Top 21 Films Of The 21st Century

[Ludo*1]

As 'wonderful' as the lead performance may be, the film is like the American Ring films compared to the originals - Mere b*****dised versions.

[invergowrie arab]

It's still worth doing. There will be plenty of others that don't feature on here so it could be pretty interesting.

Cool, I'll do it after this is finished.

[Ira Gaines]

As 'wonderful' as the lead performance may be, the film is like the American Ring films compared to the originals - Mere b*****dised versions.

The first US Ring was reasonable.

[honestly united]

The remake was good if you hadn't seen the original, but as with the majority of US remakes of Asian films it just isn't as good.

I was actually suprised that the remake stuck to the story as much as it did given the content and themes but it just didn't quite pull it off in the same way.

Top 20 foriegn language films would be an excellent idea in my opinion!

[AberdeenBud]

Cool, I'll do it after this is finished.

Aye, go for it. Sounds good an we seem to be on a rolling poll now.

[Albino Rover]

8. Pan’s Labyrinth

“I've had so many names. Old names that only the wind and the trees can pronounce. I am the mountain, the forest and the earth. I am a faun. Your most humble servant, Your Highness.”

.

El Laberinto del Fauno began as a notion in Guillermo del Toro’s mind over a decade before he made the film: in 1993 he began writing some ideas in his notebook, which he always carries. Toro has long taken an interest in the horror that’s implied in the subtext of our classic fairytales- and that's what this film is about. It isn’t a children's story, it’s a dark fairytale which looks horror straight in the eye, bound with the reality of war.

The story takes place in Spain in 1944, where two wars are being fought: officially the Civil War has been won by Franco’s nationalists, but groups of republicans still fight in the countryside, encouraged and strengthened in determination by those fighting in the World War. Franco sends soldiers to track down the guerillas. The troop we follow sets up base in an old mill, commanded by a sickening antagonist, Captain Vidal.

The Captain orders his sick, pregnant wife, Carmen, to join him, along with her daughter (from her previous marriage), Ofelia, who despises her stepfather- and with good reason. In a scene where he captures an enemy soldier, and discovers that the man has a stammer, Vidal tells the man that he’ll let him go if he can count to three without stuttering. He shows no emotion as the man struggles to say the words properly, with his life depending on it. In another scene, in the middle of one night, he is called outside to inspect a father and son who insist that they are merely farmers hunting rabbits. After killing them both, Vidal pulls some dead rabbits from their bag. "Next time,” he grumbles to his guards, “search these assholes before wasting my time." He takes the rabbits inside and orders his housekeeper, Mercedes, to cook them for dinner.

Even in the comfort of his personal life he's intimidating and perversely controlling over everyone and everything. He treats everybody like his soldiers and his servants, even Carmen and Ofelia, both of whom he drags into a war zone to satisfy his own want. Indeed, it transpires that he only desires Carmen as means of bearing his son.

Before they join the Captain, on their journey from the safety of the city, the mother and daughter make a stop not far from the mill and Ofelia meets an unusual winged insect which flies out of an old piece of carved stone. Ofelia marvels at the friendly insect, and sees it as a fairy. It comes back to her at night, in the form of a little humanoid fairy, then leads her into the centre of an old, abandoned labyrinth. This is where she has her first meeting with the fearsome-looking Faun. He may look scary, but Ofelia isn't fazed by him, and the Faun is thankful to see her. He informs her that she is in fact the long-lost princess of the Underworld, capable of reviving and immortalising the ancient underground kingdom if she can pass a series of tasks and moral choices, before the next full moon.

Ofelia's challenges are tests of nerve and sacrifice, and as such she struggles to balance her quest with her sheltered life above the ground. The first of her tasks is to retrieve a key from a giant frog living under an old tree- and in order to complete it she disobeys her mother's orders, dirtying her new dress and shoes which were meant to impress the Captain at dinner. She gets into trouble, but that's exactly why Ofelia relishes her underground life: because it presents her with the kind of challenges that the protective adults in her life wouldn't trust her with. She likes her new world because she's treated like an adult.

In return for the key, the Faun soothes Ofelia's worries about her mother and half-sibling by prescribing a mandrake root to place under her mother's bed, with instructions to feed it with fresh milk and two drops of blood every day. The mandrake root, with very creepy special effects, is alive; it looks and moves like an in-utero baby carved out of wood. While Ofelia secretly aids her mother, she talks to the baby, sharing with it the wealth of stories in her imagination- which may or may not be overlapping into real life. We discover that indeed only she can see the Faun and the fairies, but for all we know they're as real as the people in the human war. The coexistence of the two worlds is actually one of the scariest elements of the film- both are perilous conditions for our 11-year-old heroine. She's enlightened by both, but also endangered.

