It is fitting that I write my first retrospective on the first year of the new millennium (I know there was all that hype about 2000, but ’01 was technically the first year of the millennium). For me, 2001 was a big year because it was the first year I really began to look at movies as art rather than just entertainment. I began a tireless quest to watch all of the “great movies” ever made, a task that became even more daunting when I discovered just how big that list is. So, for me 2001 began a journey into the wonderful world of cinema, a world that is ever-changing and ever-broadening. I began the year very cynical about the current state of Hollywood. After seeing all the classics of the ‘40s and ‘50s and then going out to see Pearl Harbor, anyone would be a tad bit disappointed. The summer saw more unrequited hype than any other year in my short little lifetime. The Oscar race was looking pretty bleak. There were gems early on, like Moulin Rouge and The Pledge, but the vast majority of the studio offerings were laughably bad. Then…the fall rolled around. The fall of 2001 redeemed the rest of the year with so many magnificent performances and wonderful screenplays, it’s hard to look back with anything but a smile at 2001. I was originally going to do a top ten list, as most other critics do, but as I made out my list, I began to realize that many of my favorite movies, or at least movies that I thought deserved recognition as some of the best of the year, were going to be left out. For example, the Oscar-winner for Best Picture, A Beautiful Mind, didn’t end up in my top ten, not because it wasn’t good but because there were just ten movies that I thought were better. In order to pay proper respect to the best movies of the year, I extended my top ten to a top twenty. I've written special reviews for this BEST OF piece that explain my reasons for picking these films, what's great about them and why I ranked them where I did. Just click on the movie titles for the goods. So, without further ado, my top 20 movies of 2001 are as follows:
20) Black Hawk Down
19) Heist
18) The Others
17) Monster's Ball
16) O
15) The Pledge
14) A Beautiful Mind
13) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
12) Gosford Park
11) Moulin Rouge
10) No Man's Land
9) Amelie
8) Memento
7) The Royal Tennenbaums
6) Waking Life
5) In The Bedroom
4) Vanilla Sky
3) The Man Who Wasn't There
2) Shrek
1) Mulholland Drive
Honorable Mentions