The 5 Best Movies of 2004

5. Before Sunset

The first film in what's now a series, Before Sunrise, explores a couple's first night together when Jesse, an American, meets Celine, a French student, on a train in Budapest and convinces her to stroll around Vienna with him until he catches his flight back to the U.S. the following morning. Though they admit to a mutual attraction, Jesse and Celine agree to reunite in Vienna in six months' time instead of exchanging contact info. 

This follow-up, Before Sunset, covers Jesse and Celine's "accidental" reunion in Paris nine years later. Though Celine (now in a relationship) failed to show up to the planned meeting with Jesse (now married and an author -- he wrote a best-selling book about his night with Celine) in Vienna years earlier, she'd attended his book-signing hoping to see him again. Once again, they decide to walk and talk before Jesse has to catch a flight back to the states. Eventually, Celine performs a song (a song she wrote about her night with Jesse) for Jesse in her apartment... 

4. Mean Girls

Mean Girls, written by SNL-alum Tina Fey and inspired by Rosalind Wiseman's book Queen Bees and Wannabes, explores the female variety of bullying with aplomb. Seen through the eyes of nice girl-turned-vacuous bitch Cady Heron, the movie exposes a variety of mean girl types: there's the all-purpose hater; the smug, manipulative spoiled brat; the catty best frenemy and so on. And the catty comments, nasty rumors, back-stabbing, silent treatment, boyfriend-theft and just general passive-aggressiveness flies freely. 

After the most popular clique's machinations come to light, the school holds an all-female workshop in which even the apologies are disingenuous and nearly as bad as the original violation.









3. Collateral

2. Troy

Troy is the first of three good Greek mythology movies (the others being
Clash of the Titans and Immortals). Except the story, the live-action
adaptation of The Illiad, is completely devoid of the mythical elements.
Troy depicts Homer's epic poem detailing the Trojan War -- the 10-year
seige of the ancient city of Troy by the assembled Greek forces.









1. The Bourne Supremacy

Not only is The Bourne Supremacy an improvement over its predecessor, The Bourne Identity, it's also far better than the novel for which it's named. After losing the love of his life, Marie, to a sniper's round early in the film, Bourne is now completely devoid of the accoutrements that help to define his primary rivals in cinematic espionage: James Bond and Ethan Hunt. Never one to indulge in Hunt's penchant for stupid face masks and gadgets or to embrace Bond's fondness for quips and drinking, he's now without one of the many things the other two super-spies have in common: romance.  And in the one instance in which Bourne imbibes alcohol, he doesn't savor it -- he uses it as a weapon. Bourne is simultaneously pragmatic and impractical as he dispassionately swims away from Marie's (the love of his life) recently-dead body upon realizing that she is, in fact, beyond resuscitating, but later travels into enemy territory for the sole purpose of apologizing to the orphan of two of his murder victims. Back to that dearth of romance for a second -- good riddance. I don't need to see a love story EVERY SINGLE TIME  I watch a movie. Action films especially don't need to be fairytales.

More self-possessed than he was in Identity, Bourne proves himself to be the most capable, most dangerous and most human black-ops agent to ever be captured on film.