NYT Best Films of the 21st Century

ctrl+f toni erdmann

it's that or Mandy. anyway

Yi Yi or Children of Men.

In the absence of Werckmeister Harmonies and Big Man Japan it'll be Spirited Away

imago at 9:33 27 Jun 25

ctrl+f toni erdmann

it's #59! also the highest ranking film i haven't seen.

(it's on my watchlist, but whenever I've thought about watching it, the running time has been an impediment.)

mulholland drive or in the mood for love. can't argue with top 5 for either of them

Tempted to go with Her due to all the hate its been getting around here, but ended up clicking Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. About 10 others would easily be in contention.

only one of these i actively dislike is oldboy. sorry. i liked handmaiden and decision to leave tho

Yi Yi.

I like Guadagnino's ballot. I'm guessing Ghosts of Mars may have been a solitary vote.

Zodiac, which I thought would have been up near the top (painful to see it next to Wolf of Wall Street).

I'm pleasantly surprised it's as high as it is, given that it was somewhat overlooked/overshadowed at the time of its release (zero Oscar noms, e.g.)

True--released early in the calendar year, I think--I just thought it had gained so much traction in the last 15 years.

I feel bad for the half a dozen good to great films here.

I don't worry about placement on lists -- I like to see my picks no matter where they land.

Boring answer but Mulholland Drive

The Zone Of Interest or Moonlight. Perennially frustrated with the celebration of Call Me By Your Name over Guadagnino’s masterpiece I Am Love

Can someone copy/paste the full list?

Perennially frustrated with the celebration of Call Me By Your Name over Guadagnino’s masterpiece I Am Love

For a lot of younger viewers CMBYN was like Brokeback Mountain was a breakthrough film. I prefer Queer and even Challengers.

CMBYN is definitely better than Challengers, if only because Aciman’s novel is better.

None of my choices made the top 50, but given some of the utter trash on that list, I consider that a good thing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(seriously tho, The Departed? Up? Royal fucking Tenenbaums? )

Full list:

1. Parasite
2. Mulholland Drive
3. There Will Be Blood
4. in the Mood for Love
5. Moonlight
6. No Country for Old Men
7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
8. Get Out
9. Spirited Away
10. The Social Network
11. Mad Max: Fury Road
12. The Zone of Interest
13. Children of Men
14. Inglourious Basterds
15. City of God
16. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
17. Brokeback Mountain
18. Y Tu Mama Tambien
19. Zodiac
20. The Wolf of Wall Street
21. The Royal Tenenbaums
22. The Grand Budapest Hotel
23. Boyhood
24. Her
25. Phantom Thread
26. Anatomy of a Fall
27. Adaptation
28. The Dark Knight
29. Arrival
30. Lost in Translation
31. The Departed
32. Bridesmaids
33. A Separation
34. Wall-E
35. A Prophet
36. A Serious Man
37. Call Me By Your Name
38. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
39. Lady Bird
40. Yi Yi
41. Amelie
42. The Master
43. Oldboy (2005)
44. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
45. Moneyball
46. Roma
47. Almost Famous
48. The Lives of Others
49. Before Sunset
50. Up
51. 12 Years a Slave
52. The Favourite
53. Borat
54. Pan’s Labyrinth
55. Inception
56. Punch-Drunk Love
57. Best in Show
58. Uncut Gems
59. Toni Erdmann
60. Whiplash
61. Kill Bill Vol. 1
62. Memento
63. Little Miss Sunshine
64. Gone Girl
65. Oppenheimer
66. Spotlight
67. Tar
68. The Hurt Locker
69. Under the Skin
70. Let the Right One In
71. Ocean’s Eleven
72. Carol
73. Ratatouille
74. The Florida Project
75. Amour
76. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
77. Everything Everywhere All at Once
78. Aftersun
79. The Tree of Life
80. Volver
81. Black Swan
82. The Act of Killing
83. Inside Llewyn Davis
84. Melancholia
85. Anchorman
86. Past Lives
87. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
88. The Gleaners & I
89. Interstellar
90. Frances Ha
91. Fish Tank
92. Gladiator
93. Michael Clayton
94. Minority Report
95. The Worst Person in the World
96. Black Panther
97. Gravity
98. Grizzly Man
99. Memories of Murder
100. Superbad

yeah like a full third of those films are total garbage.

I'd love to see posters' own top 20.

I wonder if Spielberg got vote-split. Minority Report at 94 is his only placement.

Amazed anyone even remembers Little Miss Sunshine

I'm amazed anyone laughed through it.

i would like to see which films everyone thinks is garbage

yeah little miss sunshine is one of the ones that i dislike. also interstellar, what a bore.

lots of films that were 'events' it seems

it's not that I think loads of these are bad films, it's that loads of them are just fine, good, whatever, but together they make for a really drab canon

...which was inevitable with an exercise like this, obv

For example, I would never put Bridesmaids or Anchorman anywhere near this list, but if I was trying to get something that represents those kinds of films I would have gone with the far better Barb and Starr Go to Vista Del Mar.

come sit by me

Negronis out, it’s Trish time!

Lives Of Others deserves more hatred, the kind of prestige middlebrow thing that thankfully doesn't hit cinemas too often anymore.

Full list:

1. Parasite
7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
13. Children of Men
15. City of God
16. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
19. Zodiac
21. The Royal Tenenbaums
22. The Grand Budapest Hotel
27. Adaptation
30. Lost in Translation
31. The Departed
32. Bridesmaids
47. Almost Famous
53. Borat
54. Pan’s Labyrinth
56. Punch-Drunk Love
60. Whiplash
61. Kill Bill Vol. 1
62. Memento
63. Little Miss Sunshine
64. Gone Girl
65. Oppenheimer
71. Ocean’s Eleven
73. Ratatouille
76. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
77. Everything Everywhere All at Once
87. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
92. Gladiator
93. Michael Clayton
94. Minority Report
100. Superbad

i either loathed, disliked, or fell asleep (ie was bored) during every one of these.

oh wait, i actually liked City of God, forgot to erase it. otherwise, that stands.

What would top your list, table?

So this is aligned more with the Oscars than with Sight & Sound (though it's interesting to me that a majority of the Best Picture winners since 2000 failed to make the cut at all).

I did an analysis of all the Best Picture nominees and their placement on the list. I won't post it all here, but there are a few interesting results. For instance, 46 of the 191 Best Picture nominees in 2000-24 made the list. But only 10 of the 25 Best Picture winners did. And none of the 43 Best Picture nominees from 2002, 2004, 2008, 2020, 2021, and 2024 made the list at all.

Weirdest to me might be that the only 2012 Best Picture nominee to make the cut is Michael Haneke's Amour, beating out Argo, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, and Beasts of the Southern Wild. Not that these are all great movies (though I do love Lincoln), but I don't think anyone would've guessed back in 2012 that Amour would be the only one to make a list like this in 2025.

my ballot in no order:
Monster (2023)
Audition (2001)
Gasoline Rainbow (2023)
Close (2023)
Hagazussa (2017)
Marmaduke (2010)
Beau travail (2000)
Hale County This Morning This Evening (2018)
Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015)
Who is Bozo Texino? (2005)

A few more i would add:
In the Mood for Love
Five Broken Cameras
Toni Erdmann
Uncle Boonmee
The Forgotten Space
American Honey
Yi Yi

Good to know! (And S. Cone is a friend, so good to see Henry Gamble there.)

Threw together a top20 featuring no selections from that list.

Arabian Nights, Vol.1: The Restless One
Blindspotting
Life Without Principle
The Souvenir
Moonrise Kingdom
The People's Joker
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia
Hundreds Of Beavers
The Squid & The Whale
RRR
Il Divo
Certain Women
Pictures Of Ghosts
The Big Sick
Eight Grade
Fallen Leaves
Rap World
Technoboss
Don't Let The Riverbeast Get You
Ha Ha Ha

Marmaduke (2010)

Respect.

Is Marmaduke what I think it is?

No, it's about a suburban family that moves to a new neighborhood with their large, yet lovable Great Dane, who has a tendency to wreak havoc in his own oblivious way.

Reading the Wikipedia summary, which ends with this: "Marmaduke then passes gas in the bed as he winks at the camera."

It is simply put an astonishing critique of capitalism and consumer culture disguised as a family film

I am being 100% sincere

The passing of gas as so many emissions destroying our planet, the wink to the camera harshly indicting the viewer for their complicity.

lmao

Oh so this is the list huh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=091-C8pctts

I’ve seen 21 of these and maybe 4-5 are contenders for my vote, but I went with “Fury Road”.

(And when I say “I’ve seen 21”, I mean the 50 voting options for this poll.)

Number of films seen: 26/50 (50/100). A lot of films on this list that were engrossing and effective, maybe even more than...

My Favourite: The Master, which I like best because it's so mysterious to me.

Least favourite: Almost Famous - completely limp moviemaking. Even when he's using a great song you wish you were just listening to the record. Interesting that both films feature PSH.

Most want to see: Not much, maybe I've become incurious or post-cinematic. Maybe Amour from the longer list, because all I think about is decrepitude.

Least want to see: Suspect Amélie would be least to my taste.

I'm honestly surprised I've seen so many of these (all of the top 50, and 94 of 100), but I think this list is generally inclined toward movies that were both critically acclaimed and awards contenders, and that's kind of a sweet spot for me.

Like, if it was purely about critical acclaim, there'd be more international auteurs whose films I haven't seen because they seem foreboding. And if it was purely about awards, there'd be more mawkish Oscar bait and blockbuster epics of the kind that I'm allergic to. But if a movie has a high Metacritic score and is also in the awards conversation, I'm probably going to see it.

My ballot, from that weird list. Two criteria: (1) how the film affected me when I first saw it and (2) how much of a hold it has on my memory. I haven't seen most of these since theatrical release.

