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- Please no inappropriate usernames (remember that there may be youngsters in the room)
- Personal attacks on other community members are unacceptable, practice the good manners your mama taught you when engaging with fellow Dawg fans
- Use common sense and respect personal differences in the community: sexual and other inappropriate language or imagery, political rants and belittling the opinions of others will get your posts deleted and result in warnings and/ or banning from the forum
- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
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Forgot about Kingdom of Heaven in 2005. Such a well done Crusades-era movie, especially the extended version that makes some of Eva Green's story make much more sense.
And it was loosely based on a true story. Very, very, very loosely, but still. The guy did exist and they did get some of the details correct.
I enjoyed that movie as well. And Eva Green is too beautiful for words.
Watched it recently, really good and the John Wick series is very cool
Been meaning to watch hell or high water, life just gets in the way sometimes.
However, if you liked that one, the writer had a new one recently (somewhat?) called Wind River that I found fantastic
“Fury”, “Anglish only”. My favorite Pitt movie! close second is “inglorious bastards”
I thought they were both good, but I liked Wind River much more than Hell or High Water. May have been a matter of expectations. (None for the former, so it was a pleasant surprise, but pretty high for the latter, which it didn't live up to.)
Thanx much to the OP and contributors....found a few undiscovered gems:)
Baby Driver is a must see
Ok. Fourth and final installment is here, covering the years 2000-2004. Really appreciate all the contributors to the thread. I think before I close it out next week I'll try to pull together everyone's recommendations and post a comprehensive list of the top 100 films (or so) of the past twenty years. Maybe folks can use it as a reference to find and watch the ones they might have missed. Especially now, with extra time on our hands.
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2004
Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby
Top grossing film: Shrek 2
My favorite: Sideways
Honorable mention: The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, The Passion of the Christ, Kill Bill- Vol. 2, Anchorman, Napoleon Dynamite, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
Comments: Close call for favorite between Sideways and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I've watched the former countless times because it's so true and real and... funny. In contrast, it's hard for me to watch the latter because it's so true and real and... painful. Both are beautiful films- written, directed, acted.
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2003
Best Picture: Lord of the Rings- Return of the King
Top grossing film: Finding Nemo
My favorite: Lost in Translation
Honorable mention: Mystic River, Elf, Kill Bill- Vol 1, Big Fish, Old School
Comments: This is the rare occasion where the top grossing film (Nemo) was also arguably the best film of the year. But I'll give my vote to Sofia Coppola's masterpiece, starring a perfectly cast Bill Murray & Scarlett Johansson in the lead roles.
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2002
Best Picture: Chicago
Top grossing film: Spider-Man
My favorite: The Bourne Identity
Honorable mention: LOTR- Two Towers, The Pianist, Gangs of New York, Catch Me If You Can, 28 Days Later, Minority Report, Insomnia, Adaptation, Laurel Canyon
Comments: Gangs is a personal favorite largely because of the individual performance of Daniel Day Lewis, but I chose Bourne because it represents the very best of the "action hero" genre of the past two decades, over any Bond film, the Mission Impossible series, or anything else.
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2001
Best Picture: A Beautiful Mind
Top grossing film: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
My favorite: Memento
Honorable mention: LOTR- Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge, Shrek, Black Hawk Down, The Others, The Royal Tenenbaums, Super Troopers, Serendipity
Comments: Memento was Christopher Nolan's first major film release. If you enjoyed Insomnia, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, or any of the (Christian Bale) Batman films, it's worth watching this to catch a glimpse of the greatness that lay ahead.
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2000
Best Picture: Gladiator
Top grossing film: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
My favorite: Almost Famous
Honorable mention: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Traffic, Cast Away, X-Men, O Brother Where Art Thou, Remember the Titans, The Perfect Storm, Wonder Boys
Comments: Almost Famous is basically Cameron Crowe's autobiography, set to good music, with great performances from an interesting mix of actors, including Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Jason Lee, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's poignant, funny, and kind of perfect.
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Ok. What did I miss???
I just looked back through the thread, and it's listed as one of my top three films of 2017, along with Dunkirk and Molly's Game.
Watching Hell or High Water again. Love it.
I'm through those small towns often during hunting season.
Really like how they use the actual small towns in the movie.
