2007 – There Will Be Blood
As impressive as it is that Fantastic Fest had the U.S. premiere of The Host, the fest pulled a real coup when it got to debut the Paul Thomas Anderson masterpiece, There Will Be Blood. Anderson’s loose adaptation of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair represented a giant leap in the director’s skill and aims. Aided by an incredible score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, There Will Be Blood is easily one of the best movies of the 21st century. In a towering performance, Daniel Day-Lewis plays Danielle Plainview, an oil prospector who becomes a magnate after striking it rich. He runs afoul of twin brothers Paul and Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), the latter a passionate and duplicitous revival preacher. Through Plainview and Eli, Anderson takes an incisive look at American mythologies around capitalism, God, and so-called manifest destiny. And it’s brought to life by some of PTA’s most daring filmmaking.
2008 – Sauna
At its heart, Fantastic Fest is about independent and foreign genre movies, so it’s fitting that it followed a pair of big name premieres with a great film from overseas. Such is the case with Sauna, the Finnish horror film from director Antti-Jussi Annila and writer Iiro Küttner, which made its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest. Set at the end of the Russo-Swedish War in 1595, Sauna is rich on atmosphere and dread, as brothers and Knut and Eerik (Tommi Eronen and Ville Virtanen) seek a magical sauna to purge themselves of their sins on the battlefield.
2009 – Antichrist
Someone scanning this list might think that, as cool as these movies are, they’re not exactly the outsider art that one expects from Fantastic Fest. For its fifth anniversary, the festival gave fans a film both prestigious and extremely aggressive. On the surface, Antichrist sounds like the sort of quiet drama that one would find at Sundance or SXSW, the story of a husband and wife (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, billed as “He” and “She”) dealing with the death of their child. Because it comes from Danish provocateur Lars von Trier, Antichrist is most assuredly not a standard indie drama. Yet for all of its nihilism, Antichrist is somehow deeply moving, retaining an emotional truth beneath its cruel imagery.
2010 – Let Me In
Before he brought emo-noir to Gotham City in The Batman and before he got biblical in the Planet of the Apes franchise, Matt Reeves had the unenviable task of remaking the Swedish smash Let the Right One In for American audiences. Reeves more than succeeded with Let Me In, a movie that translated the original’s themes so well for English speakers that it stands on its own next to the Swedish film. Reeves gets compelling performances from Kodi Smit-McPhee as a lonely 12-year-old in 1980s Los Alamos who finally gets a friend in the form of a child/immortal vampire (Chloë Grace Moretz). Between the remake’s keen sense of time and place, and outstanding performances from the leads and character actor greats such as Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas, Let Me In has charms all its own.
2011 – You’re Next
On one hand, one might argue that a straightforward slasher movie doesn’t deserve to stand next to titanic films like There Will Be Blood and The Host. On the other hand, You’re Next is an exceptionally well done slasher, one that embodies the best the genre has to offer. Working with a cast that includes Mumblecore mainstays such as Ti West and Joe Swanberg, writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard play with genre tropes to build up and subvert audience expectations. By the time all the secrets are revealed, actress Sharni Vinson gives us one of the all-time great final girls, making You’re Next an incredibly satisfying genre exercise.
2012 – Holy Motors
Lots of movies at Fantastic Fest are weird, but few reach the utter absurdity of Holy Motors, from French director Leos Carax. Star Denis Lavant gives a virtuosic performance as several characters who might in fact be the same person, all created in response to encounters that a rich man has throughout the course of his day. While it’s impossible to explain the plot of Holy Motors, the pure cinematic playfulness of the movie satisfies even viewers allergic to artsy-fartsiness.