Best of the Decade: 30-26

The Counterfeiters - 2007

Based on the true story of Operation Bernhand, in which specially-selected Jews in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were forced to counterfeit enemy currency and disrupt their economies, "The Counterfeiters" begins with incredible material. But writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzsky never rests on the premise; working in stark earth tones and framing his actors like portraits, he creates an unsettling atmosphere that mirrors his characters' fear as they choose whether or not to blur their morality.

The Departed - 2006

Despite a Best Picture Oscar, The Departed still seems to carry an air of Scorsese-selling-out. Whatever. If this is Scorsese selling out, I wish he'd done it earlier. Working with the most densely-plotted script of his career, The Departed is both sharp and pulpy; it plays like an Italian opera in the grimy Boston streets. It's a brilliant exercise in tension and reveals and it completely holds up after each viewing.

Letters from Iwo Jima - 2006

"Letters from Iwo Jima" was more than a rebound after Eastwood's deeply-flawed "Flags of Our Fathers" failed to wow anyone. It was a brilliantly-crafted modern masterpiece, weaving personal tales of war together through the lens of Iwo Jima's Japanese soldiers. Many filmmakers have tried to capture wars from "the enemy's perspective" but the effect is always overly-didactic. Eastwood, though, keeps the movements intimate and it makes his themes about war's universal experiences ring truer.

Up the Yangtze - 2007

When I think of good documentaries, the words "powerful" and "enlightening" might come to mind, but until "Up the Yangtze" I never would have thought "gorgeous." The cinematography is so arresting, it's almost too easy to ignore the rest. But the rest--which chronicles the effect the building of the Three Gorges Dam has on a few different Chinese citizens--is an eye-opening experience, especially for an American audience. (Watching some of the American and European tourists on the Chinese cruise ships are enough to make any non-jigoist cringe.) But the power lies in the characters' seemingly hopeless fight to change their lives in a China that's changing more rapidly than their dreams can manage.

Dawn of the Dead - 2004

I hope history is kinder to "Watchmen" than the present, because I truly believe Zack Snyder is a visionary filmmaker. The greatest argument for that case, however, is 2004's urgent, absurd, thrill-a-minute remake of "Dawn of the Dead." With no explanation, the virus starts spreading and zombies walk the earth. We hide in a mall--and I do mean "We"; Snyder pulls you right into the action, fighting the undead beside the characters--and one gruesome set piece after another ratchets up the tension and the film's quickening pulse. "Dawn of the Dead" is startling and immediate and you can't think about anything else when you watch it; it may be the most viscerally satisfying movie of the decade.

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