2004 films ranked

Submitted by ephender on Thu, 11/03/2005 - 09:31
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  1. ****
  2. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
  3. Decasia (Bill Morrison) [additionally, the short Light is Calling]
  4. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)

  6. ***½
  7. Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi)
  8. Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
  9. Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar)
  10. Vera Drake (Mike Leigh)
  11. Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood)
  12. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
  13. Moolaadé (Ousmane Sembene)
  14. Bus 174 (José Padilha)
  15. Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen)
  16. Dogville (Lars Von Trier)

  18. ***
  19. Anatomy of Hell (Catherine Breillat)
  20. Distant (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
  21. Zatôichi (Takeshi Kitano)
  22. Raja (Jacques Doillon)
  23. Notre Musique (Jean-Luc Godard)
  24. Kill Bill, vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino)
  25. Bright Leaves (Ross McElwee)
  26. Cowards Bend the Knee (Guy Maddin)
  27. The Master and His Pupil (Sonia Herman Dolz)

  29. **½
  30. Cellular (David R. Ellis)
  31. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (Danny Leiner)
  32. Hero (Zhang Yimou)
  33. Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke)
  34. Brother to Brother (Rodney Evans)
  35. Empathy (Amie Siegel)
  36. The Five Obstructions (Jørgen Leth & Lars von Trier)

  38. **
  39. Primer (Shane Carruth)
  40. Struggle (Ruth Mader)
  41. Mr. 3000 (Charles Stone III)
  42. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Mamoru Oshii)
  43. Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore)
  44. Spiderman 2 (Sam Raimi)
  45. dig! (Ondi Timoner)
  46. Team America: World Police (Trey Parker)
  47. House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou)
  48. Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (Robert Stone)
  49. Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette)

  51. *½
  52. The Village (M. Night Shyamalan)
  53. Enduring Love (Roger Michell)
  54. Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau & Alan Lak)
  55. Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess)
  56. A Dirty Shame (John Waters)
  57. New Guy (Bilge Ebiri)
  58. The Stepford Wives (Frank Oz)
  59. Closer (Mike Nichols)
  60. The Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin)
  61. Sideways (Alexander Payne)
  62. Alila (Amos Gitai)
  63. Tishe! (Victor Kossakovsky)

  65. *
  66. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (Xan Cassavetes)
  67. Testosterone (David Moreton)
  68. Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Alexander Witt)
  69. Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock)
  70. Two Brothers (Jean-Jacques Annaud)
  71. Sugar (John Palmer)
  72. The Hebrew Hammer (Jonathan Kesselman)
  73. Army of One (Sara Goodman)
  74. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (Bob Clark)
  75. Miffo (Daniel Lind Lagerlöf)
  76. James's Journey to Jersusalem (Ra'anan Alexandrowicz)
  77. A Very Long Engagement (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
  78. Zelary (Ondrej Trojan)
  79. Faster (Mark Neale)
  80. Born Into Brothels (Zana Briski & Ross Kauffman)
  81. In the Realms of the Unreal (Jessica Yu)

  83. ½
  84. Eating Out (Q. Allan Brocka)
  85. King Arthur (Antoine Fuqua)
  86. Around the World in 80 Days (Frank Coraci)
  87. Cowboys & Angels (David Gleeson)
  88. Taxi (Tim Story)
  89. The Clearing (Pieter Jan Brugge)
  90. Adored: Diary of a Porn Star (Marco Filiberti)
  91. The Machinist (Brad Anderson)
  92. Farm Family: In Search of Gay Life in Rural America (Tom Murray)
  93. Garfield: The Movie (Peter Hewitt)
  94. Ray (Taylor Hackford)
  95. Benji: Off the Leash (Joe Camp)
  96. Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker)
  97. Dutch Light (Pieter-Rim de Kroon & Maarten de Kroon)

