griggs's - Favourite Films of the 21st Century (So Far) List

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October 1988 and small town USA is about to witness the end of the world.

Troubled, brilliant teenager Donnie Darko is plagued by terrifying visions and must unravel the strange occurrences infecting his school, his home and his life before a horrifying spectre known only as "Frank" can pull him over the edge of his sanity. Now, with the Director's Cut, the full extent Richard Kelly's fevered imagination is unleased - this genre-bending phenomenon is about to get darker. Combining never before seen footage, spectacular visual effects and a fully enhanced audio track prepare to experience "Donnie Darko" as never before.

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Same missions are not a choice. On a dangerous assignment to recover stolen plutonium, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) chooses to save his team over completing the mission, allowing nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of a deadly network of highly-skilled operatives intent on destroying civilisation.

Now, with the world at risk, Ethan and his IMF team (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson) are forced to become reluctant partners with a hard-hitting CIA agent (Henry Cavill) as they race against time to stop the nuclear fallout.

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Escaping post-war Europe, visionary architect László Toth (Adrien Brody) arrives in America to rebuild his life, his work, and his marriage to his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) after being forced apart during wartime by shifting borders and regimes.

On his own in a strange new country, László settles in Pennsylvania, where the wealthy and prominent industrialist Horrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) recognises his talent for building. But power and legacy come at a heavy cost....

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Champaner... a small farming village in Central India. The year is 1893. On the outskirts of the village stands a British cantonment, commanded by Captain Russell - an arrogant and capricious man, who wields the power of life and death over the villages under his jurisdiction.

When the villagers are unable to pay the crippling land tax imposed on them by their British rulers due to drought and famine. Captain Russell offers them a challenge. To assemble a team and face the British soldiers in a game of cricket, a game they have never heard of. If the villagers win, the land tax will be waived, if they lose, it will be tripled. One man Bhuvan, an enigmatic young farmer with courage horn of conviction thinks the challenge is worth staking their entire future on. But has he got what it takes to convince the other villagers and in turn beat the English rulers at their own game?

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On the banks of the Han River, a crowd gathers to watch an unidentified object hanging onto a bridge. In an instant, the object reveals itself as a terrifying creature, turning the riverbank into a gruesome sea of blood.

Amid the chaos, a little girl, Hyun-sea is snatched up by the creature right before her father, Gang-du's eyes. After receiving a mobile phone call from his daughter confirming that she has miraculously survived, the once-ordinary citizen Gang-du and his family decide to wage war against the creature, despite both Korean authorities' and U.S. army's every efforts to stop them. Combining state of the art visual effects from the team behind Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Sin City with the dark and offbeat humour synonymous with Korean cinema, The Host is one of the most original monster movies to emerge for decades.

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In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman (Pace) begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm (Untaru), a fantastical story about 5 mythical heroes.

Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances and take a sinister, life-threatening turn.

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Marcel (voice of Jenny Slate) is an adorable one-inch-tall shell who ekes out a colourful existence with his grandmother Connie (voice of Isabella Rossellini). Once part of a sprawling community of shells, they now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy.

But when a documentary filmmaker discovers them amongst the clutter of his Airbnb, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unorecendented dangers and a new hone at finding his long-lost family.

Greta Gerwig gives a glowing performance as Frances, a twenty-something woman living in New York, who dreams of being a dancer and, despite the obstacles that stand in her way, lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness.

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No plan. No backup. No choice. Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his elite team (Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg) go underground after a bombing of the Kremlin implicates the IMF as international terrorists. While trying to clear the agency's name, the team uncovers a plot to start a nuclear war.

Now, to save the world, they must use every high-tech trick in the book. The mission has never been more real, more dangerous or more impossible.

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Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creative minds behind 'The Lego Movie' and '21 Jump Street', bring their unique talents to a fresh vision of a different Spider-Man Universe, with a groundbreaking visual style that's the first of its kind.

'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' introduces Brooklyn teen Miles Morales (voice of Shameik Moore), and the limitless possibilities of the Spider-Verse, where more than one can wear the mask.

The stand-out film of the 2011 Berlin Film Festival and winner of the Golden Bear is a suspenseful and intelligent drama that details the manipulations and confrontations brought into play when a couple's marriage painfully breaks down.

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It is Cord Jefferson's hilarious directorial debut, which confronts our culture's obsession with reducing people to outrageous stereotypes.

Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist who's fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name to write an outlandish "Black" book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

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Inspired by the extraordinary true story of a brilliant young master of deception and the FBI agent hot on his trail, 'Catch Me If You Can' stars Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio and two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks in one of the year's most acclaimed hits! From Three-time Oscar winning

director Steven Spielberg, 'Catch Me If You Can' follows Frank W. Abagnale Jr, as he successfully passes himself off as a pilot, a lawyer and a doctor - all before his 21st birthday!

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Film recounts the adventures of Gustave H., a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars; and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend.

The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting; a raging battle for an enormous family fortune; a desperate chase on motorcycles, trains, sleds, and skis; and the sweetest confection of a love affair - all against the backdrop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.

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Amelie Poulian has led a sheltered life – educated at home by over-protective parents, she retreats into a fantasy world of her own.

When she finally leaves home and finds work as waitress in a Parisian café, life is pretty uneventful until a chain of extraordinary events leads her to the discovery of a thin box containing a schoolboy's long forgotten mementos. It is then that Amelie discovers her true vocation in life – helping others find love and happiness – which she sets about in her own unique and magical way. When Amelie falls in love herself, she realises that making neat solutions is not as easy as it seems…