20 Years Later — The Best Films of 2004

It’s always interesting to look back, and especially compare the state of movies then to now. I noticed a few Best of 2004 pieces have been going up the last month.

As previously mentioned, I’ll be making this a monthly thing. I already tackled 2014 —1994, and 1984 and 1974 are next. It’s always a fun exercise to hit the time capsule and today I’ll be tackling 2004.

Hard to grasp, but it’s already been 20 years since “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a shapeshifting event for movie culture. Time flies. Looking back, 2004 was a decently notable film year. Remember the “Fahrenheit 9/11” vs “Passion of the Christ” debate? Culture Wars existed 20 years ago, maybe that’s when it truly started. Bush-era politics. The Iraq war.

Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit’ won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. This was the same competition lineup that, infamously, had “Shrek 2” and Joel & Ethan Coen’s “The Ladykillers” — sorry people, I still find ‘Ladykillers’ to be an enjoyable film. Tom Hanks just chews up the scenery in wonderfully unhinged fashion.

Tarantino was head of the jury that year. He really wanted to give “Oldboy” the Palme, but had to settle for bestowing the Grand Jury Prize (second place) to Park Chan-wook’s film. Stories about the jury deliberating for hours about whether to honor Park or Moore are now the stuff of Cannes legend. If you ask me, they got it wrong that year.

Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby” ended up winning Best Picture and Best Director. Has the film aged well? Morgan Freeman also won his only acting Oscar. Hilary Swank nabbed her second acting statuette — when’s the last time she was in a noteworthy film?

Remember “Super Size Me”? The doc where its subject had to eat only McDonalds for 30 days? It was made on a skimp $65,000 budget and ended up grossing $22 million at the box-office. That occurred in the same decade where an incalculable number of doc filmmakers tried to emulate Michael Moore’s invasive style of filmmaking.

Also, the late great Jonathan Demme delivered his “Manchurian Candidate” remake, which I loved and still deserves more attention than it got. I recommend you read Jim Hemphill’s IndieWire piece on it, published this week. It’s the kind of underrated film that most definitely deserves to be reappraised (and I absolutely love Frankenheimer’s ‘62 original).

There were also notable works from Michael Mann, Jonathan Glazer, Alexander Payne, Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, Lars Von Trier, Richard Linklater and Martin Scorsese. So, what were some of your favorites from this cinematic year?

The 10 best films I saw in 2004:

“Birth”
“Sideways”
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”
”Collateral”
“Spider-Man 2”
“The Manchurian Candidate”
“The Dreamers”
“Kill Bill: Volume Two”
“Maria Full of Grace”
“The Aviator”

Second-tier of strong films: “Dogville”, “Hotel Rwanda”, “The Motorcycle Diaries,” “Million Dollar Baby”, “The Passion of the Christ”, “The Incredibles” “The Bourne Supremacy,” “Before Sunset,” “Team America: World Police,” “Ripley’s Game,” “Red Lights,” “I’m Not Scared,” “Since Otar Left.”