It comes as no surprise when we find out that Mercedes and Vidal's doctor are secretly helping the anti-Franco rebels. Ofelia has worked it out too, but she keeps it a secret, because she won't be responsible for hurting anyone- a virtue that it proves necessary for her to possess. Another of Ofelia's virtues is her great bravery: she faces off with creatures foul and nightmarish, not least the Pale Man, who sees with eyes in the palms of his hands, but not more than the Captain. Ofelia's life is threatened by both of those vile villains.

The film moves freely between the war story and the fantasy adventure, which do coexist but are clearly worlds apart. Guillermo del Toro directs Pan's Labyrinth with the impact and intensity of war and the originality and imagination of fantasy, which is so powerful not only because it brings the two together, but because it is so loyal to both that it actually transcends genre and finds its own unique sensation, which is strongest in the final ordeal in the heart of the labyrinth, where along with Ofelia we look at the transition between both worlds in a way that’s deeply profound, and are opened to the idea that perhaps, beyond this life, there is something more beautiful.

[Ira Gaines]

My #3 movie. Wonderful stuff. Manages to go from touching to near frightening with ease at times. And in the general, it has a properly brilliant villain of the piece. It's a testament to the movie that a villain like that could have been a bit OTT, but never comes across that way.

[AberdeenBud]

Three on the bounce for me.

One of those films that when you first see it you're open mouthed for most of it.

Del Toro's best work that I've seen, a simply stunning film.

[killienick]

Pan's Labyrinth is an astonishing film. Beautiful, scary, fantastic, and brutal whilst feeling like a fairy-tale.

Anyone who says they don't like subtitled films just give this a shot - you will not regret it.

[Honest_Man#1]

Is Pan's Labyrinth on Netflix in any country? Quite keen to watch it.

[invergowrie arab]

I saw this at the cinema and went back to see it the next night and again a week later. Now I allow myself to watch it once a year for fear of spoiling it through familiarity.

It's a perfect film.

The performances, the story, the cgi, the superbly imagined characters everything is brilliant. it's never saccharine but immensely moving. A gothic fantasy made real by the familiar setting . Is it really happening or a product of Ofelia's desire to escape?

I love it my #1 of all time.

[19QOS19]

Is Pan's Labyrinth on Netflix in any country? Quite keen to watch it.

I've no idea tbh. But if you're willing to wait you can get the dvd from Zoverstocks (via Amazon) for £1.27. Used, but I've bought literally hundreds of dvds from Zoverstocks and never had an issue.

I'd completely forgotten Pans Labyrinth was subtitled. I suppose that says it all about how engrossing and good a film it is. I never actually had it in my top 10. Mainly because I've only watched it once whereas I've gone back again and again with the 10 I picked. Certainly deserves it's place on the list though.

Reading the review has gave me a craving to watch it again. Currently on nightshift and I've just put it in the dvd player. Nice one Albino Rover

[AberdeenBud]

Goes without saying now but Albino's reviews are superb as always. Keep up the good work mate!

Haven't watched PL for a while now so I'm gonna stick it on in the next few days as well.

Not that it detracts from the film in the slightest but I took it as Ofelia creating this dream world as a form of escapism.

[Honest_Man#1]

I've no idea tbh. But if you're willing to wait you can get the dvd from Zoverstocks (via Amazon) for £1.27. Used, but I've bought literally hundreds of dvds from Zoverstocks and never had an issue.

I'd completely forgotten Pans Labyrinth was subtitled. I suppose that says it all about how engrossing and good a film it is. I never actually had it in my top 10. Mainly because I've only watched it once whereas I've gone back again and again with the 10 I picked. Certainly deserves it's place on the list though.

Reading the review has gave me a craving to watch it again. Currently on nightshift and I've just put it in the dvd player. Nice one Albino Rover

Found it on Canadian Netflix, really enjoyed it.

[Albino Rover]

7. City Of God

"A picture could change my life, but in the City of God, if you run away they get you. And if you stay, they get you too."

This Brazilian street film takes place in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the kind of squalor usually only seen in documentaries and charity appeals. It's a stylish crime story, but it's not all sex, drugs and samba: these are people whose lives are about surviving each day at a time- and in that desperate state, anything can happen.

