Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 2004.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

2004

1. Millions
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. The Incredibles
   
4. 2046 (review)
5. The Motorcycle Diaries
6. Birth
7. Before Sunset
8. Born Into Brothels
9. Tony Takitani*
   
10. Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow
11. Spider-man 2
12. The Taste of Tea* (review)
13. Mean Creek
14. The Bourne Supremacy
15. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
16. The World
17. Shaun of the Dead
18. Primer
19. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
20. Napoleon Dynamite
21. Vera Drake
22. Million Dollar Baby
23. Hotel Rwanda
24. Howl’s Moving Castle*
25. Dear Frankie

• Nobody Knows
• Kill Bill, Volume Two
• Downfall
• Saved!
• Land of Plenty
• Ocean’s Twelve
• Sideways
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• House of Flying Daggers
  
• Collateral
• The Passion of the Christ
• THX 1138: Director’s Cut
• I Heart Huckabees
• The Aviator
• The Manchurian Candidate
• Since Otar Left*
• Closer
• Finding Neverland
• Strings
• The Village
• America’s Heart and Soul (review) (interview)
• We Don’t Live Here Anymore
• Maria Full of Grace
• In Good Company
• Intimate Strangers
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
• Shrek 2
• Super-Size Me
• Yes
• Bride and Prejudice
• Hellboy
• Kung Fu Hustle
• As It Is In Heaven
• Garden State
• A Very Long Engagement (review)
• Undertow
• Melinda and Melinda
• Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
• Ray
• Winter Solstice
• Hawaii, Oslo*
• Mean Girls

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 2004

3-iron (Kim Ki-duk)
5×2
A Christmas Carol
A Film About Townes Van Zandt
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
All the Ships at Sea (Dan Sallitt)
Ana and the Others (Celina Murga)
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (Paul W.S. Anderson)
Bad Education
Be Here to Love Me:
Birthday Boy
Bombón: El Perro
Breaking News (Johnny To)
Brothers
Chiens égarés
Clean
Connie and Carla
Criminal
Darwin’s Nightmare
Dead Man’s Shoes (Shane Meadows)
Delivery
De-Lovely
Destination Mars!
DiG!
Duck Season
Electric Edwardians
Ett Hål i mitt hjärta
Evolution of a Filipino Family (Lav Diaz)
Firecracker
Frankie & Johnny Are Married
Gilles’ Wife
Goodnight, We Love You
Gunner Palace
Haryu insaeng
Head in the Clouds (John Duigan)
Head-On (Fatih Akın)
Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque
Holy Lola
I’m Not Scared
In My Father’s Den
Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2 (Mamoru Oshii)
Innocent Voices
Isn’t This a Time! A Tribute Concert for Harold Leventhal
It’s All Gone Pete Tong
Keane (Lodge Kerrigan)
King of the Corner
Kings and Queen (Arnaud Desplechin)
Lavorare con lentezza
Layer Cake
Le Grand voyage
Lightning in a Bottle
Little Terrorist
Look at Me (Agnes Jaoui)
Mind Game (Masaaki Yuasa)
Moolaadé (Ousmane Sembene)
Mountain Patrol: Kekexili
Mouse Heaven (Kenneth Anger)
My Summer of Love
Mysterious Skin
Never Die Alone
Notre musique (Jean-Luc Godard)
Omagh
Or (Mon Tresor) (Keren Yedaya)
Ovunque sei
Palindromes (Todd Solondz)
Promised Land
Red Lights (Cedric Kahn)
Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher
Riding Giants
Ryan
Saving Face
ScaredSacred
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire
Silver City
Sombra Dolorosa (Guy Maddin)
Stand van de maan
Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs)
Suspect Zero (E. Elias Merhige)
Taking Lives
Team America: World Police
Tell Them Who You Are
The Alamo
The Assassination of Richard Nixon
The Bridesmaid (Claude Chabrol)
The Brown Bunny (Vincent Gallo)
The Chorus
The Consequences of Love
The Garden of Earthly Delights (Lech Majewski)
The Gate of the Sun (Yousry Nasrallah)
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (Asia Argento)
The Hero
The Intruder (Claire Denis)
The Keys to the House
The Libertine
The Merchant of Venice
The Notebook
The Phantom of the Opera
The Sea Inside
The Staircase
The Syrian Bride
The Talent Given Us
The Woodsman
Three… Extremes
Throwdown (Johnny To)
Tout un hiver sans feu
Triple Agent (Eric Rohmer)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Turtles Can Fly
Udalionnyy dostup
Waiting (Sky Hirschkron)
Walk on Water
Watermarks
When Will I Be Loved
With Blood on My Hands: Pusher II
Woman is the Future of Man (Hong Sang-soo)
Word Wars
Yesterday

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 2003.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

2003

1. Finding Nemo
2. The Station Agent
3. Lost in Translation
4. The Return*
5. The Five Obstructions*
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
7. Dogville*
8. Time of the Wolf*
9. In America
10. The Story of the Weeping Camel*
11. Café Lumiere
12. Pieces of April
13. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
14. Not of This World*
15. Last Life in the Universe
16. X2: X-Men United
17. American Splendor (review)
18. The Triplets of Bellville
19. The Best of Youth*
20. Goodbye, Dragon Inn*
21. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
22. Whale Rider
23. The Fog of War
24. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
25. Lost in La Mancha

