The 25 Best Films of the Century So Far (2000-2024)

A lot has changed about cinema over the course of the first 25 years of the new millennium. From massive global events shaping the industry, multiple strikes, on-going debates over celluloid versus digital photography, practical versus enhanced CGI effects in blockbuster filmmaking, whether a movie’s profit on the opening weekend is more important than the film itself, what a movie star is, streaming services, shorter theatrical windows; this is just a mere taste of the evolving landscape of modern cinema. But what still lies center stage of all the dust being kicked up are the films that have left a mark on all of us, giving us a chance to escape the mundanity of our lives to explore issues, characters, perspectives, and cinematic worlds our imaginations could’ve never dreamed up if it weren’t for the big screen.

As we hit the quarter mark of the 21^st century, the AwardsWatch team decided it was best to look back and discuss their favorite films of the last twenty-five years, some in the rankings that have already reached the two-decade milestone, while others are more recent entries that have earned their place next on this list. In doing this exercise, the AW team used a wide range of personal criteria to get to the rankings below; some considering the films they’ve chosen to be the best films of their respective years, films that’ve aged the best upon their release, rewatchability, cultural relevance; the team tussled with the idea of what is “the best” and what are “their favorites” a lot when coming to their final decisions. Based on those lists and their rankings, the list below was forged. Upon examination, only one director was able to land two spots within the ranking (you will have to read below to see who that individual is). This means that twenty-four different artists, each with their own unique, personal perspective, were able to shine on this list, alongside hundreds of other directors that missed the cut, representing thousands of films over the course of the last two and a half decades. 

No list is permanent or set in stone. Ask us to do this exercise again in a week and the order of things might change, or 25 other films could be on this list, like our team’s honorable mentions: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Burning, Carol, Catch Me If You Can, Chicago, Children of Men, Collateral, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Dark Knight, Drive My Car, I’m Not There, Inception, Inside Llewyn Davis, Kill Bill, La La Land, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Master, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Michael Clayton, The New World, Ocean’s Eleven, Pan’s Labyrinth, Parasite, Ratatouille, The Royal Tenenbaums, Something’s Gotta Give, Spirited Away, Talk to Her, The Virgin Suicides, Weekend, The Witch, Yi Yi, Zodiac, The Zone of Interest, and more. But for now, the AwardsWatch team is elated to share what they think are the 25 best films of the century so far. (The following list features contributions from Ryan McQuade, Erik Anderson, Sophia Ciminello, Cody Dericks, Jay Ledbetter, Dan Bayer, Mark Johnson, Trace Sauveur, Josh Parham, and Griffin Schiller.)

25. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

It’s completely understandable to have been somewhat skeptical of Mad Max: Fury Road actually working. It was a new installment from a well-worn franchise, one that hadn’t produced a new entry in thirty years, from a director whose recent filmography suggested he would be married to fanciful children’s entertainment. It almost seems as if that was the challenge George Miller set out for himself: to prove that he could deliver a towering achievement in filmmaking. From the very moment it starts, the adrenaline ride hardly finds a moment of respite. The stripped-down narrative has barely an ounce of fat on it. It hardly has any other objective besides being singularly directional, both literal and metaphorical. We are simply tracking a group of characters racing their beefed-up cars in one direction before turning around back the other way. But it’s a journey that is constantly engrossing. Miller stages a grandiose spectacle that never lets up, crafting some of the most impressive action sequences ever put to film due to their scale and creativity. The editing is frenetic and chaotic, but still purposefully controlled. The cutting mirrors the wild frontier of this apocalypse, the frenzied search for freedom and control. While Tom Hardy embodies the titular character, it’s Charlize Theron who carries every frame with a commanding presence that speaks to both a compelling strength and vulnerable core. This is a highly detailed world that never eases up on the momentum. There’s little you can do except sit in awe of the insanity that has been unleashed, and even more impressed by how this brilliant execution never tumbles from the high-wire act it created for itself. Some movies feel like miracles, a collection of disparate ideas that came together in a messy but beautiful collage. The genius display by Miller is his ability to bring order to what seems anarchistic, and simply put, it’s a wild ride that invigorates your love of cinema to appreciate what those tools can accomplish on such a visceral level. – JP

