Audiences paid to see a fun sequel to Ocean’s 11, one of the most slickly crowd-pleasing star-ensemble heist pictures of recent years, or maybe ever; instead, they were treated to a more lavish version of the self-referential and sometimes self-satisfied Full Frontal, a movie they had likely neither seen nor heard of. Classic Soderbergh! It really is, though, in its way, and is also very much an Ocean’s picture, in that it is composed largely of gorgeously photographed celebrities screwing around. (Has Catherine Zeta-Jones, a notably beautiful woman, ever looked more beautiful than she does here?) Appropriately, it has a cult who might call it the best of the trilogy. Where I can sympathize with its haters, though, is when it frequently feels more like Ocean’s 6 or 7 rather than the robust, well-integrated ensemble of the first film. Ultimately, this is Soderbergh’s Mars Attacks!: An all-star goof-off whose initially bad reputation was both undeserved, because it’s frequently hilarious; and kinda understandable, because it’s pretty in love with itself even when it’s not bringing the actual jokes.
18. Traffic (2000)
USA Films/Everett Collection
The one that wins the Oscar almost always winds up a bit of a bugaboo, doesn’t it? At the time, Traffic felt absolutely robbed of a Best Picture victory; based on the Oscars it did get, the Academy judged the movie the best-directed, best-written, best-edited of the year, with an award-worthy performance from Benicio del Toro on top. Naturally, the big prize went to Gladiator instead. A quarter-century later, Traffic still looks superior to Gladiator, and Soderbergh certainly deserved to beat out his own work in Erin Brockovich (yes, he was double-nominated in the Best Director category, something that hasn’t happened since). But compared to some of his later efforts, Traffic has occasional turns toward the didactic and simplistic. Compared to how he uses a sprawling ensemble in Ocean’s 11 (pure delight), No Sudden Move (spiky, off-kilter), Contagion (clinical, unnerving), or Full Frontal (vaguely insane), Traffic kinda comes across like a…regular movie. I mean, way better than the hyperlink thrillers of the 2000s it would go on to inspire, and far too memorable to dismiss entirely, but nothing that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (or the un-nominated Almost Famous) shouldn’t have beaten soundly for the year 2000.
17. Unsane (2018)
Everett Collection
