The rules:

You list five to twenty of your favorite movies in a year. You can list more than twenty, but only your top twenty will count.

Since movies often have multiple different release dates, we're using RYM to determine what year a film is counted in.

The vote will close Saturday June 5th.

1. All the Real Girls / David Gordon Green / U.S.
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King / Peter Jackson / New Zealand
3. The Best of Youth / Marco Tullio Giordana / Italy
4. Cafe Lumiere / Hou Hsiao-hsien / Taiwan
5. The Return / Andrei Zvyagintsev / Russia
6. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring / Kim Ki-duk / South Korea
7. Lost in Translation / Sofia Coppola / U.S.
8. Mystic River / Clint Eastwood / U.S.
9. The Triplets of Belleville / Sylvain Chomet / France
10. Finding Nemo / Andrew Stanton / U.S.

Excellent; the first list lists what is (in my not so humble opinion) indubitably the best film of the year: La Meglio Gioventù [The Best of Youth]. With 358 minutes somewhat long, but if there is only one film you're gonna watch these 2 weeks before making your list; make it this one. Truly epic piece of filmmaking with some of the most memorable scenes in cinematic history.

01. 21 Grams (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
02. Les Invasions Barbares (Denys Arcand)
03. Dogville (Lars von Trier)
04. La Meglio Gioventù (Marco Tullio Giordana)
05. Oldboy (Chan-Wook Park)
06. Jeux d'Enfants (Yann Samuell)
07. Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)
08. Zatôichi (Takeshi Kitano)
09. Vozvrashchenie / The Retun (Andrei Zvyagintsev)
10. Saraband (Ingmar Bergman)

11. Capturing The Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki)
12. Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom / Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Ki-Duk Kim)
13. Gori Vatra / Fuse (Pjer Zalica)
14. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir)
15. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (Errol Morris)
16. Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker)
17. Te Doy Mis Ojos (Icíar Bollaín)
18. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich)
19. Big Fish (Tim Burton)
20. Kill Bill: Vol 1. (Quentin Tarantino)

A lot of foreign films in the first half of my top 20. Two documentaries in the second half. No Lord of the Rings, because the last part was definitely the weakest in my opinion. Even a Bergman in there, not his best, but still deserves a spot in the top 10. Some films I really don't expect to see much in other lists, like Jeux d'Enfants, Capturing the Friedmans, Gori Vatra and Te Doy Mis Ojos.

1. Love Actually (Richard Curtis)
2. La Meglio Gioventù (Marco Tullio Giordana)
3. Old Boy ( Park Chan-wook)
4. Elephant (Gus Van Sant)
5. Good Bye, Lenin ! (Wolfgang Becker)
6. Kill Bill vol.1 (Quentin Tarantino)
7. Les invasions barbares (Denys Arcand)
8. Les Triplettes de Belleville (Sylvain Chomet)
9. Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)
10. 21 grams (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
11. Jeux d'enfants (Yann Samuell)
12. Les égarés (André Téchiné)
13. Swimming Pool ( François Ozon)
14. Stupeur et Tremblements ( Alain Corneau)
15. Lost in translation (Sofia Coppola)
16. Bon voyage (Jean-Paul Rapenneau)
17. Dogville (Lars Von Trier)

Yeah ! I know....Love Actually...I so love this film (huge smile each time I see it)...when I'm doing the list....whatever the film I put face up....Love Actually win handily !
A lot of excellent films this year, but one only true love.

1. Dogville
2. The return
3. The Station agent
4. La meglio gioventu
5. Les Triplettes de belville
6. Cold Mountain
7. Lost in translation
8. Spring, summer, fall, winter...and spring
9. Capturing the friedmans
10.American Splendor
11.Touching the void
12.Goodbye Lenin!
13.Zatoichi
14.Les invasions barbares
15.Matchstick men
16.Shattered Glass
17.The fog of war
18.Swimming Pool
19.Intolerable Cruelty
20.Any Way the wind blows
21.Return of the king
22.Kill Bill 1
23.21 Grams
24.The corporation
25.Finding Nemo
26.Master and commander
27.X2
28.Love Actually

"Dogville" wins: very powerful ending. Two Belgian films in this list, "Les Triplettes" from the french part, the film is three stories interwoven into one and the number 3 appears throughout the film; "Any way the wind blows" from the flemish part is a film about Antwerp, my hometown, made by the singer of dEUS of which "Worst Case Scenario" is an excellent record.

