The Decade's Best: #1-#10

My breath catches a little to realize what a bittersweet conclusion this represents for the countdown: Grizzly Man is the only member of the Top 10 to premiere as late as 2005, and you have to slide down to #18 to see anything that premiered any later. I'm suddenly left with the feeling, espoused by Bill Chambers in an earlier comment thread, that the decade has manifested a real law of diminishing returns. Granted, we are not inhabiting a desert at the moment. My forthcoming Top 10 of 2009 would look quite different if I could incorporate some festival titles from the past year or two that haven't quite achieved their Stateside commercial bow. They're films to look forward to, for sure, but are they enough to countervail the sense that we've seen fewer and fewer masterworks as the decade has evolved?

It's probably wiser to realize that I've had more time to let my feelings about movies like Dancer in the Dark, Morvern Callar, and Amores perros marinate for a longer period of time, and that after a few more years, a Lazarescu or an INLAND EMPIRE or even a Synecdoche or Hurt Locker could move up to those positions. Plus, it just seems incontrovertibly true that the artworks you embrace when you're newest and freshest to the form become more intimate favorites than later acquaintances. The decks may thus be stacked in favor of titles from the 90s and early 00s, often for reasons evoked in the Remembering series.

But also: these are ten astonishing movies, so it's a little strange for me to second-guess what any of them would be doing at the top of a decade review, or to feel remotely bad about it, no matter what other movies or moments in the decade they wind up displacing to lower rungs. It's a great note on which to end the decade and the year... and meanwhile, I hope you've enjoyed this very rare month of daily activity on Nick's Flick Picks. I'm so grateful that you read and participate, and I wish you all a tremendous 2010!