I was in film school from 2004-2006, and involved in the industry until 2010, so it's heavy on that era. It sounds pompous, but I am/always have been susceptible to movies with a strong sense of mono no aware ... interest and sensitivity to change and the passage of time. My list probably reflects that.

01. Spirited Away
02. Yi Yi
03. Boyhood
04. In the Mood for Love
05. Lost in Translation
06. Mad Max: Fury Road
07. Children of Men
08. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
09. There Will Be Blood
11. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
12. Everything Everywhere All at Once
13. A Serious Man
15. Y Tu Mama Tambien
10. Mulholland Drive (this one is either here, or not on the list at all. Considered putting in Tenenbaums instead)
14. Best in Show
16. Kill Bill Vol. 2 (Can I write in Volume 2? Volume 1 doesn't do much)
17. Pan's Labyrinth (b/c Devil's Backbone, which I prefer, isn't on this list)
18. Ratatouille
19. Michael Clayton
20. Anchorman or Borat

I think I scanned the full 100 a half dozen times thinking there’s no way Amour didn’t make the list until I finally locked on to it.

For example, I would never put Bridesmaids or Anchorman anywhere near this list, but if I was trying to get something that represents those kinds of films I would have gone with the far better Barb and Starr Go to Vista Del Mar.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Friday, June 27, 2025 1:16 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Popstar and Step Brothers are funnier than all these

walk hard wuz robbed

Anchorman is stupid funny, and the epitome of an era of goofiness. Step Brothers is better, and I would've voted for it. Also, agree about Barb and Starr –– surprisingly well made. A very long time ago I worked on a student film with the writer/director, and he was a really smart cookie, and I'm so glad he's finding success.

Surprised that Sideways is missing, both from the main list and others' ballots.

It's always interesting for me to read film critics' strategies in listmaking. When big names like, I dunno, Ebert, Kael, Denby, Sarris, Thompson, Kermode, make lists/compendiums, they've enough confidence and enough writing on record to have already adequately conveyed their aesthetic/historical predilections -- and so the lists come off as authentic and personal. They're comprehensible and thoughtful. With many of the S&S writers, including some of the lesser known ones, the listing tendency comes off as tactical, calculated "I want to be the kind of person that picks Serious Films, with one zany folly to show my range" or explicitly elitist/anti-elitist/liberal/formalist/whatever." It's so much more engaging when they indicate personal positionality and reflexivity to the movies, and when there's a hint of *pleasure* in the choices.

My twenty:

1. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2011)
2. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
3. Small Axe (Steve McQueen, 2020)
4. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
6. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
7. Girlhood (Céline Sciamma, 2015)
8. Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron, 2001)
9. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2011)
10. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
11. A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)
12. Being 17 (André Téchiné, 2016)
13. Poetry (Lee Chang-dong, 2011)
14. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
15. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
16. Yi-Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)
17. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raul Ruiz, 2011)
18. Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2010)
19. Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
20. May December (Todd Haynes, 2023)

Shoplifters was so hard to watch. Not my favorite Kore-eda, but a dynamite film nonetheless.

Kore-eda was on fire in the 2010s, so I'm happy with whatever you choose.

Someone tallied up the 124 public ballots (which supposedly represented about a fifth of all ballots). These movies all got at least 5 votes from those ballots but didn't make the top 100:

-Inside Out
-The White Ribbon
-Force Majeure
-Birdman
-Synecdoche, New York
-Team America: World Police
-The Turin Horse

Quick Top 20 of titles not on the list that no one has mentioned yet (I think):
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Tropical Malady
Bottoms
Paddington 2
Punisher: War Zone
Bad Boys II
I Know Who Killed Me
Speed Racer
Freddy Got Fingered
John Wick
The Raid
First Reformed
Magic Mike XXL
The Beach Bum
Bamboozled
Titane
Jackass The Movie
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Miami Vice
Everybody Wants Some!!

Ha -- Goodbye, Dragon Inn is #21 on my list.

My list wasn't supposed to be ranked, but it would actually be my #1 if I had a ballot.

i like alfred's list. not having a kiarostami on a list like this = boooo. i would have gone with the wind will carry us. i'm with people who don't like the list overall. jaymc gets at why for me. venn diagram of critical acclaim and awards = boring to me with a few exceptions. also a lot of these were like "sundance sensations" or whatever. very nyu-film-program-core. lol at the idea that 'critics like it but no awards' = forbidding. nothing more forbidding than slow cinema amirite. seems like barbie is destined to be on a list like this tho it must be too recent now or something.

nothing more forbidding than slow cinema amirite.

I mean ... kinda? For me, at least. To be clear, I am not proud of this!

seems like barbie is destined to be on a list like this tho it must be too recent now or something.

I was also kind of surprised that Barbie didn't show up. I don't think it's a recency issue because four other Best Picture nominees of 2023 made the list. If I had to guess, it's that people enjoyed it as a phenomenon and think it was better than a movie about a toy had any right to be, but aren't sure how to think about it in a broader context. Like, it was lots of fun in the moment, but will it hold up as an all-time great? Is anyone even going back to it two years later?

Worth noting that the voters on the NYT list are directors, actors, producers, etc., not critics. As with S&S, it's more fun to look at individual ballots than the canon-making consensus. (Along those lines, Tracy Letts added his top 10 on Letterboxd.)

Great seeing Alfred's list (and table's too!). So many to finally get around to seeing. My self-consciousness when making my own list is that for every movie I've seen in this century, there are 10 that I was interested in seeing and it just didn't happen, in the same way that the ones I've seen also happened to coincide with free time, showtimes, and the impulse to go.

My top 20, approximately:

I Am Love
In Fabric
The Zone Of Interest
A Touch Of Sin
Audition
Moonlight
Rachel Getting Married
The Descent
A Serious Man
Margaret
Casino Royale
Force Majeure
The Lives Of Others
Caché
Code Unknown
Let The Right One In
My Winnipeg
Mulholland Drive
Enough Said
ugh No Country For Old Men ugh I do love it tho

I feel like I’d rate ten TV series over most of these tho (Twin Peaks 3, Mindhunter, The Wire, Paranoia Agent, and so on)

honestly the most insulting inclusion on the list is Whiplash, which might be one of the worst films i have ever seen

So you're saying it's ... not your tempo?

xps it's all good. someone call me when the nyt does a list of the best train videos, i'll be repping hard for the hide line in japan.

So you're saying it's ... not your tempo?

lol

Might be the worst films about music (or any artform) ever made, tbh

audition.. there's a forbidding watch haha! i like moonlight a lot but feel like it's a touch overrated at this point.

Audition is great! watched it my sophomore year of high school from a bootleg VHS my friend made

I wish Holofcener films got canonized more frequently, it’s really hard to make effective romantic comedies imo. Bong Joon Ho frustrates me idk why, I think I just hated Snowpiercer so much. Rachel Getting Married, In Fabric and I Am Love are my big three “I stan hard for these unappreciated masterpieces” movies.

Generally I really like the Gerwig/Baumbach thing but I feel like their best work is ahead of them. No love for Wes Anderson or Tarantino over here sorry

And yeah Audition is a perfect movie

yeah i honestly have hated everything after Rushmore. i “get” it, but i hate it.

i fast forwarded a certain scene in audition tbqh and that was at the peak of my tolerance for that kind of subject matter. i really liked the movie overall but nowadays i have like no stomach for body horror.

i'm totally in support of trashing wes anderson. just a dogshit filmmaker.

Would not go that far, but a lot of his movies leave me cold.

I've seen 85 of 100, aside from 2 or 3 most of the remaining unseen are no accident, I'm too old and life is too short.

Not gonna labor too hard over a top 20 but my unranked version would be close to this:

Barbie (2023)
Blue Ruin (2013)
City of God (2002)
Dogtooth (2009)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Leviathan (2012)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Margaret (2011)
Russian Ark (2002)
OJ: Made In America (2016)
Mulholland Dr (2001)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Rewind & Play (2022)
Small Axe: Lover's Rock (2020)
Step Brothers (2008)
Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
Tar (2022)
The Fall (2006)
The Master & Margarita (2024)
The Souvenir (2019)

I love Rushmore! Everything since has had stuff I like about it, I’d def watch Budapest Hotel again, Moonrise Kingdom maybe too, but pretty much all Anderson’s instincts are bad instincts; in comparison, I really liked The Squid And The Whale and love Baumbach’s instincts and hope to watch a film by him that knocks me flat

Unranked and would probably revise if I rewatched them all:

The B Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography
Bao
Certain Women
Frances Ha
The Girlfriend Experience
Good Time
Hard Truths
Lady Bird
Last Days
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Meyerowitz Stories (New & Collected)
Miami Vice
Once
Perfect Days
The Place Beyond The Pines
Rivers and Tides
Sicario
The Social Network
Sideways
Tár

I did my part for Holofcener further in my list

Totally forgot that Laurel Canyon was this century. I hope it'd hold up.

When big names like, I dunno, Ebert, Kael, Denby, Sarris, Thompson, Kermode, make lists/compendiums, they've enough confidence and enough writing on record to have already adequately conveyed their aesthetic/historical predilections -- and so the lists come off as authentic and personal. They're comprehensible and thoughtful. With many of the S&S writers, including some of the lesser known ones, the listing tendency comes off as tactical, calculated "I want to be the kind of person that picks Serious Films, with one zany folly to show my range" or explicitly elitist/anti-elitist/liberal/formalist/whatever." It's so much more engaging when they indicate personal positionality and reflexivity to the movies, and when there's a hint of *pleasure* in the choices.