• Lost in La Mancha
• I Capture the Castle
• All the Real Girls
• A Mighty Wind (review)
• The Saddest Music in the World
• Crimson Gold
• Thirteen
• Down With Love
• Matchstick Men
• Touching the Void
• Coffee and Cigarettes
• The Dreamers
• Cold Mountain
• The Barbarian Invsions
• Intolerable Cruelty
• Open Range
• Girl with a Pearl Earring
• Spring Summer Fall Winter…and Spring
• Shattered Glass
• Holes
• Peter Pan
• The Matrix Revolutions
• House of Sand and Fog
• The Human Stain
• Levity
• Monster
• Swimming Pool
• Love Actually
• Northfork

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 2003

7:35 in the Morning
A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Ji-woon)
A Talking Picture (Manoel de Oliveira)
Alila
At Five in the Afternoon
Baadasssss!
Baramnan gajok
Basic (John McTiernan)
Bon Voyage
Bright Future
Bright Young Things
Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
Bukowski: Born into This
Cinema 16
Code 46
Cowards Bend the Knee (Guy Maddin)
Deliver Us from Eva
Destino
Dopamine
Doppelganger (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Elephant (Gus Van Sant)
End of the Century
Evil
Father and Son (Alexander Sokurov)
Ghosts of the Abyss
Girlhood
Go Further
Good Bye, Lenin!
Good Morning, Night
Gozu (Takashi Miike)
Head of State
Identity
Il Miracolo
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (Mike Hodges)
I’m Not Scared (Gabriele Salvatores)
Imagining Argentina
Intermission
Japanese Story
Jesus, You Know (Ulrich Seidl)
Johnny English
Kitchen Stories (Bent Hamer)
Kôhî jikô
La Petite Lili
Le Cerf-volant
Les Sentiments
Lian zhi feng jing
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen)
Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho)
Monsieur Ibrahim
My Architect: A Son’s Journey
My Flesh and Blood
My Life Without Me
No Rest for the Brave (Alain Guiraudie)
Not on the Lips (Alain Resnais)
Noviembre
Off the Map
Open Water
Osama
Owning Mahowny
Playing ‘In the Company of Men’ (Arnaud Desplechin)
Pornografia
Raja (Jacques Doillon)
Rhinoceros Eyes
Rosenstrasse
Runaway Jury
S-21 (Rithy Panh)
Saraband
Schultze Gets the Blues
Segreti di stato
Shara (Naomi Kawase)
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Sjaj u ocima
Son frère (Patrice Chereau)
Stuck on You (Bobby and Peter Farrelly)
Take My Eyes
Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette)
The Agronomist
The Animation Show
The Blind Swordsman: Zatôichi
The Company (Robert Altman)
The Cooler
The Corporation (Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott)
The Far Side of the Moon (Robert Lepage)
The Flower of Evil (Claude Chabrol)
The Forest for the Trees (Maren Ade)
The Hunted (William Friedkin)
The Memory of a Killer
The Mother
The Rundown
The Same River Twice
The Shape of Things
The Story of Marie and Julien (Jacques Rivette)
Timeline (Richard Donner)
Tokyo Godfathers
Tom Dowd & the Language of Music
Toutes ces belle promesses (Jean-Paul Civeyrac)
Tupac: Resurrection
Twentynine Palms (Bruno Dumont)
Two Cars, One Night
Untold Scandal (Lee Je-yong)
Vai e Vem (João César Monteiro)
Vibrator (Ryuichi Hiroki)
Voices of a Distant Star (Makoto Shinkai and Steven Foster)
Waiting for the Clouds (Yesim Ustaoglu)
Wasp
West of the Tracks (Wang Bing)
Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano)
Zelary
Zero Day (Ben Coccio)

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 2002.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

2002

1. The Son*
2. Punch-drunk Love
3. Stevie*
4. Hero*
5. Naked*
6. The Pianist
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. Distant*
9. The Rookie
10. 28 Days Later…* (review)
11. Dirty Pretty Things*
12. Catch Me If You Can
13. Adaptation (review)
14. Spellbound*
15. Whale Rider
16. To Be and To Have
17. Stone Reader*
18. The Quiet American
19. The Man on the Train
20. Infernal Affairs*
21. The Bourne Identity
22. City of God*
23. Russian Ark
24. Personal Velocity: Three Portraits

• The Lady and the Duke*
• Signs
• Gangs of New York
• Bus 174
• Far from Heaven
• The Man Without a Past
• Springtime in a Small Town
• 25th Hour
• About a Boy
• Sunshine State
• In This World
• The Hours
• Ice Age
• The Secret Lives of Dentists
• Bowling for Columbine
• OT: Our Town
• Changing Lanes
• Derrida
• Frida
• Raising Victor Vargas
• I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
• Insomnia
• Lilo and Stitch
  
• Morvern Callar
• Minority Report
• All or Nothing
• 8 Women
• Spider-man
• Star Wars, Episode Two: Attack of the Clones
• Max
• Panic Room
• Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary
• Rabbit-Proof Fence
• Road to Perdition
• Roger Dodger
• Ripley’s Game
• The Good Girl
• Enemy at the Gates
• The Truth About Charlie
• 24 Hour Party People
• Solaris (dir. Soderbergh)

