[JakeLipson]

I think the top films of the decade -- in chronological order of their original release date so far as I can recall -- are as follows. This is a top 20 because I just couldn't leave any of these out:

1) Spirited Away (2001, Japan)
2) Monsters, Inc. (2001)
3) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
4) Hero (2002, China)
5) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
6) Finding Nemo (2003)
7) Whale Rider (2003)
8) Mystic River (2003)
9) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
10) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
11) Howl's Moving Castle (2004, Japan)
12) The Incredibles (2004)
13) Million Dollar Baby (2004)
14) Hotel Rwanda (2004)
15) Dear Frankie (2005)
16) Batman Begins (2005)
17) March of the Penguins (2005)
18) Proof (2005)
19) Brokeback Mountain (2005)
20) Munich (2005)

The Phantom of the Opera ranks as my phavorite of 2004 (had to do it), but a lot of that has to be because of my personal bias towards the material.

Out of these -- well, out of all films released this decade -- the best one is by far Proof. It beats out everything else by a very large margin.