And now, the thrilling conclusion of that epic list of runners-up for my Top Ten Films of the Decade. (If you’re just joining us, you really should check out parts one, two, three and four.)

“Stranger Than Fiction”: This is the movie that keeps me from dismissing Marc Forster as a useless hack. Yes, I know: Zach Helm should be buying Charlie Kaufman lunch for the rest of his life, and any goodwill created by this screenplay was immediately undone by his writing and directing of “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium”. But even so, this is the only one of the Kaufman riffs that attains its own life-force — and the ending isn’t as much of a compromise as you’d think. (Apology to pedants: Alphabetically speaking, this should have gone in yesterday’s post, before “Summer Hours”, but I screwed up the original file.)

“Superman Returns”: Bryan Singer’s thoughtful, mournful Superman movie plays best as a thought experiment: What if someone made an utterly faithful sequel to the version of “Superman II” that Richard Donner was never able to complete? This is that film, and aside from the flawed casting of Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, it’s pretty much perfect. A quarter-century too late, but perfect all the same.

“Sympathy for Lady Vengeance”: Sure, “Oldboy” is great fun, but for the final chapter in his vengeance trilogy, Park Chan-wook ascends from pulp fiction to grand drama with a tale of buried suffering and hard-won redemption. Also featuring the funniest axe joke of the decade.

“Synecdoche, New York”: Michel Gondry’s hopeful romanticism made “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” a transcendent experience; in his directorial debut, Charlie Kaufman removes that fragile shred of optimism entirely, plunging Philip Seymour Hoffman’s neurotic theatre director straight into misery, decay and the abyss. And somehow, it’s nearly as transcendent.

“Time of the Wolf”: In a decade of apocalyptic visions, Michael Haneke’s unshowy study of a family struggling to make its way across a dying European landscape burrowed deeper into my own anxieties than any other. (Well, except for the ones with zombies.) There’s none of Cormac McCarthy’s stark poetry here, just horrible pragmatism and despair. I can identify with that.

“Touching the Void”: Kevin MacDonald’s gripping documentary uses dramatic re-enactments to bring Joe Simpson and Simon Yates’ disastrous mountain-climbing trip to impossible life — and somehow doesn’t short-circuit the story’s breathless tension despite both having men narrating their experience to the camera, obviously alive and well. That’s some kind of art.

“24 Hour Party People” and “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story”: In which the alchemical combination of Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan is demonstrated through the endlessly refracting, self-rerential lens of cultural commentary. One might think the centuries between Laurence Sterne’s watershed novel and Tony Wilson’s musical empire would pose more of an obstacle. One would be wrong.

“Unbreakable”: Wherein M. Night Shyamalan’s formal constructions and immense self-regard come together almost perfectly to form a Bergmanesque examination of comic-book heroes and villains. Bruce Willis gives one of his finest performances as a man who’s spent his entire life convincing himself he isn’t anything special; Samuel L. Jackson is over the top, but of course he would have to be.

“Waking Life”: Richard Linklater’s digitally rotoscoped fantasy is a lot of things — a trippy companion piece to “Slacker”, an alternate-reality sequel to “Before Sunrise”, a meditation on spirituality and a sideways confrontation with mortality — but it’s never any one of those things for very long, which is what makes it so engrossing and so repeatable. I dearly love “Before Sunset”, but this was his artistic accomplishment for the decade.

“We Own the Night”: James Gray’s third feature takes a very basic story — two brothers on opposite sides of the law — and explodes it from the inside out, subverting the cliches of the genre and pulling fantastic performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall and Eva Mendes. Why everyone ignored it for Sidney Lumet’s creaky, faux-tragic “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” continues to vex me.

“Y Tu Mama Tambien”: The Mexican revolution declared itself fully underway with Alfonso Cuaron’s festival smash, which turned a simple coming-of-age story into great cinema and introduced us to the powerhouse chemistry of Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna and Maribel Verdu. And yeah, Bernal and Luna have long since squandered their promise, but it doesn’t matter. Their work here will be remembered long after “Rudo y Cursi” is consigned to the dustbin of cable.

… and to my considerable shock, that’s the entire list. Hope you’ve enjoyed following along, and now it’s time to turn back to the work I’ve been putting off all week. If you think I missed anything essential, don’t hesitate to comment below.

And I still think “Mulholland Dr.” is pants.

