Movies: Top 10 of the 2000s

What an amazing decade in film! Ten years ago, I was barely entering my teenage-dom, although a rabid love of The Matrix (33 viewings the summer of 2000) was whetting my appetite for the medium. As I look back, it leaves me speechless how quickly all those years evaporated. Anticipation is truly a sharp double-edged sword! You spend a year or so looking forward to a film, and in seemingly the next instant...you're purchasing it at some electronics store. My mind remembers those magical trailers for the movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved series sweeping the nation. My mind is lucky to have witnessed the brilliance and continued rise of PIXAR, ushering in a new era of classic Disney movies. My mind has been stretched, warped, numbed, and more--all for $10 and 90-120 minutes, give or take.

With all the movies I saw in the 2000s, narrowing a "Best Of" list down to 10 selections is incredibly difficult. And from there, one is tempted to address the whole 'Best vs. Favorite' debate; I'll leave that one alone for now. Instead, I'll simply say that these 10 movies I've chosen for my Top 10 of the 2000s represent my favorite mixtures of elite film-making, exceptional story-telling, and personal connection. Some of these might not make your proverbial Top 10, but these are the ones I just keep coming back to, keep loving, keep dissecting. That's gotta be a compliment, right? Looking forward to what the 2010s bring!

1. Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003)
2. Gladiator (2000)
3. Memento (2001)
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
5. PIXAR (Up, Incredibles, WALL-E, Finding Nemo)
6. No Country For Old Men (2007)
7. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
9. Master & Commander (2003)
10. The Prestige

Just missed the cut:

Almost Famous (2000)
25th Hour (2002)
Casino Royale (2006)
High Fidelity (2000)
Avatar (2009)

10 best performances: (in no particular order)

-Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill Cutting, Gangs of New York / Daniel Plainview, There Will Be Blood
-Heath Ledger as The Joker, The Dark Knight
-Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, Memento
-Andy Serkis as Gollum, The Lord of the Rings
-Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men
-Kate Winslet as Clementine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, A History of Violence
-Casey Affleck as Robert Ford, The Assassination of Jesse James
-Ryan Gosling as Dan Dunne, Half Nelson
-Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland, Cast Away