This is part four of my five-part series celebrating my life in film for the fifty years I’ve been alive. In this article will be focusing on 2004 to 2013. There is a lot of award winning films in these ten years as well as blockbusters and movies about the place I come from Boston, Massachusetts. Just like the previous four decades, there are some amazing films and a few underrated ones. All my favorites from the various years they came out.

2004: Sideways

7.5/10:IMDB 97% Rotten Tomatoes

Struggling writer and wine enthusiast Miles (Paul Giamatti) takes his engaged friend, Jack (Thomas Haden Church), on a trip to wine country for a last single-guy bonding experience. While Miles wants to relax and enjoy the wine, Jack is in search of a fling before his wedding. Soon Jack is sleeping with Stephanie (Sandra Oh), while her friend Maya (Virginia Madsen) connects with Miles. When Miles lets slip that Jack is getting married, both women are furious, sending the trip into disarray.

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of wine. I don’t know a lot about it, but Sideways was a movie I gravitated towards because of the relationships between the main characters. The two main men in the film, played by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, have a camaraderie I always wished I could have with some friends of mine. I have had good friendships in my day, and that’s why this movie resonates with me so much. When I was drinking a lot, I felt I had a great group of friends, coworkers, and coaching buddies I could hang out with. Those times have passed. I’m more alone than I’ve ever been in my life. These couples felt like real people who were going through real issues in this film. It’s one of the most authentic rom-coms I’ve seen in recent years. The writing and direction are first-rate by Alexander Payne. He understands people like no other director before him. Yes, I’m single and not a married man or a man in a relationship, but I really appreciated how Payne handled these people and the relationship topics in the movie

Release date: October 12, 2004 (USA)

Director: Alexander Payne

2005 – Cinderella Man 

8/10: IMDB 80% Rotten Tomatoes

During the Great Depression, ex-boxer James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe) works as a day laborer until his former manager Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti) offers him a one-time slot against a rising young contender. After he wins a shocking upset, Braddock goes back into the ring full time, against the wishes of his frightened wife, Mae (Renée Zellweger). Dubbed “The Cinderella Man” for his rags-to-riches story, Braddock sets his sights on the defending champion, the fearsome Max Baer (Craig Bierko).

I’m a big sports fan. One of my favorite genres within sports films is boxing movies, as noted by a few of my favorite films in this series of articles. Rocky and Raging Bull previously have been my picks in 1976 and 1980, so when I looked back to pick my favorite movie from 2005, it was easy for me to pick the underrated Cinderella Man. Both Ron Howard as a director and Russell Crowe as an actor were on fire at this point in their respective careers. This movie has so many great performances from Crowe, Renée Zellweger, Paul Giamatti and more. The production value and fight choreography are both first-rate. This is a biopic but it’s also a movie with a great (no pun intended) Cinderella story. I love stories about real people that have a comeback story, especially when they’re done great like this one is.

Release date: June 3, 2005 (USA)

Director: Ron Howard

2006 – The Departed/Babel 

8.5/10: IMDB 91% Rotten Tomatoes 85% Metacritic

South Boston cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) goes under cover to infiltrate the organization of gangland chief Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). As Billy gains the mobster’s trust, a career criminal named Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) infiltrates the police department and reports on its activities to his syndicate bosses. When both organizations learn they have a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin must figure out each other’s identities to save their own lives.

I’ve picked a few Martin Scorsese films as my favorite over the years, so it should come as no surprise that The Departed takes the cake for 2006. The film is a remake of Infernal Affairs. The thing about this one is it takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, my home state. What makes it even more great is that it’s about gangsters in Boston. The story of Infernal Affairs works so well with Boston PD and the Irish mob. Throw in great performances from Jack Nicholson as a Whitey Bulger-type gangster, Frank Costello, Leonardo DiCaprio as a criminal turned informant, and Matt Damon as an Irish kid in the neighborhood turned informant for Costello. Plus the police played by Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and hilariously by Mark Wahlberg. The cat and mouse game in this movie was exceptional, and I loved every minute of it. This isn’t the best film from Martin Scorsese but it’s the best of 2006 and one of my favorites this year.

Release date: October 6, 2006 (USA)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Adapted from: Infernal Affairs

7.5/10 IMDB 69% Rotten Tomatoes

An accident connects four groups of people on three different continents: two young Moroccan goatherds, a vacationing American couple (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett), a deaf Japanese teen and her father, and a Mexican nanny who takes her young charges across a border without parental permission.

