What are your "Top 10" film picks for 2002?

Thanks for

http://www.cineperspective.com/List/02top10s.htm

I've been looking everywhere for something like that!

1. "Chicago"
2. "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
3. "Minority Report"
4. "The Hours"
5. "Y Tu Mama Tambien"
6. "The Pianist"
7. "Far From Heaven"
8. "The Quiet American"
9. "Ararat"
10. "Solaris"

Here is my list. I think they are all 2002 releases in U.S. They are in no particular order.
"Spirited Away"
"Chicago"
"Catch Me if You Can"
"All or Nothing"
"Talk to Her"
"The Way Home"
"The Man Who Wasn't There"
"Y Tu Mama Tambien"
"City of God"
"Mostly Martha"
I wish the foreign films didn't outnumber the domestics but c'est la vie.

flyboy -- all in my top twenty and "City of God" could be tied with my No. 10.

Since some of the films get here a few months later (for instance, Gangs of New York opened only yesterday), several of the films mentioned have not yet made it to our screen. I'll have to make a mix between films made in 2001 and seen in 2002 and films made in 2002.

1. El Hijo de la Novia (Son Of The Bride, Argentinian, nominated for last year's Oscars.
2. The Man Who Wasn't There
3. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. Le Placard (The Closet, French)
5. Hable con Ella (Talk to Her)
6. El Crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro, Mexican)
7. Road to Perdition
8. Das Experiment (German)
9. Treasure Planet
10. Sin Noticias de Dios (No News from God, Spanish)

Y tu Mamá También would have been number 5, but I saw it in mid 2001.

In no particular order, except for the top three:

The Hours
Talk To Her
Sunshine State
Russian Ark
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
Rabbit-Proof Fence
25th Hour
Far From Heaven
The Quiet American
Bloody Sunday

If I could expand the list to 12 choices, Chicago and Adaptation would be on it. Actually, they're probably on it anyway, but I wanted to mention some worthy films that haven't made quite as many "top ten" lists as those two have.

flyboy804:
We New Yorkers are very fortunate because we have largest selection of films to view (in theaters) compared to many other cities. It's not a surprise that your "top 10" list is laden with foreign film choices. Foreign film directors/producers take chances with film material that our U.S. producers rarely commit to.

At least we have Sundance Film Festival which encourages independent film makers and through these screenings many of the films get distributed.

The "top 10" lists help people to search out foreign and independant films. Many of these films become available on VHS so they can be rented in cities where these films were never shown.

We lost one of our foreign and independent film theaters when the local Edwards Theaters went bankrupt and got picked up by the conglomerate Regal Theaters group (who begins the show with ten minutes of commercials!). The Edwards, due to their father's love of cinema, kept these outlets going despite the fact that the theaters weren't making money. I try to frequent that last standing art theater multiscreen entity in South Coast Plaza, Orange County, as often as I can -- it's where I first saw "The Crying Game," before it became a mainstream success.

I know that production values has become extremely important to many film critics, something the independent and foreign film may not be quite up to snuff purely because of lack of funds. Miramax has backed up some good directors and production teams but their output is uneven. When foreign film makers are given funds, they seem to do worse than the American product. Then, how many really good books get written every year? The best sellers is often a dubious list of pop culture fiction and expose style non-fiction(I look for the National Book Award or some kind of clue as to what is good, just like I do for films). "The Two Towers" is an example of exemplary production values but inevitably, it is highlights of "The Lord of the Rings." I don't short Jackson like some critics because he has these CGI "toys" at his disposal and presumably overuses them. How else could anyone conceive of bringing the imagery of the books to the screen. I must say that I enjoyed "Chicago" (a Miramax product) and kind of laughed that the same studio drove Jackson away because they didn't want to finance two films, let alone three.

BTW, I do love this thread because it is a great list of recommendations for films I haven't seen yet!

My top ten list for 2002-- the first exceptionally good movie year for a while is:

THE PIANO TEACHER
STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN
Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN
CHICAGO
AUTOFOCUS
25TH HOUR
MINORITY REPORT
THE PIANIST
24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE
THE MAN FROM ELYSIAN FIELDS

As strong a year as it was for American-made films, I thought it was an even better year for the imports. In order:

1. Atanarjuat
2. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi
3. Y Tu Mama Tambien
4. Habla con ella
5. Adaptation
6. Chicago
7. The Pianist
8. Rabbit-Proof Fence
9. Punch-Drunk Love
10. Ni neibian jidian

Sign #12987 that civilization as we know it is ending: Adam Sandler as featured performer in a top 10 film. Ye Gods!

And thanks to couzz for the top 10 link. Very handy stuff.

Welcome to A2K and the film forum, Tim!

The limited access to foreign (and "small" domestic ) films is indeed a sad situation. I frequently use as an example "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", a foreign film that did get wide distribution. Two other films by the same director, (and in one case one of the same stars) "Not One Less" and "The Road Home" were released within a year of "CTHD" but did not get wide release. I, sentimentalist that I am, preferred the latter two.

Thanks to the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and the Sundance Channel. Both of these CATV stations run films you don't often have a chance to see in movie theaters.

It has been pointed out to me that I erred in my previous post. Ang Lee, who directed "Crouching Tiger", did not direct "The Road Home" and "Not One Less". Those two were directed by Yimou Zhang, who also directed the more widely distributed "Raise the Red Lantern".

couzz -- I check the Sundance and IFC programs every day. There's at least four or five films a week that I haven't previously seen. Showtime also has more independent films than HBO/Cinemax.

I totally forgot the indie gem ROGER DODGER when I was listing my top 10 for 2002. Not visually distinguished but brilliantly written, the wittiest American film in years, it stars Campbell Scott in a superb, career-defining performanceas the heratbroken misogynist and Isabella Rossellini, never better, as the ice queen who done him wrong. Drop 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE from my list and put ROGER DODGER on there instead.

Sorry, I can only offer a Top 7...
Here in Europe it takes some time to see all the 2002 releases of Hollywood, so some memorable movies of 2001 like "The Man Who Wasn't There" or "No Man's Land" were for me the highlights of the first months of 2002.

And so I still have to see some of the (apparently) remarkable movies of 2002, like "The Hours", "About Schmidt", "Far From Heaven" or "The Man Without A Past". But of all the movies I've seen so far are these here my favourites:

1. The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
2. City Of God ("Cidade de Deus", Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles)
3. Bowling For Columbine (Michael Moore)
4. The Gangs Of New York (Martin Scorsese)
5. Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson)
6. Chicago (Rob Marshall)
7. About A Boy (Chris & Paul Weitz)

Welcome to a2k, brunt. Most of Europe will probably see Waiting for Columbine before many Americans will!