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 2002

*Corpus Callosum
Almost Peaceful
An Amazing Couple
Ararat
Balseros
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Bear’s Kiss
Below (David Twohy)
Bend It Like Beckham
Better Luck Tomorrow
Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary
Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Blood Work (Clint Eastwood)
Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass)
Blue Car
Carnage for the Destroyer
Charlotte Sometimes
Comedian
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney)
Daughter from Danang
Decasia (Bill Morrison)
demonlover (Olivier Assayas)
Devdas (Sanjay Leela Bhansali)
Divine Intervention
Dolls (Takeshi Kitano)
Elsker dig for evigt
Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma)
Friday Night (Claire Denis)
Führer Ex
Funny Ha Ha (Andrew Bujalski)
Gerry
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
House of Fools
In My Skin (Marina de Van)
Irreversible
Japon (Carlos Reygadas)
Jealousy is My Middle Name (Park Chan-ok)
Ken Park (Larry Clark)
Killing Me Softly (Chen Kaige)
La Forza del passato
Les Chemins de l’oued
Lilya 4-ever (Lukas Moodysson)
Love Liza
Manito
May (Lucky McKee)
Meili shiguang
Mondays in the Sun
Mother Ghost
My Mother’s Smile (Marco Bellocchio)
My Sister Maria
Nearest to Heaven
Nha fala
Nicholas Nickleby
Oasis (Lee Chang-dong)
On the Run
Only the Strong Survive
Porn Theater (Jacques Nolot)
Prisoner of Paradise
Pumpkin
Real Women Have Curves
Reflections of Evil (Damon Packard)
Safe Conduct
Secret Things (Jean-Claude Brisseau)
Secretary (Steven Shainberg)
Sex is Comedy (Catherine Breillat)
Skins
Standing in the Shadows of Motown
Suddenly
Sweet Sixteen
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Park Chan-wook)
Talk to Her
Tangos volés
Ten (Abbas Kiarostami)
The Crime of Padre Amaro
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
The Eye
The Good Thief (Neil Jordan)
The Healer
The Kid Stays in the Picture
The Uncertainty Principle (Manoel de Oliveira)
The Weather Underground
Together (Chen Kaige)
Turning Gate (Hong Sang-soo)
Twilight Samurai (Yôji Yamada)
Twin Sisters
Un Viaggio chiamato amore
Velocità massima
White Oleander
XX/XY

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 2001.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

2001

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. Gosford Park
3. Spirited Away*
   
4. The Royal Tenenbaums
5. Lantana
6. Moulin Rouge!
7. Waking Life
8. Mulholland Drive
9. Amélie (review)
10. The Devil’s Backbone
11. Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working in Time
12. Donnie Darko
13. Metropolis*
14. Monsoon Wedding*
15. Ghost World
16. Time Out
    
17. A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) (review)
18. What Time Is It There?
19. In the Bedroom
20. Zoolander
21. Last Orders
22. Monster’s Inc.
23. The Lady and the Duke*
24. Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)*
25. The Son’s Room

• The Others
• The Man Who Wasn’t There
• Y Tu Mama Tambien*
• Iris
• Wit
• Heist
• Winged Migration
• Shrek
• The Pledge
• Black Hawk Down
• Lovely and Amazing
• Mostly Martha
• The Believer
• Ocean’s 11
• Training Day
• Hearts in Atlantis
• The Shipping News
• Blow
• The Deep End
• Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
• Jurassic Park III
• Bridget Jones’s Diary
• Crazy/beautiful
• The Cat’s Meow

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 2001

A Song for Martin
Ali (Michael Mann)
All About Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai)
American Desi
Autumn Spring
Baby Boy
Bad Guy (Kim Ki-duk)
Baran
Batang West Side (Lav Diaz)
Be My Star (Valeska Grisebach)
Behind the Sun
Bitter Harvest
Brief Crossing (Catherine Breillat)
Bully (Larry Clark)
Cat Soup (Masaaki Yuasa)
Chaos
Dark Blue World
Dog Days
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Eden
Elling
Éloge de l’amour (Jean-Luc Godard)
Faat Kiné (Ousmane Sembène)
Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat)
Fate (Zeki Demirkubuz)
Harmful Insect (Akihiko Shiota)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell)
Heung gong yau gok hor lei wood
His Secret Life (Ferzan Özpetek)
i am sam
Ichi the Killer (Takashi Miike)
I’m Going Home (Manoel de Oliveira)
In Praise of Love
Inch’Allah dimanche
Intacto (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo)
Intimacy (Patrice Chéreau)
Invincible
Joy Ride
Kandahar (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
Khaled
Kissing Jessica Stein
Kwik Stop
L.I.E.
La cienega (Lucrecia Martel)
Lagaan
L’Après-midi d’un tortionnaire
Late Marriage (Dover Kosashvili)
Life as a House
Light of My Eyes
Loin
Lost and Delirious
Luna rossa
Made
Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days
Maya
Me Without You
Mein Stern
Millennium Actress (Satoshi Kon)
Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
My Father and I
My First Mister
No Man’s Land
No Such Thing (Hal Hartley)
Nowhere in Africa
O
Operai, contadini
Où gît votre sourire enfoui?
Paris: XY (Zeka Laplaine)
Pauline & Paulette
Pistol Opera (Seijun Suzuki)
Promises
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Quem És Tu?
‘R Xmas (Abel Ferrara)
Read My Lips (Jacques Audiard)
Roberto Succo (Cedric Kahn)
Savage Innocence (Philippe Garrel)
Secret Ballot
Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow)
Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m.
Son of the Bride
Southern Comfort
Startup.com
Storytelling
Suchwiin bulmyeong
Tape (Richard Linklater)
The Center of the World
The Crimson Rivers
The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky
The Experiment
The Grey Zone
The Jesus Trilogy and Coda (Stan Brakhage)
The Legend of Suriyothai
The Life of Rosa (Chito Rono)
The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein
The Man from Elysian Fields
The Navigators
The Piano Teacher
The Seagull’s Laughter
The Sleepy Time Gal
The Tailor of Panama
The Triumph of Love (Clare Peploe)
The Warrior
Trembling Before G-D
Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
Va savoir (Jacques Rivette)
Visitor Q (Takashi Miike)
Wet Hot American Summer (David Wain)
Wild Innocence (Philippe Garrel)
Zus & Zo