Errors and Omissions:
Kudos to @Ugadawg1993 for bringing up Contagion (2011) on another thread. It made me realize there were some worthy films I failed to mention in my initial posts. So here's a list of additional "honorable mentions," some of which have also been noted by others in this thread.
Listed from the most recent to the oldest, dating back to 2000. Roughly half of these are comedies- not necessarily "great" films- but worth watching.
Yesterday, Atomic Blonde, American Made, Wind River, The Revenant, The Accountant, Interstellar, Fury, Bridesmaids, Crazy **** Love, Limitless, Contagion, Get Him to the Greek, Couples Retreat, Adventureland, Superbad, The Interpreter, Munich, Along Came Polly, Friday Night Lights, Bruce Almighty, Meet the Parents.
Big fan of this thread. Let's take it a step further.
Who has time on their hands? Well....duh.
Let's establish a DawgNation Forum "Streaming" or "MovieWatch" club? It reminds me of a classic Larry Munson story I will have to share with everyone sometime on our "Before the Hedges" program.
The idea:
As our story begins .......
"Honey, I've got to watch this tonight or this afternoon."
"Why? What's this movie? I've never heard of it? Who's in it?"
(this is a key step here. This will allow me to skip the line on having to play hype man for a movie in my marriage. Instead of just telling my bride that Mark Wahlberg is in it.)
"It is a DawgNation Digital
LearningCinema Night.""DawgNation is asking us to do it. You can do your part and join in, too."
"Well, if it is for DawgNation. Those guys are just like us."
END SCENE
Who's up for it?
Great idea
Jeff- thanks for the nice words and for the suggestion. I just got home from my 16 hour road trip. Will give this some thought when my brain function returns.
I also welcome input from everyone else on this thread.
Taking advantage of the down time, I cobbled together a list all of the films mentioned on this thread. Would you believe the number is well over 200?!?
So, to wrap things up, I've edited the complete list down to 100 films. If one of your personal favorites didn't make the cut, please forgive me. It's hard to eliminate half the films without stepping on some toes.
For the record, I consulted Rotten Tomatoes' ratings for final cuts and films I had not seen, to determine which ones were most worthy of inclusion. (An imperfect process, but better than being arbitrary.)
Naturally you can find any number of such lists online, but this one is ours, the official DawgNation Top 100 Films of the Past 20 Years. Thank you all for your contributions.
EDIT: I meant to clarify- this final post is not for the purpose of further debate. It's just to collect the films in a single place so folks can re-visit the thread whenever they're looking for a movie to watch and want to find one they haven't seen before.
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1917
28 Days Later
3:10 to Yuma
A Quiet Place
A Star is Born
Adaptation
Adventureland
Almost Famous
American Hustle
An Education
Argo
Arrival
Baby Driver
Before Midnight
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Birdman
Borat
Bridesmaids
Bridge of Spies
Captain Phillips
Cast Away
Catch Me If You Can
Chef
Contagion
Crazy Heart
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Django Unchained
Donnie Darko
Drive
Dunkirk
Edge of Tomorrow
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Ex Machina
Finding Nemo
First Man
Ford vs. Ferrari
Foxcatcher
Gone Baby Gone
Gone Girl
Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
In Bruges
Inception
Inglourious Basterds
Insomnia
Iron Man
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2
Knives Out
Kung Fu Panda
Lost in Translation
Manchester by the Sea
Margin Call
Memento
Michael Clayton
Million Dollar Baby
Minority Report
Molly’s Game
Moneyball
Mystic River
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Pan’s Labyrinth
Parasite
Philomena
Rush
Searching for Sugar Man
Shrek 1 & 2
Sideways
Silver Linings Playbook
Slumdog Millionaire
Spider-Man (2002) & Reboot (2017-19)
Spotlight
The Artist
The Avengers Series (Marvel)
The Batman/Dark Knight Trilogy
The Big Short
The Bourne Trilogy
The Departed
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Hurt Locker
The Imitation Game
The King’s Speech
The Lives of Others
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Martian
The Master
The Pianist
The Queen
The Social Network
The Trip
The Wrestler
There Will Be Blood
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Traffic
United 93
Up
Up in the Air
Whiplash
Wind River
Zero Dark Thirty
Mr. Bean's Holiday is a fantastic movie.