Holy crap, this is long. (Check out parts one, two and three, if you haven’t already.) And there’s still so much ground to cover that we’ll be pushing on into tomorrow. But if you’re still with me, let’s continue!

“Punch-Drunk Love” and “There Will Be Blood”: P.T. Anderson’s bravura character studies — one about the madness of love, the other about the madness of capitalism — were the very last to be cut from my ultimate list, mostly because I couldn’t figure out which one to drop and which one to keep. And leaving them up in a tie for 11th place just seemed cruel. So it goes, and so they went.

“Pulse” and “Toyko Sonata”: Kiyoshi Kurosawa started his decade with a chilling prophecy of J-horror’s future (and, in its own odd way, a harbinger of Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse”) and ended it with a lovely story of a family struggling against the current of Japan’s economic collapse that’s no less affecting or perceptive for being totally conventional in its storytelling.

“The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox”: More bookends, this time from Wes Anderson: First, an absurdist family study that feels like fine American literature, and then an actual literary adaptation — in stop-motion, with talking animals — that somehow feels less absurd than the live-action undertaking. I want a bandit hat.

“Saraband”: Ingmar Bergman’s final work, a muted coda to “Scenes from a Marriage”, finds Johann and Marianne still inextricably tangled up in one another’s lives — and as passionate in their mutual love and loathing as ever. A work of crushing intimacy, from a filmmaker who knew how to do nothing else.

“The Savages”: Abandoned by Fox Searchlight when “Juno” looked like the better Oscar contender, Tamara Jenkins’ devastating study of adult siblings who fall back into their childhood dynamic as they care for their dying father features fearless performances from Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Philip Bosco — and hits emotional notes that slice into me like razors. It’ll be a while before I can watch this again. But I will.

“Sexy Beast”: In a decade crammed with vainglorious, swaggering thugs, Jonathan Glazer’s ultra-stylized thriller — brilliantly scripted by Louis Mellis and David Scinto — is about so much more than a retired hood dragged back for one last job: It’s about intimidation and persuasion, and knowledge, and how the most terrifying monsters are the ones that know us as well as we know them.

“Sideways”: I don’t usually get much from Alexander Payne’s movies; I find pissy misanthropy awfully exhausting. But here, he tempers his loathing with genuine compassion — or maybe it’s just the vast reservoir of pain visible behind Paul Giamatti’s eyes as he staggers through his Bacchanalian purgatory, accompanied by immature buddy Thomas Haden Church. Whatever it is, it works; this little movie about middle-aged drunks chasing girls around California wine country acquires tremendous power by its final frames.

“The Squid and the Whale”: Noah Baumbach’s unblinking look at his parents’ divorce is as harrowing a film as American cinema produced in the last ten years, with Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney as monstrously self-absorbed pseudo-intellectuals who think nothing of using their children as messengers for their bile. I hope making this film helped him in some way, because it fucked me up good and proper.

“Spider”: It took me a couple of viewings to really appreciate David Cronenberg’s quietest film, which features Ralph Fiennes in a performance so intentionally mannered he’s nearly unwatchable. But once I understood its rhythms and surrendered to its claustrophobic sound design, it had me on the edge of my seat. I’m not sure I’ll ever watch it again, but it’s always there on the shelf, waiting.

“Standard Operating Procedure”: Errol Morris looks at the atrocities committed by American soliders at Abu Gharib, and reveals a particularly horrible truth about human psychology: If we can blame someone else for our actions, well, we’re capable of almost anything. In a just and decent world, this would have been hailed as a war-crimes indictment for the Bush Administration … but we don’t live in a just and decent world.

“Summer Hours”: Another look at family dynamics; this one’s from Olivier Assayas, as adult siblings Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche and Jeremie Renier try to figure out what to do with their mother’s estate. Commissioned by the Musee d’Orsay, this is anything but a museum piece; it’s a film about the meaning we assign to objects, and how that makes us behave.

… hey, look at that, the end is in sight. Come back tomorrow for the big finish.

Welcome to 2010, everybody! I’m still looking in the rear-view mirror here, with the latest instalment in this week’s ongoing series; if you’re just joining us, you can get caught up here, here and here.

Ready? Then let’s carry on.

“The Lives of Others”: In a decade where nations confronted the scars of their totalitarian pasts, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s muted study of one man’s contribution to his country’s oppression — and his belated attempt to undo at least some of the damage — was the most accomplished.