Hmmm. But wouldn't a list from one of the big names end up equally easy to second guess if we didn't have the context of their writing? And there's also, like, say I love two films pretty much equally but one is a well acknowledged masterpiece and the other's an obscurity, is the calculation of picking the latter truly a bad thing? I think the "personal positionality and reflexivity" you mention comes in more in the annotations than the list, but ofc mostly we read these w/o any annotation at all...

have only seen 24 1/2 of the 50 ( technical issues at cinema during 'a serious man' )
of those ' there will be blood' and ' once upon a time in hollywood' made me laugh the most, so one of those.

A quick 20, alphabetically. Three Z movies!

American Psycho
Cameraperson
Carol
Certain Women
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Homo Sapiens
In the Mood for Love
Mad Max: Fury Road
Marie Antoinette
Memoria
Mulholland Drive
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Rye Lane
The Souvenir
Still Life
Summer Hours
Tangerine
Zama
Zodiac
Zola

10 off the top of my head:

Ballerina (the South Korean one, not the Ana de Armas one)
Blackhat (director's cut)
BuyBust
John Wick
Marie Antoinette
Miami Vice (director's cut)
Michael Clayton
The Raid: Redemption
Universal Soldier: Dead Reckoning
The Villainess

Unranked top 10, based mostly on things mentioned in this thread (my memory for movies is terrible, and I don't keep obsessive lists like I do for music, so otherwise I wouldn't remember anything)

A Serious Man (Coens)
Death of Stalin (Iannucci)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry)
Gentlemen Broncos (Hess)
Grizzly Man (Herzog)
Monster (Kore-eda)
My Winnipeg (Maddin)
Parasite (Bong)
Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
The Trip (Winterbottom)

Here's a mostly unadventurous 25

A History of Violence
Berberian Sound Studio
Enter the Void
Freddy Got Fingered
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Good Time
Inglorious Basterds
Holy Motors
The Host
Jackass 3D
The Lives of Others
Mandy
No Country for Old Men
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Phantom Thread
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Roma
Russian Ark
Step Brothers
There Will Be Blood
The Tree of Life
Under the Skin
Wall-E
Wet Hot American Summer
Zodiac

Unranked 25 (now being frantically mentally revised in the light of good picks above)

ZODIAC
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
ZONE OF INTEREST
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
CHILDREN OF MEN
GOODBYE, DRAGON INN
THE MASTER
AFTERSUN
AFTER THE STORM
TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN
UNDER THE SKIN
LEVIATHAN
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
RIPLEY
THE NEW WORLD
TROPICAL MALADY
BAIT
THE WITCH
THE RIDER
STILL WALKING
A SERIOUS MAN
LOVERS ROCK
MORVERN CALLAR
ELEPHANT

10 from the top of my head:

Stray Dogs
Hard To Be A God
Zama
Songs From The Second Floor
A Touch Of Sin
In The Mood For Love
Infernal Affairs
Burning
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Mulholland Drive

(excited to get to see a 25yr anniversary screening of Yi Yi in a few weeks)
(also NZ cinema hasn't had a great start to the century, sigh)

the ten i submitted were

mulholland drive
in the mood for love
inglourious basterds
royal tenenbaums
mad max fury road
children of men
fellowship of the ring
shaun of the dead
waking life
give me liberty (2019)

Zodiac
20th Century Women
No Country for Old Men
American Honey
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Adventureland
Andy Warhol: A Documentary
The Squid and the Whale
Wendy and Lucy
Spellbound
Lost in Translation
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
Carlos
O.J. Simpson: Made in America
Elephant
Best of Enemies
You Can Count on Me
School of Rock
The Heart of the Game
Mildred Pierce

#1, then the other nine from my ballot, then another 10 in no particular order. The usual disclaimer: my real #1 would be Mad Men if I could pretend it's like an American Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Max reax:
https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-29-best-movies-of-the-21st-century

Hah, #2, 3 and 4 were in my top ten, though all three are enormous touchstones for cinephiles of the last 25 years. Another two cracked the top 50, albeit in the bottom ten ("Yi Yi" was my #1...#40? Outrageous!)

Also ten is way too few. I threw together a preliminary list and came up with 30 I'd want in a top ten. I kept whacking it down and didn't play with "strategy' - i.e. maybe vote for something that most people won't vote for? - and it just made "ten" seem arbitrary because great films are going to cover a lot of different territory and by the end I felt like there were gaping holes in my list of what was great about 21st century cinema.

Hollywood movies have been dogshit since at least 1960

oh

glad to know

Loving all this love for A Serious Man, I’m gonna rewatch it tonight, what a crazy good movie

shouts to josh safdie for voting snow on tha bluff and to gia coppola for voting bloody nose, empty pockets

xp A Serious Man is probably my favorite Coen brothers film of the past 25 years.

A top 20 for the moment. The first 5 are the top 5, the rest unranked

In the Mood for Love
Twin Peaks: The Return
Uncle Boonmee
Ash Is Purest White
Zama

Russian Ark
Burning
Silent Light
Mysteries of Lisbon
Toni Erdmann
The Act of Killing
35 Shots of Rum
The Wild Pear Tree
On the Beach at Night Alone
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Petite Maman
Mulholland Drive
Stranger by the Lake
May December
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

Ooh Shaun of the Dead would’ve been good for the list.

Toni Erdmann was a long film, but it was so interesting that I didn't notice. It has been described as a comedy, but it was very cringey. The nude party and the ending where she encountered her father dressed up as a monster in the park were a couple of the greatest scenes of all time.

I can see how Xavier Dolan, on the Cannes jury at that time, would object to it (apparently he did, and wouldn't allow it to be given an award)

tbc the running time has put me off in the past not bc I think it will be a slog, but bc it means it's not a movie I can start at 9 pm on a weeknight.

Gee, I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter, Dan S!

Never did get around to Fury Road, The Dark Knight, The Departed or the Tarantino things (and I don't know if I've even read the titles Bridesmaids and Moneyball before lol) so my opinion is worthless but...

Yi Yi, A Separation and A Serious Man might be the ones I'd be most keen to revisit if choosing tonight's viewing, at least.

Moneyball is is 21st century dad film canon

I thought Toni Erdmann was funny but I have to admit I’ve never understood the instant canonization of it

I love seeing Zama on a few lists, it just barely missed making mine. It floored me when I saw it, but feel like I need to see it a 2nd time and sit with it before I can give it all-time status

ZAMA was on my fake ballot, along with

mulholland dr
before sunset
to the wonder (had to write this in?)
carol
phantom thread
frances ha
in the mood for love
summer hours
eighth grade

Never did get around to Fury Road, The Dark Knight, The Departed or the Tarantino things (and I don't know if I've even read the titles Bridesmaids and Moneyball before lol) so my opinion is worthless but...

I saw those and I can't say I'm the biggest fan of any of those. Fury Road is amazing to look at so if you just want a great spectacle and you get a chance to see it on a big screen rather than at home, I'd do that. The others have their merits whether it's performances, dialogue, humor or the way they stage some action sequence or spectacle, but I had reservations about all of them, and the ones I revisited just got worse (even much worse) with each viewing.

My ballot (though I immediately thought of a ton of other worthy films of course):

Zodiac
20th Century Women
In the Mood for Love
Yi Yi
Lost City of Z
Fury Road
A.I.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
A Hidden Life
Michael Clayton

Kinda wish I had made room for "The New World" and "Los Angeles Plays Itself"

of the top ten on this list I would maybe only argue with #1 and #10; I think Parasite is great but the best of all of these seems like recency bias. Social Network was fine but I am so so sick of FB and Zuckerberg I feel like ranking even a critical film gives him more attention than he deserves.

Mulholland, Chidren of Men, In the Mood for Love / 2046, Zone of Lnterest, Lost in Translation, Up would all be in my top 50 I guess, but so would the Station Agent and About a Boy.

Was Up in the top 10? You gotta be kidding me.

I liked The Lost City Of Z a lot, whenever I make a list that’ll have to be on it.

Seeing a couple of votes for Zone of interest and none for any of Michael Haneke's films.

Its sorta funny/tragic how easily he has been forgotten.

Oh. i would have put The White Ribbon on my top 20.

Children of Men is an execrable movie, can’t understand what people see in it.

Amour is in there.

Would nominate the clip of Haneke explaining why he finds Schindler's List obscene and all the hollywood director dudes in the roundtable are all "whoa dude mind blown".

@ table Children Of Men is a morally bankrupt sci-fi film with some undeniable technical and aesthetic achievements— it and Minority Report are like two peas in a pod, I enjoy them both but wouldn’t like marry them or anything

Children of Men is an execrable movie, can’t understand what people see in it.

― czech hunter biden's laptop (the table is the table)

how so?

Spielberg's made more tonally complex films, like, for example, Munich a couple years later, but MR's not morally bankrupt: it quite clearly takes a stand against a totalitarian police regime. That's a moral, however facile!

this is a rubbish list that doesn't deserve its own thread

I'm convinced an ILX list would not look too dissimilar.

When have we ever started a thread about a good list anyway, no fun in that.

Maybe we should poll this list instead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_in_film#Highest-grossing_films

There’s something so uncool about Haneke, I think Funny Games (both 1 and 2) demonstrated how hectoring and blunt he can be with his The Bourgeousie Is Bad theses. (And I’m like the world’s biggest fan of Funny Games, I think it rules). It is interesting to see lip service being paid to him via The White Ribbon praise (or Caché; I haven’t seen anybody stepping up to praise The Piano Teacher or Code Unknown or Amour— the latter of which is his best-reviewed film according to aggregators). Idk, I love his films intensely and unashamedly, it feels weird to enjoy films with such obvious and artless polemics, like I’m “enjoying Banksy” or something, but when I’m considering Haneke in this context of “an evaluation” I ultimately have to admit that I value his body of work more than any other director

I love The Piano Teacher, a painful viewing experience I haven't repeated.

