2002 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 2002:

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
3. Spider-Man
4. Star Wars: Episode II - The Attack of the Clones
5. Men in Black II
6. Die Another Day
7. Signs
8. Ice Age
9. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
10. Minority Report

What are your top three films for 2002? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Punch-Drunk Love
2. 25th Hour
3. Gerry

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

1. Punch Drunk Love
2. The Bourne Identity
3. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

adaptation was a near-impossible cut and i have a soft spot for minority report as well

 

1. Punch-Drunk Love
2. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
3. Oasis

4. 28 Days Later
5. City of God
6. Lilya 4-Ever
7. The Two Towers
8. The Pianist
9. Adaptation
10. Irreversible

Also love A Snake of June, Lilo & Stitch, Far from Heaven, 25th Hour, Blade II, Minority Report and the Jackass movie.

Very strong top three this year, two of my all time top 10.

 

The Son was a really close fourth pick, my first Dardenne Brothers movie. The Pianist, Adaptation., Signs, Distant, Demonlover, Ten, In America, Japon, Spellbound, All or Nothing, and some more beyond that.

A really underrated film that is actually funny is The Hot Chick. It is so stupid and offensive and dated but actually has some good moments.

 

1. The Two Towers
2. Punch Drunk Love
3. Spider-man

Spiderman is good idc idc

 

Honestly I love every Spider-Man movie to some extent.

 

1. Punch-Drunk Love
2. Rules of Attraction
3. Jackass

 

Punch-Drunk Love already has 14 votes. I wonder if this could be the one to top 30.

 

1. Jackass
2. Punch Drunk Love
3. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

tough to leave off Adaptation, 25th Hour, Solaris, and I also enjoy Catch Me if You Can, Minority Report, Spider-Man, and Two Weeks Notice. Feel like I’m forgetting something too

 

28 Days Later is really good until the military shows up.

People should seek out Spellbound. It shows the intense pressure put on really young kids to win spelling bees. It really explores the ways in which we have stripped childhood from so many with competitive events and programs.

 

1. Catch Me If You Can
2. City of God
3. One Hour Photo

 

When people say Nicolas Cage cannot act, I know they have not seen Adaptation.

 

did i get my year wrong? surprised to find bourne identity not in the top 10 box office

 

Far From Heaven
Punch Drunk Love
Catch Me If You Can

HM: City of God, Adaptation, Road to Perdition, and Minority Report

 

1. A Map of the Heart (Graf)
2. A Snake of June (Tsukamoto)
3. Dolls (Kitano)
-
4. Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson)
5. Japon (Reygadas)
6. Minority Report (Spielberg)
7. Friends of Friends (Graf)
8. Catch Me If You Can (Spielberg)
9. The Son (Dardenne & Dardenne)
10. Divine Intervention (Suleiman)

I can't recommend A Map of the Heart enough, especially for people interested in that garish early digital and surreal thrillers. Real fever dream vibes. Devastatingly underseen, as is typical of Graf's work.

I find Tsukamoto's work really difficult to talk about, as his filmmaking is kinetic and visceral in a way that I find eludes. This is one of his best films though and the blue monochrome is a bold and fitting aesthetic choice.

In a filmography littered with oddities, Dolls is probably the oddest of all Kitano's films (although Achilles and the Tortoise, another favourite of mine, is also very strange). Deeply moving in a way I was not expecting and one of Kitano's most beautifully detailed films in visual terms.

Some brutal cuts this year, including career highlights from De Palma, Kaurismaki, Haynes, and Almodovar.

HM: The Uncertainty Principle (Oliveira), Bungalow (Kohler)

 

1. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2. 28 Days Later
3. Punch Drunk Love

 

1. Punch Drunk Love
2. Adaptation
3. City of God

Honorable mentions:

The 25th Hour
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Bourne Identity
28 Days Later
Minority Report
Signs

 

1. City of God
2. All or Nothing
3. One Hour Photo

I was absolutely blown away by City of God when I watched it however many years ago, I don't think I'd seen films with it's energy and vibrancy, while still feeling like a neo-realist film. It's been a few years since I'll have re-watched it, but this is absolutely one of the most important films to me.

All or Nothing used to always be on British TV late at night, and a perfect example of Mike Leigh's blend of grounded working class family dramas. As always with Leigh, it's the performances that he coaxes out of his actors that are remarkable, with the climactic conversation between Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville is absolutely heartbreaking.

