My Top 10 movies of the 21st century

(Yes, it's a change of pace post.)

Amidst the world’s horrors, distractions are still needed.

Or so I tell myself.

Anyway, the New York Times today started its countdown of the best movies of the 21st century so far. They’re revealing the list in chunks: the 100th-best to 81st-best were unveiled today. I had seen 13 of them, which doesn’t feel too bad.

Anyway, the fun part is they show the ballots of all the industry professionals who participated in the rankings. (Nicholas Sparks, the author of “The Notebook” included “Madagascar 3” in his Top 10 list, and I’ve got to think that’s the only time that movie showed up in anybody’s rankings.)

The other fun part?

Readers — those with an NYT subscription anyway — are invited to make their own Top 10 list. I thought about it for a couple of hours. Here’s mine:

Some notes:

* I have a small text chain with some other movie friends, and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is the only one that appeared on all our lists. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a “lost love” or “one that got away” story — the kind they almost don’t make anymore — which is why “In The Mood for Love” also shows up on my ranking. They’re both period films. (Gotta think why that might be.) And they burn with barely revealed passion. The best kind.

* I had to have an action movie in here, and I honestly think “The Raid: Redemption” still has the power to astonish 14 years later. Put it this way: My son and I watched “John Wick” the other night — arguably a descendant of “The Raid,” and in any case the most-imitated American action movie of the century — and I thought it came in at about two-thirds of its predecessor. Not for everybody, but the people it’s for it’s definitely for.

* “Perfect Days” is more than a movie. It is devotion. It is meditation. My initial Letterboxd review went something like this. “So glad I saw this in a cinema. It's the rare movie I wouldn't want to see anywhere else. It needs your full attention, a complete lack of distraction and a fully dark room to experience it in. And it is gorgeous.” As it turns out, I have seen it at home since. I solved the problem of distraction by turning out all the lights, telling everybody this was NOT a “we chat during the movie” movie and basically getting an understanding that this was going to be a different movie than usual¹. It worked.

* “Wall-E” is both beautiful to look at and made me feel things.

* I first saw “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” on a not-quite date with a woman I was endlessly smitten with but didn’t know how to break through with. A movie about a guy named “Joel” who is endlessly awkward — not in a cute way, sometimes in an angry way — finding love and fighting for it even though he knows it will bring inevitable pain and disappointment hit really, really hard. I didn’t get together with that young woman. But I think, oddly enough, this film was a critical step in my own growth that made me ready to handle a real relationship with the woman who became my wife a few years later.

* I decided I could only choose one Paul Thomas Anderson film — yeah, I’m a white guy moviegoer — and “There Will Be Blood” slipped by “Phantom Thread” by a hair. Both feature magnificent performances from Daniel Day-Lewis, who makes you feel the texture of each man’s inner life in the way few actors can. But “Blood” is America, man. About as America as it gets.

* “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” stunned me with its wirework martial arts moves when I first saw it on the big screen, and you know what? It’s still immensely striking today. I love this movie.

* “The Lives of Others” and “Children of Men” are different movies: One is set in the past. The other the near-future. Both are warnings we have failed to heed.

The thing I noticed in making my list and looking at other ballots is that there are big holes in my movie-watching experience. I missed a few years while parenting, I haven’t always been as diligent as I would like in seeking out foreign films.

But everybody has holes. There are too many movies and too few hours. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to close the gap and I will fail.

1. It was my birthday. I got to be bossy.