Like Pan’s Labyrinth this is a story of an underworld outside of civilisation as we know it, a society that doesn't play by the rules on the rest of planet Earth. Christ the Redeemer watches over the Cariocas, but these are the people that he seems to have forgotten. Still, amongst them is one miracle: a boy who managed to avoid a career in crime, and used his street smarts and contacts to perform an inside job in journalism.

This is a gritty street movie, but Fernando Meirelles directs it with a style that gives the slums of Rio all the grace of the Copacabana nightclub. Comparisons are often drawn with Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, and with good reason- the cinematography is on point, the music well-selected, the criminal lifestyle explained thoroughly and the brilliantly-nicknamed characters introduced frequently and casually. But there are key differences, not least that one begins with a narrator who always wanted to be a criminal. The people in this film didn’t have a choice.

Our narrator's name is Rocket. We first meet him as he finds himself caught between a street gang and a line of armed cops- but before that situation even begins to resolve, we're transported back to The Sixties, where he’s a child playing football. To find out how he ended up in the middle of the stand-off, first we have to go back to the beginnings of the Cidade de Deus, the ghetto built to concentrate the homeless and squalored. That starts with the first titled sequence of the film: The Story of the Tender Trio, three teenagers who began their lives of crime almost literally under Rocket's roof. His brother, Goose, was one of them.

The Tender Trio robbed and dealt drugs, but met a quick demise after a bordello robbery gone horribly, and mysteriously, wrong. We see the raid again later, from another point of view, and discover in a chilling moment why there were suddenly so many dead bodies where the gangsters had agreed not to shoot. When they go on the run, the boys repeat to each other: "In God we trust." They follow three separate paths, and don't meet again.

Occasionally pausing to tell other local legends, like The Story Of Li'l Zé and The Story Of The Apartment, the film follows Rocket all the way through puberty, into the 1970s, where fashions change, and there are two types of music: soul and groovy. It's also where choice drugs become more hardcore (cocaine is the popular commodity rather than marijuana) and the next generation of children are born even more wicked than the last. This is a fast-paced crime story but it's also about the passage of time, and when appropriate it slows down to look deeply into adolescence and growing up, in a way that we can all relate to: the frustrations, rebellions, career anxieties, problems with women, and the Brazilian worship of football that brings all people together. In its own right, City Of God is as insightful a film about male growing up as Boyhood, or Stand By Me.

The children we watch growing up alongside Rocket include Benny, eventually one of the most powerful people in the City, who is so cool and charismatic that he transcends the world of poverty he's living in. He's as friendly a gangster as you'll see in the movies. Others are less cool: least so the prior-mentioned Li'l Zé, a crazed, ugly sociopath from childhood, who becomes more insecure as he matures, and therefore more aggressive, as he isolates himself from others, kills for pleasure, and aspires only to be a slum lord.

Somewhere along the line Rocket gets hold of a camera and becomes the official photographer among his friends. He gets a job in a supermarket, but quickly discovers that, in the City of God, honesty doesn't pay. After getting fired, he and a friend get hold of a gun and decide to rob a bus, but before they can say a word to the conductor he recognises them from the City, offers to let one of them miss his fare and tells them to stay in school. Later they decide to hold up a shop, but are charmed by the counter girl, who flirts and fleetingly gives away her phone number. On the walk home, a man from Sao Paulo stops his car to ask for directions- and becomes the first sympathetic Paulistano Rocket has ever met. Throughout the drug deals and gang wars, he was surely born to live an honest life.

The turning point in Rocket’s story is the stroke of luck when he gets a job on a newspaper delivery truck. After he asks a photographer to help develop his film, he's shocked to see his shot of Li'l Zé on the front page of the next day's paper. He thinks he's a dead man, but as it turns out the young gangsters aren’t afraid of being seen, column inches become a new badge of honour. They lap up Rocket's publicity and grab their guns to pose for him some more.

And so Rocket's story arrives at a beautiful conclusion, but life goes on for the rest of them. The most important thing this film does is gives us a rare guided tour of the lives of the wretched, those failed by society, who too seldom have their stories told, the desolation and the corruption. The gangs have money and guns, they get the good-looking girls and wear clean T-shirts, but that's the extent of their wealth. The organised crime racket is mostly made up of boozing, drug-smoking, gun-wielding children and teenagers who, just like everyone else, are limited to the boundaries of the favela. You can rise to the top in the City of God, but there's no escape.