I hope La Meglio Gioventù will be the first discovery (to me) of this poll that will be in final. Now I only have to get copy of that movie...
(I still haven't seen Werckmeister harmóniák and unfortinately it didn't even get to final)
It's getting harder and harder to pick only 20 movies but here we go.

1. 봄여름가을겨울그리고봄 [Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring] - Kim Ki Duk - South Korea
2. Lost in Translation - Sofia Coppola - US
3. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 - Quentin Tarantino - US
4. Les Triplettes de Belleville [The Triplets of Belleville] - Sylvain Chomet - France
5. Ondskan [Evil]- Mikael Håfström - Sweden
6. Dogville - Lars Von Trier - Denmark
7. Les invasions barbares [The Barbarian Invasions] - Denys Arcand - Canada
8. The Dreamers - Bernardo Bertolucci - France
9. Young Adam - David Mackenzie - UK
10. The House of Sand And Fog - Vadim Perelman - US
11. American Splendor - Shari Springer Berman/Robert Pulcini - US
12. 장화, 홍련 [A Tale of Two Sisters] - Kim Ji-woon - South Korea
13. 極道恐怖大劇場 牛頭 GOZU [Gozu] - Takashi Miike - Japan
14. 21 Grams - Alejandro González Iñárritu - US
15. Brown Bunny - Vincent Gallo - US
16. 지구를 지켜라! [Save the Green Planet!] - Jang Jun-hwan - South Korea
17. Big Fish - Tim Burton - US
18. 東京ゴッドファーザーズ [Tokyo Godfathers] - Satoshi Kon - Japan
19. Good Bye Lenin - Wolfgang Becker - Germany
20. Tarnation - Jonathan Caouette - US
Sorry about typos (if there's any).

Возвращение [The Return] just missed the top 20 but I still hope it will make to the final.

Somehow I totally forgot to put The Station Agent somewhere in my list. So this is my revised list (I hope this is allowed):

01. 21 Grams (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
02. Les Invasions Barbares (Denys Arcand)
03. Dogville (Lars von Trier)
04. La Meglio Gioventù (Marco Tullio Giordana)
05. Oldboy (Chan-Wook Park)
06. Jeux d'Enfants (Yann Samuell)
07. Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)
08. Zatôichi (Takeshi Kitano)
09. Vozvrashchenie / The Retun (Andrei Zvyagintsev)
10. Saraband (Ingmar Bergman)

11. Capturing The Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki)
12. Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom / Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Ki-Duk Kim)
13. The Station Agent (Thomas McCarthy)
14. Gori Vatra / Fuse (Pjer Zalica)
15. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir)
16. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (Errol Morris)
17. Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker)
18. Te Doy Mis Ojos (Icíar Bollaín)
19. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich)
20. Big Fish (Tim Burton)

I'd really like to watch Best Of Youth, but doing so would mean not watching like 3 or 4 other films. I'll catch during the 2009 phase if it makes top ten.

Of course, just glancing at the votes cast already, there's almost zero chance of it not qualifying.

I'm about halfway through Barbarian Invasions and I'm kind of annoyed with it so far. There's all this Godardesque moral relativism which comes off as fashionable schaudenfraude toward the United States.

Yeah, it seems safe already. And that's without my #1 vote. I still have a few films to watch though, so like always you'll get it a (few) day(s) before the deadline.

I really jumped the gun with this comment. Turns out they only raised that Jean Luc Godard intellectualism at the beginning of the film so they could rally against it for the rest of it. The closer the guy got to death the more human the film became.

