There will be lists
Bloody goodNow that the decade is officially over -- give or take a year -- we are declaring an end to our Best of the Decade coverage with a quick look at the films selected by critics as representing the best of the past ten years.
While the critics' selections were understandably all over the map (after all, they had literally thousands of titles to choose from), a handful of films appeared with some frequency on these lists. Paul Thomas Anderson's period drama There Will Be Blood topped our chart by appearing on 46% of the critic lists we tallied. Only three other films appeared on more than a quarter of the lists: the Michel Gondry-Charlie Kaufman collaboration Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, David Lynch's cryptic and surreal Mulholland Drive, and the Coen Brothers' dark thriller No Country For Old Men.
Below, we list the movies that appeared most frequently on the critics' decade-end lists. Our summary list is not weighted or scored in any way; films are simply ranked by the frequency with which they appear in critic Best of the Decade lists, in any position on those lists. (The number of times they appear in the #1 position is indicated as a convenience.) A full list of publications used -- with links to many of the individual lists -- appears beneath the table. You may notice that we have expanded our usual group of publications slightly to include additional sources.
| Movie | Year | # 1's | Top Ten Lists | Metascore | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | There Will Be Blood | 2007 | 5 | 17 | 92 |
| 2 | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | 2004 | 3 | 11 | 89 |
| 2 | Mulholland Drive | 2001 | 4 | 11 | 81 |
| 4 | No Country For Old Men | 2007 | 0 | 10 | 91 |
| 5 | Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King * | 2003 | 2 | 9 | 94 |
| 5 | Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers * | 2002 | 2 | 9 | 88 |
| 7 | Spirited Away | 2002 | 0 | 8 | 94 |
| 8 | 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days | 2008 | 0 | 7 | 97 |
| 8 | Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring * | 2001 | 2 | 7 | 92 |
| 8 | The Dark Knight | 2008 | 1 | 7 | 82 |
| 11 | Amélie | 2001 | 0 | 6 | 69 |
| 11 | Children of Men | 2006 | 0 | 6 | 84 |
| 11 | Memento | 2001 | 0 | 6 | 80 |
| 11 | Pan's Labyrinth | 2006 | 1 | 6 | 98 |
| 11 | United 93 | 2006 | 0 | 6 | 90 |
| 11 | WALL-E | 2008 | 1 | 6 | 94 |
| 17 | Almost Famous | 2000 | 0 | 5 | 90 |
| 17 | Brokeback Mountain | 2005 | 0 | 5 | 87 |
| 17 | Far From Heaven | 2002 | 1 | 5 | 84 |
| 17 | Lost in Translation | 2003 | 0 | 5 | 89 |
| 17 | Sideways | 2004 | 0 | 5 | 94 |
| 17 | The Diving Bell and the Butterfly | 2007 | 1 | 5 | 92 |
| 17 | The Lives of Others | 2006 | 0 | 5 | 89 |
| 17 | The New World | 2005 | 0 | 5 | 69 |
| 17 | Yi Yi (A One and a Two) | 2000 | 0 | 5 | 92 |
| 26 | 25th Hour | 2002 | 0 | 4 | 67 |
| 26 | Cache (Hidden) | 2005 | 1 | 4 | 83 |
| 26 | In the Mood for Love | 2001 | 1 | 4 | 85 |
| 26 | Ratatouille | 2007 | 0 | 4 | 96 |
| 26 | The Departed | 2006 | 0 | 4 | 86 |
| 26 | The Hurt Locker | 2009 | 0 | 4 | 94 |
| 26 | The Incredibles | 2004 | 0 | 4 | 90 |
| 26 | Y Tu Mamá También | 2002 | 0 | 4 | 88 |
| 26 | Zodiac | 2007 | 0 | 4 | 78 |
| Other films receiving at least one #1 ranking: | |||||
| A.I. Artificial Intelligence | 2001 | 1 | 3 | 65 | |
| The Royal Tenenbaums | 2001 | 1 | 3 | 75 | |
| City of God | 2003 | 1 | 2 | 79 | |
| Kings and Queen | 2005 | 1 | 2 | 84 | |
| The Pianist | 2002 | 1 | 2 | 85 | |
| You Can Count on Me | 2000 | 1 | 2 | 85 | |
| Finding Nemo | 2003 | 1 | 1 | 89 | |
| Synecdoche, New York | 2008 | 1 | 1 | 67 | |
The 37 individual Best of the Decade lists used to compile the above data were from (with their #1 picks indicated):
- Boston Globe (Ty Burr) - The Pianist
- Boston Globe (Wesley Morris) - Mulholland Drive
- Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert) - Synecdoche, New York
- Chicago Tribune (Michael Phillips) - There Will Be Blood
- Christian Science Monitor (Peter Rainer) [unranked list]
- Dallas Morning News (Chris Vognar) - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Entertainment Weekly (Owen Gleiberman) - Far From Heaven
- Entertainment Weekly (Lisa Schwarzbaum) - There Will Be Blood
- The Guardian [UK] - There Will Be Blood
- HitFix (Gregory Ellwood) - The Dark Knight
- HitFix (Daniel Fienberg) - Pan's Labyrinth
- Hollywood.com - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Hollywood Reporter (Kirk Honeycutt) - Letters from Iwo Jima
- Miami Herald (Rene Rodriguez) - Mulholland Drive
- New York Post (Lou Lumenick) - The Royal Tenenbaums
- New York Post (Kyle Smith) - A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- The New Yorker (Richard Brody) - In Praise of Love
- The New Yorker (David Denby) - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- The Onion A.V. Club - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- The Oregonian (Shawn Levy) - The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
- Paste Magazine - City of God
- Philadelphia Inquirer (Steven Rea) [unranked list]
- ReelViews (James Berardinelli) - The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
- Rolling Stone (Peter Travers) - There Will Be Blood
- Salon (Andrew O'Hehir) - Kings and Queen
- Salon (Stephanie Zacharek) - Mulholland Drive
- San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle) - The New World
- San Francisco Chronicle (Peter Hartlaub) - You Can Count on Me
- Slate (Dana Stevens) [unranked list]
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Joe Williams) [unranked list]
- Time Magazine (Richard Corliss) - WALL-E
- Time Out London - In the Mood for Love
- Time Out New York - Mulholland Drive
- The Times of London - Hidden (Cache)
- Vanity Fair (John Lopez) - There Will Be Blood
- Village Voice Media (J. Hoberman, Scott Foundas, Robert Wilonsky) [unranked lists]
- Washington Post (Ann Hornaday) - Finding Nemo
What are your favorites?
What are your picks for the best or worst movies of the past ten years? Let us know in the comments section below, or join the discussion in our forums.
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