'Y tu Mamá También' (2001)

This was the decade that Mexican cinema lit up the skies, with the likes of Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros), Carlos Reygadas (the too-little seen Silent Light), and the prodigiously talented Alfonso Cuarón--who, in addition to Y tu Mamá También, directed the best of the Harry Potter series (The Prisoner of Azkaban) and the cinematically dazzling futuristic Children of Men. Tambien, which introduced Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna to the world, is his most personal, heartfelt, and sexy movie, a coming-of-age drama--and an offhand portrait of contemporary Mexico--that put one in mind of the early days of the nouvelle vague. Vibrantly, funkily alive from first frame to last, it gains depth and poignancy in the complex relationship between the two boys and an older woman who introduces them to sex, tragedy, and their own complex natures.