“Millions” and “Sunshine”: Danny Boyle recovered his mojo in a big way this decade, asserting himself as one of our most muscular directors. These radically different but equally rhapsodic tales of sacrifice and salvation demonstrate his confidence and his range.

“Minority Report” / “War of the Worlds” / “Munich”: Steven Spielberg may not know when to quit — all three of these films go on just a hair too long — but damn, can he engage with his material. “Minority Report” is a great dystopian thrill ride, and “War of the Worlds” and “Munich” consitute the most resonant commentary on the American response to 9/11 — first as incomprehensible nightmare, then as the motivation for disproportionate, misguided retribution.

“Monsters, Inc.” / “Finding Nemo” / “The Incredibles” / “Ratatouille” / “WALL*E” / “Up”: Pixar, man. Fucking Pixar.

“The Motorcycle Diaries”: Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” doesn’t bother with its protagonist’s backstory, and ends up feeling all the more hollow for it. On the other hand, Walter Salles’ deliberately unshowy examination of the road trip that sparked Ernesto Guevara’s evolution from child of privilege to radical warrior is the stuff of engrossing personal drama.

“Nobody Knows”: Hirokazu Kore-eda’s suffocating drama about four children abandoned by their mother in a small Tokyo apartment isn’t exploitative in the slightest; it simply observes as the kids invent ever more inventive ways to survive. And then they run out of inspiration. If Takashi Miike had found the story first, he’d have made a movie that kills people. Instead, we get this exquisite, almost transcendent study of resilience and desperation.

“O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “A Serious Man”: No disrespect to “No Country for Old Men”, but it’s a film I admire more than enjoy. With these two wonderful comedies, the Coens bookend the decade with smart, canny studies of increasingly desperate men trying to make sense of a universe that simply isn’t interested in their personal causes. (Also, take another look at “Intolerable Cruelty”, if only for the marvelous simplicity of Wheezy Joe.)

“Ocean’s Twelve”: Steven Soderbergh turns caper cinema into the finest, fizziest Champagne, pulling the plot’s bait-and-switch on the audience and forcing the minor players to step up when the big stars are sidelined. (“Hell in a handbasket?” “We can’t train a cat that quickly.”) And the payoff when “Julia Roberts” and Bruce Willis run into each other in the museum is just brilliant.

“Old Joy” and “Wendy and Lucy”: Kelly Reichardt’s movies are the tear-shaped universes that Will Oldham discusses in one of his many reflective moments in “Old Joy”; briefly flashing into existence, containing entire worlds, and so fragile they can crush your heart. And both films capture the disintegration of Bush’s America so subtly that you might not even notice. Until you do.

“A Prairie Home Companion”: Robert Altman went out the way he came in — as an eccentric, idiosyncratic filmmaker more concerned with capturing moments of emotional truth than telling a cohesive story. That his final film just happened to be about the inevitability of death, as filtered through a jubilant celebration of life, is a flourish only he could have orchestrated.

That seems like a good place to leave it for today. More tomorrow!

Actual deadlines necessitate this short break in the Rest of the Decade series, but we’ll get back to it tomorrow, I promise. In the meantime, here’s my latest MSN DVD column — which is itself a list of sorts — and, in today’s NOW, the things I want to see in 2010.

Enjoy the reads! And if you’re near a radio this afternoon around 2pm, tune it to The Fan 590 (or click on the blue “Listen Live” box on the upper right-hand corner of this page) to catch me hanging out with my brother Mike and talking about … I dunno, “Invictus” and “The Blind Side”, I guess. Slot needs filling.

Happy New Year, everybody! Catch you on the bleary side of morning!

Continuing on from yesterday’s post, here are a few more films that didn’t quite make the cut for my Top Ten of the Decade.

“Le Fils” (“The Son”) and “L’Enfant” (“The Child”): As the Dardenne brothers’ bleak, unadorned style spreads around the world — I thought Darren Aronofsky used it rather well in “The Wrestler” — it’s worth going back to the source to see what real emotional understatement looks like.

“George Washington”: David Gordon Green hasn’t really lived up to the promise he showed in his terrific debut; “All the Real Girls” is very good, but then it all goes to hell. That said, “George Washington” still stands as a film of tremendous, understated gravity — a piece of American Gothic that seems to point the way towards the revelations of post-Katrina New Orleans.

