I need to say just one thing first:
IT HAS BEEN TWENTY YEARS SINCE 2003...HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!?!
Time is a very strange and peculiar concept.
Anyways, I haven't really done anything like this for the blog yet but on a lot of my personal social media profiles, I often like to acknowledge when some of my favorite films are celebrating a milestone anniversary...which I suppose is whenever it reaches a number that ends in a 0 or a 5.
2003 would've been smack dab in the middle of a period when I was truly engrossed in my movie-loving life but was also right around the time I began to explore more of the "artsy auteur" films.
If I remember correctly, 2003 was the year I first saw Scenes from a Marriage, which was then celebrating its 30th Anniversary, which led to me seeking out more of Ingmar Bergman's work.
And truly discovering Bergman that year was sort of the tip of the iceberg.
As you will see, 2003 did have some very good-to-great films. However, what I find remarkable is how some of these films actually led me to seeking out different films that are considered true classics and opened my eyes to a whole other world of cinema...particularly films from around the world.
I will make sure address those cases, but a lot of the reason I wanted to do this series (which I will expand to also include other years ending in "3" such as 2013, 1993, 1983, and further into the past) is so that I could talk about some films that I haven't really had a chance to talk about yet.
A lot of that is my own fault. The way I have structured a lot of my blog is based on "Best of the Year" or "Best of the Decade" lists which obviously would more than likely favor my #1 or #2 selections from a given year leaving many films without a discussion.
Also - maybe there will be films on this list that have been somewhat forgotten about that I feel may deserve a second look...or perhaps a first look for some.
Here are ten films from 2003 that I have selected as my top 10 from that year.
**And in case anyone were to notice or call me out, a movie like City of God was technically released in 2002 even though most people in the U.S. didn't see it until 2003. Instead, I consider City of God my favorite film from 2002**
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#10 - American Splendor
(Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini)
I may have been...and still remain...a big geek when it comes to film and theatre and TV, but I was never the kind of geek that got into comic books.
At that time, I was sort of aware of the world of the American Splendor comics and Pekar by way of watching the 1995 documentary Crumb, about the famous cartoonist Robert Crumb. Despite that, I was still very much a novice and didn't really know much.
What I particularly enjoyed about the film was how it blended live-action/fiction filmmaking along with a documentary film style and animation...and that documentary nature comes into play when the real-life Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner interact with their film counterparts played by Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis.
I remember this being the film that truly seemed to put Paul Giamatti on the map in a lot of ways. Prior to this, he mostly had smaller supporting roles in movies like The Truman Show or Man on the Moon or playing the over-the-top comic villain in the horrible Big Fat Liar.
Him and Hope Davis both deserved Oscar nominations for their performances...and I do think that if the Best Picture roster included 10 films at that time, there was a chance this might've eeked out the 9th or 10th slot. It did get a screenplay nomination which showed some support.
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#9 - Elephant
(Gus Van Sant)
The sad truth about 2003 is that the idea of mass shootings, particularly those within the environment of a school, seemed so closely tied to Columbine.
Nowadays, it has become a despicable and terrifying normality to the point where you sadly lose track of the numbers and the names and even the locations.
I suspect that Elephant is going to be the most controversial selection on this list. For every person who seems to give the film praise, there is always someone who hates it with a passion.
To be fair, I would never fight or argue with them. This is simply a film where I responded so well to the sense of dread and dreary world that Gus Van Sant created. The film does tend to meander, but it does feel like what a day in high school would feel like...and at the time, I responded to that considering I was a freshman in high school.
One common criticism I have heard given to the film is that it doesn't really take time to develop any characters. Instead, we just watch these people roaming around and going to classes with the expectation that a lot of them are going to get killed at the end.
Even typing that sentence out now, I almost feel uncomfortable because it does feel like a bit of sadistic voyeurism in a way.
However...I think the fact I saw the film in 2003 as a 15-year-old high schooler made me respond to it because the film just felt so real...and it made me uncomfortable in a way that very few films had up to that point.
I revisited the film around the time of its 10th Anniversary and I found that it still worked...but I actually wonder how I would feel if I tried to watch it again.
In light of everything that has happened in the last decade when it comes to shootings, I almost just want to put this film to bed.
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#8 - Dogville
(Lars von Trier)
Ah yes, the Dark Prince of Denmark...or at least that is what I think of him as.