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 2000.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

2000

1. Code Unknown*
2. Yi-Yi (A One and a Two)
3. Almost Famous (review)
   
4. The Gleaners and I*
5. In the Mood for Love*
6. Werckmeister Harmonies*
7. You Can Count On Me
8. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
9. The Emperor’s New Groove
10. Italian for Beginners*
    
11. The Road Home*
12. The Circle*
13. The Widow of St. Pierre*
14. Songs from the Second Floor*
15. High Fidelity
16. Wonder Boys
17. Best in Show
18. Unbreakable
19. Memento*
20. Sexy Beast
21. Erin Brockovich
22. George Washington
23. Pollock
24. The House of Mirth
25. X-Men

• O Brother, Where Art Thou
• Amores Perros*
• Dancer in the Dark*
• Chicken Run
• Divided We Fall
• The Vertical Ray of the Sun*
• The Million Dollar Hotel
• With a Friend Like Harry…
• The King is Alive
• State and Main
• American Movie*
• Cast Away
• Thirteen Days
• The Dish*
• Tully
• Billy Eliot
• Traffic
• Bread and Tulips
• Chocolat
• Hamlet (Michael Almereyda)
• Return to Me
• Under the Sand
• Shaft
• Shadow of the Vampire
• The Way of the Gun
• Gladiator
• Requiem for a Dream
• Nurse Betty
• Timecode
• Girlfight
• Small Time Crooks
• American Psycho
• Pitch Black

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 2000
101 Reykjavík
A Modern Cannibal Tale
A Time for Drunken Horses
Ali Zaoua, prince de la rue
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas)
Bamboozled (Spike Lee)
Battle Royale
Beat (Gary Walkow)
Before Night Falls
Blackboards
Blackboards (Samira Makhmalbaf)
Boiler Room
Bread and Roses
Brother (Takeshi Kitano)
Bruiser (George A. Romero)
Calle 54
Catastrophe (David Mamet)
Chopper (Andrew Dominik)
Chuck & Buck
Comedy of Innocence
Dark Days
Demons (Mario O’Hara)
Denti
Devils on the Doorstep (Jiang Wen)
Diamond Men
Dinosaur
Diva Dolorosa
Dr T and the Women
Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin)
Eureka (Shinji Aoyama)
Everybody’s Famous!
Everything Put Together
Faithless (Liv Ullman)
Freedom
Gangster No. 1 (Paul McGuigan)
Ginger Snaps
Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett)
Il Partigiano Johnny
I’m the One That I Want
In Vanda’s Room (Pedro Costa)
Innocence
Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
ivansxtc. (Bernard Rose)
Jiyuan qiaohe
Joe Gould’s Secret
Keep the River on Your Right:
Kippur
La captive (Chantal Akerman)
La commune (Paris, 1871) (Peter Watkins)
La Lingua del santo
Last Resort
Les Destinees
Les Savates de Bon Dieu (Jean-Claude Brisseau)
Liam
Light Keeps Me Company
Liulian piao piao
Long Night’s Journey Into Day
Loser (Amy Heckerling)
Lumumba
Maelström
Malèna
Maryam
Merci pour le chocolat (Claude Chabrol)
Mission to Mars (Brian De Palma)
Muri Romani (Jon Jost)
My Dog Skip
Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Nine Queens
Fantasma
Our Lady of the Assassins
Palavra e Utopia
Panic
Paradise Express (Tikoy Aguiluz)
Paragraph 175
Peppermint Candy (Lee Chang-dong)
Platform (Jia Zhang-Ke)
Proof of Life
Quills
Scarlet Diva (Asia Argento)
Séance (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Selon Matthieu
Signs & Wonders
Songcatcher
Space Cowboys (Clint Eastwood)
Suzhou River (Lou Ye)
Tears of the Black Tiger
The Child and the Soldier
The Day I Became a Woman
The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition
The Filth and the Fury
The Goddess of 1967
The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin)
The Hundred Steps
The Iron Ladies
The Isle
The Legend of Rita
The Man Who Cried
The Taste of Others (Agnes Jaoui)
The Weight of Water (Kathryn Bigelow)
The Yards (James Gray)
Third World Hero (Mike De Leon)
Time and Tide (Tsui Hark)
Together (Lukas Moodysson)
Two Family House
Urbania (Jon Shear)
Uttara
Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors (Hong Sang-soo)
Waydowntown
What’s Cooking?