“Hellboy”: For all the praise heaped on “Pan’s Labyrinth”, I rather prefer Guillermo del Toro in full-on pulp mode; he brings a bruised charm to Mike Mignola’s comic-book universe that makes it feel fantastic, believable and strangely cozy. And, of course, Ron Perlman gives the performance of his career as Big Red.

“The Host”: More monster action, orchestrated by Bong Joon-ho with a kind of flat realism that makes the violent imposition of the unnatural into the lives of a squabbling family of Seoul underachievers all the more horrific. You can enjoy it for the social satire and the political subtext, or you can just luxuriate in the Godzilla movie you’ve always hoped to see.

“Hunger”: A meditation on martyrdom, righteous anger and institutional memory, Steve McQueen’s stunning, impressionistic look at the Maze Prison hunger strike was the most audacious directorial debut of the decade. I eagerly await the Criterion Blu-ray, even if I have to import the damn thing.

“Infernal Affairs” and “The Departed”: The former is a underworld thriller without an ounce of fat on its bones; the latter expands and personalizes Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s complex screenplay into a thrilling example of Martin Scorsese at his go-for-broke best. And even if you’ve seen one of them, the other still offers pleasures and surprises.

“L’Intrus” (“The Intruder”): The events depicted in Claire Denis’ fascinating, elliptical drama could be interpreted in a dozen different ways — and I have a sense that any of those interpretations would be just as valid as the rest. Whatever’s going on, though, it’s compelling, unsettling and strangely resonant.

“Kill Bill, Vol. 1” and “Kill Bill, Vol. 2”: The first half plays like a (mostly) live-action manga; the second, a dusty Western. Together, they’re Quentin Tarantino at his pop-art finest, a four-and-a-half hour epic in which he re-creates every single thing he loves about 1970s grindhouse movies … and Uma Thurman’s awesome performance makes it all mean something.

“King Kong”: Peter Jackson’s gargantuan remake never really tries to be its own entity; instead, it’s a love song to the stop-motion epic that made Jackson fall in love with cinema. Every scene plays like a rhapsody — yes, even in the first hour — and that central sequence where Kong and Ann get to know one another is as vivid and thrilling as anything Jackson’s ever done.

“Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”: Robert Downey, Jr. started his return to glory with a plum role in Shane Black’s nimble, only-half-kidding action mystery — though it took a while for people to notice. I’m still not sure how Val Kilmer failed to make his own comeback; he’s at least as good as Downey, in a part that’s even more memorable.

… wow, that’s another thirteen titles. More tomorrow!

When I put together my list of the decade’s best films for NOW a couple of weeks back, I alluded to having culled the top ten from a much larger list. Over the next few days, we’ll be looking at the runners-up, a few at a time. Think of these posts as further suggestions for your home viewing in 2010.

“Almost Famous”: Kate Hudson’s only great performance, the best use to date of Zooey Deschanel, master-class work from Philip Seymour Hoffman … and those are the supporting performances. The star, of course, is writer-director Cameron Crowe — and the adulation he received for this tender cinematic memoir derailed his career by making him think all of his movies should be about his record collection.

“Amelie”: Just sweet enough to go down clean; just melancholy enough to stick with you the next day. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s delightful romantic fantasy introduced us to the wide-eyed wonder of Audrey Tautou … and to the CG post-production toolbox upon which all 21st century filmmakers would come to rely.

“Belleville Rendez-vous” (“The Triplets of Belleville”): Sylvan Chomet’s wondrous animated geegaw features magificently demented images, the decade’s best cartoon dog — sorry, Dug, but Bruno’s wordlessness is even more of a triumph — and a virtuoso’s comic timing. Plus, it’s got heart by the barrelful: That final dialogue exchange shouldn’t make me cry, but it always does.

“Capturing the Friedmans”: Andrew Jarecki’s incredible documentary was the result of a happy accident; while preparing a film about children’s party clowns, he stumbled upon a subject with a story greater and sadder than anyone should ever carry. And it only gets more complicated from there.

“Chicken Run” and “Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”: No one else can do what Nick Park does. No one should. What would be the point of it? (It’s also worth pointing out that Mel Gibson’s performance in “Chicken Run” is probably the best thing he’s ever done — though I think it’s the Plasticine chassis that sells it.)

“Cloverfield”: If you leave out the story and just look at the technical accomplishments, it’s a stunner. But factor in that story, with its impotent, unprepared young protagonists stumbling half-drunk and terrified through a disaster they can’t comprehend or survive, and you’ve got a genre exercise that attains a savage, horrible grace by the time the credits roll.