You could say that Lars von Trier is a bit of a problematic person, but in terms of his film output, he was among the earliest examples of a filmmaker that made me realize I responded strongly to films that might've been darker or depressing in their tone.
...I mean...in case you were wondering why I am so cynical as a thirtysomething...
Dogville is unique in that the action of the story is filmed on a barren soundstage with the neighborhood of Dogville being represented as map taped and painted to the black floor.
The film stars Nicole Kidman, in one of the earlier examples in her career of showing how she had no qualms taking on darker or quirkier or experimental projects.
Kidman plays Grace, who is on the run from a group of criminals pursuing her. The townsfolk agree to shelter her, but they don't really care about her truthfully. Instead, they use her for labor, and she obliges simply because she wants to curry their favor.
Don't get me wrong...I found the whole film to be very compelling and a truly successful "avant-garde" experiment of sorts.
Even with that in mind, it is the ending that truly pushes this film over the edge. It is not a bold statement to say that Lars von Trier is a shocking filmmaker...and Dogville is by no means his most shocking film...BUT THE ENDING.
I could easily make a claim that the final scenes of Dogville are some of my favorite portions of film from the 2000s.
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#7 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
(Peter Jackson)
If there was ever a genre of film that was often hard to get me into, it was fantasy.
I can admit that simply classifying the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a fantasy is a bit of a cop-out...because I know that the effort that J.R.R. Tolkien put into creating this world was practically unheard of...and the fact that Peter Jackson was able to bring it to life with such care and with the ability to not piss off so many passionate and ardent fans is quite a victory in of itself.
These films were truly spectacular efforts from a technical standpoint, and sure, maybe it did have so many frequent "gotcha" endings that had me checking my watch back in the day...but hey, I will give all of the films credit where it is due.
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#6 - In America
(Jim Sheridan)
Much like The Station Agent, it seemed like In America was one of those films that was just destined to be on the fringes of award season and wouldn't quite reach the top.
At the Oscars, it managed to get semi-surprising nods for Samantha Morton and Djimon Hounsou along with an Original Screenplay nomination.
I think had the 10-picture rule been in place at that time, In America would've been an easy nominee.
Jim Sheridan, the great Irish filmmaker who brought such greatness out of Daniel Day-Lewis in films like My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, tells this story of an Irish-immigrant family moving to NYC in the 1980s.
Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine play Sarah and Johnny and they have two young daughter Christy and Ariel, played by real life sisters Sarah and Emily Bolger.
A lot of the movie is driven by the culture shock and also a family looking for a sense of change/hope due to the death of their 5-year-old son Frankie.
They settle in a run-down tenement in Hell's Kitchen that is filled with drug-addicts and a reclusive Nigerian artist named Mateo (Hounsou) who is infected with AIDS, who ends up befriending the family.
I could make a case that In America is my favorite Jim Sheridan film. It just feels so personal, and I like the directions it takes in the plotting, and I love that it is set in gritty 1980s New York...and the funny thing is that Hell's Kitchen is basically UNAFFORDABLE to most these days.
Times have changed.
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#5 - Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
(Kim Ki-duk)
With this film, we have the first of three selections that came from the then-burgeoning South Korea.
2003 (and in the year or two that followed) would be the time that I truly began to develop a love for not just Korean cinema, but a lot of Asian cinema as a whole.
Kim Ki-duk is a filmmaker that doesn't get as much discussion these days as some of his contemporaries (particuarly the two I will be discussing shortly on this list), but due to his passing in 2020, I do have to wonder if maybe more people will seek out his work with the massive surge in popularity we've seen for Korean content in the last few years with KPOP, Parasite, and Squid Game.
For me, there is no question that Spring... (sorry, didn't feel like typing out the full title again) is Kim's masterwork.
And here is what is so strange about that.
Kim was very transgressive as a filmmaker as his films often dealt with sexual parables and often took them in shocking directions.
Spring was, and I sort of hate that I am about to say this of his masterwork, more of a mainstream and accessible film.
Sure, it is still a bit too basic in some ways, but there is a certain beauty to how he presented this very simple story.
What is the story? An old monk is lives in a small floating temple and he is teaching a young boy on what he would need to do to become a monk himself...and the film's title suggests how we observe this process through the passing seasons.
This might be a drastic example, but I sort of liken the simplicity of the story to that of Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, but it is told in such an effective way and filmed with such beauty that you can't help but feel captivated by it.