Babel is one of the most amazing movies I’ve ever seen. It’s from visionary director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, the director who has made 21 Grams, Birdman, and The Revenant. This is the most important movie he’s ever made, though. It’s about one shotgun that has such a destructive purpose. As a pacifist, I’m not a fan of guns in any form, so this movie hit me hard. It follows the journey of this one gun through the people that it is owned by and those that it affects such as a couple in the Middle East, played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett,  their babysitter in Texas, and a Korean girl in the Far East. All these people are irrevocably changed forever by this one weapon. This film is the perfect advertisement for how dangerous guns are in the wrong hands, such as children in this case. The message Iñarritu is trying to convey in this movie is one of the best in any film I’ve ever watched in my lifetime. It’s a great film.

Release date: November 10, 2006 (USA)

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

2007 – No Country For Old Men 

8.2/10: IMDB 93% Rotten Tomatoes

While out hunting, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds the grisly aftermath of a drug deal. Though he knows better, he cannot resist the cash left behind and takes it with him. The hunter becomes the hunted when a merciless killer named Chigurh (Javier Bardem) picks up his trail. Also looking for Moss is Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), an aging lawman who reflects on a changing world and a dark secret of his own, as he tries to find and protect Moss.

Based on my pick from 1996 with Fargo, the Coen Brothers are a couple of my favorite directors from that generation. They have consistently made great film after great film. With No Country For Old Men, they have made one of the best films of the 2000s and the best neo-Western. The iconic character of Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem, is one of the best villains ever put to film. He was just so sinister. The protagonist, Llewlyn Moss, played by Josh Brolin is one of the best characters they’ve written in their careers. The entire cast is fantastic from Tommy Lee Jones to Woody Harrelson and Kelly Macdonald as well. This story has a lot of twists and turns. All the great Western filmmakers like John Ford and Clint Eastwood and others would definitely consider this as one of the greats in the Western genre. The Coens have taken the Western genre and made it their own in recent years. Nobody does it better right now. And I, for one, love this movie. 

Release date: November 9, 2007 (USA)

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Screenplay: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Music by: Carter Burwell

2008 – The Dark Knight/Slumdog Millionaire

9/10: IMDB 94% Rotten Tomatoes

With the help of allies Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Batman (Christian Bale) has been able to keep a tight lid on crime in Gotham City. But when a vile young criminal calling himself the Joker (Heath Ledger) suddenly throws the town into chaos, the caped Crusader begins to tread a fine line between heroism and vigilantism.

The Dark Knight is the most realistic comic book movie ever. It’s set in modern-day Chicago, Illinois but it’s obviously called Gotham City. Christopher Nolan has taken what he started with Batman Begins and ups the ante. The gritty look and incredible set pieces set this movie apart from all other CGI superhero movies. Christian Bale has become the definitive version of Batman, the iconic superhero character. His Batman is dark and brooding as the film’s title suggests. This version of the character has two opponents, one of which is insane and wants to see the world burn and the other is driven insane by the other. Aaron Eckhart is amazing as Harvey Dent/Two-Face but Heath Ledger paid the ultimate price for his portrayal of The Joker, for which he posthumously won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This movie gave me hope that comic book movies can be more than just that. They can be cinematic experiences for the whole film community — critics and fans alike. Everything about this film was done first-rate and made Christopher Nolan a filmmaker everybody wanted to follow along with. He became an auteur filmmaker, and his films became must-see anytime a new one of them came out in theaters. 

Release date: July 18, 2008 (USA)

Director: Christopher Nolan

8/10: IMDB 91% Rotten Tomatoes 84% Metacritic

As 18-year-old Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) answers questions on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” flashbacks show how he got there. Part of a stable of young thieves after their mother dies, Jamal and his brother, Salim, survive on the streets of Mumbai. Salim finds the life of crime agreeable, but Jamal scrapes by with small jobs until landing a spot on the game show.