“The Constant Gardener”: Fernando Meirelles makes good on the promise of “City of God”, turning a John Le Carre thriller into a searing tale of a sleeping man shocked into consciousness by the destruction of everything he loves. The corporate stuff is just window dressing.

“Un Conte de Noel” (“A Christmas Tale”): What happens when you drop a bauble? It shatters. Arnaud Desplechin’s marvelously complicated family drama treats every one of its many characters as someone deserving of our attention, even when he or she is acting like a complete ass — and sometimes, especially then.

“Dawn of the Dead”: Clearly, Zack Snyder is at his best when he’s working with restrictions — a small story, a modest budget, minimal CGI. Under those conditions, he delivered one of the decade’s defining horror films … a ferocious zombie thriller that will leave you convinced the world is ending right now, just beyond your peripheral vision. And it’s got some damn fine acting, too: Sarah Polley’s slow shift from panic to resilience; Matt Frewer and Lindy Booth’s last goodbye, Jake Weber’s off-handed admission of loss. (And fuck you, “Zombieland”, for turning that wrenching moment into a plot point.)

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”: The first 35 minutes of Julian Schnabel’s biopic are excruciating. The next hour is only slightly less so, as we move outside the head of the paralyzed Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, in the performance that vaulted him to international stardom) and understand exactly what locked-in syndrome does to its victims — and to the people who love them.

Wow, eleven films and we’re just in the D’s. Let’s pick this up again tomorrow, shall we?

I don’t exactly hate the dead zone between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. I get to catch up on the sleep I was denied during the first three weeks of December, and be social, and generally take it easy. It’s nice, really.

The rest of the planet uses it as an excuse to go to the movies, which is how “Avatar” could gross an additional $75 million in its second weekend.

In other news, “Sherlock Holmes” made a pretty impressive debut in second place with $65.4 million. I guess Robert Downey, Jr. can open anything nowadays. Maybe Warner should roll “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” back into theatres so it can finally be the hit it should have been all along …

The Christmas weekend is Hollywood’s busiest frame of the year, as almost everyone goes to the movies. Except me, that is; having already seen everything, I probably won’t be back in the megaplex until the new year.

It’s kind of a mixed blessing, usually … though it’s a little less mixed this year, since all of the 2009 Christmas Day offerings are disappointing in one way or another. Don’t believe me? Read on.

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus“: Terry Gilliam doesn’t make movies any more; he makes overstuffed art exhibitions. This one — set partially in a filthy contemporary London and partially in a magical alternate realm where immortal showmen battle the Devil for the souls of their audience — proves so jammed with fancy that it’s ultimately incoherent. Christopher Plummer’s great, though.

“It’s Complicated”: Nancy Meyers’ latest exercise in middle-aged wish fulfillment and home-furnishing porn is a step up from the utterly insipid construction of “Something’s Gotta Give” and “The Holiday”, but only because Alec Baldwin is so good at not giving a shit as Meryl Streep’s still-randy ex. So it’s got that going for it.

“Nine”: In which Rob “Chicago” Marshall once again demonstrates his utter lack of big-screen vision, turning a hokey stage adaptation of Fellini’s “8 1/2” into another frantic, obnoxious Fosse pastiche, spinning an all-star cast through empty paces while missing the point of every scene.

“Sherlock Holmes“: In which Guy Ritchie turns Conan Doyle’s master deducer into a brawling, badass man of action, played by an ill-cast Robert Downey, Jr. (Hey, I love the guy, but he’s just a bad fit.) Jude Law makes a surprisingly sturdy Watson, however; maybe he can take center stage in the next one.

And that’s all of it — the last movies opening this calendar year. I do believe I’ll have a nap now.

NOW’s latest issue is all about the year that was, including my picks for the top ten movies of 2009.

Providing contrast to the celebration of quality cinema is my latest MSN Movies gallery, which looks at the year’s least successful films.

Feast! And then purge, I guess. Some of those flops won’t sit right.

I was able to wriggle out of reviewing “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel” earlier this week, so I don’t know whether it really is as bad as its 2007 predecessor. Which was really, really terrible.

But Neil Genzlinger’s New York Times review makes me think I missed a golden opportunity to see a movie so wretched that you can have a great deal of fun writing about it.

Ah, well. There’s always DVD …