Inspired by the recent lists going around from the New York Times and Rolling Stone, I present a Ruthless take on the best movies of the first quarter of the 21st century. NYT provided a ballot for readers to submit their personal Top 10, but 10 seems too reductive for a whole quarter of a century of cinema. On the other hand, the ranked Top 100 list released by each of the aforementioned publications is too daunting; I have already agonized too much about these choices. So I have split the difference with a Top 25, one for each year, unranked.
This only partially relieved the agonizing, as I was sorely tempted to include, for example, 2007’s There Will Be Blood along with No Country for Old Men at the expense of another year. In the end, I have stuck with this self-imposed guideline, with some disputes possible due to international and limited release dates (mostly around 2002-2004; I’m pretty sure Oldboy didn’t get a proper US theatrical release until 2005, but I had already been a fan for two years thanks to bootlegging, baby!), plus some extra favorites from each year, because even 100 is actually too reductive. As always, this is just the opinion of one film cricket, humbly submitted.
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM – After his blazingly original 1998 debut Pi, Darren Aronofsky broke through in a big way with the riveting, stylish, and highly upsetting Hubert Selby, Jr adaptation Requiem for a Dream. Very much a revelation for many a young film fanatic. Ellen Burstyn should have won the Oscar, and for a while there, you couldn’t escape the score in every other movie trailer.
Other favorites from 2000: American Psycho; Memento; Gladiator; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Dark Days; In the Mood for Love; Almost Famous.
MULHOLLAND DR. – Much like a couple other favorites from this year (Waking Life and Donnie Darko), David Lynch’s terrifying, funny, moving nightmare plumbs the subconscious depths and creates a surreal spell that transixes even as it confounds. Somehow breaking through to a mainstream audience without compromising any of the weirdness that made Lynch a cult favorite for the previous two decades, Mulholland Dr. is a complex and terrifying vision on par with his very best.
Other favorites from 2001: Waking Life; The Royal Tenenbaums; Donnie Darko; Session 9; Spirited Away; Y Tu Mamá También; In the Bedroom; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
CITY OF GOD – Worthy of comparison to the best of Martin Scorsese, Fernando Mereilles and Katia Lund’s masterful City of God somehow manages to feel like the most compelling, stylish crime drama ever staged and simultaneously like a documentary. At its most harrowing, it’s like horrifying news footage from which you can’t look away, but every frame is a painting, the storytelling complex and immensely satisfying. It’s a brutal but beautiful vision of hell on earth.
Other favorites from 2002: Adaptation; Talk to Her; Irreversible; The 25th Hour; Chicago; 28 Days Later…; Love Liza; Minority Report; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
OLDBOY – A brutal, electrifying, and essential work of new extreme South Korean cinema, Park Chan-wook’s stellar adaptation of the Japanese manga Oldboy has one of the most compelling hooks of any movie I’ve seen: Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is imprisoned in a small hotel room for 15 years, then suddenly released and forced into a cat-and-mouse game to figure out who did this to him and why. Endlessly surprising, truly shocking, and gorgeously realized on every level, with one of the best single-take fight scenes ever filmed.
Other favorites from 2003: American Splendor; Memories of Murder; Bad Santa; Elf; The Corporation; Mystic River; The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
DOGVILLE – Quentin Tarantino has gone on record to say that if Lars von Trier had staged his finest work, Dogville, as an actual stage play, he would have won a Pulitzer. As a film, the bare-stage conceit is distracting at first, but the story and performances are so engaging that it is quickly forgotten (except at key moments for which it has been diabolically designed), and three hours later, you feel like you’ve been hit over the head by an incredibly artful sledgehammer. Nicole Kidman has never been better as Grace, the human embodiment of how gradually and subtly exploitation can occur in the quiet hell that is human society.
Other favorites from 2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Primer; Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy; Mean Girls; Sideways; Before Sunset; Mysterious Skin; The Aviator; The Incredibles.
SIN CITY – This is sure to be one of the more divisive picks on the list, but for anyone who grew up on film noir and comic books, this innovative, star-studded, hyperviolent joyride from Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, and single-scene guest director Quentin Tarantino was like a dream come true when it was released. That was 20 years ago, but I guess I haven’t matured that much because this movie still blows me away every time I see it.
