If you had the ability and perseverance to do sift through the movies the decade we have just lived through, you may find, like I, that the 00s offered a lot of strong films, particularly by American filmmakers.  Asked by OKTBKB to compile a list of the best of the decade, I can only offer up my personal favorites.  I like to think that many of these films will be long remembered, although some, in fact, have already been positively ignored.  Still, these are the films that spoke the strongest to me over the last 10 years.  There are many more films I’m sure I have yet to discover, but this is the list I am passionate about today.

1.    The Weather Man (Gore Verbinski; 2005) – Critically dismissed and a box office bomb, this study of meaninglessness shocked me with its honest and profoundly sad depiction of how we live our lives today. Brilliantly conceived by screenwriter Steve Conrad, the titular character played by Nicolas Cage is one of the cinema’s most vapid protagonists, a disrespected mini-celeb whose useless existence becomes more and more evident as he balances family problems with a million dollar network job possibility.
2.    Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch; 2001) – Lynch’s techniques, once so secular, are now all over the edges of blockbusters and straight-to-video horror.  But no one does it like the master, probably our greatest living filmmaker.  A meta-mystery, Mullholand Dr. is a bizarre, dreamlike subconscious meditation and a definitive Hollywood satire.
3.    Capturing The Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki; 2003) – In a decade during which the face and status of the documentary changed, none so clearly re-defined my view of documentary filmmaking as Andrew Jarecki’s debut film.  The portrait of an accused pedophile and his family’s spiral amidst the crisis displays formal brilliance and benefits from incredible, powerful archival footage.
4.    Sideways (Alexander Payne; 2004) – Depicting the middle-aged male psyche with painful humor and emotional tenderness, Sideways is a complex character study, superbly performed. Alexander Payne’s film manages to be an entertaining blast and a time capsule of human behavior.
5.    Human Nature (Michel Gondry; 2002) – Months before screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was celebrated for his personal, audacious Adaptation script, this hilarious take on a Brave New World-like scenario was also ignored. One of Kaufman’s strengths is that he shoots for the moon with existential searches and raw exposure of human foibles and failures. Riotously funny and absurd, it is a rare, unique film in many ways, including turning off audiences with excessive leading lady body hair.

Below are some additional 00s favorites, organized by fabricated sub-genres.  I hope you add to your must-see list if you’ve missed them until now:

The Past Reflecting The Present
Far From Heaven
Revolutionary Road

What’s Happening Now?
About Schmidt
Happy-Go-Lucky
House Of Sand And Fog
In The Valley Of Elah
Little Children
Whale Rider

No Escape From Self
Adaptation
Dahmer
A Serious Man

Pure Cinema
The Assassination of Robert Ford By The Coward Jesse James
In The Mood For Love
No Country For Old Men
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

Crowd Pleasers With Depth
Catch Me If You Can
Little Miss Sunshine
Unbreakable

Mindfucks
Apocalypto
Observe And Report
Oldboy
Planet Terror