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 1999.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

1999

1. The Insider
2. Toy Story 2
3. The Iron Giant
4. Magnolia
5. Rosetta
6. The Wind Will Carry Us
7. Beau Travail*
8. The Virgin Suicides
9. Three Kings
10. Being John Malkovich
11. Eyes Wide Shut
12. Limbo
13. Mansfield Park
14. The Limey
15. The Straight Story
16. The Color of Paradise*
17. Topsy Turvy
18. eXistenZ
19. The Sixth Sense
20. Rushmore
21. Ride With The Devil
22. Galaxy Quest
23. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai*
24. Cradle Will Rock
25. Man on the Moon

• Fight Club
• The Big Kahuna
• Not of This World (Fuori Dal Mondo)*
• Snow Falling on Cedars
• Star Wars, Episode One – The Phantom Menace
• The Matrix
• The Talented Mr. Ripley
• Titus
• Twin Falls, Idaho
• Summer of Sam
• Sweet and Lowdown
• Girl on the Bridge*
• The Winslow Boy
• South Park: South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
• October Sky
• Office Space
• Buena Vista Social Club
• Dogma
• Cookie’s Fortune
• Shower
• Boys Don’t Cry
• Sleepy Hollow
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• The Thomas Crown Affair
• Bringing Out the Dead
• American Beauty (review)
• Holy Smoke!
• Guinevere
• Notting Hill

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 1999

10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger)
6ixty9 (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang)
A domani
A Map of the World
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Run for Money (Reha Erdem)
A Walk on the Moon
Aimée & Jaguar
All About My Mother
American Movie
An Affair of Love
An Ideal Husband
Angela’s Ashes
Appassionate
Attack the Gas Station (Sang-Jin Kim)
Audition (Takashi Miike)
Bad Company
Beautiful People
Bowfinger
Breakfast of Champions (Alan Rudolph)
Butterfly
Charisma (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Clouds of May
Crazy in Alabama
Dick (Andrew Fleming)
East Is East
East-West
Election
Every Day Here (Frazer Bradshaw)
Fantasia/2000
Farewell, Home Sweet Home (Otar Iosseliani)
Felicia’s Journey
Flowers From Another World (Iciar Bollain)
Forever Mine (Paul Schrader)
Genghis Blues
Gloomy Sunday
God’s Wedding (João César Monteiro)
Gregory’s Two Girls (Bill Forsyth)
Haut Les Coeurs! (Solveig Anspach)
Herod’s Law
Himalaya
Human Resources (Laurent Cantet)
Human Traffic
Humanité
Idle Running (Janez Burger)
It All Starts Today
Joe the King
Journey to the Sun (Yesim Ustaoglu)
Julien Donkey-Boy
Kadosh
Kahapon, may dalawang bata
Kikujiro (Takeshi Kitano)
La maladie de Sachs (Michel Deville)
La Puce (Emmanuelle Bercot)
Le Vent de la nuit
Leila (Dariush Mehrjui)
Les Enfants du Marais
L’Humanite (Bruno Dumont)
Liberty Heights
Lies
M/other (Nobuhiro Suwa)
Mal
Mifune (Søren Kragh-Jacobsen)
Moloch (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
My Best Fiend
My Voyage to Italy
New Waterford Girl
Night Wind (Philippe Garrel)
Nordrand
Not One Less
On the Ropes
One More Day (Babak Payami)
Pas de scandale
Petits Freres (Jacques Doillon)
Pola X (Leos Carax)
Ratcatcher (Lynn Ramsay)
Return of the Idiot (Sasa Gedeon)
Rien à faire
Romance (Catherine Breillat)
Selma, Lord, Selma (Charles Burnett)
Set Me Free
Seventeen Years
Sicilia (Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet)
Silvia Prieto (Martin Rejtman)
Sisa (Mario O’Hara)*
Skin of Man, Heart of Beast (Helene Angel)
Smiling Fish & Goat on Fire
Solomon and Gaenor
Spring Forward
Stir of Echoes (David Koepp)
Sunshine
Taal
Taboo (Nagisa Oshima)
The 13th Warrior (John McTiernan)
The City
The Cup
The Emperor and the Assassin (Chen Kaige)
The Five Senses
The Hurricane
The Lady of the House (Rituparno Ghosh)
The Letter (Manoel de Oliveira)
The Loss of Sexual Innocence
The Minus Man (Hampton Fancher)
The Mission (Johnny To)
The Ninth Gate (Roman Polanski)
The Third Page (Zeki Demirkubuz)
The Venice Project
The War Zone
The World Is Not Enough
Three Seasons
Time Regained (Raul Ruiz)
True Crime (Clint Eastwood)
Tumbleweeds
Tuvalu
Tuvalu (Veit Helmer)
Two Women
Tydzien z zycia mezczyzny
Wojaczek (Lech Majewski)
Wonderland (Michael Winterbottom)

