35. Office Space. A few years ago, when I wrote about Office Space, I gave it an A-. But putting my top 100 list together, I can't imagine what reservation I had about it that kept me from calling it an A. It is riotously funny in many different ways -- raunchy, satirical, outrageous, and familiar. Even at its most ridiculous, there's an element of almost painful truth in it. An all around fantastic comedy.
34. The American President. What a winning assemblage came together for this film. Rob Reiner directed a top notch cast that included Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, Michael J. Fox, Richard Dreyfuss, and more. The script by Aaron Sorkin not only remains one of his best film efforts to date, but was essentially the inspiration that led directly to his outstanding television series, The West Wing. The film also boosts an amazing musical score by Marc Shaiman. The sweeping anthem of the main title was so inspirational and moving that countless other directors lifted it to use in their trailers for other movies, and countless other composers aped the style in subsequent years.
33. Juno. What snuck into the bottom of my top 100 list when I first saw it has only risen in my esteem since. Juno has just the right amount of realism underpinning it, but then gives in to a fun mix of very clever and very aware characters that "make you laugh and cry" in the truest sense of that old cliché. And it boasts a great cast, including Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, and J.K. Simmons.
32. 12 Monkeys. This is heresy in some circles, but I really don't care for most of the Terry Gilliam films I've watched. I tend to find them weird for the sake of being weird and thoroughly preoccupied with bizarre visuals over coherent story. But the reason I'm willing to keep giving them a chance is because of how much I liked this Terry Gilliam film. 12 Monkeys is a brilliantly labyrinthine and dystopian tale with fantastic performances by Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt. Every piece perfectly fits into the whole, and the result is a wonderfully clever, deliciously dark film.
31. Serenity. Before The Avengers put Joss Whedon deservedly near the top of the heap for all-time box office success, all of us in the know had been adoring him for almost 20 years. I gushed about his ill-fated series Firefly in a full series of episode reviews, but perhaps an even greater achievement was that he convinced Universal Studios to give the show a life after death in the form of a feature film that wrapped up many of the series' dangling plot threads, and let us see all the things that made Firefly wonderful one last time. As the t-shirt says, "Joss is boss."
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