Slumdog Millionaire is a movie that I was very much looking forward to when it came out. It lived up to my expectations and more when I finally saw it. Danny Boyle adapted it from the book called Q & A by Vikas Swarup. This film infuses two things I love: trivia in general (Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? was my favorite game show growing up as a young adult), and a love story for the ages between two young people who lived different lives. They lost track of each other but eventually found one another again. A series of flashbacks tell the story of these two young lovers and prove to be the answers to the questions this man must answer to win his way to financial freedom. Dev Patel and Frida Pinto were both incredible in this movie. It shows that love conquers all no matter what the odds are. The mix of modern-day storytelling involving the game show and the flashback melted perfectly into a masterpiece of filmmaking rarely seen in recent memory. This is one of the best films of this century and one of my favorite films of all time. It has so many elements it’s hard to put them all into words. The score is second to none by A. R. Rahman, the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is incredible, and the screenplay by Simon Beaufoy is the icing on the cake in this amazing movie. This is a perfect film.

Release date: November 12, 2008 (USA)

Director: Danny Boyle

Adapted from: Q & A

2009 – Inglorious Basterds/Brothers 

8.3/10: IMDB 89% Rotten Tomatoes

It is the first year of Germany’s occupation of France. Allied officer Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) assembles a team of Jewish soldiers to commit violent acts of retribution against the Nazis, including the taking of their scalps. He and his men join forces with Bridget von Hammersmark, a German actress and undercover agent, to bring down the leaders of the Third Reich. Their fates converge with theater owner Shosanna Dreyfus, who seeks to avenge the Nazis’ execution of her family.

I’ve been a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s films for many years, as evident by my picks of his films in 2003 and 1994 as my favorites those years. Well, Inglorious Basterds is actually my favorite film from this writer/director. Tarantino is famous for his ability to change history in his movies. The movie that he did this the best in was Inglorious Basterds. He kills Adolf Hitler in a blaze of glory anybody would be proud of except of course Nazi sympathizers. The various characters in this film are numbered but a handful I love are the Lt. Aldo Rriens played by Brad Pitt, in their first collaboration. He was so funny and very enjoyable to watch throughout the film. I like Daniel Bruhl and Diane Kruger as well as Michael Fassbender and Michael Myers, but the character that was as brilliant as anything Tarentino has ever written for the screen is Hans Landa played brilliantly by Christoph Waltz. In the first fifteen minutes or so, he speaks four languages and creates one of the most iconic characters in movie history. His quote “it’s a bingo” is spoken everywhere and ever since the movie came out. Waltz won a most deserved Academy Award for his performance, and would win a second for Django Unchained, another Tarantino film. Even though this movie is fictitious, it is a lot of fun and a great experience every time I watch it. 

Release date: August 21, 2009 (USA)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

7.1/10: IMDB 64% Rotten Tomatoes

Siblings Sam (Tobey Maguire) and Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal) are as far apart as brothers can be; while Sam serves his country as a Marine, Tommy is a drifter who just got out of prison. When Sam is shot down and presumed dead in Afghanistan, Tommy vows to take care of Sam’s wife, Grace (Natalie Portman), and his children. Tommy and Grace become close, and when Sam unexpectedly returns home, the consequences of their actions threaten the foundation of the entire family.

Brothers is the rare film that deals with war in a way that is rarely seen on the big screen. Based in the Iraq war Tobey Maguire plays a husband and soldier. When he goes back for one more tour of duty, he gets captured and becomes missing in action. While he’s a prisoner of war, his brother moves in with his wife and begins to have a relationship with her. The thing is, American soldiers liberated Maguire’s character from his six months of imprisonment. He comes home to a world he doesn’t know or care about. Maguire gives the performance of his lifetime as this man. His hood friend, Jake Gyllenhaal, plays his brother and Academy Award winner Natalie Portman plays his wife in the film. This movie is raw and gritty in a realistic way that no movie like this has ever been before. I have never felt so bad for a character either. This movie flew under the radar to some extent in 2009, but It has always remained a film I have kept in my mind. It’s a great film that more people need to see.

Release date: December 4, 2009 (USA)

Director: Jim Sheridan

Adapted from: Brothers

2010 – The Fighter/The Town 

7.8/10: IMDB 91% Rotten Tomatoes 3.7/5 Letterboxd

For Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), boxing is a family affair. His tough-as-nails mother is his manager. His half-brother, Dicky (Christian Bale), once a promising boxer himself, is his very unreliable trainer. Despite Micky’s hard work, he is losing and, when the latest fight nearly kills him, he follows his girlfriend’s advice and splits from the family. Then Micky becomes a contender for the world title and he — and his family — earns a shot at redemption.

