40. “Nightcrawler” (2014)
It’s often hard to decide if it’s the recent vintage of this film that makes us think this is one for the ages, or if it’s really got legs. But there’s something about “Nightcrawler”’s grimy, gritty texture, its ’70s cinema influence, and its tremendous Jake Gyllenhaal turn, that makes us think the Dan Gilroy movie will be ripe for rediscovery for quite some time. A deliciously rotten, blackhearted morality play that takes aim at television news consumption in much the same way that Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy” put TV celebrity culture in its crosshairs, it also gives us, in Gyllenhaal’s Lou Bloom, this decade’s Rupert Pupkin. And it brings Gilroy, previously known as the writer of the very poor Pacino/McConaughey vehicle “Two for the Money,”among others, onto the directing scene fully-formed from the off.
39. “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012)
After some slight missteps in the mid-00s with “The Life Aquatic” and “The Darjeeling Limited,” Wes Anderson’s been on rare form the last few years, closing out the decade with stop-motion delight “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and more recently having the biggest hit of his career with the Oscar-lauded “Grand Budapest Hotel.” But in between came the film that numbers among our absolute favorites of the director’s output: “Moonrise Kingdom.” The all-star tale of two precocious pubescent runaways on an East Coast islands feels both looser and sharper than some of his more wedding-cake-esque movies, the whimsy toned down for a (marginally) grittier look at first love, and the loss and heartbreak that the island’s elders suffer (among the many great turns here is perhaps Bruce Willis’ best ever). ‘Grand Budapest’ might have been the delicious dessert, but “Moonrise Kingdom” was the main course.
38. “Only Lovers Left Alive” (2014)
Jim Jarmusch’s penchant for dabbling in genre is always exciting and layered — take “Ghost Dog”’s gangster, hip-hop and comedy movie tropes, or “The Limits of Control,” probably the world’s only deadpan, surrealist assassin meditation. And so while it’s superficially a movie about hipster vampires, his “Only Lovers Alive” explores almost everything on his mind at the time, including long-term relationships, cultural decay, snobbery, art and legacy. The riches of this exquisite film are myriad; somehow it’s wry and self-reflexive about what constitutes “cool” while being achingly romantic about the meaning of love, and melancholy in its observations of the erosion of art and civilization all at the same time. To boot, it’s sumptuously moody with a score that sounds like a dirge for the various empires these immortals have seen come and go. The vampiric Jarmusch has hardly decayed over the years — this is one of his best.
37. “Margaret” (2011)
If all had gone to plan originally, “Margaret” would have featured in our Best of the 00s list: the film was shot in 2005 and was intended for release in 2007, but a nightmarish and bad-tempered post-production process involving multiple lawsuits saw it sit in a drawer for years until it snuck out on screens (barely) in 2011. Kenneth Lonergan’s sprawling, novelistic story about a self-absorbed teenager (a brilliant Anna Paquin) who witnesses a bus accident can be maddening and frustrating in places, but for every questionable moment, there are five completely brilliant ones: it’s stuffed with phenomenal performances — Jeannie Berlin and Mark Ruffalo among the highlights — and writing from Lonergan that’s as rich, complex and heady as anything we’ve seen in the last few years. Let’s just hope that his upcoming “Manchester By The Sea” has an easier path to theaters…
36. “This Is Not A Film” (2012)
Under Iranian law, director and recent Berlin Film Festival winner Jafar Panahi was sentenced to a 20-year ban on filmmaking for perceived crimes against that particular theocracy. Placed under house arrest while awaiting the results of his appeal, Panahi is compelled to continue filming despite the danger, and so while the movie is not exactly cinematic (Panahi is stuck in his apartment talking to his lawyer, contemplating his fate, and making up scenarios to stave off boredom), what is illuminating is the film’s insight into the act of imprisonment, staving off psychological atrophy while doom looms overhead. Panahi vacillates between boredom, existential inquiry and all-out desperation, but this spare and simple documentation — a clandestine project that was smuggled out of the country in a birthday cake — is extremely moving nonetheless. It’s a limited, confined piece; the furthest the filmmaker strays is to the basement to drop off garbage, but it’s also a vital, defiant act of civil disobedience.