1. American Splendor
2. Old School
3. Lost in Translation
4. Kill Bill V1
5. A Mighty Wind
6. Elephant
7. Coffee and Cigarettes
8. Lord of the Rings: ROTK
9. Mystic River
10. Pirates of the Caribbean- Curse of the Black Pearl
11. Elf
12. Swimming Pool
13. Capturing the Friedmans
14. Big Fish
15. The Dreamers

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2. Mystic River
3. Finding Nemo
4. Lost in Translation
5. American Splendor
6. Bad Santa
7. Capturing the Friedmans
8. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
9. The Triplets of Belleville
10. The Station Agent

1. 21 Grams
2. Dogville
3. Capturing the Friedmans
4. Monster
5. Goodbye Lenin!
6. The Station Agent
7. Возвращение [The Return]
8. Mystic River
9. Te doy mis ojos [Take My Eyes]
10. Salmer fra kjøkkenet [Kitchen Stories]
11. The Life of David Gale
12. Lost in Translation
13. 봄여름가을겨울그리고봄 [Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring]
14. Om jag vänder mig om [Daybreak]
15. Ondskan [Evil]
16. Coffee and Cigarettes
17. Elephant
18. Les invasions barbares [The Barbarian Invasions]
19. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
20. The Corporation

Films I probably should have seen before making this list:
My Life Without Me
Carandiru
O Homem que Copiava [The Man Who Copied]
House of Sand and Fog
Love Actually
Oldboy
Les Triplettes de Belleville [The Triplets of Belleville]
Finding Nemo
La meglio gioventù [The Best of Youth] (although my few spare time hours are way too valuable to be spent on a movie over 6 hours)

1 The Room ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plz-bhcHryc )
2 Bad Santa
3 Kill Bill
4 Lost in Translation
5 Elephant
6 Old School
7 Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
8 Matchstick Men
9 Once Upon A Time In Mexico
10 Cabin Fever

The Room's vote spread at IMDB:

10 30.7%
9 2.7%
8 2.3%
7 1.5%
6 1.2%
5 1.5%
4 1.5%
3 3.4%
2 8.5%
1 46.8%

Interesting!

The Room and Cabin Fever are both amazing B-movies! I saw The Room in theatres recently with a Q&A with director Tommy Wiseau before the showing. I expected him to come across as more normal and less serious than in the film, but in reality he was even more bizarre. He sent the audience into fits of laughter with each nonsensical response (when one person asked him how it was working with Jessica Alba he responded, "Do you prefer plastic or wood?"). The Room is a must-see bad movie, but you absolutely have to see it in theatres and not by yourself at home.

I hear he does a lot of Q&As in Los Angeles. I could listen to that guy talk all day... he has one of the best accents and he's always saying something imaginatively nonsensical.

Nobody shop for DVDs at CeX.

I went there yesterday and picked up 21 Grams and The Squid and The Whale. I got to the register, and they couldn't even find the disc for The Squid And The Whale.

So, I bought 21 Grams. I went home and played it, and it wasn't 21 Grams. It was 21, the Kevin Spacey movie.

There's so many different movies I'd like to see but have equal inclination to. But due to Memorial Day, I probably only will get one more Netflix disc in time for Saturday. So instead of trying to catch up I'm going to get a head start on 2004-2005 and just catch anything I haven't seen that makes the top ten before the final vote.

So, if 21 Grams misses by less than 20 points, blame CeX.

So, my ballot:
1. Lost In Translation
2. The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King
3. Kill Bill: Vol 1
4. Oldboy
5. Mystic River
6. The Barbarian Invasions
7. A Mighty Wind

Dogville and Elephant would appear as #9 and #10, except I didn't like them quite enough that I want to help them qualify over other peoples' favorites I haven't seen.

Edit: I just realized Nobody Knows is 2004 according to RYM.

1. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 – Quentin Tarantino
2. Intolerable Cruelty – Joel Coen
3. Mystic River – Clint Eastwood
4. American Splendor – Shari Springer Berman
5. Cold Mountain – Anthony Minghella
6. Big Fish – Tim Burton
7. The Human Stain – Robert Benton
8. Capturing the Friedmans – Andrew Jarecki
9. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – Peter Weir
10. X2 – Bryan Singer
11. Girl With a Pearl Earring – Peter Webber
12. Lost in Translation – Sofia Coppola
13. 21 Grams – Alejandro González Iñárritu
14. Good Bye Lenin! – Wolfgang Becker
15. Les invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions) – Denys Arcand
16. Torremolinos 73 – Pablo Berger
17. Shattered Glass – Billy Ray
18. The Italian Job – F. Gary Gray
19. Soldados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamina) – David Trueba
20. The Last Samurai – Edward Zwick

21. La fleur du mal (The Flower of Evil) – Claude Chabrol
22. Descongélate (Chill Out!) – Félix Sabroso / Diana Ayuso
23. Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin – Richard Schickel
24. The Matrix Reloaded – Andy & Larry Wachowski
25. Bruce Almighty – Tom Shadyac