Not thinking too hard about this...

Yi-Yi
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
In the Mood for Love
Tropical Malady
Inland Empire
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Burn After Reading
Best in Show
Phil Tippett's Mad God
The Raid 1&2

The Piano Teacher and Hour of the Wolf are both great. None of his other movies do much for me.

fgti, i think that Haneke is one of the finest directors of our time, but i think that (as Alfred perhaps implied) his films are so distinct and distinctly unpleasant to absorb that i find i try to avoid thinking about them. Hour of the Wolf and Benny’s Film are my favorites of his, White Ribbon following shortly on the tails.

_Children of Men is an execrable movie, can’t understand what people see in it.

― czech hunter biden's laptop (the table is the table)_

how so?

it is, at its heart, a film about anti-immigrant demographic panic and the sanctity of the child, extremely conservative and gross.

haven’t read the book, so can’t vouch for the source material, but the film didn’t do it any favors imho

Hour of the Wolf and Benny’s Film are my favorites of his, White Ribbon following shortly on the tails.

Time of the Wolf. Hour of the Wolf is a far superior Bergman film (his one foray into actual horror!). Speaking of which, I still haven't forgiven Haneke for ripping off (sorry, 'paying homage to') a key scene from Bergman's Winter Light in The White Ribbon.

oops, sorry about title mixup lol

I feel like The Piano Teacher gets a shoutout about every second time I click on those 'Criterion Closet' videos Youtube incessantly foists upon me.

(Perhaps a factor in me giving that and The Seventh Continent second viewings -- decades on -- just a month or two ago. They still deliver.)

I loved 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance and hated Benny's Video; I've missed a lot of his big titles so far. I think he's better the more open-ended the stories are; I couldn't conceive of a version of a contrivance like Funny Games that would be watchable.

Funnily enough there is a screening of The Piano Teacher tonight in London.

That and '71 Fragments..' are my favourites of his.

Time for my perennial recommendation for Code Unknown, my favourite of his films, likely because it’s the least-bleak— it’s Haneke’s “After The Banquet”

Haneke ain't my thing — obviously talented filmmaker but I find him kind of a moralizing bully and as such prefer Von Trier, who at least brings humor to the proceedings. But I still haven't seen Amour so I reserve judgment on that. The Piano Teacher is a fantastic performance by Huppert, but for me the movie enjoys its cruelty too much.

voted for in the mood for love

it is, at its heart, a film about anti-immigrant demographic panic and the sanctity of the child, extremely conservative and gross.

Lee Edelman (have you read him?), discussing the novel, agrees with you.

Amour will definitely not convert you if a lack of humour is what annoys you with Haneke.

It's more the lack of empathy than humor. I just mentioned humor in the context of Von Trier, who I classify with Haneke as overbearing moral scolds. With Haneke there's this sense of enjoying the things he puts his characters through because they deserve it in some way. I'm not saying he even exempts himself from his indictments, there's an element of liberal self-loathing there. But I dunno, it can come off as kinda glib and nasty to me.

they do deserve it most of the time

Yeah I get that, his movies often feel a bit like they have a thesis and once you've digested that there's not much left to motivate a rewatch. I think with Amour def there's no sense of the characters deserving their suffering, it is about mortality and not really judgemental. It also doesn't feature any upsetting violence, which is prob what made it a crossover hit of sorts w/ middlebrow filmgoers. But it is absolutely a bummer.

xpost

I feel like Von Trier and Haneke are fairly different in tone, though they are often lumped together as euro arthouse shock.

Haneke feels a lot more thoughtful in his films, and interviews. Funny Games -- where you could argue feeds into some fairly ugly tendencies -- makes sense, in the context of a culture that churns out the films it does.

Whereas with Von Trier it always felt like the films were a vehicle for him to hog the limelight at a film festival. Even though I love Antichrist, where it felt he started to make better films for a short period.

Definitely very different in tone. But of the two, I'd personally rank Von Trier higher on a list like this, Melancholia and Dogville in particular — though certainly not in the top 20.

i don’t really care for Von Trier at all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not a big fan of Haneke or Von Trier. It's not that I think their films are bad, generally, but I just have a peculiar relationship with "feel bad" cinema in which the films of, say, Charlie Kaufmann I find emotionally, intellectually, and aesthetically stimulating even as they reliably destroy me, while Hankeke and Von Trier tend to leave me feeling empty and depressed in a "why did I just spend 2-3 hours watching that?" kinda way. But it isn't like I'm completely baffled by their presence on anyone's list of favourites; their presence on such things certainly makes more sense than Little Miss Sunshine on the NYT list.

i think we should all be punished

Another director who likes to make the audience squirm who was overlooked in this list is Solondz.

Solondz simply isn’t as interesting a filmmaker, imho, and the squirm inducement seems much less about posing ethical or social concerns and more just inducing squirm.

And his best-regarded films are his first two, which both came out in the 1990s.

I would say that Almost Famous is probably about the 47th worst film of the 21st century.

53. Borat

There's probably an Entertainment Weekly list of films that sucks less than this one

mulholland dr (lynch, 2001)
speed racer (wachowskis, 2008)
crimes of the future (cronenberg, 2022)
mandy (cosmatos, 2018)
halloween ii (zombie, 2009)
miami vice (mann, 2006)
house of tolerance (bonello, 2011)
kotoko (tsukamoto, 2011)
the village (shyamalan, 2004)
before sunset (linklater, 2004)
magic mike xxl (jacobs, 2015)
mission: impossible 2 (woo, 2000)
morvern callar (ramsay, 2002)
demonlover (assayas, 2002)
under the skin (glazer, 2013)
marie antoinette (coppola, 2006)
the master (anderson, 2012)
the duke of burgundy (strickland, 2014)
teknolust (hershman-leeson, 2002)
tokyo gore police (nishimura, 2008)
ghost in the shell 2: innocence (oshii, 2004)
midsommar (aster, 2019)
red rooms (plante, 2023)
jennifer's body (kusama, 2009)
seed of chucky (mancini, 2004)

"while Hankeke and Von Trier tend to leave me feeling empty and depressed in a "why did I just spend 2-3 hours watching that?""

Watching Cache was basically seeing what immigration politics was like in Europe and much of the West. It was a gut punch, you felt depressed and yet I was happy someone was telling a few truths for five mins.

Completely fair, and the reason why at least half of the time when I don't like a movie anymore I just assume it's a "me" problem.

morvern callar (ramsay, 20020

oh yes, and this, I'd absolutely have in my top 10.

i think we should all be punished

https://www.boxofficepro.com/long-range-forecast-jurassic-world-rebirth-to-dominate-july-fourth-weekend/

The great performance in Amour isn't Emmanuelle Riva's, its Jean-Louis Trintignant's.

he was an astonishing talent

first ten, alpha:
Certified Copy
Get Out
Lost in Translation
Memories of Murder
Moonrise Kingdom
Mulholland Dr.
There Will Be Blood
Uncle Boonmee
Under the Skin
World of Tomorrow

next ten:
A.I.
Burning
Caché
The Gleaners and I
Hunger
No Country for Old Men
Poor Things
Stray Dogs
Tomboy
You Were Never Really Here

the duke of burgundy (strickland, 2014)

Love seeing a vote for this, ivy!

I can’t say I entirely dislike Von Trier— The Five Obstructions is awesome— Melancholia was a great film ruined by terrible music supervision/editing— but generally I find his cruelty to be needless and meaningless and offensive. I like “Storytelling” but otherwise think Solondz is a hacky edgelord.

A movie I left off my ballot, not because I don’t consider it top 20 material, but because I forgot about it— and maybe that’s an indication of a decline of its resonance in my brain pain— is Van Sant’s “Elephant”. It’s odd, that film felt meaningful to me when I felt like I was living in a less-violent society, how its violence felt like an outlier. Twenty-two years later, either society has changed or my awareness of its violence has changed, idk

Oh that's a good call. Elephant is great, and I wonder if it's a movie that might grow in significance over time as a sort of social indicator.

Elephant is great, I also forgot about Paranoid Park and perhaps relatedly, LIE.

that tracking shot at the end of Elephant is seared into my memory

halloween ii (zombie, 2009)

i remember seeing House of 1000 Corpses opening night with friends and walked out of that thinking "holy shit, Rob Zombie can actually direct!" the whole part where the cops arrive early on and what plays out was an absolute masterclass.

World of Tomorrow

Love this and it would be in my list too.. but wasn't really thinking much about shorter films!

This list is reminding me to watch In the Mood For Love finally and is a great rec for many others. I feel like I've missed out on so many good films that have come out in the last 15 years.

Love all the suggestions in this thread. The NYT list is pretty chock full of trite garbage so thanks for supplementing, everyone

Oh if we're doing short films

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG1T0URuTWw

Van Sant’s “Elephant”

Love this and it would be in my list too.. but wasn't really thinking much about shorter films!

I follow the example of Eric H., who puts Duck Amuck in a best-of list when he can.

xps Elephant is another I'd put up there as well. It's a shame Van Sant has fallen out of favor after a string of disappointing work but it really felt like a creative rebirth during the '00s, one that would ensure a successful balance between studio films and small scale art films for the remainder of his career, not unlike Richard Linklater.