Other favorites from 2005: Grizzly Man; Kung Fu Hustle; Cache; Brokeback Mountain; The 40-Year-Old Virgin; Nobody Knows; Munich.
CHILDREN OF MEN – On a technical level alone, Alfonso Cuarón’s bleak dystopian thriller comes readily to mind as one of the most outstanding achievements in cinema this century. Its single-take sequences are legendary (whole new camera rigs had to be invented!), and every detail is meticulously crafted to create an immersion into an all too plausible near-future world. It’s the humanity that really makes it resonate and stand as one of the truly perfect movies, though, and the bare glimmer of hope in its incredible climactic sequence and transcendent conclusion.
Other favorites from 2006: The Fountain; Pan’s Labyrinth; Away from Her; The Prestige; The Lives of Others; The Departed; Shortbus; Little Children; When the Levees Broke.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN – The one movie I’ve seen on almost everyone’s list since the NYT article came out, the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-winning Cormac McCarthy adaptation needs no introduction or defense. No Country for Old Men is undeniably one of the greatest movies ever made. I could probably watch it once a year for the rest of my life, and likely will.
Other favorites from 2007: There Will Be Blood; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Zodiac; The Mist; Grindhouse; 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days; Ratatouille; Michael Clayton.
CLOVERFIELD – I expect this might be the most divisive pick on my list (especially from fellow nerds who have no problem with a giant monster movie, but not over the best Batman film of all time!!!), but I can’t help it. Much like close runner-up The Dark Knight, this is a movie I didn’t know I’d been wanting to see since childhood, until I finally saw it in all its glory. Though it is designed to hold up on smaller screens (it’s sort of like the best YouTube video ever made), I’ll still never forget seeing it in the theater and feeling like I was right there on the ground during a motherfucking kaiju attack in New York City. I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
Other favorites from 2008: The Dark Knight; Hunger; The Wrestler; Synecdoche, New York; Wall-E; Punisher: War Zone; Martyrs; Afterschool.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – To paraphrase the final line of dialogue, I think this just might be his masterpiece. Of course, with a filmmaker as legacy-conscious as Quentin Tarantino, they all just might be his masterpiece. At any rate, Inglourious Basterds is an artfully crafted, thoroughly engrossing blast of a movie, from its incredibly tense opening chapter to the middle finger to historical accuracy that is its conclusion.
Other favorites from 2009: Mary and Max; The White Ribbon; District 9; Big Fan; Up; The Hurt Locker; Silent Light.
DOGTOOTH – The best way to see this stunning breakthrough feature from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster; The Favourite; Poor Things) is without knowing anything about its storyline. Dogtooth is a film of startling power and striking originality. By turns shocking, darkly funny, and ultimately horrific, it is an unrelentingly ruthless and uncompromising movie that presents a bizarre reality with disturbing verisimilitude. Lanthimos has gone on to be one of the most fascinating filmmakers of the century, but Dogtooth may still be his finest work.
Other favorites from 2010: Blue Valentine; The Social Network; Meek’s Cutoff; I’m Still Here; Cave of Forgotten Dreams; Inception.
THE TREE OF LIFE – The Tree of Life is truly extraordinary and unlike anything I’ve seen, even from mercurial filmmaker Terrence Malick. This movie manages to capture the overwhelming enormity of the universe and the smallest details of the most ordinary moment in the same breathtaking scope. It is a dreamy, challenging, and impressionistic odyssey that may be incomprehensible and boring to some, but is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious movies made this century, and if it works for you, you will never forget it. I think our own Matt Cale said it best in his review: “The Tree of Life… is a portrait of restlessness; how man’s every breath is an interrogation of his inexplicable predicament.”
Other favorites from 2011: Drive; A Separation; Take This Waltz; Martha Marcy May Marlene; We Need to Talk About Kevin.
IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY – I don’t expect readers to dispute this choice so much as to never have heard of it, and that’s a shame. Don Hertzfeldt’s utterly unique, painstakingly handcrafted animated odyssey through the life of Bill, a stick figure stand-in for the existential terror and neuroses of us all, has unfortunately never seen wide distribution and promotion on the scale it deserves. Made over the course of six years, almost entirely by Hertzfeldt himself, It’s Such a Beautiful Day is as funny, strange, and heartbreaking as life itself, and more insightful and memorable than any dozen prestige dramas in an average year.