I am from Lowell, Massachusetts, the same town “Irish” Mickey Ward is from. We knew about this kid coming up, and when my family moved away to Florida, I kept track of this boxer from my hometown. When I heard there was going to be a film, The Fighter, about this hometown hero, I was very excited. I was even more excited when I saw who came on board as Mickey Ward, his brother Dickey Eckland, and his mother. Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale were both great in their roles, and so was Melissa Leo. Two of the three won Academy Awards for their performances. When I saw this movie, I couldn’t believe how realistically this film showed my hometown of Lowell. The way people behaved and talked was exactly the way I remembered it growing up. It was uncanny. David O’Russell brought my youth back into the forefront for me. This was a cathartic experience. The boxing was also filmed and choreographed very well. This was a movie that was made for me. I couldn’t help but love it when I walked out of the theater, and I did. I still do to this very day. 

Release date: December 6, 2010 (USA)

Director: David O. Russell

7.5/10: IMDB 91% Rotten Tomatoes

Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) leads a band of ruthless bank robbers and has no real attachments except for James (Jeremy Renner), who — despite his dangerous temper — is like a brother. Everything changes for Doug when James briefly takes a hostage, bank employee Claire Keesey. Learning that she lives in the gang’s neighborhood, Doug seeks her out to discover what she knows, and he falls in love. As the romance deepens, he wants out of his criminal life, but that could threaten Claire

The Town is another film based around Boston that was right up my alley. It was directed and stars hometown boy Ben Affleck as a man who robs banks. The rest of the cast is played by Jeremy Renner, who works with his brother, Blake Lively who plays the mother of his child, Jon Hamm as an FBI Agent, Rebecca Hall as a bank teller who falls in love with Affleck’s character, and RIP Pete Postlethwaite. The cast is all terrific in their various roles. There are a few action sequences involving the various heists these characters attempt to pull off. The best one was when they tried to get a job as Postlethwaite’s character calls it,” the cathedral of Boston,” Fenway Park. How could I not love this as a huge Boston Red Sox fan? The film states that the Boston area is the capital of bank robberies in this country, and after watching this film, I can see why. These characters make them look easy. Like most criminals, they can never get enough money and they go back one too many times. They each had their motivations, though. Their reasons were very personal for each of them. This is one of the best heist films I’ve ever seen.

Release date: September 17, 2010 (USA)

Director: Ben Affleck

2011 – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/Warrior 

7/10:IMDB 84% Rotten Tomatoes 85% Metacritic

In 1970s England the head of MI6, Control (John Hurt), dispatches an agent (Mark Strong) to meet with a Hungarian general who knows the identity of a Soviet spy in the organization’s ranks. However, the mission goes wrong, and the general dies before he can reveal the information. Undersecretary Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney) calls veteran agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) back from forced retirement to ferret out the mole and stop the flow of vital British secrets to the Russians.

A genre of films that I think is underrated in the spy genre. Sure, James Bond films have become massive hits and people love to speculate on who is going to be the next James Bond or when the next film is coming out or going to be announced. The thing is, the spy genre is more than just James Bond films. In fact, an author who has mastered this genre in a literary form is John Le Carre. He is an exceptional author who wrote a great book called Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which was turned into an amazing film back in 2011. Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish director of Let the Right One In, brought this book to life more than I could have ever imagined. The period look of England and Europe in the 1970s was brought to life incredibly. The production design was impeccable. The clothes and hair styling were fantastic. All of these things are great, but the thing that Afredson did that made this film to overwhelmingly great was assembling an all-star cast of great British actors like Oscar-winners Gary Oldman as George Smiley, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, and Stephen Graham, among others. This is one of the best casts I’ve ever seen in a film of any kind. They all come to play and give amazing performances. This film also has a great story adapted from Le Carre’s novel of the same name and I swore it was going to get a sequel or prequel. It gets everything right in this genre. It is that good of a film. 