Here's a preliminary list of candidates when I first took a shot at this, and it's long:

Yi Yi [Edward Yang]
In the Mood for Love [Wong Kar-wai]
Platform [Jia Zhang-ke]
The Heart of the World [Guy Maddin]
Les glaneurs et la glaneuse [Agnès Varda]
The House of Mirth [Terence Davies]
Werckmeister harmóniák [Béla Tarr]
Mulholland Drive [David Lynch]
What Time Is It There? [Tsai Ming-liang]
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence [Steven Spielberg]
Y tu mamá también [Alfonso Cuarón]
The Royal Tenenbaums [Wes Anderson]
Spirited Away [Hayao Miyazaki]
I'm Going Home [Manoel de Oliveira]
25th Hour [Spike Lee]
*Corpus Callosum [Michael Snow]
Far from Heaven [Todd Haynes]
Unknown Pleasures [Jia Zhang-ke]
Spider [David Cronenberg]
Blissfully Yours [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
Goodbye, Dragon Inn [Tsai Ming-liang]
Elephant [Gus Van Sant]
Los Angeles Plays Itself [Thom Andersen]
Crimson Gold [Jafar Panahi]
Ten [Abbas Kiarostami]
Before Sunset [Richard Linklater]
The World [Jia Zhang-ke]
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [Michel Gondry]
Howl's Moving Castle [Hayao Miyazaki]
Satpralat [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
A History of Violence [David Cronenberg]
L'Enfant [Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne]
Grizzly Man [Werner Herzog]
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu [Cristi Puiu]
Colossal Youth [Pedro Costa]
Inland Empire [David Lynch]
S̄æng ṣ̄atawǎat [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
Pan's Labyrinth [Guillermo del Toro]
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts [Spike Lee]
Letters from Iwo Jima/Flags of Our Fathers [Clint Eastwood]
Black Book [Paul Verhoeven]
Still Life [Jia Zhang-ke]
Children of Men [Alfonso Cuarón]
A Scanner Darkly [Richard Linklater]
There Will Be Blood [Paul Thomas Anderson]
Le voyage du ballon rouge [Hou Hsiao-Hsien]
I’m Not There [Todd Haynes]
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [Cristian Mungui]
Zodiac [David Fincher]
Summer Hours [Olivier Assayas]
Wall•E [Andrew Stanton]
35 Shots of Rum [Claire Denis]
The Hurt Locker [Kathryn Bigelow]
Everyone Else [Maren Ade]
Poetry [Chang-dong Lee]
Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
Mysteries of Lisbon [Raúl Ruiz]
Certified Copy [Abbas Kiarostami]
Road to Nowhere [Monte Hellman]
Carlos [Olivier Assayas]
The Social Network [David Fincher]
Margaret [Kenneth Lonergan, "Director's Cut"]
The Turin Horse [Béla Tarr]
The Kid with a Bike [Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne]
The Tree of Life [Terrence Malick]
Mildred Pierce [Todd Haynes]
Bernie [Richard Linklater]
A Dangerous Method [David Cronenberg]
This Is Not a Film [Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb]
Holy Motors [Léos Carax]
Moonrise Kingdom [Wes Anderson]
The Master [Paul Thomas Anderson]
Leviathan [Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel]
Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan [Lav Diaz]
Boyhood [Richard Linklater]
Goodbye to Language [Jean-Luc Godard]
Journey To The West [Tsai Ming-liang]
Phoenix [Christian Petzold]
The Grand Budapest Hotel [Wes Anderson]
Citizenfour [Laura Poitras]
The Assassin [Hou Hsiao-Hsien]
Cemetery of Splendour [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
Carol [Todd Haynes]
No Home Movie [Chantal Akerman]
Moonlight [Barry Jenkins]
Toni Erdmann [Maren Ade]
Paterson [Jim Jarmusch]
Silence [Martin Scorsese]
Visages, villages [Agnès Varda]
24 Frames [Abbas Kiarostami]
Twin Peaks: The Return [David Lynch]
Un beau soleil intérieur [Claire Denis]
In Transit [Albert Maysles, Lynn True, Nelson Walker, David Usui, Ben Wu]
Phantom Thread [Paul Thomas Anderson]
Burning [Chang-dong Lee]
Transit [Christian Petzold]
Le Livre d'image [Jean-Luc Godard]
The Other Side of the Wind [Orson Welles]
Roma [Alfonso Cuarón]
Vitalina Varela [Pedro Costa]
Parasite [Bong Joon-ho]
First Cow [Kelly Reichardt]
Days [Tsai Ming-liang]
Memoria [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
Drive My Car [Ryūsuke Hamaguchi]
Benediction [Terence Davies]
No Bears [Jafar Panahi]
Crimes of the Future [David Cronenberg]
Showing Up [Kelly Reichardt]
Allensworth [James Benning]
Killers of the Flower Moon [Martin Scorsese]
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar [Wes Anderson]
Monster [Hirokazu Kore-eda]

Apologies, looked less longer in my Gmail window.

Lovely list and a stack of pointers for things I should seek out, given how much I like what I’ve seen of your choices!

Good to see Monster show up on a few of these. Probably the most recent film I've seen that truly knocked me out.

Thanks matt and crypto! Glad to see others who loved Monster, I was really disappointed it didn't get more universal praise - there were positive ones but when I checked out the negative ones, it felt like the critics completely misunderstood the film.

Also not sure why Lee Chang-dong's name was reversed on those selections, but maybe some logic to keeping family names last?

birdistheword, I’m slapping together my own list and you think along similar lines.

Yeah I absolutely loved it too, but I’m a Korēda junkie and I’d already put Still Walking and After the Storm in mine

I have SO MUCH I need to see. I think I'm going to check out Goodbye, Dragon Inn tonight.

exp Awesome Chris, share it when you can!

*xxp

Goodbye, Dragon Inn is such a wonderful film. Short and small-scale, but contains so much.

I didn’t like Eephus that much, but I liked the attempt to make an American ‘Goodbye, Dragon Inn’

Thank you birdistheword— so many movies I love on your list, can’t wait to reference it over the coming weeks

The film I haven’t seen that I’m seeing pop up most frequently is Yi-Yi, oddly enough, I don’t know why I’ve never put it on

birdistheword, great list. i am still angry about the ending of Memoria— i started shouting on the way home from the screening, it made me so mad— but we also seem to think along similar lines.

oh also many xposts to crypto— i have read Edelman, but had honestly forgotten about his critique of the James novel in No Future. Though not as versed in theory, I do remember seeing the film and being disgusted by it, and then reading the book several years later and being delighted to find a more nuanced variation of my own disgust.

lol I liked the ending of Memoria. I thought the film built to it well. But obv it’s open to a lot of different readings.

...different readings by very few people.

I'm still mad that I'm not able to see it even 4 years later (and maybe never). It's to the point where I'm beginning not to care about how good it might be, I resent that it exists and is being withheld. It was a bad decision by him in my opinion

Yeah that particular part of it is weird. It is thematically in keeping with the film, but seems unnecessary.

For those who didn't catch my full list:

1. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2011)
2. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
3. Small Axe (Steve McQueen, 2020)
4. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
6. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
7. Girlhood (Céline Sciamma, 2015)
8. Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron, 2001)
9. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2011)
10. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
11. A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)
12. Being 17 (André Téchiné, 2016)
13. Poetry (Lee Chang-dong, 2011)
14. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
15. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
16. Yi-Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)
17. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raul Ruiz, 2011)
18. Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2010)
19. Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
20. May December (Todd Haynes, 2023)
21. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2003)
22. A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke, 2014)
23. Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
24. Moolaadé (Ousmane Sembène, 2004)
25. Mother (Bong Joon-hoo, 2010)
26. Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, 2014)
27. Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2013)
28. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)<a
29. L’Enfant (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2006)
30. Love and Friendship (Whit Stillman, 2016)
31. One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2023)
32. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2014)
33. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)
34. Norte, The End of History (Lav Diaz, 2014)
35. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr, 2012)
36. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies, 2017)
37. Love is Strange (Ira Sachs, 2014)
38. Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)
39. Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2017)
40. Amour Fou (Jessica Hausner, 2015)
41. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
42. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)
43. In Jackson Heights (Frederick Wiseman, 2015)
44. Zama (Lucrecia Martel, 2018)
45. Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)
46. Time Regained (Raul Ruiz, 2000)
47. Elle (Paul Verhoeven, 2016)
48. The Ornithologist (João Pedro Rodrigues, 2017)
49. In The Family (Patrick Wang, 2012)
50. The Other Side of Hope (Aki Kaurismäki, 2017)
51. Ava (Sadaf Foroughi, 2018)
52. Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015)
53. BPM (Beats Per Minute) (Robin Campillo, 2017)
54. Inside Job (Charles Ferguson, 2010)
55. First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2018)
56. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, 2012)
57. Young Adult (Jason Reitman, 2011)
58. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, 2024)
59. Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois, 2011)
60. You Can Count on Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)
61. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, Rodney Rothman, 2019)
62. No Home Movie (Chantal Ackerman, 2016)
63. Let the Sunshine In (Claire Denis, 2018)
64. Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
65. Barbara (Christian Petzold, 2013)
66. The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski, 2010)
67. Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
68. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2020)
69. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2020)
70. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 1994)
71. No Country for Old Men (Ethan and Joel Coen, 2007)
72. Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009)
73. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, 2024)
74. Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2000)
75. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
76. Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson, 2000)
77. Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011)
78. Tár (Todd Field, 2022)
79. Saint Omer (Alice Diop, 2022)
80. Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, 2003)
81. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
82. Knocked Up (Judd Apatow, 2007)
83. Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman, 2021)
84. Away from Her (Sarah Polley, 2007)
85. The Class (Lauren Cantet, 2008)
86. Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)
87. Summer of Soul (Questlove, 2021)
88. Ghost Dog (Jim Jarmusch, 2000)
89. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2002)
90. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
91. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Josh Greenbaum, 2021)
92. Julia (Erick Zonca, 2009)
93. Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, 2010)
94. Summer of ’85 (François Ozon, 2020)
95. Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener, 2013)
96. Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan, 2009)
97. I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2010)
98. Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar, 2004)
99. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
100. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)

I need to see BPM (Beats Per Minute) on more lists.

