The Cinéaste's Progress from This List to That Which Is to Come (He Hopes)


Once upon a time, I used to play a coy, rather pointless game w/r/t my annual top ten list -- dramatically "unveiling" it sometime in January, as if most everybody who reads this site didn't already have a pretty good idea of what it was gonna look like. Instead, I now publicly revise the sucker as I go along, so that the whole affair becomes a suspenseful Journey Toward Aesthetic Nirvana. Or something.

Here, then, is what my list would look like if (god forbid) I were forced to make it today:


THE "PURE" LIST (2006 premiere)

01. The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, USA)
02. Time (Kim Ki-duk, South Korea/Japan)
03. Old Joy (Kelly Reichardt, USA)
04. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, USA)
05. The Host (Bong Joon-ho, South Korea)
06. Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev, USA)
07. Container (Lukas Moodysson, Sweden)
08. Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
09. The Boss of It All (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/France/Italy)
10. Offside (Jafar Panahi, Iran)


THE "POLLS" LIST (2006 commercial release)

01. The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, USA)
02. Dave Chappelle's Block Party (Michel Gondry, USA)
03. Old Joy (Kelly Reichardt, USA)
04. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, USA)
05. Down in the Valley (David Jacobson, USA)
06. Brick (Rian Johnson, USA)
07. Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
08. Sleeping Dogs Lie. (Bobcat Goldthwait, USA)
09. L'Enfant (The Child) (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France)
10. Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck, USA)