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#4 - The Station Agent
(Tom McCarthy)
There was something so genteel and quirky and inviting about The Station Agent...and it was where many of us first discovered Peter Dinklage.
Although 2003 was a pretty big year for Dinklage as he did come very close to an Oscar nod for this role...and frankly, I think he should have. This was also the same year Dinklage had a memorable cameo in Elf as the volatile Miles Finch.
In The Station Agent, he plays Finbar McBride, a man born with dwarfism who ends up moving to rural New Jersey to cope with the loss of his one and only friend. That friend, Henry, bequeathed Finbar a piece of land which contains an old, abandoned train depot, which Finbar decides to move into.
Once there, he encounters some of the locals and we get the ever trusty but wonderful trope of quirky and lonely people developing close friendships.
We may see this kind of thing happen in movies all the time, but God help me, when done well it is often truly a wonderful experience to watch.
Among these locals are Bobby Cannavale as Joe, who runs a food truck and Patricia Clarkson as Olivia, a local artist who is struggling due to the death of her young son and the toll it took on her marriage.
Tom McCarthy would go on to find success winning the Oscar for Original Screenplay for Spotlight, which also went on to win Best Picture...but I think this debut of his still remains the movie that spoke to me the most.
It is simply a beautiful look at how to cope with loneliness and grief...and I wish more people would seek out this film.
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#3 - Oldboy
(Park Chan-wook)
As the second of three films on this list to come from South Korea, Oldboy was my introduction to the brilliance of Park Chan-wook.
I don't know if the fire within me is the same as it used to be when it comes to this type of thing, but I LOVED anything that had a strong revenge plot.
I could make a case that Oldboy is strongly in contention of being the best revenge film ever made.
Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) has spent the last 15 years of his life being drugged and tortured with no clue as to why it is happening to him...and he is eager to seek out justice toward his captors.
Oldboy is one of those films where I don't like to discuss the plot in much detail as I feel its power is best witnessed when going in as blind as possible. The twists and turns of the plot are simply bracing and spellbinding...plus it STILL holds up on multiple viewings.
When it comes to action films, you will seldom find one that is shot and executed as beautifully this one.
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#2 - Lost in Translation
(Sofia Coppola)
Back in December, I wrote a couple of posts delving into the 1975 Belgian film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which directed by the late Chantal Akerman.
In one of the posts, I mentioned that I first discovered the film during the waning days of the 2003/4 Oscar Season which is when Sofia Coppola became the first American woman to receive a nomination for Best Director.
She was also only the third woman to even get nominated in the category. As of this writing, we have since had a few more women get nominated along with three actually winning: Kathryn Bigelow, Chloe Zhao, and Jane Campion.
At the time though, it felt as though the real discourse that needed to be discussed was FINALLY occurring. In the past, a lot had been said when Streisand had been left off the list twice for directing or when Randa Haines got snubbed for Children of a Lesser God...but this seemed like the start of something...even if it took another 6 years until Bigelow snagged the first ever female win.
I am beginning to ramble so let me try to get back to how I was trying to tie this in.
With Coppola's nod, some older film fans on film forums would often post lists of great films by female directors that should be seen...which had included Akerman's work but also the likes of Agnes Varda, where I discovered Cleo from 5 to 7.
Yet another example of how this particular year led me to checking out films from around the world.
Lost in Translation was also set in Japan, which in its own way led me to checking out more Japanese works; that begin with Akira Kurosawa which then led to discovering Mizoguchi and Ozu.
I have gone on and on about directions the film led me in without actually discussing the film itself...but I think that it manages to thread a very fine needle in that the relationship between the older Bill Murray and the younger Scarlett Johannsen doesn't come across as creepy.
Coppola manages to create such a sweet and cerebral romantic comedy and sets in the truly dreamlike world of Tokyo, which felt so fresh at that time.
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#1 - Memories of Murder
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CONCLUSION:
I hope that if some of you that read this either seek out these films for the first time or perhaps feel the need to check them out again. Honestly, I haven't even seen some of these films in over a decade, but I still think back on them fondly.
I do want to continue this series and I will definitely plan to tackle 2013, 1993, 1983, and 1973.
If the readership seems high, I might even through in years that are celebrating 15th, 25th, and 35th anniversaries like 2008, 1998, and 1988 (which was the year I was born...so actually, I will certainly give that one a go!)
And with that, I bid you good day!
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