Nice list Alfred! I liked BPM! (I was repelled by The Souvenir but I know that people here liked it and I will give it another chance with a different mindset in the future)

To me The Dark Knight is the worst film on this list... super-overwrought and cartoon-dramatic with overbearing pounding music and a ridiculous story line.

Huge divide b/w UK and US posters re Hogg.

oh I forgot about The Souvenir, that and Pt. 2 would absolutely be near the top of my list. I have a hard time differentiating them as I watched them back to back.

The only arbitrary rule I had was one film per director. After that it was pretty easy to narrow down to a top 40 list. One common characteristic is that I've seen most of these movies more than once and liked them much more the second time.

24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)
The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, 2003)
Ascension (Jessica Kingdon, 2021)
*Azor (Andreas Fontana, 2021)
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel, 2008)
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
Charlie Says (Mary Harron, 2018)
City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004)
Crank (Brian Taylor, Mark Neveldine, 2006)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007)
Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog, 2007)
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)
God Bless America (Bobcat Goldthwait, 2011)
The Green Fog (Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, 2017)
*Gunda (Viktor Kossakovsky, 2020)
Honeyland (Ljubomir Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska, 2019)
*HyperNormalisation (Adam Curtis, 2016)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
*Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Seth Gordon, 2007)
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
The Lookout (Scott Frank, 2007)
*Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2003)
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
*Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, 2018)
The Nest (Florent-Emilio Siri, 2002)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
No (Pablo Larraín, 2012)
Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, 2007)
Rats (Morgan Spurlock, 2016)
*Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)
*Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow, 2001)
*Speed Racer (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, 2008)
Stooge (Madeleine Farley, 2017)
Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015)
*A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke, 2013)
Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)

(*) are what I sent in on the NYT ballot.

I am jealous of the relationship some people have to Miami Vice (much prefer Collateral) so I will keep trying and hope one day it clicks for me

Happy to see Silence on Alfred’s list! One of those I regretted leaving off my ballot

One common characteristic is that I've seen most of these movies more than once and liked them much more the second time.

A major reason I haven't made a list is that I don't tend to rewatch very often and so I don't trust or in some cases even recall my reactions to movies I saw over a decade ago.

Good call on Kill List, Elvis. Love that movie. The first three Wheatley-Jump films are so strong that I keep waiting for him to make something else great. I like some of his subsequent ones, but they're not surprising the way those three are.

Here's my list. Not looking up years but I assure you they all start with "2"

35 Shots of Rum (Denis)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu)
A Serious Man (Coens)
Another Year (Leigh)
Atlantics (M. Diop)
Before Sunset (Linklater)
Benediction (Davies)
Carol (Haynes)
Certain Women (Reichardt)
Certified Copy (Kiarastomi)
Decision to Leave (Park)
Domestic Violence (Wiseman)
Drug War (To)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry)
Eureka (Aoyama)
Everyone Else (Ade)
Evil Does Not Exist (Hamaguchi)
Exiled (To)
Girlhood (Sciamma)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai)
Grizzly Man (Herzog)
Happy as Lazarro (Rohrwacher)
Happy Hour (Hamaguchi)
Hard Truths (Leigh)
Heart of a Dog (L. Anderson)
Howl’s Moving Castle (Miyazaki)
I Am Not Your Negro (Peck)
I’m Not There (Haynes)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins)
In Jackson Heights (Wiseman)
In the Mood for Love (Wong)
Inherent Vice (PT Anderson)
Inland Empire (Lynch)
It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Hertzfeldt)
Jackass No. 2 (Tremaine)
Julia (Zonca)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese)
La Chimera (Rohrwacher)
Le Havre (Kaurismaki)
Let the Fire Burn (Osder)
Lovers Rock (McQueen)
MacGruber (Taccone)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller)
Melancholia (Von Trier)
Memoria (Weerasethakul)
Memories of Murder (Bong)
Miami Vice (Mann)
Millennium Mambo (Hou)
Mister Lonely (Korine)
Moonlight (Jenkins)
Moonrise Kingdom (W. Anderson)
Morvern Callar (Ramsey)
Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
My Winnipeg (Maddin)
Mysteries of Lisbon (Ruiz)
Nickel Boys (Ross)
No Country For Old Men (Coens)
Nocturama (Bonello)
Nope (Peele)
OJ: Made in America (Edelman)
Oslo, August 31st (Trier)
Our Beloved Month of August (Gomes)
Personal Shopper (Assayas)
Petite Maman (Sciamma)
Phantom Thread (PT Anderson)
Phoenix (Petzold)
Platform (Jia)
Saint Omer (A. Diop)
Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-Dong)
Silence (Scorsese)
Speed Racer (Wachowskis)
Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
Still Walking (Koreeda)
The 25th Hour (Lee)
The Brutalist (Corbet)
The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-Soo)
The Deep Blue Sea (Davies)
The First Slam Dunk (Inoue)
The Irishman (Scorsese)
The Master (PT Anderson)
The Royal Tenenbaums (W. Anderson)
The Son (Dardennes)
The Souvenir (Hogg)
The Souvenir Part II (Hogg)
The Tree of Life (Malick)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese)
The Worst Person in the World (Trier)
The Zone of Interest (Glazer)
There Will Be Blood (PT Anderson)
Throw Down (To)
Together (Moodysson)
Trenque Lauquen (Citarella)
Tropical Malady (Weerasethakul)
Two Days, One Night (Dardennes)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul)
Under the Skin (Glazer)
We Are the Best! (Moodysson)
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Hamaguchi)
Yi Yi (Yang)
Zama (Martel)

Some notable remaining blind spots:

Far From Heaven
An Elephant Sitting Still
Kaili Blues

Everyone's list here is far more interesting than what's on the NYT site.

Late addition to my list is this TVA video from today of them blowing up two of their old smokestacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xOfJrbTL40

Hell yeah, i’d also like to nominate the video of the spacex rocket exploding last week

birdistheword, shoutout for ranking Leviathan. If i ranked my list it might be in the top 5

ha - my nomination was the Zvyagintsev film rather than the fishing doc!

Well, that's handy, Chris L: I had faintly-remembered imagery from Everyone Else lurking in my head today but couldn't quite place it. I was all "an early Joanna Hogg film maybe?" before seeing your list lol. Thanks. Another to revisit methinks.

I am jealous of the relationship some people have to Miami Vice (much prefer Collateral) so I will keep trying and hope one day it clicks for me

I've said (not too jokingly) that it takes five viewings of Miami Vice before it gets good.

I did see Collateral earlier this week in a theater for the first time since 2004-5 (have seen it on DVD/streaming about a dozen times in between) and it definitely holds up. I'm a bit averse to or just tired of philosophical hit men, but that didn't bother me at all this time. And talk about a movie with no unnecessary scenes that works like a mixtape, even more so in the theater.

Regarding rewatching, I think my initial response to 8 of the 10 on my ballot was “eh” at best and I fell asleep at Lost City of Z! I think for Zodiac I was like “well that was too long and aimless…” My initial judgment is always off.

But Fury Road and A Hidden Life were probably the two best theater experiences I’ve had this century. I still remember when the storm sequence came in Fury Road and I realized it was still just Act 1.

A Hidden Life nearly made my list. That theatrical experience was also notable because Kobe Bryant’s death was announced right as the screening began and my wife and I found out about it 3 hours later.

I'm still mad that I'm not able to see it even 4 years later (and maybe never). It's to the point where I'm beginning not to care about how good it might be, I resent that it exists and is being withheld. It was a bad decision by him in my opinion

Just saw this, but if you have a Region B or region-free Blu-ray player, you're in luck: there's a nice Blu-ray edition that was made available in the UK. (It's been out for a while, but it's a "limited collector's edition" so I wouldn't wait too long.)

I actually got my copy signed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and he didn't know about it, he saw it and was like "oh wow, this is so nice!" In hindsight, it probably says a lot that he didn't betray a drop of indignation, meaning the whole concept of showing it in only one theater at a time wasn't some kind of absolute set in stone, probably just something he wanted to do as a temporary measure to get people to experience it the way he hoped they would.

Zodiac is my 21st century gold standard "don't know what to watch, [insert film] is at my fingertips."

co-sign

ctrl+f 'hard to be a god'

good work user etc

Zodiac is my 21st century gold standard "don't know what to watch, [insert film] is at my fingertips."

so interesting, i have seen this a few times and have fallen asleep every time.

Memoria is (potentially) on Kanopy too -- it has been for some time for some users/territories, at least.

I personally don't fall asleep at bad movies, and in fact rate the quality of being able to induce a certain sleepiness as indicative of good directorial craft - Bullit and the original Solaris are two examples I rate quite highly.

i feel like it depends on the type of sleep. i have never watched all of Stalker without falling asleep, but it’s one of my favorites. i just find Zodiac really dull.

Only 21st century movie I can recall falling asleep in the theater due to genuine boredom is Arrival.

villenueve is so consistent with mood and aesthetic that his films can definitely risk boredom if you're not keyed into the vibe. I find dune 1 to be pleasantly soporific, if no masterwork.

zodiac being boring is sorta baffling to me. might genuinely be the funniest movie on the entire nytimes list, along with everything else it has going for it. but on first watch I think the entropy, the way it sorta slowly dissipates, just made it feel a million hours long and frustratingly vague--but on rewatches it's precisely that quality that i find riveting. one day I'll make a master list of films that feel longer than they are, but in a good way, and it's near the top of that list.

i'm never quite sure if the qualities that make a movie a "good hang," comforting, or re-watchable are the same that make a movie genuinely "good" (there are certainly great movies I don't like to re-watch often, A.I. being a good example). but i think the role that movies play in my life these days leads me to prioritize those qualities.

Zodiac is, for me, just a test-run for Mindhunter

I love them both but would take Zodiac.

