Best Movie of the Decade

3D movies with their inflated movie rates, coupled by inflation in general and the significant increase of movie tickets as a whole means that the “highest grossing movies of all time” usually end up as the more recent films of our time – not an accurate indication of best movie. With these considerations in place, Avatar, with its $2 billion profit, whipped the “highest-grossing” title away from Titanic, and, more recently, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 

The 2009 science fiction epic, written and directed by Titanic’s James Cameron, was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It won for Art Direction, Cinematography and Visual Effects, but Cameron’s ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, claimed Best Film for Hurt Locker.

James Berardinelli, one of many film critics, described Avatar best when he said, “In 3D, it’s immersive – but the traditional film elements of story, character, editing, theme, emotional resonance – are presented with sufficient expertise to make even the 2D version an engrossing two-and-a-half-hour experience.”

Following the film’s success, Cameron signed with 20th Century Fox to produce two sequels, making Avatar the first of a planned trilogy.

Box Office Bomb

Box office bombs don’t just lose money, they also devastate perfectly good careers. Starring Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Garry Shandling, the 2001 film Town & Country lost almost R700 million, making it one of the most unsuccessful movies of all time! During the making of the giant flop, director Beatty demanded many takes for each scene, and the script was literally being re-written while the movie was being shot. This pushed the production way behind schedule, and Shandling and Keaton both had to leave the shoot before it finished due to commitments on other films. It took a year before the cast reunited to finish what they’d started, but according to critics and audiences alike, they shouldn’t have bothered.