Wednesday, July 2, 2025

The Best Movies of the 21st Century (So Far)

Mulholland Drive
The New York Times recently released a ranked list of the top 100 films of the 21st century so far, based on polls it took of directors, writers, actors, and others in the global film industry. Each participant was able to list his or her top 10 list.

Since then, I’ve seen a number of other similar lists pop up. Although I currently don’t have a Rolling Stone subscription and couldn’t read the entire list, that magazine released its top 100 list. That’s more like it.

The idea of narrowing down all of the movies I’ve seen this century to 10 is daunting and a bit ridiculous, so instead I’m including my non-ranked list of the top 100 of the century so far. Then, because narrowing it down to 100 is even a bit limiting, I’ve included a list of runners up - lots of them.

So, enjoy. And drop your own lists in the comment section if you so choose.


In the Mood for Love

Top 100

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Christian Mungiu)
12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
Adaptation (Spike Jonze)
Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe)
Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Amour (Michael Haneke)
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik)
Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
Bad Education (Pedro Almodovar)
The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
Beau Travail (Claire Denis)
Birdman (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
BlacKKKlansman (Spike Lee)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee)
The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
Burning (Lee Chang Dong)
Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
Carol (Todd Haynes)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)
City of God (Fernando Meiralles)
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)
The Departed (Martin Scorsese)
Dogville (Lars Von Trier)
Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn)
Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes)
The Florida Project (Sean Baker)
Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese)
Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog)
Happy Go Lucky (Mike Leigh)
Her (Spike Jonze)
A History of Violence (David Cronenberg)
The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)
I’m Not There (Todd Haynes)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Inland Empire (David Lynch)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)
Kill Bill vols. I & II (Quentin Tarantino)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)
Memento (Christopher Nolan)
Milk (Gus Van Sant)
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki)
Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)
No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)
OJ: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar)
Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro)
Parasite (Bong Joon Ho)
Past Lives (Celine Song)
Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)
Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
Roma (Alfonso Cuaron)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Sideways (Alexander Payne)
Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)
The Social Network (David Fincher)
Son of Saul (Laszlo Nemes)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki)
Spotlight (Thomas McCarthy)
The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach)
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
TAR (Todd Field)
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Three Times (Hou Hsiao Hsien)
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)
Zodiac (David Fincher)

Werckmeister Harmonies

Runners Up

20th Century Women (Mike Mills)
24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom)
28 Days Later (Danny Boyle)
2046 (Wong Kar Wai)
About Schmidt (Alexander Payne)
Adventureland (Greg Mottola)
All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
American Hustle (David O. Russell)
American Psycho (Mary Harron)
Anora (Sean Baker)
Another Year (Mike Leigh)
Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhang-Ke)
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk)
The Aviator (Martin Scorsese)
Babel (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)
Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)
Black Hawk Down (Ridley Scott)
Blue is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
Cache (Michael Haneke)
Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas)
Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski)
Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)
A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg)
Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu)
The Descendants (Alexander Payne)
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly)
Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)
Elephant (Gus Van Sant)
EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
Everybody Wants Some!!! (Richard Linklater)
Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat)
First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)
First Reformed (Paul Schrader)
Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood)
The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)
Get Out (Jordan Peele)
Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff)
Goodbye Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming Liang)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)
Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)
Grind House (Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez)
Hail, Caesar! (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Hard to Be a God (Aleksei German)
Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)
The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)
Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
Hunger (Steve McQueen)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
In the Bedroom (Todd Field)
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell)
Kings and Queen (Arnaud Desplechin)
La La Land (Damien Chazelle)
L’Enfant (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
Le Havre (Aki Kaurismaki)
The Life of Chuck (Mike Flanagan)
The Lovers on the Bridge (Leos Carax)
Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Match Point (Woody Allen)
Memories of Murder (Bong Joon Ho)
Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood)
Minority Report (Steven Spielberg)
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)
Mother! (Darren Aronosky)
Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay)
Munich (Steven Spielberg)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)
Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
Platform (Jia Zhang-Ke)
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)
A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg)
Regular Lovers (Philippe Garrel)
Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky)
The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Selma (Ava DuVernay)
Shoplifters (Hirokazu Koreeda)
Silence (Martin Scorsese)
Sing Street (John Carney)
Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)
Titane (Julia Ducournau)
Talk to Her (Pedro Almodovar)
Traffic (Steven Soderbergh)
Transit (Christian Petzold)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
United 93 (Paul Greengrass)
Unknown Pleasures (Jia Zhang-Ke)
Up (Pete Docter)
The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola)
Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
Waking Life (Richard Linklater)
What Time Is It There? (Tsai Ming-Liang)
Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson)
The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang)
You Can Count On Me (Kenneth Lonergan)
Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron)
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)

Moonlight

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