It might be entertaining and stylishly directed, but at its heart this is a social realist film. City Of God doesn’t contrive, exploit or condescend- it's painfully and shamelessly honest. A telling moment comes when Rocket photographs a police murder, which the cops planned to pass off as gang crime, and later, in the news room, considers the consequences if he prints it. There's an undeniable reality in those scenes. Even Lula, the Brazilian president, took it upon himself to review this film and declared it "a needful call for change."

After the film's release, crime statistics in Rio de Janeiro improved dramatically.

[BradHorse]

Cracking job on this thread Albino Rover. Great stuff.

[1320Lichtie]

Been meaning to watch city of god for ages now

Will get round to it on Saturday night whilst recovering from Friday I think.

[AberdeenBud]

My #3, stunning adrenaline rush of a film that deserves all its plaudits.

The fact it favours comparably with Goodfellas says it all.

[Albino Rover]

6. The Lord Of The Rings:

The Return Of The King

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold."

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy took over people’s lives at the start of this century, perhaps even more powerfully than the volumes had half a century earlier. The first film serves as a magnificent (re)introduction to Middle Earth and the second is an act of great excitement and spectacle, but with this film something more profound happens: the journey reaches its destination, and all the stories and personal arcs are completed, giving the entire ordeal deeper meaning, and bringing the trilogy to an almighty conclusion.

Very few film projects come close to the level of ambition Jackson showed with this one- and even fewer can challenge its mass popular appeal. Along with screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, Jackson transformed Tolkien’s high fantasy into a spectacle and an epic, equal parts wonder and danger. One of the biggest dangers in this grand finale comes in the shape of Shelob, the giant spider who traps Frodo in a labyrinth, and wraps him in an inescapable web. Thanks to Gollum, Sam almost isn’t there in time to save Frodo.

All manners of action are packed into this film, including the defeat of Saruman's forces, and fearsome escapades with the deranged Lord Denethor, the father of Boromir and Faramir, until, finally, all the strands are guided toward common ground, namely a great battle at Minas Tirith, a spectacular mountaintop city, part fortress, part palace, all CGI. In one moment Gandalf and his horse climb the mountain to the city, and while parts of the moving image are definitely computer-generated, they're seamlessly blended with the real live action. It’s quite remarkable.

The final battle is magnificent. Troops mass in their thousands for a bloody fight of colossal scope. The forces of good join in battle against Orcs, dragons, and giant Oliphaunts (the largest props in movie history, no less.) The city gates are crushed by a giant, flaming battering-ram, while trolls pull back the catapults to hurl boulders against the city's walls, which are demolished to rubble. The whole way through, the special effects are deployed to ground-breaking perfection.

After playing a smaller role in The Two Towers, the hobbits are appropriately the stars of this episode. Frodo and Sam boldly ascend Mount Doom, the volcano where, if the ring is thrown into the lava, the powers of evil can be destroyed. Gollum joins them, brought to life by Andy Serkis, who along with some of the smartest CGI artists of our time, achieves extraordinary things once again: the big action scenes are assembled to stunning effect, but Gollum is the most impressive artificial creation. Gollum loves the ring more than he loves his friends, and indeed it’s the ring's power to seduce and influence its holder that makes its destruction an impossible job. Along the way there were many tests of muscle and blood, but after a journey paved with one physical ordeal after another, the final test of strength is a moral one.

Of all the action, emotion, life and death in the Lord Of The Rings legend it's Frodo who emerges as the hero; strengthened and matured, but tragically damaged by his own heroism. The deepest satisfaction is the thought of Middle Earth in the safety of peacetime, a hope that we all share for Planet Earth.

Perhaps the greatest acts of heroism Jackson performed were to New Zealand. Most mainstream film directors end up in Hollywood one way or another, but Jackson chose to take his cast and crew to shoot the entire trilogy in his home country- capturing its beauty for the whole world to see, and reinventing the nation's tourism market in the process. He even fought to hold the world première of The Return of the King in the Embassy Theatre, in his home town of Wellington. Over 100,000 people took to the streets for the spectacle. That act was one of the biggest and most significant contributions to the great and historic New Zealand film industry.

Tolkien told us in his foreword of his book that: "This tale grew in the telling." Perhaps Peter Jackson’s did too. This is a long film, at the end of a long saga, but the length is necessary to accomodate the magnitude of the Ring legend. The Return Of The King finalises the story and takes the heroes to their destinies with the great stature and confidence that certifies the trilogy as a cinematic benchmark of the 21st century.

[accies1874]

One of my favourites of all time. Absolutely love it.