Other favorites from 2012: Amour; The Master; Holy Motors; Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie; Room 237; The Act of Killing; Stories We Tell; Django Unchained.
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET – Much as I love (and inexplicably find myself having to defend) The Irishman, The Wolf of Wall Street is probably my favorite Scorsese film of the century so far, a wild, raucous, violently hilarious and reprehensible thrill-ride with the energy of a much younger filmmaker coursing through it. Leonardo DiCaprio goes all out in a career-best performance, and the movie has got to rival Scarface not only for “fucks” and coke-snorts per minute, but also as one of the fastest three-hour movies ever made.
Other favorites from 2013: Upstream Color; 12 Years a Slave; Before Midnight; Escape from Tomorrow; Inside Llewyn Davis; Blue Ruin; Spring Breakers; Pain & Gain.
THE LEGO MOVIE – One of the best movies of the century, or just a feature-length commercial? You have a point there, and I have to concede that maybe it’s both. Much like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle before it, I was initially skeptical of a movie with product placement right in the title, then amazed by how much I enjoyed it. I never dreamed it would spawn a whole subgenre of animation, to mostly diminishing returns (though The Lego Batman Movie is also really fun), but the hero’s journey of Emmett, Wyldstyle, and yes, Batman (a perfectly cast Will Arnett) shattered all my expectations with its eye-popping animation, whip-sharp dialogue, and surprising resonance.
Other favorites from 2014: Whiplash; Gone Girl; Boyhood; Tusk; Predestination; Nightcrawler.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – Words cannot begin to do justice to George Miller’s incredible magnum opus, an immersive, diesel-fueled roar through a stunningly gorgeous but uncompromisingly harsh future hellscape known as the Wasteland. Endlessly inventive and full of brilliantly subtle world-building (that’s right, I’m calling the movie with the flame-throwing electric guitar god subtle, and I mean it), Mad Max: Fury Road is not only the best action movie of the 20th century, but a very worthy candidate for the all-time title.
Other favorites from 2015: The Hateful Eight; Tangerine; Ex Machina; Inside Out; The Martian; The Revenant; Room; Carol; Zombeavers.
THE VVITCH: A NEW-ENGLAND FOLKTALE – A24 horror movies have been criticized for relying too heavily on ambiguity, but there is nothing ambiguous about Robert Eggers’s daring, electrifying debut feature. There really is a witch, and you will see her devouring an infant in one of the first few scenes. It is a moment that announces the arrival of a major new horror talent, and the rest of the movie only solidifies that impression. Building on the naturalistic dread of isolation and exile in an extremely inhospitable time, The VVitch is a masterful vision of horror from an obvious scholar of the genre.
Other favorites from 2016: Swiss Army Man; The Lobster; Manchester by the Sea; Moonlight; Hell or High Water; Terrifier; The Handmaiden; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
GET OUT – Seeing this in the theater for the first time was a revelation, and I just kept going back. Jordan Peele’s fiendishly clever, consistently riveting work of satirical social horror remains one of the most impressive debuts in recent memory, an expertly crafted thriller that pulls the rug out from its audience on a regular basis. Get Out is the kind of movie you can’t look away from, with the queasy feeling throughout that you’re in the hands of a master, and he’s not finished with you yet.
Other favorites from 2017: The Florida Project; Lady Bird; mother!; Brigsby Bear; Annihilation; The Endless; Gerald’s Game.
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE – Joaquin Phoenix won the Oscar for Joker because collectively we are stupid and that is what we deserve, but it should have been The Master or this completely un-nominated and largely overlooked gem from director Lynne Ramsay and author Jonathan Ames. Phoenix is riveting in the intensely physical and thoroughly lived-in role of Joe, a traumatized veteran who now works as a mercenary in New York City. Between this and Oldboy, you might suspect I just really like hammer fights, and there might be something to that, but this is one of the most insightful and sensitive portrayals of extreme violence you’ll ever see.