  99. 0
  100. Off the Lip (Robert Mickelson)
  101. Connie & Carla (Michael Lembeck)
  102. Sleepover (Joe Nussbaum)
  103. Grand Champion (Barry Tubb)
  104. Bobby Jones, Stroke... (Rowdy Herrington)
  105. Raising Helen (Garry Marshall)
  106. The Princess Diaries 2 (Garry Marshall)
  107. Ladder 49 (Jay Russell)
  108. Exorcist: The Beginning (Renny Harlin)
  109. A Cinderella Story (Mark Rosman)
  110. Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury & Conrad Vernon)

  112. Hated so much I think I looped back to liking them again.
  113. Twentynine Palms (Bruno Dumont)
  114. The Notebook (Nick Cassavetes)
Author Comments: 

More or less based on on first theatrical showing in the Twin Cities, MN... or, failing that, a DVD release. Towards the top of the lists is the Dan Sallitt color coding system to designate the flaming masterpieces from the almosts, et al.

My favorite performances of the year, if you were curious:

Female Lead

  • Gigi Buffington, Empathy
  • Fatoumata Coulibaly, Moolaadé
  • Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
  • Isabella Rossellini, The Saddest Music in the World
  • Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake

    Male Lead

  • Hossain Emadeddin, Crimson Gold
  • Pascal Greggory, Raja
  • Ryan Gosling, The Notebook
  • Ethan Hawke, Before Sunset
  • Jon Heder, Napoleon Dynamite

    Supporting Female

  • Angela Bassett, Mr. 3000
  • Daryl Hannah, Kill Bill, vol. 2
  • Keren Mor, Alila
  • Kathrin Sass, Good bye, Lenin!
  • Naky Sy Savane, Moolaadé

    Supporting Male

  • Duane Boutte, Brother to Brother
  • Alex Burns, Brother to Brother
  • Javier Cámara, Bad Education
  • Neil Patrick Harris, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
  • Lars Von Trier, The Five Obstructions
    • jim11/04/2005

    Nice! I really like the format, and you have quite a few movies on here I haven't seen that I'll have to check out. I do find your rankings of Sideways and Infernal Affairs shockingly low, and I loved Hero, but I applaud the punitive ranking of House of Flying Daggers.

    Oh, and I haven't seen either yet, but Born into Brothels in the same tier as Superbabies? Wow.

    ephender11/05/2005

    Haha. I didn't even notice they were in the same tier. They are sort of cut from the same cloth, being namby-pamby movies about coddling the self-esteem of the rugrat set.

    WB05/24/2006

    Very nice list. I don't agree with all of the rankings, but so fat the imo most competent 2004 listing I've encountered on listology. And you don't seem to hype the crap most users here keep watching.
    Keep up the good work!

    ephender05/24/2006

    LOL. You called my list fat.

    WB05/26/2006

    was a typo, I meant far *lol*

    Cosgrove05/24/2006

    So this, then, would mean you're not keeping company with the Dumont supporters...

    ephender05/24/2006

    I had thought I was before, when the only one I'd seen was L'Humanite (which I loved until this movie retroactively made me reconsider what it was I was reacting toward... or against, rather). But I put Twentynine Palms that far down on the totem pole because it deserves to be hated, and I think I sort of mean that as a compliment.

    Cosgrove05/24/2006

    I can understand that. Kinda like when Ebert wrote up "Stealing Harvard" and mentioned that, even though he'd hated Tom Green's "Freddy Got Fingered," he still thought about it and mentioned it in other reviews, which was not something he'd be doing with the former film. Better to have a film make you feel something than nothing at all, eh?

    ephender05/24/2006

    I agree with that sentiment completely. Part of me thinks that zero stars and four stars are merely the same point on the great circle of quality. (Which means that I need to move a whole lot of those movies up to a half-star.)

    ephender05/24/2006

    What the hell, I made a new category on the scale for the fun of it.

    WB05/26/2006

    Now that's an interesting category. :-))

    lukeprog08/03/2008

    Would you elucidate your critical criteria for film?

    ephender08/04/2008

    My criterion is if they move, kill them.