominant art form, which seems increasingly likely, this Kees van Dijkhuizen character (is that Dutch?) will be one to watch. Here's Van Dijkhuizen rather epic wrap-up of the year in film, not necessarily based on good taste, but very enjoyable nonetheless. (TheDailyWhat)

At their best, screwball comedies are pure rhythm and reaction. They unfold (or twist up) in a pattern of equal interplay, a call-and response between the two main characters. As feminist interest in the genre might attest to, that means the absence of a subject (usually a man) and an object (usually a woman.) Instead both man and woman respond to one another as if in a well—matched verbal racket sport, until a rhythm to their rally is established. It’s this nonstop beat that drives the film, that is the film. This momentum carries the (always unlikely) couple through ridiculous situations, pratfalls and misunderstandings. Plot is secondary, and so, then, is logic.

Editor's note: This week, along with our major decade-in-review package (stay tuned), we'll be posting our senior writers lists, paragraphs and assorted commentaries on their decade at the movies.

In order from least best to bestest

In working out the Best Films of the Decade, I decided to consider not only how good a film is—like, how much I liked it because it was totally awesome—but also how important the movie was in the Grand Context of International Cinema. Which is why Christophe Honore’s Dans Paris (2005/2007, NYC) makes (the bottom of) the list: this (very!) loose adaptation of Franny and Zooey was, by far, the most vivacious film of the decade, at least in terms of a free-form filmmaking style; taking off from where his New Wave forbears left off, Honore’s film is full-up with an unbridled enthusiasm for makin’ movies, using direct address, musical numbers, and countless other zany techniques. It’s at once a throwback and resolutely contemporary, and the gold standard by which all such playful films—like (500) Days of Summer on the low end, The Brothers Bloom on the high—can be judged.

Editor's note: This week, along with our major decade-in-review package (stay tuned), we'll be posting our senior writers lists, paragraphs and assorted commentaries on their decade at the movies.

What the Oh-Oh's were about: the autumnal rise of Michael Haneke, the whimsical torque of the "new indie" McSweeny's-epoch auteur (Kaufman, Anderson, Anderson, Jonze, et al.), the dominance of East Asian meta-minimalism, and the stone-cold fact that cinema comes down to a handful of repeat-offender artists with passion and wisdom, not a billion dollars of digital wonkwork. Call me a monkeywrencher, but by this point if a virus ran amok worldwide and ate every CGI monster, robot, tidal wave and superhero on every hard drive, I wouldn't be bummed.

The Top 25:

BEN:
Happy holidays Henry! I’m pretty happy with my gift this year, a comfortably predictable, but no less moving or enjoyable redemption story about the fictional over-the-hill country-blues musician Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges in a sure-bet Best Actor Oscar performance. How about you? I’m especially glad that Fox Searchlight brought us this indie film it picked up on the festival circuit because I think I might use it more than once. It’s not just about the amazing lead performance; Maggie Gyllenhaal is also exquisite as the journalist and divorced single mom Jean, who pulls Blake out of multiple smoky, whiskey-doused dens of sin and slovenliness; Colin Farrell is surprisingly subdued and genuine as Tommy Sweet, the young superstar whom Blake mentored; and even Robert Duvall fits in nicely as Wayne, the archetypal Duvall-ian fishing and drinking buddy.