BY THE NUMBERS: FAVORITE DIRECTORS OF THE 2000S

Depicting the struggles of Filipinos in rural areas under the brutal Marcos regime, a family of poor farmers tries to overcome the challenges brought on by corruption and greed for power spanning 1971 to 1987.

2001 film directed by Michael Haneke

2003 film directed by Lars von Trier

2009 film directed by Tsai Ming-liang

Stymied by writer's block while crafting his latest script, director Kim Jung-rae persuades his friend Won Chang-wook to drive him to a beach resort where he promptly becomes involved with Chang-wook's girlfriend. Abandoning her and taking up with another woman, Jung-rae winds up creating enough drama to inspire his writing.

An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

Min is an illegal Burmese immigrant living in Thailand who has contracted a mysterious painful rash covering his upper body. His girlfriend, Roong, and a middle-aged woman, Orn, take him to see a doctor. Min pretends that he cannot speak because he is not fluent in Thai and speaking would reveal him to be an illegal immigrant.

A detailed look at the gradual decline of Shenyang’s industrial Tiexi district, an area that was once a vibrant example of China’s socialist economy. But industry is changing, and the factories of Tiexi are closing. Director Wang Bing introduces us to some of the workers affected by the closures, and to their families.

2006 film directed by Pedro Almodóvar

2006 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke

Two neighbors form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs.

2004 film by Hirokazu Koreeda

As an awkward idealistic high school teacher begins her first job in the city, things turn out to be much tougher than she had imagined.

Shortly before her wedding, art gallery director Nora travels from Paris to Grenoble to visit her preteen son, Elias, who is spending time with her aging professor father, Louis, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. During her stay, she reaches out to her former lover, Ismaël, a viola player and father figure to Elias who has been committed against his will to a mental hospital. Ismaël, however, has his own problems to sort out.

Young hobbit Frodo Baggins, after inheriting a mysterious ring from his uncle Bilbo, must leave his home in order to keep it from falling into the hands of its evil creator. Along the way, a fellowship is formed to protect the ringbearer and make sure that the ring arrives at its final destination: Mt. Doom, the only place where it can be destroyed.

The Aso family live in the old town of Nara. One Day, Kei, one of the Aso's twin boys suddenly disappears. Five years later seventeen-year old Shun, the remaining twin, is an art student. He now has to move forward with his life, together with his childhood friend, Yu.

A re-imagination of Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s final days in power as WWII draws to a close.

Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.

In 9th century China, a corrupt government wages war against a rebel army called the Flying Daggers. A romantic warrior breaks a beautiful rebel out of prison to help her rejoin her fellows, but things are not what they seem.