1 At 5 In The Afternoon - Samira Makhmalbaf - Iran
2 Capturing the Friedmans – Andrew Jarecki - USA
3 Big Fish – Tim Burton - USA
4 Dogville - Lars Von Trier - Denmark
4 Les Triplettes de Belleville - Sylvain Chomet - France
5 Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring - Kim Ki-Duk - Korea
6 Elephant - Gus Van Sant - USA
7 Schultze Gets The Blues - Michael Schorr - Germany
8 Les invasions barbares - Denys Arcand - Canada
9 All The Real Girls - David Gordon Green - USA
10 Svjedoci [Witnesses] - Vinko Bresan - Croatia
11 11:14 - Greg Marcks - USA
12 Mystic River – Clint Eastwood - USA
13 S-21, la machine de mort Khmère rouge - Rithy Panh - France
14 Anything Else - Woody Allen - USA
15 Oldboy - Park Chan-Wook - Korea
16 Tokyo Godfathers - Satoshi Kon - Japan
17 Freaky Friday - Mark Waters - USA
18 Memories Of Murder - Bong Joon-Ho - Korea
19 The Tesseract - Oxide Pang - Thailand
20 The Cooler - Wayne Kramer - USA

H.M.

Blind Shaft
Owning Mahowny
Kontroll
Looney Tunes: Back In Action
Pirates Of The Carribean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
Ni pour, ni contre (bien ou contraire)
Zatiochi
Monster
Te doy mis ojos
Cold Mountain

1) Lost in Translation
2) School of Rock
3) Kill Bill Vol. 1
4) Big Fish
5) Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
6) Bruce Almighty
7) The Dreamers
8) Holes
9) Love Actually
10) Seabiscuit

Now there's a three point difference between 9th place and 12th place.

Stephan, your ballot will be very influential.

If 21 Grams is one of them, please try to rent or borrow it or something...

GO The Triplets of Belleville GO! Stephan you really need to vote it

By the way I saw The Illusionist (new movie by Sylvain Chomet) in Berlinale in February and it's definitely the movie of 2010 so far. Pure perfection like Belleville Rendez-vous. It's better than first 15 minutes of Up and better than Mary & Max. So don't miss it in film festivals (according to IMDB the not-festival premier is in France and UK on 16th of June.)

The pressure, the pressure! Already saw 21 Grams and I have Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall... And Spring planned as the first movie to see (if I find the time), and I will move The Triplets of Belleville up to #2 for you Petri, but I very much doubt that I will get to it.

I fear that I will feel sorry about "Belleville" just like I felt sorry about "Le Fils", two films I haven't seen that I might have pushed into the top 10 if I had seen them.

20. The Station Agent
19. Bend It Like Beckham
18. Bruce Almighty
17. Dark Blue
16. The Human Stain
15. Identity
14. Bad Santa
13. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
12. American Splendor
11. Secondhand Lions

10. The Fog of War
09. Elf
08. Big Fish
07. House of Sand and Fog
06. LOTR: The Return of the King
05. Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines
04. Old School
03. Kill Bill Vol. 1
02. Love Actually
01. The Barbarian Invasions

And there it is. No time to watch more, although I would have liked to maybe watch the Station Agent. If it makes it I can watch it for the final. I really dug "Spring.." and it made #6 of the list, while "Les Triplettes de Belleville" with its remarkable beauty just nudged "Big Fish" out of the top 10.

1. La Meglio Gioventù [The Best of Youth] (Marco Tullio Giordana)
2. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Peter Jackson)
3. 21 Grams (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
4. The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick)
5. Oldboy (Chan-wook Park)
6. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring (Ki-duk Kim)
7. Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola)
8. American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman / Robert Pulcini)
9. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino)
10. Les Triplettes De Belleville [The Triplets of Belleville] (Sylvain Chomet)

You managed to vote for pretty much all the bubble films. (Except for one, which you knocked from 8 down to 11.)

The turnout is increasing, and that's awesome, but the side effect is that a smaller percentage of voters have seen the biggest non-english language films. I think I'm going to focus my Netflix viewing on the foreign films, just because the best American films will probably make it even if I don't vote for them.

