<< previous image | next image >>
The decade defined first and foremost by 9/11 yielded a bitter, brilliant Cinema of Paranoia. A new breed of brooding, believable superheroes inhabited worlds ripped from the pages of comic books — worlds that seemed more believable on the strength of exponential advances in increasingly photorealistic CGI.
Even animated features and comedies tapped a mind-game mentality steeped in amnesia, revenge and the redemptive power of storytelling. Hollywood’s ability to manufacture bigger, louder blockbusters sometimes produced a hollow brand of shock and awe at the expense of smartly developed characters or memorable dialogue. But when it all came together, the results wowed fanboys and critics alike.
Here’s Wired.com’s look at the most darkly daring movies of the decade.
Memento (2000): Presaging the somber vibe of the post-9/11 world, Memento used the weird medical condition known as anterograde amnesia as a hook for the most cerebrally challenging thriller of the decade. Shaking filmdom’s ancient “can’t remember what happened” convention to its core, the Christopher Nolan-directed Memento, made for just $23,000 approximately $6 million, pushed time-fractured story structure to unprecedented extremes as ever-forgetful everyman Leonard (played by Guy Pearce) scribbled notes on his body to remind himself what had happened. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): French filmmaker Michel Gondry invested low-tech charm and glistening visual panache into this time-travel film larded with big ideas about regret and destiny. Jim Carrey gave his best dramatic performance to date as a man trying to fix the past, while Kate Winslet’s feisty portrayal of Carrey’s girlfriend brought Charlie Kaufman’s bittersweet script to life. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
The Dark Knight (2008): The dense plotline, handsome production and workmanlike performances by Christian Bale and his cohorts position this Batman sequel as a perfectly respectable comic book movie for grownups. But the film floated to the top of the superhero heap thanks to the late Heath Ledger. Sadistic, masochistic, witty and wise in the ways of moral perversion, Ledger’s Joker stands unrivaled as the 21st century’s most unforgettable movie villain. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Coraline (2009): 3-D CGI exploded this year, making its biggest impact when subtly paired with stop-motion animation in this dark, dazzling movie from writer Neil Gaiman and director Henry Selick. Few other animated films offer as much visual and narrative brilliance: In a year littered with coming-of-age duds, Coraline proved that true children’s cinema is really made by and for adults. –Scott Thill
<< previous image | next image >>
There Will be Blood (2007): Towering over the raw western landscape in Paul Thomas Anderson’s pitiless parable about the human cost of technology-fueled greed, Daniel Day Lewis affirmed his stature as the most charismatic method actor of his generation. Tragic and depressing yet strangely exhilarating, Blood and the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men hit theaters like tag-team harbingers of doom and desolation. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004): Film as incendiary device? Michael Moore perfected the concept in this fierce dissection of the Bush administration’s actions during the run-up to the Iraq war. Moore pissed off Ray Bradbury by borrowing half the title from the author’s classic sci-fi novel and irked anyone looking for “fair and balanced” reportage. Instead, the documentary came out swinging as one of the first wide releases to examine the back story of the so-called war on terror. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2 (2003): Quentin Tarantino begs, borrows and steals from more sources than a magpie, yet he manages to mold — through the power of his own distinctive sensibility — a wholly original revenge epic in two parts. Besides creating the decade’s most formidable woman warrior in Uma Thurman’s The Bride, Tarantino threaded his Western-cum-martial arts action story with brilliant blasts of music, dialogue and camera work in the service of nearly unbearable suspense. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006): Mexican maestro Guillermo Del Toro traffics in nightmares and fairy tales with unparalleled ease. Building an original World War II drama from the DNA of classic European fables, Pan’s Labyrinth demonstrated Del Toro’s astonishing facility for conjuring magical beasts, bugs and birds that live just beyond the ken of their preoccupied human neighbors. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Bourne trilogy (various): In The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), actor Matt Damon bull-dozed through seven hours of amnesia-riddled spycraft with so much brute cunning and high-tech ingenuity that even James Bond took notice: 007 producers hired Daniel Craig to reinvent the iconic British agent as a serious, Bourne-like action man in 2006’s Casino Royale. Damon’s trilogy re-adrenalized the espionage genre with hyper chase sequences orchestrated first by famously difficult director Doug Liman (in Bourne Identity) and in sequels by former documentary maker Paul Greengrass. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 2006: The faux documentary that launched a hundred or so lawsuits made the rude point that ordinary civilian behavior, when manipulated by a master satirist, produces scenes more compelling than nearly anything “performed” by professional actors. Going deep as an innocently bigoted American émigré, Sacha Baron Cohen brought nerves of titanium to Borat while mining huge, uncomfortable laughs from the darkest regions of the human experience: racism, sexism and anti-Semitism. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Children of Men (2006): Alfonso Cuarón’s imagines a perfectly dystopic and fully realized future that hinges on a simple premise: What would happen if we were no longer able to conceive? In a dark world, hope is found in a broken man’s attempt to bring a young woman to safety. It’s Cuarón’s best film to date. –Scott Pierce
<< previous image | next image >>
Iron Man 2008. Powered by Robert Downey Jr.’s witty ad libs, this origins story with a war on terror twist propelled weapons genius Tony Stark/Iron Man from underexposed Marvel Comics superhero to the front ranks of Hollywood’s hit parade. Director Jon Favreau meshed humor, aerial action and high-tech plot points with a smart, spirited storyline celebrating scientific ingenuity in the face of realpolitik skullduggery. Plus, Iron Man’s power suit looked awesome. –Hugh Hart
<< previous image | next image >>
Mulholland Dr. (2001): It’s hard not to notice how selfish David Lynch is as a director when first watching Mulholland Dr. Then, somehow, you become oblivious. The nightmares and dreamscapes become a harrowing look at what it means to be a victim of fantasy and a slave to reality. –Scott Pierce
<< previous image | next image >>
Avatar (2009): James Cameron pulls off the ultimate mind game by creating an entirely made-up world that feels utterly believable. Empowered by 3-D depth of field, Cameron’s hero Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington) slips into a 10-foot, blue-skinned alien “avatar” body and goes through his own psychological switcheroo by film’s end. Chalk one up for Worthington and co-star Zoe Saldana, who demonstrate, finally, that actors can put across emotionally persuasive “motion capture” performances. But Avatar ‘s game-changing achievement of the decade to come revolves around the distant world of Pandora. Digitally populated with a fantastical rainforest of mutant blooms and exquisitely gnarly beasts, Pandora proves beyond a photorealistic doubt that anything imaginable can be rendered “real” on the big screen. –Hugh Hart
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Star Trek, District 9, Moon, Wall-E, the first Spider-Man, Slumdog Millionaire, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Descent and Casino Royale all deserve an admiring tip of the honorable mention hat as well. What did we miss? Which of these pictures deserve best-of-class kudos? Comment below.
