Important Movies

1. The Dark Knight: No brainer. As Drac said, this is the gold standard of the modern blockbuster.

2. Iron Man: Launched the MCU and did make a pretty big splash on it's own.

3. Cloverfield: Blair Witch is often credited with the found footage horror film, but this is the one which launched the genre. The marketing campaign was a big deal too, and marks a turning point where studios began to get a lot more creative with their trailers.

4. WALL-E: Beloved, and the ultimate example of using a "family film" to actually tackle serious themes and ideas.

5. The Wrestler: Alright, maybe this film didn't light up the box-office or spawn a bunch of memes, but it was one of the most well-reviewed films of that year. Much has been made of how the film resurrected Mickey Rourke's career, which is true, but it also brought back Darren Aronofsky after the misfire which was The Fountain. The film would also be called back to a lot in Aronofsky's next project; Black Swan.

Honourable Mentions:

In Bruges: I think this did inspire similar comedies, but the movement is too underground.

Hunger: Introduced the world to Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender.

Milk: This feels major given recent events, but cinematically this is nothing special.

Twilight and Taken: Fads which are already being forgotten.


Also, we have 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days already for 2007.

The Blair Witch Project was the first movie that used the Internet to market itself. People in those early days of AOL actually thought the movie was a real documentary before the media clarified that it wasn't. And it's that approach that has fueled the found footage genre. Cloverfield wasn't pretending to be real. It's obvious that a giant Godzilla-type monster didn't attack New York City. But Paranormal Activity and the other found footage horror movies rely on that Blair Witch approach of trying to trick people into thinking that they're legit documentaries. Obviously people know they're fake from the get-go but it's the spirit of the project that they care about. Cloverfield has more in common with movies like Chronicle and Earth To Echo and that Michael Bay produced time travel film.



I'm pretty sure most people didn't see this movie in 2008. Michael Fassbender's real introduction to mainstream audiences was the bar scene in Inglorious Bastards the following year.



The battle for gay rights preceded Milk. Gay marriage was a big issue in the 2004 Presidential election. And Milk didn't exactly inspire millions of people to join the movement. It was just a nice Oscar-bait biopic that came and went.



Are you sure?



You do realize you're comparing Cloverfield, a B movie, to 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the most influential movies of the late 20th century.

Obviously. I'm saying they used the this-is-real approach that Blair Witch used and so many other horror movies have used. Cloverfield (and similar movies) are too science-fiction to even bother with that.



Because people have gotten REALLY good at piracy and aren't gonna waste their time in demanding a movie to play in theaters. Paranormal Activity, released in 2009, defines the end of an era in that sense. The movie literally predates Netflix streaming on a television - another thing that has hurt the theater business.



We've used this excuse for other movies and IanTheCool shut us down.



The documentary about Harvey Milk, from the 70's or 80's, could be considered important, but Ian has also ruled out documentaries.



Taken put Luc Beeson back on the radar. That guy and his EuroCorp have been releasing a steady stream of movies on American soil since Taken became a hit. Before that he had - what - The Transporter? Beeson was pretty much an European producer, which occasional American hits, before Taken. Now he's a poor man's Jerry Bruckheimer. You gotta give credit where it's due.



Harry Potter are technically children's book. Yeah, they evolved into young adult books as the original audience grew up but Warner Bros didn't start out making young adult movies. Those first three Harry Potter movies are definitely for children.



Without Twilight, a low-budget movie made by a minor studio, Hollywood would have never considered turning female skewing young adult novels into movies. The Hunger Games would have never been made without Twilight's success. That's a fact. Also... are you gonna ignore the vampire phase? True Blood. The Vampire Diaries. Etc. From now on, whenever we look at the history of vampires in popular culture, Twilight is gonna be there. The same way that Adam West Batman is always gonna be a major part of Batman history. You need to accept that, like Holocaust Deniers need to accept the Holocaust.



The difference is that 2001, despite its haters in 1968, was an Academy Award winning movie with groundbreaking technology. Cloverfield, a January release, was pretty much forgotten by the time summer rolled around.

Cloverfield stunk as a movie but it used the shaky camera thing in a more unique manner than previous films did - at least it tried something different.

Sparkly vampires suck (Harry Potter knock off) - Buffy did it a little better.

Iron Man
Tropic Thunder
The Dark Knight
Gran Torino
Taken

Regarding Twilight, I think it's important to point out that all of the series' "importance" has nothing to do with the film, but with the insane fandom which surrounded the series from the books. The films may have amplified that, but it was only an extension of a fanbase which was already there. I also don't see the things it inspired, namely shit like The Vampire Diaries, having a lasting impression.

True Blood predates the Twilight release by a month

Alan Ball tried to make True Blood in 2005 but it didn't get greenlit till Twilight mania began. Like Cooper said, there was already a fan base for Twilight before the movie was released.

1. WALL-E
2. Cloverfield
3. Quarantine
4. Bolt
5. The Strangers

I think I made a good case for The Wrestler. As for Synecdoche, I don't know, I'm open to it, but it also strikes me as minor when all is said and done.

Iron Man - Argument has already been made on its behalf regarding it launching the MCU

Fireproof - Small independent film, made right here in Albany, Ga with a 500K budget, returned over 33 million. The highest grossing independent film of 2008

Tropic Thunder - A great comedy but what I thought was great is how it showed how ludicrous the Hollywood types are. Aging action star trying to remain relevant, over the top always in character Daniel Day Lewis type, rapper turned actor, and a drug fueled jackass with no real talent. This sums up Hollywood perfectly and it was something you don't typically see with such a huge cast that make up some of those archetypes being poked fun at.

The Wrestler - Any film that can take something like "wrasslin" and show you a very human, emotional and dark side to something most people take as a joke deserves a spot. That and it did give us Mickey Rourke in his best performance to date.

Gran Torino - Great story, great character development, and friggin Clint Eastwood. His first starring role in 4 years, his second highest grossing film to date (which says a lot considering we are talking about EASTWOOD), and also if I am not mistaken it features the largest cast of Hmong Americans actors, both professional and amateur in an American film. Social commentary aside, this is a piece of art that deserves to be on this list.