Other favorites from 2018: Avengers: Infinity War; Hereditary; Roma; Burning; The Favourite; The House That Jack Built; Under the Silver Lake.
PARASITE – Class consciousness and a healthy distrust of capitalism have always run through the work of Bong Joon Ho, whether he’s working in sci-fi/fantasy (The Host, Snowpiercer, Okja, Mickey 17) or in a more naturalistic mode, as in Memories of Murder, Mother, and of course Parasite. It topped the NYT list that inspired this article, and I don’t disagree; the Oscars also got it right that year, with Parasite sweeping four major categories right before the industry all but shut down for about a year. Though it has some equals (including a few on this list), I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a better movie than this.
Other favorites from 2019: The Irishman; Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood; Avengers: Endgame; Midsommar; Uncut Gems.
ANOTHER ROUND – 2020 was obviously a very strange time for moviegoing, in that actually leaving one’s apartment to go to the movies was no longer possible, so I didn’t catch Thomas Vinterberg’s hilarious, insightful Another Round until after I had made my annual top ten list that year, but I’ve seen it three more times since. Mads Mikkelsen gives a tour-de-force performance as Martin, one of a quartet of high school teachers who embark on an experiment to determine the positive effects of being just a little tipsy at all times. Never preachy, but never shying away from the darker side of addiction, this is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen about drinking.
Other favorites from 2020: Host; The Assistant; Palm Springs; The Devil All the Time; The Invisible Man; I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
THE POWER OF THE DOG – A hell of a slow burn, with an incredibly menacing but nuanced lead performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, this movie is also a sterling example of visual storytelling. Many of the most important, telling moments arrive without a bit of dialogue, particularly its doozy of an ending and the setup for it. Jane Campion has made her best movie yet, a gorgeously shot, expertly crafted work of art, and a worthy rival for Brokeback Mountain’s best gay cowboy movie title.
Other favorites from 2021: The Tragedy of Macbeth; Attica; Saint Maud; Summer of Soul; Pig.
RRR – This relentlessly entertaining Indian historical action epic begins with a pair of disclaimers. The first is that despite featuring characters based on real people, it is a fictional story and not meant to insult anyone of any caste or creed, an important thing to note for a movie whose message is very much Fuck The British (which given the time and place of the setting—1920s India—sems right and historically accurate). The second disclaimer is that there are no real animals in the movie, only computer-generated ones, which is equally important to note in a movie featuring more animals used as weapons than any other in history, taking that transcendent moment from Point Break in which Swayze throws a pit bull at Keanu to its logical conclusion around the midway point. That’s right, the scene in which a live leopard is hurled at a British officer is only about halfway through this absolute gem, which also features possibly the greatest dance-off in cinema history.
Other favorites from 2022: Everything Everywhere All At Once; The Whale; Nope; Tár; The Northman; A Love Song; The Banshees of Inisherin; The Fabelmans.
THE ZONE OF INTEREST – Jonathan Glazer’s groundbreakingly immersive descent into the banality of evil is the kind of movie that lives up to Lars von Trier’s famous quote, “A film should be like a rock in the shoe,” a cinematic stone that rattles around in your brain long after the viewing. The horrors of the Auschwitz prison camp are only briefly glimpsed, almost entirely from the other side of the garden wall—the blood washed down the drain from Rudolf’s boots by a Jewish servant, the smoke in the air and the ashes being spread by another servant in the Hösses’ yard to fertilize the soil—but the unseen violence permeates every frame.
Other favorites from 2023: Beau Is Afraid; Poor Things [Editor’s Note: Best movie this century]; Barbie; Oppenheimer; Killers of the Flower Moon; The Holdovers.
THE SUBSTANCE – Most people, especially those of us who enjoy drinking to excess, have had the feeling of being betrayed by our past selves, having shown no regard in our reckless debauchery for the consequences to be wrought on our future selves. This is literalized and taken to grotesque extremes in the first act of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, and it only gets crazier as it goes on. Soaked in blood, egg, and birth imagery, The Substance is a Grand Guignol nightmare that delights with every gluttonous frame.
Other favorites from 2024: Flow; Hundreds of Beavers; Sasquatch Sunset; Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga; The Brutalist; Nickel Boys.
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