It's been a long while since I'll have seen One Hour Photo, but this was a film that really stuck with me when I watched it, a portrait of loneliness and obsession. It has a great dramatic Robin Williams performance, with his gift at making you feel sympathy, even at his most unhinged. Probably due a revisit, as I guess it's been a decade or so since I've seen it, but another really important film for me. All of my top three were "formative" films I guess.

Lots of good stuff from Japan this year. Hideo Nakata's Dark Water is one of the most terrifying films I've seen, moving slower and holding his shots longer than most director's would to ramp up the tension. Takeshi Kitano's Dolls is a visually stunning extended metaphor. Shinya Tsukamoto's A Snake of June is a really intriguing and complex film that I've enjoyed mulling over. Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Bright Future is not his best work, but a great look at urban isolation and young lonely people.

From HK, I enjoy Infernal Affairs, which was remade by Scorsese as The Departed, the original has a truly fantastic cast, and feels just that little bit different to HK triad & cops films at the time. From China, there's Zhang Yimou's Hero, which is utterly beautiful to look at - it's extremely surface level, but when the surface looks this good, that's alright.

From South Korea, I enjoy Lee Chang Dong's Oasis about a romance between a slightly mentally handicapped man, just released from prison and a woman with cerebral palsy. While it could get a bit saccharine, it just about avoids it. When I moved to South Korea 7 or 8 years ago, this was the first film I watched in my flat, so it holds a little bit of sentimental value there. Park Chan Wook's bleak Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance about the pointlessness of vengeance is great too.

For British stuff, we've got the very fun 24 Hour Party People about the Madchester scene, with some fun fourth wall breaks and overall silliness. Sweet Sixteen is a classic Ken Loach drama about teenagers in a tough Glasgow estate. Lynne Ramsey's Morvern Caller is fantastic, about a young woman who finds her boyfriend has killed himself, and left behind a novel and some money, which she takes for herself.

From Europe, Almodovar's Talk To Her is a great and very Almodovar film about the relationship between two men caring for two women in comas, which Almodovar takes in his usual transgressive directions. Finally, Gaspar Noe's Irreversible is a film that I think I hated, but I haven't been able to get it out of my head for well over a decade now, which at least proves that it's incredibly effective, even if I didn't enjoy a minute spent in that world.

 

Another superb year but despite it being a stacked one, it was easy to pick my top three -

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2. Spider-Man
3. Road to Perdition

Other favourites are in bold; 28 Days Later, Panic Room, Hero, Infernal Affairs, Dog Soldiers, Catch Me If You Can, Adaptation., Minority Report, The Bourne Identity, Blade II, The Transporter, Dark Water, Equilibrium, The Mothman Prophecies, K-19: The Widowmaker, Below, Ice Age, Signs, Insomnia, Red Dragon, Phone Booth, One Hour Photo, and Eight Legged Freaks.

 

1. Punch Drunk Love
2. Gerry
3. City of God

edited
The Gangs of New York was close, it is probably just good but is raised by DDL’s performance to push the top 3. Punch Drunk Love is just so enjoyable. I’ve seen Gerry criticized for having a whole movie centered around 2 characters and not developing them at all but that misses the point of the kind of primal fear of their situation, and how one seemingly insignificant and innocent mistake can be so catastrophic.

 

Far from Heaven is Todd Haynes (Malick did Days of Heaven)

 

Shit I am an idiot I mixed the two up lol I need to revise. I have not even seen Far From Heaven

 

1. Far From Heaven
2. Morvern Callar
3. Austin Powers in Goldmember

Also love Punch Drunk Love but it looks like the favorite here, so I'll throw one to my personal favorite of the Austin Powers movies. Also surprised no other votes for Morvern Callar!

 

Haha I haven't seen it either, but it's appeared a couple times in this thread - maybe we owe it a watch!

 

1. Punch Love Drunk
2. Adaption
3. Talk to her

Adaption was one of my favourites when I first saw it, Kaufman would later top it with Synecdoche, New York.

This scene is sampled on a Trophy Scars album I have listened to too many times. It has resonated with me deeply, my current obsession has me training 10hours a week to compete in boxing. Life is better when you actively do what you are passionate about. Trying new things is important too, especially things you don't think you will like they lead to the best surprises. Unhappines is often just too much time not doing things you are passionate about, too much work, too much internet & social media, too much time spent thinking about yourself and negatively about the world. Instead of finding things to do we look for ways to cope.

This scene is great too!