Chef is a good hang and an uncritical favorite of mine, and I hadn't even thought of it for this list.

Fury Road would win this for me, it’s just an incredible film, though No Country For Old Men, Zodiac, and OUATIH are all great ones. I’d put Furiosa up there too somewhere if I was making a list.

Though I’m a fan of The Departed and Wolf of Wall Street, it’s amazing to me they’re actually in the top 50. The Irishman I think is the real Scorsese masterpiece of the 21st century.

Also a big fan of Scorcese’s late-style epic “gathering darkness” vibe tho I’d rank them:

1) silence
2) Irishman
3) killers
4) wolf (which I love)

Silence made my list.

Yes, Departed and Wolf are bad choices for late Scorcese.

idk those films are going for different audiences. Scorsese made mainstream hits out of them and they work on those terms.

Departed works as a silly crowd pleaser (Wolf doesn't work as anything), but it's not one of the best crowd pleasers of this century.

If enough people mention it, it automatically becomes one; that's how these lists work and why I'm not particularly put out. Pretty sure an ILX list would shake out the same way.

An ILX list would probably turn out worse than this tbh.

These lists work by having people read them and go "well that's not right", surely, that's the whole point?

Oh, sure, it's clickbait. I meant the actual compiling. The #3 film on this list was the film that came up third most often in the ballots.

I think a good exercise would be to poll everyone again but no one can vote for any movie that already placed in the top 100. That might be an interesting list!

i wouldn’t have to change my ballot! lmfao

I think a good exercise would be to poll everyone again but no one can vote for any movie that already placed in the top 100. That might be an interesting list!

Interesting, I am tempted to offer to be pollrunner for that.

Rather than a poll, how about a Film League? Everyone suggests 1 film for everyone else to see, reconvene in 1 year when we've seen them all, with feedback and points. Okay maybe this will need some tweaking

xp I don't think The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street are among Scorsese's best works, but there's no denying they're his most popular in recent years - they sold a lot more tickets and anecdotally I've heard a broader range of people talk about them enthusiastically than any of his others, albeit more as pure entertainment. FWIW, both films kind of tested Scorsese - these weren't films he wanted to do, they were brought to him, and IIRC he's implied that there were difficult moments where he thought "well, maybe doing this film wasn't the best idea, but it's too late, I'm committed, and I have to find a way forward."

*he originally wanted to do

I finally screened Barb & Star last night and a blast. A really loving tribute and worthy update of classic-era ZAZ & SNL films.

Jamie Dornan is intensely fuckable.

Re: Memoria

I actually got my copy signed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and he didn't know about it, he saw it and was like "oh wow, this is so nice!" In hindsight, it probably says a lot that he didn't betray a drop of indignation, meaning the whole concept of showing it in only one theater at a time wasn't some kind of absolute set in stone, probably just something he wanted to do as a temporary measure to get people to experience it the way he hoped they would.
― birdistheword, Saturday, June 28, 2025

Really??? It is now 4 years later.

I remember reading that he intended to show it in a different theater each week sequentially in cities around the world for as long as possible, with the promise never to release it on streaming. Maybe that was hype-building, and I guess it was a cool idea if you didn’t want your film to ever be seen by anyone, but it was bad marketing. It makes me wonder if maybe he didn't think it was a good film

It's a 2h 16m film that as far as I know showed only at the Roxie, a repertory theater in the Mission in SF, at 9:00 pm for one week. I am not going to stand out in front of the Roxie at 11:30 at night looking for a ride

It is not available in the US on streaming or dvd, and region b players are not a thing here. The movie on Kanopy is a completely different film

I downloaded it, but i know thats not for everybody

Rather than a poll, how about a Film League? Everyone suggests 1 film for everyone else to see, reconvene in 1 year when we've seen them all, with feedback and points. Okay maybe this will need some tweaking

More interesting if this were somehow recast as a tontine, with the last survivor inheriting the film collections of all the rest.

The movie on Kanopy is a completely different film

Just good old regional differences. (I mean, I even logged in on someone else's behalf specifically for someone who had been seeking it.) Though I now see we are improbably well catered for, licensing-wise, here: a domestic Bluray is even languishing ON THE SHELF (lol) of a municipal library up the road.

I don't think The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street are among Scorsese's best works, but there's no denying they're his most popular in recent years

No there's no denying that, but this is not a list of the most popular films of the 21st century, there's no reason to take box office into account.

and region b players are not a thing here.

Multi region players are a thing everywhere and imo a cinephile essential - so much good stuff out there that's region locked.

Much prefer Wolf of Wall Street to Silence. Wolf has great energy and seems to push the black comedy/satire that's present in Goodfellas/Casino even further, into new areas for Scorsese - it feels like he's testing himself. Whereas Silence is just a holy holy aspirational art house movie with mediocre performances and really terrible CGI (I think Spielberg is mostly a v bad auteur, but his ability to master modern cinematic technology puts Scorsese to shame).

Well but speaking of terrible CGI, that ocean in WoWs is horrid.

I love this place -- no consensus!

Spielberg's inconsistency is precisely what makes him a good auteur (if one still believes in auteurism).

I love this place -- no consensus!

Not being sarcastic, that's a lovely attitude to have. I have tried to refrain from disagreeing with every pro AI or Lincoln post!

Props to the people repping for Still Life and Stray Dogs, two films that I'm fairly confident are better than The Dark Knight, and yet...

No there's no denying that, but this is not a list of the most popular films of the 21st century, there's no reason to take box office into account.

I'm not implying people should vote for them because they're popular. What I'm saying is when a film is that popular, it's not really a surprise when they wind up with votes or place in a poll - it's just simple math.

I don't think that's true, the list of biggest box office hits of the 21st century was posted itt and you'll notice plenty on there that wasn't on any ballots. The Departed and Wolf OF Wall Street are on this list because they're works by Noted Auteur Martin Scorsese, not because they're popular.

and because voters liked them

xp Yes, I realize he's an auteur, and a popular auteur compared to other directors,, and with a poll like this, within the context of an auteur's work, a film that's more widely seen or known is likely to get more votes than something than fewer people go out to see. It's not worth debating the minutiae of this, all I'm saying is if you see a film on the list that a lot of people went out to see, it's no surprise it got a lot of votes. Does it mean popularity alone will get it a lot of votes, at least in a poll like this? No, but it does factor in. I mean, the Rolling Stone 500 list is packed with popular albums - there may be exceptions like the Velvet Underground but it's no surprise to see the likes of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Michael Jackson albums dominating the upper echelons of those polls.

*that fewer people go out to see

Agreed it's not worth debating the minutiae, and fwiw I also agree that their placing isn't surprising - I called it wrong, which is surely different. Nothing on this list is surprising (though some omissions are).

Yeah, agreed with Daniel there. I don’t think the list is surprising, really, but do think that about 1/4 of it is absolute slop. I hated The Departed when I saw it in theaters as a 21 year old— that critics could like it is just wrong. It’s a bad film. Might as well put Boondock fucking Saints on the list.

Of the 100 top-grossing films in the U.S. since 2000, four made the list: Black Panther, The Dark Knight, Oppenheimer, and LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Multi region players are a thing everywhere and imo a cinephile essential - so much good stuff out there that's region locked.
100% correct.

Both Norte, the End of History and An Elephant Standing Still should be on that NYT list.

Oops — That's An Elephant Sitting Still.

^ agreed

xp: Scorcese's modern output has been, um, mostly comprised by him putting Leo in everything. The last time I enjoyed Leo in a movie was "Catch Me If You Can". I think he's a good actor or whatever I just don't wanna watch him in anything.

"Shudder" and "Silence" were great films marred by terrible scripts. The only 21st c. Scorcese I love unconditionally is "The Departed", it's just slick and fun and Matt Damon is so terrific. Scorcese's last ten films would be vastly improved if he'd booted Leo and replaced him with Matt Damon in everything

I always feel with Leo, at least it's not Tom Cruise.

Qent for Children of Men. I'm a bit Spirited Away-ed out these days, much as I love it.

Having watched Mickey 17, it affirmed a lot of background issues about Parasite that I chose to ignore at the time: Namely that he gets carried away with his plots and could really do with reining them in a tad

Disappointed Mandy didn't make the top 100, but i guess that's life

Seems like there's a feeling that one should vote for something by Scorsese, but his 21st century output has been mostly pretty good, with little greatness, which makes it hard to pick one. I guess I would probably go for "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story" if that qualified.

I went into Shudder Island knowing nothing and within a short time I guessed the twist and the entire movie deflated.

It was Halloween and all three movies that I watched were variations on this, unintentionally. The next morning my wife asked me how the horror movie marathon was and I told her I got Scooby Doo'd three times. No monsters, just guys in masks or it was all in their minds.

Morton Scorcese’s shudder island

Just recently watched Shutter Island for the first time and boy what a silly movie. Found The Departed self-important and bloated, partly because of my affection for its zippy source material, which managed to get in and out in 111 minutes vs. Scorsese's 151.

I enjoyed WoWS much more than either, not least because it's funny. One of his handful of real comedies. Haven't seen The Silence because I struggle to muster interest in the subject matter — but probably I'm being unfair.

I had the same reservations about Silence but ended up really liking it.

Oh, give me an onslaught of films about overwrought sadistic Catholic guilt!

Ok, but how many of TSPDT's Top 1000 of the 21st century have you seen?

(I'm at a paltry 334)

I read "Silence" in my mid-20s post-war Japanese fiction jag and thought it was absolute garbage and never read any other books by Shusaku Endo, and was earlier today was typing "I don't know why this material would appeal to anybody" and immediately realised "oh it's probably a book for Catholics"

I'm not allergic to Catholic material (I thought Conclave was a hoot) but I couldn't make it through Silence.

