Best Director, 2000-2009: Clint Eastwood

Who is the greatest director of the last 10 years? It certainly could have been Martin Scorsese, who finally won his Oscar for the terrific film The Departed but also was nominated for The Aviator and Gangs of New York. It could be the Coen brothers, who churned out No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, and O Brother Where Art Thou? And you could certainly make a case for Peter Jackson, he of the One Saga to Rule Them All.

But... we must give our pick for Best Director to... an actor. That's right: Clint Eastwood directed eight films in 10 years. All of them were very good to excellent, and the only exceptions to that high bar--Blood Work and Flags of Our Fathers--were still far from bad. At age 79, he enjoyed some of the best reviews of his directing and acting careers in the past decade (did we mention he also composes the score?). Here's his list from the past decade, in chronological order:

2000: Space Cowboys--Silly premise, yes. Enjoyable and watchable? Totally.

2002: Blood Work--More of a standard whodunnit, very similar to his 1999 film True Crime.

2003: Mystic River--This adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel netted Oscars for Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. Also, don't miss Laura Linney as a stone-cold Lady MacBeth type.

2004: Million Dollar Baby--Best Picture of the year, and an acting nod for Clint to boot.

2006: Flags of Our Fathers--filmed back-to-back with Letters From Iwo Jima, this was the first released but less well-received.

2006: Letters From Iwo Jima--A stunning saga of the World War II battle from the perspective of the Japanese.

2008: Changeling--A harrowing tale of a kidnapping in the '20s netted an Oscar nod for Angelina Jolie.

2008: Gran Torino--Unjustly overlooked at the Oscars, this tale of a friendship between a bigoted vet and a Hmong family next door is more than just "Dirty Harry as an old man," as many have described it.

2009: Invictus--Based on the true story of Nelson Mandela's interest in the national rugby team to unite the apartheid-torn South Africa.

Do you agree? Whose 00's resume looks more impressive than this? --Ellen

Comments

[David on December 30, 2009 at 11:20 PM]

How can you top this decade-long resume?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Transformers (2007)
The Island (2005)
Bad Boys II (2003)
Pearl Harbor (2001)

[C.D. Bradley on December 31, 2009 at 06:31 AM]

Seriously? How about Christopher Nolan:
Memento
Insomnia
Batman Begins
The Prestige
The Dark Knight

I'd take any of those movies over any of Clint's, especially Gran Tourino, which is simply ridiculous. It's as if Clint made a best with his friends that he could play a contemptible man surrounded by idiots and everybody would still love him.

[pedro on December 31, 2009 at 06:46 AM]

i've gotta agree. he's the most under-rated director out there. clint eastwood actually would be in the running for best director of the 90's as well:

- the rookie
- unforgiven
- bridges of madison country
- a perfect world (i thought very under-rated)
- in the line of fire (i don't think he directed it, but may have composed it).

great movies!

[Peter on December 31, 2009 at 07:02 AM]

As the decade does not end until December 31, 2010, isn't this list a bit premature?

[Ronald McFirbank on December 31, 2009 at 07:14 AM]

Actually, my vote would be for a director I'd written off until he came back with two remarkably strong films, All About My Mother and Talk To Her-- Pedro Almodovar.

That said, it's always amusing to think, imagine telling people when Every Which Way But Loose came out that someday the guy playing opposite the orangutan would have two Best Director Oscars and have had one film nominated... which was entirely in Japanese.

[Malvolio on December 31, 2009 at 09:44 AM]

"How about Christopher Nolan:
Memento
Insomnia
Batman Begins
The Prestige
The Dark Knight"

Well, Insomnia and The Prestige shared a big shortcoming: they were awful. Just terrible, bloated dull stupid movies. TDK was pretty good, but mostly because of (what should have been) Heath Ledger's star-making performance. Maggie ("I'm more offputting than my brother") Gyllenhaal might have turned in the worst performance by a name-actress since Natalie Portman in the Star Wars travesties. The plot was lethargic and preachy and Batman himself just dull.

Insomnia was great, though.

[Dick Eagleson on December 31, 2009 at 07:52 PM]

Eastwood is a very defensible pick. I haven't run the numbers on this, but, based on the number of acting awards his casts have been nominated for and won, Clint might just be closing in on the all-time actor's director, the late great William Wyler.