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 1998.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

1998

1. Out of Sight
2. The Thin Red Line
3. The Dreamlife of Angels
4. The Last Days of Disco
5. The Truman Show
6. The Celebration
7. Henry Fool
8. Dark City
9. Flowers of Shanghai*
10. Saving Private Ryan
11. The Big Lebowski
12. Autumn Tale
13. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
14. Rushmore
15. Shakespeare In Love
16. The General
17. The Prince of Egypt
18. Antz
19. Babe: Pig In The City
20. Kiki’s Delivery Service*
21. Run Lola Run*
22. A Bug’s Life
23. Men With Guns
24. Croupier*
25. Insomnia

• After Life
• Happiness
• The Butcher Boy
• Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
• 42 Up
• Smoke Signals
• Ever After
• Central Station
• Elizabeth
• Ronin
• The Book of Life
• Pi
• Mulan
• Enemy of the State
• Gods And Monsters
• A Simple Plan
• Hilary and Jackie

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 2008

A Civil Action (Steve Zaillian)
A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries (James Ivory)
Aberdeen (Kathy Fehl and Ian Teal)
Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy
American History X
Another Day in Paradise (Larry Clark)
Apt Pupil (Bryan Singer)
Autumn Tale
Beloved (Jonathan Demme)
Besieged (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Black Cat, White Cat (Emir Kusturica)
Black Dog
Bloody Angels
Buffalo ’66 (Vincent Gallo)
Cabaret Balkan
Christmas in August (Hur Jin-ho)
Circle’s Short Circuit
Claire Dolan
Class Trip
Confession (Alexandr Sokurov)
Dance Me to My Song
Dancing at Lughnasa
Divine (Arturo Ripstein)
Divorce Iranian Style
Down in the Delta
Dr. Akagi (Shohei Imamura)
Eternity and a Day
Eyes of the Spider (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Ferocious Saint Lord of Gobi
Fiona (Amos Kollek)
Following
Frat House
God Said, ‘Ha!’
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
He Got Game (Spike Lee)
High Art
Histoire(s) du cinéma
Histoire(s) du Cinema (Jean-Luc Godard)
Honeymoon (Dan Sallitt)
Hurlyburly
I Giardini dell’Eden
I Piccoli maestri
I Stand Alone (Gaspar Noe)
Inquietude (Manoel de Oliveira)
Khrustalyov, My Car! (Otar Iosseliani)
Kirikou and the Sorceress (Michel Ocelot)
Knock Off (Tsui Hark)
La Nube
L’Albero delle pere
L’Arrière Pays (Jacques Nolot)
Last Night (Don McKellar)
L’ennui (Cedric Kahn)
License to Live (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Living Out Loud
Love Is the Devil
Lovers of the Arctic Circle
Mr. Zhao (Lu Yue)
My Name Is Joe
New Rose Hotel (Abel Ferrara)
Next Stop Wonderland (Brad Anderson)
Nô
Of Freaks and Men
One True Thing
Outskirts (Petr Lutsik)
Paul Taylor: Dancemaker
Pecker (John Waters)
Place Vendôme
Praise
Radiation (Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley)
Return to Paradise (Joseph Ruben)
Ringu (Hideo Nakata)
Samurai Fiction (Hiroyuki Nakano)
Savior
Serpent’s Path (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Show Me Love (Lukas Moodysson)
Slam
Sliding Doors
Slums of Beverly Hills (Tamara Jenkins)
Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma)
Sombre
Still Crazy
Such a Long Journey
Surrender Dorothy
Tango (Carlos Saura)
Terminus paradis
The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf)
The Boys
The Cremaster Cycle
The Dinner Game
The Emperor and the Assassin (Chen Kaige)
The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison
The Flight of the Bee (Jamshed Usmonov and Biong Hun Min)
The Grandfather
The Hole (Tsai Ming-liang)
The Idiots (Lars Von Trier)
The Impostors (Stanley Tucci)
The Interview
The Land Girls (David Leland)
The Last Days
The Longest Summer (Fruit Chan)
The Newton Boys (Richard Linklater)
The Polish Bride
The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong Sang-soo)Praise (John Curran)
The Red Violin
The School of Flesh (Benoit Jacquot)
The Silence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
The Way We Laughed
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (Patrice Chéreau)
Three Businessmen (Alex Cox)
Tráfico
Under the Sun
Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes)
Voleur de vie
Waking Ned Devine
West Beirut
Woman on a Tin Roof (Mario O’Hara)*
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 1997.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

1997

1. Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
2. The Apostle
3. The Ice Storm
4. Princess Mononoke*
5. Henry Fool
6. L.A. Confidential
7. Good Will Hunting
8. Grosse Pointe Blank
9. The Fifth Element
10. The Sweet Hereafter
11. A Taste of Cherry*
12. The Children of Heaven
13. Boogie Nights
14. The Butcher Boy
15. Gattaca
16. Men in Black
17. Donnie Brasco
18. Face/Off
19. Breakdown
20. Chasing Amy
21. Life is Beautiful
22. The Spanish Prisoner
23. The End of Violence
24. Mrs. Brown
25. Jackie Brown

