The best of the decade

The end of the year is approaching and this time round it also marks the end of the first decade of the new millennium. So what were the top five films of the “noughties”?

According to The Daily Telegraph, the defining films were:

1. Fahrenheit 9/11, directed by Michael Moore (2004)
2. Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee (2005)
3. The Incredibles, Brad Bird, Pixar (2004)
4. There Will Be Blood, Paul T. Anderson (2007)
5. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson (2001)
   

Interestingly, the 2006 German film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, made it to number 11.

And how did the business world fare in cinematic history during the last decade? Lost in Translation (2003) gave us an unforgettable insight into the clash between the Japanese and the Western work ethic and lifestyle.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006) showed Al Gore’s effective PowerPoint presentation on global warming, which has become the hot environmental topic of the decade. The Devil Wears Prada (2006) combined office life, the world of media and New York — not to mention Meryl Streep as the boss from hell.

Erin Brockovich (2000) showed the legal workings behind industrial cover-ups and won an Oscar for Julia Roberts. George Clooney portrayed a lawyer with high morals in Michael Clayton (2007).

And which books left a lasting imprint on our reading experience in the last ten years? Number one is not a surprise, but it is unusual to find an autobiographical book at number two, brimming with business and politics. Here are the top five:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007), by JK Rowling
2. Dreams from My Father, (1995, 2007), by Barack Obama
3. The Da Vinci Code, (2003), by Dan Brown
4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), by Dave Eggers
5. The God Delusion (2006), by Richard Dawkins

Other top business-related books were: Madoff: the Man Who Stole $65 Billion (2009), by Erin Arvedlund, the story behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Freakonomics (2005), by Steven Lewitt and Stephen J. Dubner, managed to make economics understandable and fun.

Freakonomics

Dreams from my father

The Google Story

In The Blair Years (2007), Tony Blair’s former spokesman Alastair Campbell published a riveting account of the politics during the Labour government of former British prime minister Tony Blair. Finally, The Google Story (2005) by David Vise is a behind-the-scenes look at the company that controls the flow of information on the web.

Lists are often subjective, but we would love to hear from you. Which films or books made a lasting impact on you and your working life?