To really "get" Silence you also need to watch Samurai Reincarnation, in which Christian leader Amakusa Shirō, back from the grave, turns to Satanism and recruits a group of historical figures to wreak havoc on Tokugawa era Japan.

gonna go with the royal tenenbaums, that movie was just way too important to me as a mopey young teenager, and i am sure in the mood and mulholland will get plenty of votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck1UBb4nw5g

I loved The Departed for putting together such a complicated plot at breakneck speed. Plus, Wahlberg, Baldwin, and Sheen seeming to have a great time, on top of the leads. Dropkick Murphys as filmmaking.

The Departed plays like that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David appears in a fake Scorsese movie, first time I saw it I couldnt believe it was intended to play straight. The accents are so crazy that even Matt Damon starts screwing up his own actual accent.

Some unforgettable moments though ofc. On a plane recently the guy next to me pulled it up & started watching it, and after the first five minutes he just fast forwarded right to the part where Martin Sheen explodes

Micro-praw-cessahz

annoying suggestion for the Departed stans (of which I count myself as one):

please watch the source material for a far superior film (click cc for engsubs)

https://archive.org/details/infernal-affairs-2002

I can out annoy you: Infernal Affairs II is even better (III a bit of a dud tho).

In the category of acting performance in an Irish gangster flick I'll take Gary Oldman in State of Grace (fake accent and all).

The Departed plays like that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David appears in a fake Scorsese movie, first time I saw it I couldnt believe it was intended to play straight. The accents are so crazy that even Matt Damon starts screwing up his own actual accent.

― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Monday, June 30, 2025 9:42 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, same, in fact i thought the whole movie was being self-referential in that regard. that first shot of marky mark in the bowtie got me lollin

Lol Oldman's accent in State of Grace is so ott that he doesnt even sound like a native English speaker half the time. It would have been less bizarre if he'd just used his regular British accent. Truly next level shit.

I know! He's great though: unhinged and threatening, like the Joe Pesci gangster in Goodfellas, but also more vulnerable and emotionally complex.

annoying suggestion for the Departed stans (of which I count myself as one):

please watch the source material for a far superior film (click cc for engsubs)

https://archive.org/details/infernal-affairs-2002

― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Monday, June 30, 2025 5:37 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I can out annoy you: Infernal Affairs II is even better (III a bit of a dud tho).

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Monday, June 30, 2025 6:01 PM (three hours ago)

Yeah, much tighter film, Tony Leung/Andy Lau are fantastic, and post-'97-handover Hong Kong is a much richer setting/backdrop for the meditations on identity (esp in the wake of the 2014/2019 protests).

Glad people have brought up An Elephant Sitting Still; realised the big omission from my list is Jiang Wen's Devils on the Doorstep - actually came out in 2000 but it's grouped in my head with 1999's Beau Travail.

Tony Leing was the hottest man on earth for a decade

Leung

honestly he is still really hot

I personally like both films equally (which means: a helluva lot), and am excited to investigate Infernal Affairs II

I think it may have been behind the scenes of the Irishman, but once I saw a clip of Scorsese directing a frankly sorta horrifyingly violent scene and he's cackling like a madman and I thought "oh"--point being: I think The Departed is quite hilariously and pointedly over the top in its nihilism. He atones in movies like Silence and Killers, but they're both part of him. I take him seriously as a moralist because he's honest about how fun sin is...

Wolf in particular being an expression of just how much he considers movie making at all as a kind of morally dubious enterprise...he's riding the fun right into hell.

There's that scene late in the Irishman, De Niro on the phone just crumbling to dust right before our eyes, and it feels like a bookend to that famous shot in Taxi Driver when the camera pans over in embarrassment as Travis is on the phone, also falling apart, except this time he just holds it without flinching. That's late style, no flourish just looking at it head on.

Even if I didn’t rate any of his recent films in my dumb list, I feel like I don’t deserve Scorsese, what a wonderful body of work

Max reax:
https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-29-best-movies-of-the-21st-century

― jaymc, Friday, June 27, 2025 4:33 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Max talks about his list with ... Joseph Gordon-Levitt?!
https://journal.hitrecord.org/p/my-top-10-movies-of-the-21st-century

Put a list together from a few years' worth of ilx end of year poll ballots. Took out most of what has already been mentioned (if I haven't its bcz I couldn't be arsed to check) or put in something by a director I voted for but changed the film (Colossal Youth as the Pedro Costa film)

---
Dead Souls (Wang Bing, 2018)
Touch Me Not (Pintile, 2018)
The Heiresses (Marcelo Martinessi, 2017)
Visit or Memories and Confessions (De Oliveira, 1982/2016)
No Home Movie (Akerman, 2015)
Like Someone in Love (Kiarostami, 2012)
Amour Fou (Hausner, 2014)
Taxi Tehran (Panahi, 2015)
The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2015)
Suntan (Papadimitropoulos, 2017)
The Death of Louis XIV (Serra, 2016)
Scarred Hearts (Radu Jude, 2016)
The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinto, 2017)
Colossal Youth (Costa, 2006)
The State I am in (Petzold, 2000)
Bacarau (Medonca Filho, 2019)
Norte, the End of History (Diaz, 2013)
Long Day's Journey into Night (Gan, 2019)
Right Now, Wrong Then (Sang-Soo, 2016)
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai, 2006)

We have a lot of overlap (good to see Long Day's Journey Into Night and at least something by Hong). You needed at least one example of schlock you dug, though!

I put together a list
https://letterboxd.com/adamt/list/best-films-since-2000/

Love that The Kid Detective made your list. One of my faves, for sure.

You needed at least one example of schlock you dug, though!

I know it's viewed as arthouse due to politics and Brazil not having much international cinema recognition outside of that circuit but Bacurau works great as a shlocky action movie.

If there’s one movie I would urge everyone to catch up with sooner than later it’s Nickel Boys.

My list, in case anyone cares, in no order

Hunt For The Wilderpeople
Spirited Away
Kill List
Mandy
The Holdovers
Knives Out
Happy Go Lucky
A Real Pain
The Substance
Children of Men

Here's mine (unordered), feat. not one but two Weerasethakul and not zero but one Matthew Barney

Songs From the Second Floor
Werckmeister Harmonies
Mulholland Drive
Spirited Away
Cremaster 3
Belleville Rendezvous
Tropical Malady
A History of Violence
Inland Empire
Big Man Japan
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
No Country for Old Men
Dogtooth
A Serious Man
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
The Act of Killing
Under the Skin
Burning
Shoplifters
Parasite

If there’s one movie I would urge everyone to catch up with sooner than later it’s Nickel Boys.

― Chris L, Wednesday, July 2, 2025 9:45 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

how does it compare to the book?

Haven’t read the book.

Loved the book, and been putting off the movie as a result.

same as crypto!

First Roy Andersson mention? I love him so much

Colson Whitehead is one of my favorite authors. The Nickel Boys film is more abstract and the story less explained and less charged and brutal than it was in the book, and that is probably a disappointment to many people, but it is more poetic and is equally great I think.

The cinematography is subtly astonishing. It alternates between the first-person perspectives of the both of the two boys, including the way the camera functions as their eyes, and shows how their perspectives have been shaped by what they have previously experienced in their lives

The book seems like it would be almost impossible to film, but RaMell Ross, who directed the great Hale County This Morning, This Evening, made it enchanting

I know that a lot of the love I have for this is in experiencing the way it was filmed, and that others may not feel that way at all

I've encountered some praise for the film, but a lot more griping about the way it was filmed, which is just giving me The Lady in the Lake flashbacks.

Soderbergh's recent Presence is kinda like that, where you're seeing what the ghost is seeing... it gets a little old

Okay, i didn’t know RaMell Ross directed, I will watch it now, HCTMTE was on my shortlist for best of the past 25 years. incredible film

I loved Nickel Boys the novel, thought the film a well-intentioned misfire.

I liked the film quite a bit and would not be surprised to see it on a list like this in a few years, given how rapturous some of the praise was.

Meanwhile, the readers' list:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/movies/readers-movies-21st-century.html

I've seen 86 of these, compared to 94 on the industry list. But less excited about filling in the gaps when the movies I haven't seen include two LOTR movies, two Dune movies, two Pixar movies, and two Marvel movies.

Best movie on the readers' list that didn't make the other list has to be The Handmaiden.

I didnt realize people loved Black Swan so much. I thought it was entertaining enough for a Friday night at the movies but havent thought about it since then

In full, 72 movies appeared on both lists. Here are the 28 that only appeared on the readers' list:

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
La La Land
Dune: Part Two
Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Pride and Prejudice
Sinners
Django Unchained
Little Women
Hereditary
Blade Runner: 2049
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Handmaiden
The Prestige
Mean Girls
Perfect Days
Barbie
Dune: Part One
Top Gun: Maverick
Drive My Car
Knives Out
The Incredibles
Killers of the Flower Moon
Howl's Moving Castle
The Lighthouse
The Holdovers
Midsommar
Avengers: Endgame

My Top 10

Chopper
Another Year
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
A History of Violence
Children of Men
Ash is Purest White
Toni Erdmann
Cache
Im Not There
Team America World Police

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The fact that Heath Ledger got awarded for The Dark Knight posthumously, instead of Brokeback Mountain while he was still alive, it makes my heart ache

Best movie on the readers' list that didn't make the other list has to be The Handmaiden.

Love that one, would maybe make my own list.

probably my favourite of Park Chan-Wook's

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Yi Yi is so beautiful. I watched it again the other night and cried a lot.

enjoyed this conversation about the list between critic Wesley Morris and film curator Eric Hynes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/podcasts/cannonball-movie-list.html

I've now seen everything except Amour. Haven't been ready for that one yet.