Release date: December 9, 2011 (USA)

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Adapted from: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

8.2/10: IMDB 84% Rotten Tomatoes 71% Metacritic

An estranged family finds redemption in the unlikeliest of places: the MMA ring. Tommy (Tom Hardy), an ex-Marine with a tragic past, returns home and enlists his father (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic and former wrestling coach, to train him for “Sparta,” the biggest MMA tournament ever held. But when Tommy’s underdog brother, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), fights his way into the tournament, the two brothers must finally confront each other and the forces that pulled them apart

I wasn’t that knowledgeable about mixed martial arts or UFC when I saw Warrior back in 2011. When I saw the film, I was absolutely blown away. This sport-fighting film had such an emotional tie. The fact that two brothers played brilliantly by Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy could end up in the championship of a mixed martial arts fighting tournament a la Kickboxer starring Jean Claude Van Damme was incredible to me. Their back stories involve their father played by Nick Nolte, also a trainer of one of the brothers and the wife and family, and the job that is rooting for one of them. The fight choreography was incredible. The fact that these two actors made this look so good was astounding. Frank Grillo, who wasn’t an actor at this time, worked with both of these men, and he ended up being in the movie and the rest is history. This movie just had so much emotion and created a great dramatic tension. I had no idea who was going to win in the end. This was such a pleasant surprise to me when I saw it.

Release date: September 9, 2011 (USA)

Director: Gavin O’Connor

2012 – The Avengers 

8/10: IMDB 91% Rotten Tomatoes 69% Metacritic

When Thor’s evil brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), gains access to the unlimited power of the energy cube called the Tesseract, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of S.H.I.E.L.D., initiates a superhero recruitment effort to defeat the unprecedented threat to Earth. Joining Fury’s “dream team” are Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).

There is no secret that I have been a collector of comic books ever since I was a child. My brother and I have amassed a huge collection of them, so when the comic book genre took off in the early 2000s, I was very excited. It meant I could see some of my favorite characters from the books I read turned into big-budget motion pictures. And when Kevin Feige came up with the idea to have an interconnected universe of Marvel characters starting with Iron Man, I was very excited. Fast forward to 2012, when this idea came full circle and Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye came together to fight Loki. My mind was blown. I couldn’t believe I was finally going to get so many of my favorites together for the first time. Joss Whedon did what I thought could never be done. He made a great film and it launched what we all know now as the MCU. The Marvel cinematic universe was truly born. The action set pieces, the visual effects and everything in between were amazing. The comic book genre was now something the world had to take seriously. And they would, as millions and millions of people just like me would go back over and over again to see the Avengers, who were finally assembled.

Release date: May 4, 2012 (USA)

Director: Joss Whedon

Music by: Alan Silvestri

2013 – 12 Years a Slave 

8.1/10: IMDB 95% Rotten Tomatoes

In the years before the Civil War, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Subjected to the cruelty of one malevolent owner (Michael Fassbender), he also finds unexpected kindness from another, as he struggles continually to survive and maintain some of his dignity. Then in the 12th year of the disheartening ordeal, a chance meeting with an abolitionist from Canada changes Solomon’s life forever.

When I first walked out of 12 Years a Slave back in October of 2013, I said to myself that I knew at that moment that it was going to win the Academy Award for Best Picture the next year when the awards would be handed out. Also, I predicted that Steve McQueen and Chiwetel Ejiofor would receive Oscars. I was mostly right. For some reason, Ejiofor didn’t win best actor for his amazing performance as Solomon Northup. He was a literal revelation for me while watching this brutal true story about a violinist who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. It’s a story that is so sad it’s incomprehensible something like this could happen to anybody. Part of what makes this an incredible film is the cast McQueen assembled. Lupita Nyong’o won an Academy Award for her gritty and raw performance of slave Patsey who was brutalized by plantation hand Epps played sinisterly by Michael Fassbender. Another couple of nasty characters were played by Paul Dano and Paul Giamatti, and a couple of nicer guys were played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt. The cast was absolutely incredible. The music, production design, costumes, and hair and makeup teams were second to none this year. The script was out of this world by McQueen and Jon Ridley. This was a masterpiece of filmmaking if I ever saw one. It’s my number one film of the decade of the 2010s for a reason. I couldn’t imagine many films better than this one. Even though the subject matter is so difficult to watch, it is a must-see film.

Release date: October 18, 2013 (USA)

Director: Steve McQueen

Producers: Steve McQueen, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Anthony Katagas, Jeremy Kleiner

Screenplay: Steve McQueen, John Ridley

By Dan Skip Allen