2000s

Whether Briony could ever find genuine redemption after irreparably destroying the lives of two lovers is the provocative question that she may never get an answer to, and in Joe Wright’s impressionistic camerawork and ever-shifting structure, we too find it eerily winding its way through Atonement’s formal puzzle of lies, truths, and alternate perspectives.

Avatar may not be James Cameron’s most consistently flawless work, but it is certainly at least his most purely ambitious, using innovative digital technology to serve his incredible visual artistry and immersive worldbuilding, both of which place this rich, ecological allegory among the most monumental achievements of genre filmmaking.

Though the title I Killed My Mother explicitly refers to Hubert’s lie that his titular parent is dead, it also becomes apparent that this is something she painfully experiences every single day, revealing a remarkably mature voice in 19-year-old director Xavier Dolan who radiates these complex character dynamics out into a neatly composed visual style…

Random chaos defines Barry Egan’s world in Punch-Drunk Love, reaching out across his work and personal life to diminish his meek existence, and yet there is a balanced coordination across every level of Paul Thomas Anderson’s incredibly formal filmmaking in this offbeat romantic comedy that finds colourful, delicate harmony among the dissonance.

Classical Hollywood filmmaker Howard Hughes is the tragic centrepiece of Martin Scorsese’s treatise on an industry that is both extravagantly pioneering and detrimentally obsessive, and in its Technicolor experimentations, The Aviator fully recognises both sides of this glamorous culture and the bright-minded pioneer it consumed.

As David Fincher’s pressing darkness infiltrates the crevices of the claustrophobic townhouse in Panic Room, so too does he send three thieves inside with the intention of stealing its hidden treasure, with the camera’s exhilarating, omniscient perspective instilling in us an even greater dread than any single character experiences alone.