I want to say something about the movie Dogville. What I like about it, and why I didn't list it. (I should probably say 'Minor spoilers', even though it's not really the kind of movie you worry about that).

I really love the concept for the movie, but I don't think I like the movie itself. The idea to have the movie on a big black rectangle with houses drawn on the floor was freaking brilliant. It made it seem Shakespearian, like an R rated version of a high school play.

I also want to bring up one psychological study. In this experiment, they had two groups of people write arguments for political views they didn't agree with. One group they gave 20 dollars, the other they gave 1 dollar. Afterward, the group they gave 1 dollar was much more won over to the view they did not agree with than the group they gave 20 dollars. This is called 'Insufficient justification'. One dollar isn't enough to justify arguing for a view they don't agree with, so they thought 'I must be writing it because I kind of do agree with it'. Whereas 20 dollars was enough of a payoff for that group to think "I'm just doing it for the money, I don't agree with it at all".

We see this experiment repeated in Dogville. At the beginning when Grace is just doing little things around town, that's not enough to justify risking their lives to help her, so they think "We must really like her". Then later when Tom ramps it up and has her serving them all day on hands and knees, they think "Oh, we're only doing it cause she's helping us". That's when they feel justified in taking whatever they want from her. Dogville to me really is a brilliant psychological study, and a commentary on the hypocrisy of moral relativism.

Now, here's why I didn't think highly enough of it to give it points. As a movie, it's awkwardly paced and so long it's hard to get all the way through. The characterization is (Intentionally) shallow. There isn't enough plot for me to penetrate the sophistry and get involved in the story for three hours. It works a lot better as an essay than a movie, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's what I thought would happen. I probably also bumped one of my favorites out of the top 10 by giving points to another one. Does make me quite anxious for the outcome tomorrow though.

About Dogville, I agree that the idea and setting were a lot better than the actual film. Got bored pretty quickly I'm afraid.

And the results.

The turnout is increasing. That will probably keep happening as the game goes on, because I suspect we will gain more voters, but not lose many old ones.

Position. Movie (Points/votes/#1 votes)

1. Lost In Translation (313/12/2)
2. Kill Bill vol. 1 (307/11/1)
3. Lord of The Rings: Return Of The King (206/6/1)
4. Mystic River (186/9/0)
5. Le Meglio Gioventu (The Best Of Youth) (185/5/1)
6. Dogville (179/6/1)
7. Les Invasions Barbares (The Barbarian Invasions) (176/9/1)
8. 21 Grams (162/6/2)
9. Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring) (161/8/1)
10. American Splendor (152/7/1)

Just missed:
Capturing the Friedmans (141/6/0)
Les Triplettes de Belville (The Triplets of Belville) (136/7/0)

The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy qualifies for the final round.

Directors with multiple movies qualified so far:

3:
Jackson (Lord of the Rings)

2:
Inarritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams)
Coen (O Brother Where Art Thou, The Man Who Wasn't There)
Spielberg (AI, Minority Report)
von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark)

Highest TSPDT 21st century ranked movie not to qualify:
#43 Moulin Rouge

Unranked movies to qualify:
The Taste Of Others
The Bourne Identity
Spring, Summer, (and so on)
The Barbarian Invasions

Interesting stats. I guess Jackson will be overtaken by at least the Coens in the end. I wonder why Spring, Summer... is not thoughy of very highly by the critics. It's the same with Bin-Jip, unbelievable.

Interesting thoughts on Dogville Bill. I guess I could recommend another social-study-film to you, Manderlay. Von Trier's follow-up of Dogville. I think it's better than Dogville and what could be important for you is that it's about 40 minutes shorter (which still is quite long actually).

Excellent list once again folks. Looking forward to 2004. Oh, and sorry about knocking off Capturing the Friedmans; haven't seen it unfortunately.

Thanks BillAdama, good job again.
Like 2002, 2003 is not a very good year for me...I wait the 2004 poll impatiently, because I beginning to look the films of this year and there are a lot of huge films.

P.S. : can you put the number of voters, thanks.

15 votes.

You're so right about 2004 being a better year. I only had seven movies to vote for in 2003? Before even watching anything on Netflix I already have 15 from 2004.

Sure, 2004 was when I discovered Metacritic, but that's beside the point. ;)