City of God (2002)

This past summer, a friend and I were preparing and comparing early drafts of our "top 10 movies of the decade" list. He was fine with my list, but was stunned by one omission in particular. "Have you seen City of God?" he asked me. When I told him, no, I hadn't, he told me to do so. He also promised that I would love it and put it on my top 10 of the decade list. And he was right. No list has been finalized yet, but I can certainly vouch for City of God, just like nearly everyone who has ever seen it. It's a great film. It's foreign (bonus points!), based on a true story (bonus points!), and loaded with gang war violence (tons of bonus points!). Most importantly, it's structured and narrated perfectly and paced brilliantly. I liked Slumdog Millionaire when I saw it, but this movie makes Slumdog look like a heavily commercialized textbook piece of shit by comparison. Think of this movie as Slumdog with violence and without the love story or gameshow storyline. And if you're thinking, "but Slumdog did have a lot of violence," then imagine what City of God is like. The film isn't perfect - a couple things were left a little too unresolved for me by the end - but it comes damn close. I've only got two movies from this decade in my backlog now - Snatch and Black Hawk Down - and while I expect both of them to be good, I doubt either will match City of God and end up on my "best of the decade" list. But I won't know until I see them, so... onward I press!