Top Ten(ish) Movies of 2004

[aphrodite]

So.... I didn't see as many as I wanted.... saw more bad ones than I wanted.... but saw some great movies this year, too. List your top 10 or so favorite movies of the year.

Here are mine:
Napoleon Dynamite
Passion of the Christ
Saved!
Closer
The Motorcycle Diaries
The Grudge
Vera Drake
Spanglish
Fahrenheit 9/11
Coffee & Cigarettes
The Butterfly Effect
Shaun of the Dead

edit: adding Big Fish (thought it was a 2003 release) and definately Garden State.

Some movies I have wanted to see but haven't are: Bad Education, Life Aquatic, The Darkness, Ray, Finding Neverland and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I hear they're all great.... I've just been lazy with movies this year.

[DylanDog]

Dawn of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead
Napoleon Dynamite
Saw
Secret Window
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Salem's Lot (TV Movie)
Big Fish
Miracle

If Ong Bak counts for this year, it's definitely in.

[promegarick]

Some movies I have wanted to see but haven't are: Bad Education, Garden State, Life Aquatic, The Darkness, Ray, Finding Neverland and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I hear they're all great.... I've just been lazy with movies this year.

Eternal Sunshine is a fantastic movie! I recomend you go out and rent it right NOW!!!!

[Kimberly]

Some of the ones I really enjoyed this year...

Napoleon Dynamite
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
I'm Not Scared
Zatoichi
House of Flying Daggers
The Machinist
Super Size Me
Farenheight 9/11
Passion of the Christ
Dawn of the Dead
Saw
Team America
Two Brothers
Big Fish
Hero

Thanks to Hero getting an official wide theatrical release it's made my "best of" for 2 years now...

I got to see Shaolin Soccer in the theaters this past summer... does that count even though it's old? How about Ju-On... that count as well? If so... add them to the good ones...

As for crappy ones, some include...

Blade Trinity
Open Water
The Bourne Supremecy
Troy
Van Helsing
The Grudge

[Latte Thunder]

While the genre stuff was a little on the lean side, a lot of the mainstream stuff I saw this year was actually pretty good.

My top pick of the year goes to Napoleon Dynamite without thinking twice. Made on a shoestring budget by a bunch of mormons, who knew? Thankfully, we're entering back into the tail end of the production cycle and after several years of high budget blockbuster crap, the low budget indie scene is taking precendence again. It just goes to prove that you don't need a shitload of money to make a really good movie, and even though I can't properly put the plot of the movie into a coherent explanation, it still manages to rule. Jon Heder is going to go down in cult history as one of the best character actors (unfortunately, I can't see him in any other roles. One movie and he's typecast!). It's the most quotable movie since Clerks. I loved it.

Zhang Yimou dominated my martial arts menu this with Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Ang Lee got the martial arthouse ball rolling with Crouching Tiger, but Yimou redefined the subgenre with two of the most lyrical kung fu flicks I've ever seen. Hero is soft spoken despite its slam-bang action scenes. It plays like a poem and is the most aesthetically pleasing movie I've seen in a long time. The mind fight between Jet Li and Donnie Yen is absolutely amazing. House was a much more conventional movie, but also featured the same artist's touch as Hero and worked out as a better action film.

I've never been one for the teen comedies, but I thought Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle was one of the funniest pot movies since Up In Smoke. Kumar fucks a giant bag of weed, for crying out loud!

Anchorman was just awesome.

The director's cut of Donnie Darko was released this year and I got to see it, I liked the first version enough, but the director's cut adds twenty minutes of footage, some new graphics and ultimately makes a lot more sense as it concludes. Don't miss the DVD release. This is a much better movie than the first time around.

The Incredibles blew me away. I can't say enough things about it. Best Pixar movie by a long shot, Brad Bird is a godsend to animation.

The other three top picks go to Dawn and Shaun of the Dead as well as Saw, which I cover in the Horrornews thread.

[Demolition Hammer]

Shaun Of the Dead and Team America: World Police are the best movies I saw last year. I also checked out Kill Bill 2 (sweet), Saw (pretty cool), The Passion Of the Christ (quite good) and Dawn Of the Dead (what a horrible remake).

[behindspace]

Anchorman.

fin.

[bRRt]

for me,the best of the best goes to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. What an amazing movie. Who would have thought that Ace Ventura could act so brilliantly? Just blown away and left speechless with this one.


the conclusion to Kill Bill was probably the other high point for me, just awesome. I loved the mass amounts of dialogue and the bad ass Superman analysis. Just a great fucking movie.

Big Fish. I love it when a movie can make me choke up, . Anybody that saw it knows what I'm talking about (don't pretend you don't ), what a powerful film.

Dawn of the Dead was a good movie and a decent re-make.and for a hollywood movie, they kept it pretty damn good. Especially in comparison to that fucking re-make of Texas Chainsaw, that movie was fucking pathetic.

Team America was a great movie, laughed my ass off.

I must say that I personally hated Napoleon Dynamite, I tried so hard to like it but I dindn't actually luagh even once.

I also thought (after seeing it a second time) that anchor man was a total piece of shit, it had some funny moments but none of them involved Will Ferrel. (sorry Brady)

Hero was good. I liked it but was kinda suprised, it wasn't really what I was expecting, but I really liked it. The use of color blew me away, and those fight scenes were just bad ass. I have yet to see House of Flying Daggers, but needless to say I'm quiet excited to.

[Kimberly]

I have yet to see House of Flying Daggers, but needless to say I'm quiet excited to.

There's alot more fighting in House of Flying Daggers... it's just as gorgeous... my husband liked Daggers more then Hero... so who knows you may end up liking it better as some of my friends liked it better then Hero too...

[DylanDog]

I put off seeing Hero repeatable because I had it in my head for some reason that someone here said it was awful. But fortunately it is playing tomorrow still (on a double bill with Zatoichi 2004) so I should be able to go check it out. If I like it, I should still have time to see Daggers, I think.