David Christenson's Top Five of 2000

1. American Psycho. Clearly a matter of taste, but this movie impressed me. The best (most vicious, that is) satire of modern elitism I've seen. Critics disliked it I think because of its attitude - which probably hit them where they lived - because it's really not that gory, just nasty.

2. The Legend of Drunken Master. Yeah, I know it's not really a 2000 film, but it's eligible under the rules, and it towers over all other action films of the year. Jackie Chan is a brand name for pure cinema.

3. The X-Men. Reportedly aspired to Batman, visually, but developed a metallic sheen of its own. Dramatically layered, just enough, without sacrificing action or icons. Hugh Jackman brings the excitement, Anna Paquin carries the emotional load. (Magneto's plan is awfully silly, though.)

4. Cast Away. For the same reasons everybody else liked it, plus it has long sequences of visual storytelling, an art absent from 90 percent of movies these days.

5. Small Time Crooks. Another rarity: a modern comedy about class. Plus, it's done without only a touch of irony, not the buckets full of irony we expect from modern comedies.

Honorable mention: The Contender, Time Code, 13 Days.

Keep in mind that for various reasons I missed a bunch of movies that I wanted to see this year - Croupier, Unbreakable, Requiem for a Dream, Remember the Titans - and because of Oscar politics I haven't yet seen Shadow of the Vampire, Traffic, The Gift, or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Jumping Catfish. Biggest disappointment of 2000 is that all the big horror releases were uniformly mediocre and pretentious.