• The Boxer
• Titanic
• Mrs. Dalloway
• Ulee’s Gold
• Fairytale: A True Story
• Amistad (review)
• Eve’s Bayou As Good as It Gets
• Wag the Dog
• Deconstructing Harry
• Affliction
• The Game
• Men with Guns
• Open Your Eyes
• Sunday
• Insomnia
• Career Girls
• Cop Land
• Anastasia

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 1997

4 Little Girls
A Merry War (Robert Bierman)
Affliction
Afterglow (Alan Rudolph)
Barbara (Nils Malmros)
Blue Moon
Brother (Alexei Balabanov)
Character
Commingled Containers (Stan Brakhage)
Critical Care (Sidney Lumet)
Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Deja Vu
Destiny
Docteur Chance (François-Jacques Ossang)*
Double Team (Tsui Hark)
East Side Story
Event Horizon (Paul W.S. Anderson)
Fireworks (Takeshi Kitano)
Funny Games
Gallivant
Genealogies of a Crime (Raul Ruiz)
Green Fish (Lee Chang-Dong)
Gummo (Harmony Korine)
Hamsun (Jan Troell)
Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai)
In the Company of Men
Kiss or Kill (Bill Bennett)
Kundun (Martin Scorsese)
La Vie de Jesus (Bruno Dumont)
Lawn Dogs (John Duigan)
Le Septieme Ciel (Benoit Jacquot)
Litle Shots of Happiness (Todd Verow)
Live Flesh (Pedro Almodovar)
Lolita
Lost Highway (David Lynch)
Love and Death on Long Island
Ma Vie en Rose (Alain Berliner)
Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Nil by Mouth
Nowhere (Gregg Araki)
Office Killer (Cindy Sherman)
Ossos (Pedro Costa)
Pronto (Jim McBride)
Public Housing
Riding the Rails
Same Old Song (Alain Resnais)
Sue (Amos Kollek)
Suzaku (Naomi Kawase)
The Castle (Michael Haneke)
The Eel (Shohei Imamura)
The Eye of God (Tim Blake Nelson)
The Hanging Garden
The Long Way Home
The Prince of Homburg (Marco Bellochio)
The Revenge – A Visit From Fate (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Revenge – The Scar That Never Fades (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The River (Tsai Ming-Liang)
The Second Civil War
The Tango Lesson
The Thief
TwentyFourSeven
Uncle Sam (William Lustig)
Under the Skin
Washington Square (Agnieszka Holland)
Xiao Wu (Jia Zhang-Ke)
Yours

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 1996.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

1996

1. Secrets and Lies
2. Fargo
3. La Promesse*
4. Ponette*
5. Flirting with Disaster
6. Trainspotting
7. Lone Star
8. Waiting for Guffman
9. Big Night
10. Basquiat
11. Bottle Rocket
12. Mars Attacks!
13. Breaking the Waves
14. The Pillow Book
15. James and the Giant Peach
16. Mission: Impossible
17. Hamlet (dir. Kenneth Branagh)
18. When We Were Kings*
19. The Whole Wide World
20. Sling Blade
21. Paradise Lost: The Child murders at Robin Hood Hills
22. Shall We Dance?
23. Shine
24. Everyone Says I Love You
25. The Crucible

• The Cable Guy
• Jerry McGuire
• Stealing Beauty
• The King of Masks
• The English Patient
• Romeo + Juliet
• The Portrait of a Lady
• Looking for Richard
• Emma
• Fly Away Home
• Jude

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 1996

A Chef in Love
A Couch in New York (Chantal Akerman)
A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
A Question of Trust
A Self-Made Hero (Jacques Audiard)
A Summer’s Tale (Eric Rohmer)
Beautiful Thing (Hettie Macdonald)
Beavis and Butt-head Do America (Mike Judge)
Berenice (Michael Gitlin)
Beyond Silence
Blood & Wine
Bound (Lana and Andy Wachowski)
Brigands – Chapter VII (Otar Iosseliani)
Capitaine Conan (Bertrand Tavernier)
Carla’s Song
Chronicle of a Disappearance (Elia Suleiman)
Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan)
Crash (David Cronenberg)
Dead Sure aka The Insurance Agent (Tikoy Aguiluz)*
Deep Crimson (Arturo Ripstein)
Elective Affinities (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani)
Encore (Pascal Bonitzer)
Fly Away Home
Freeway (Matthew Bright)
Gabbeh (Moshen Makhmalbaf)
Get on the Bus (Spike Lee)
Goodbye South, Goodbye (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Hamsun (Jan Troell)
Hard Core Logo (Bruce McDonald)
Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Hommes, femmes, mode d’emploi
Improvisation
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
Kansas City (Robert Altman)
Kids Return (Takeshi Kitano)
Kolya
L’Appartement
Les voleurs (Andre Techine)
Love Serenade (Shirley Barrett)
Mahjong
Manny & Lo (Lisa Krueger)
Marvin’s Room
Mary Reilly
Matilda (Danny DeVito)
Michael Collins (Neil Jordan)
Microcosmos
Mon Homme (Bertrand Blier)
Mother
My Sex Life or: How I Got Into an Argument (Arnaud Desplechin)
Nénette et Boni (Claire Denis)
Nightjohn (Charles Burnett)
Normal Life (John McNaughton)
Oriental Elegy (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Parfait amour! (Catherine Breillat)
Party (Manoel de Oliveira)
Pretty Village Pretty Flame
Prisoner of the Mountain (Sergei Bodov)
Remembrances of Kansas City Swing
Ridicule (Patrice Leconte)
Robert Altman’s Jazz ’34:
Small Faces
Study of a River
Swingers
Temptress Moon (Chen Kaige)
The Day the Pig Fell Into the Well (Hong Sang-soo)
The Delta (Ira Sachs)
The Funeral (Abel Ferrara)
The Leopard Son
The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story
The Other Side of Sunday
The People vs. Larry Flynt
The Quiet Room (Rolf de Heer)
The Suicide
The Sunchaser (Michael Cimino)
The Wind in the Willows
The Winner (Alex Cox)
Three Lives and Only One Death (Raul Ruiz)
Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami)
To Have and to Hold (John Hillcoat)
Trees Lounge
Un air de famille (Cedric Klapisch)
Walking and Talking (Nicole Holofcener)
Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz)
When It Rains (Charles Burnett)
Will It Snow for Christmas?

