In 2006, Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) had proved himself a master of a variety of genres, but few could've predicted he would deliver such a kick-ass sci-fi action flick, one that redefined what such pictures are capable of. Clive Owen was the reluctant protagonist in a grim near-future where no children have been born for many years. His calamitous journey through England to deliver an important package to safety allowed Cuaron to stage multiple bar-raising action set-pieces while never losing sight of the hopefulness at the film's core. A rare genre-film-with-a-conscience that never felt pious. -Dominic Corry

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Superhero movies have grown up dramatically over the decade and The Dark Knight is already, rightly, regarded as one of the best ever made. Christopher Nolan's masterpiece had all the chases, fights and explosions that are expected of the genre but there was also a dark seriousness underlining it all that was just unthinkably cool. The film will be remembered for many things including its amazing IMAX sequences, the box office records it broke and, of course, the unhinged, haunting performance of the late Heath Ledger. -Dan Rutledge

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Before Scarlett Johansson became a pouty A-lister peddling perfume she was the perfect wide-eyed ingénue, stuck in Tokyo with no one to talk to. Enter Bill Murray as a washed up actor in a similarly sad rut and you've got the trappings of a classic indie. Their unlikely friendship could have turned creepy in the wrong hands but director Sofia Coppola beautifully honed in on the irony of loneliness in the city, of finding salvation with a stranger, no matter their life story. -Rebecca Barry

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While he's yet to live up to the promise displayed here, Richard Kelly's 2001 cult hit is one of the most self-assured debuts in cinema history. It told the mind-bending story of the titular teenager (played with doltish charm by a fresh-faced Jake Gyllenhaal), who is plagued by blackouts and bizarre visions that may involve time travel. Effortlessly jumping between coming-of-age drama and big unwieldy sci-fi ideas, Donnie Darko managed to feel both frighteningly universal and intensely personal. It was also heavily informed by the '80s setting, which provided a dynamite soundtrack and invoked beneficial comparisons to the great Spielbergian fantasy films of the era. -Dominic Corry

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A gritty yet fun and romantic crime epic, City of God is absolutely exhilarating. Set in a notorious slum of Rio de Janeiro, the film shone a spotlight on the hardships of being born into poverty and hammered home this brutality again and again with the perils of drugs, gun-toting pre-teens and other hideous forms of violence. But beneath the viciousness was a surprising amount of tenderness and hope - despite the subject matter, City of God managed to ultimately be an uplifting experience. -Dan Rutledge

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A completely unique oddball romantic comedy, written by the inventive Charlie Kaufman and directed by French low-fi innovator Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine used a wacky premise – a couple undergo a scientific procedure to erase their memories of each other after things turn sour – to explore the tentative joy of a new relationship. Featuring career-best performances from Jim Carrey as the shy Joel and Kate Winslet as the free-spirited Clementine, Eternal Sunshine is best remembered for the army of visual tricks Gondry uses to convey the emotions of the mind. This was the love story of the decade. –Andrew Hedley

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Korean filmmaker Chan-Wook Park has been one of the decade's biggest revelations and Oldboy is his finest work. Adapted from a Japanese manga, it was a twisted tale of revenge that kept you enthralled from the first frame to the last. When the film's intrigue was masterfully transformed into realisation in the final section, it was easily one of the decade's greatest 'wow' moments. There are also some amazing action sequences littered throughout the running time, all to the sounds of a breathtaking score. Oldboy is a work of pure genius. -Dan Rutledge

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Didn't he and we do well. 17 Oscars, billions in box office and three films that made us proud to be New Zealanders. Sure you had to like fantasy but the great thing about Peter Jackson's films was that they made Mr Tolkein's work accessible to your average Kiwi while nary a complaint was heard from the usually obsessive fan boys. It also provided a showcase for our landscape and actually, more importantly, our talented designers and craftsmen who are now an essential part of Hollywood movie making. -James Croot

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P.T. Anderson's instant classic was at once a sprawling epic and a tightly focussed character study about the rise of Daniel Plainview (the intensely brilliant Daniel Day-Lewis), an ambitious miner who transforms himself into a powerful oil tycoon against the epic canvas of turn-of-the-century California. Anderson described this as a horror film and the unsettling feel was enhanced by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood, who provided an experimental score, full of urgent strings and mechanical percussion. As for that final scene… we’ll never drink milkshakes the same way again. Slow yet mesmerizing, this was cinema used to its full potential. -Andrew Hedley

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Here it is, folks. The best film of the decade saw the mighty Coen brothers return to form with their adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel, following a hunter (Josh Brolin), who discovers dead bodies, a stash of heroin and $2 million in cash on the Rio Grande. But woe betide anyone in his shoes, because a ruthlessly terrifying hitman called Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a maniac with a page-boy haircut and a pneumatic air tank, is hot on his heels. The Coens ramped up a Hitchcockian sense of tension, peppering the soundtrack with tiny details; a key turning in a lock, the click of a light switch, the minimalist beep of a radio transmitter. Thoughtful, abstract, beautiful, and absolutely thrilling, No Country was an intelligent modern western. Despite being set in 1980, its contemporary concerns of escalating violent crime resonate deeply at the end of the 2000s. As Tommy Lee Jones' quietly bewildered Sheriff Bell says, "I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard." Brilliant. -Andrew Hedley

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