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 1995.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

•

1995

1. Heat
2. Sense And Sensibility
3. Dead Man Walking
4. Toy Story
5. Smoke
6. Babe
7. Safe
8. Dead Man
9. The City of Lost Children
10. Seven
11. Before Sunrise
12. Kicking and Screaming
13. The Usual Suspects
14. A Little Princess
15. Rob Roy
16. Persuasion
17. 12 Monkeys
18. Casino
19. The Addiction
20. Get Shorty
21. Clueless
22. Ulysses’ Gaze
23. Clockers
24. Crimson Tide
25. The Quick and the Dead

• Living in Oblivion
• Leaving Las Vegas
• Devil In A Blue Dress
• Apollo 13
• Blue in the Face
• Nixon
• To Die For
• Nelly and Monsieur Arnuad
• Richard III
• The Underneath
• Angels and Insects
• Sabrina

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 1995

…And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him (Severo Pérez)
2 x 50 Years of French Cinema (Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville)
A Bucket of Blood
A Midwinter’s Tale
A Single Girl (Benoit Jacquot)
All Things Fair
An Awfully Big Adventure (Mike Newell)
Anne Frank Remembered
Antonia’s Line
Bandit Queen
Beyond Rangoon (John Boorman)
Carrington (Christopher Hampton)
Copycat
Cyclo (Anh Hung Tran)
Dadetown (Russ Hexter)
Dead Presidents
Deseret
Desolation Angels (Tim McCann)
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
Don’t Forget You’re Going to Die (Xavier Beauvois)
En avoir (ou pas) (Laetitia Masson)
Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai)
Flamenco
Flirt (Hal Hartley)
Fluke (Carlo Carlei)
From the Journals of Jean Seberg (Mark Rappaport)
Funny Bones
Georgia (Ulu Grosbard)
Getting Any? (Takeshi Kitano)
Ghost in the Shell
God’s Comedy (João César Monteiro)
Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Heavy
Hideaway (Brett Leonard)
Indian Summer (Saša Gedeon)
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That One Calls Human Life (Stephen and Timothy Quay)
Jefferson in Paris (James Ivory)
JLG/JLG (Jean-Luc Godard)
Jupiter’s Wife
Kids (Larry Clark)
La ceremonie (Claude Chabrol)
La haine (Mathieu Kassovitz)
Land and Freedom (Ken Loach)
L’appat (Bertrand Tavernier)
Le confessionnal (Robert Lepage)
Le garcu (Maurice Pialat)
Les Misérables
Maborosi (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
My Family
Notes from Underground (Gary Walkow)
On the Beat (Ning Ying))
Once Upon a Time . . . When We Were Colored
Quatrilho (Fabio Barreto)
Rendezvous in Paris (Eric Rohmer)
Salaam Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
Scratch and Crow
Shanghai Triad
Spiritual Voices (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Stuart Saves His Family (Harold Ramis)
Tales from the Hood (Rusty Cundieff)
The Addiction (Abel Ferrara)
The Blade (Tsui Hark)
The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood)
The Brothers McMullen
The Celluloid Closet
The Convent (Manoel de Oliveira)
The Flower of My Secret (Pedro Almodovar)
The Horseman on the Roof (Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
The Journey of August King (John Duigan)
The Last Wish (Tikoy Aguiluz)*
The Neon Bible (Terence Davies)
The Short Life of Fire (Aureaus Solito)
The Son of Gascogne
The Star Maker
The White Balloon (Jafar Panahi)
The Wife (Tom Noonan)
The Young Poisoner’s Handbook (Benjamin Ross)
Two Bits (James Foley)
Two Deaths (Nicolas Roeg)
Underground (Emir Kusturica)
Up, Down, Fragile (Jacques Rivette)
Waati (Souleymane Cisse)
Welcome to the Dollhouse
When It Rains
Zero Kelvin