24. Inside Man (2006)

Known for pushing social, political, and cinematic boundaries, director Spike Lee garnered a reputation throughout the late 1980s to early 1990s as one of the premier American directors of his generation. By the early 2000s, Lee started going on a run of highly impressive, bold features, including the audacious Bamboozled, as well as 25th Hour, a deeply personal ode to New York City set within his hometown post the September 11th tragedy. But it was his 2006 feature, Inside Man, where Lee used inspiration from the past in order to discuss the battle of good versus evil found at the heart of broken America in the early 2000s. As a nod to the Sidney Lumet classic Dog Day Afternoon, Inside Man follows a group of bank robbers who take hostage a bank on Wall Street, led by the criminal mastermind Dalton Russell (Clive Owen). Assigned to negotiate the ongoing situation is Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington, Lee’s career defining collaborator), a scandal-riddled police detective looking to do the right thing in the face of a dangerous situation. But as Russell and Frazier going toe to toe over the phone and in person to end their conflict, the political optics of this standoff come into fold, as Madeleine White (Jodie Foster) enters the game as fixer, hired by an interested, power third party observer who wants to see this robbery end damage free, giving her unlimited power to wrap things up nice and neat. In doing so, Lee creates a tangled web that Frazier and the audience have to unravel about the political, social elite of the world reigning down their power in order to keep the dark secrets of their past from spilling out into the streets. As a crime thriller, it’s deeply entertaining, but if you look beyond that, Lee uses this project as a vessel to examine how divisive and lawless our country has become, and how justice is a game of chess crafted by those who either have enough money, power to manipulate or the powerless who might just be smart enough to make moves on the board and see how things will play out before its checkmate. Everyone in Inside Man is an outlaw, and post-9/11 and pre-Iraq war, our country was the wild west when it came to accountability, trust, and justice. Lee knows this and isn’t afraid to show it, bruises and all. – RM

23. The Handmaiden (2016)

Director Park Chan-wook has made a career of exploring humanity’s extremes. His characters are often backed into corners and, like a trapped animal chewing off its own leg, must commit unthinkable acts to try and free themselves. The Handmaiden similarly presses its main characters into seemingly insurmountable situations, but what sets it apart from Park’s filmography (or indeed, any director’s filmography) is the lush beauty that’s present in every frame. It’s undoubtedly one of the most beautiful films on this list. The use of the color green alone would qualify it as a visual masterpiece. And the film’s unlikely, twisty-turny love story is utterly captivating, drawing audiences into the characters’ secret world in a way that feels almost forbidden. In one legendary scene between the two female leads, Park puts the camera in places that would have rendered the film as pornographic once upon a time. As he always does, Park pushes the limits of cinema’s possibilities in every way, from subject matter to how it depicts the more shocking elements of its plot. But The Handmaiden doesn’t simply exist to provoke – it’s a gorgeous, powerful, and ultimately invigorating story about the limits and expanses of the human heart and what people are capable of doing in order to live the life that they want. – CD

22. Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

It’s easy to imagine the more conventional adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. A bright and colorful endeavor, probably animated, that amplifies the wackier elements of the original children’s book that mostly panders to its young audience. It’s probably the version Warner Bros. would have preferred. But thankfully, Spike Jonze had a much different vision in mind when it came to bringing Maurice Sendak’s revered work to the screen. Instead of creating a film that played to the surface delights of children, Jonze instead chooses a much more introspective tone. He crafts a narrative that is more about looking back on childhood, capturing that tumultuous time period that was filled with equal parts elation and anxiety. For Max, our protagonist, his venture to this mysterious land has him facing monstrous creatures that are shades of his own personality. It’s an odd bunch assembled, sometimes quirky and rambunctious, sometimes impulsive and cruel. A child’s mind is navigating a raging sea of uncontrolled emotion, and it’s not until we grow older that we properly contextualize our adolescent experiences. Many films have attempted to comment on this complicated state of maturity, but this film finds the most poignant sequences to bring these themes to life. A moment of playtime can reach euphoric heights of joy before the tone can switch on a dime, crashing back to despair and disappointment due to something as innocuous as a spurned look. The irony is that these fleeting emotions never truly leave us. They may grow more complex, but we know they’re still there. Through imaginative landscapes, the film finds beauty in the somber tranquility. Jonze may not have delivered the four-quadrant product executives may have hoped for, but he gave us a more lasting work instead. Beautiful, tragic and hopeful. These emotions are heightened when we’re children, and sometimes it takes a work of art to reflect that back to us to realize what was treasured from that lost time. – JP

21. Oppenheimer (2023)

The emergence of Christopher Nolan in the last two and a half decades has left an indelible mark on the state of cinema in the modern era. Like Spielberg before him, the art form has been irreversibly changed, leaving a trail of studios and filmmakers embracing the visceral spectacle and IMAX experience in his wake. It’s with Oppenheimer – a three-hour historical biopic/courtroom drama about the man and mind behind the atomic bomb, optimized for the IMAX experience grossing almost one billion dollars and culminating in a Best Director and Best Picture win at the Academy Awards – that Nolan reached the pinnacle of his career. He isn’t simply in the conversation as one of the greats, he IS one of the greats and the film that cemented his legacy as such just so happens to be one of the great American epics. A 21st Century Lawrence of Arabia or Nolan’s JFK, there’s no denying that Oppenheimer, is one of the most important fucking films to ever happen in the history of the world. Nolan’s masterpiece is a viscerally chilling unraveling of scientific discovery and persecution, arriving in theaters at a time when science deniers and anti-vaxers are more vocal than ever before stoking public distrust, continuously ignoring and devaluing the work of scientists, experts, in the field. Oppenheimer brilliantly combines these ideas with McCarthy Era paranoia (just look at the recent headlines of senators being arrested and democratically elected mayoral candidates threatened with deportation due to speaking out) and one man’s collision course with annihilation to create a staggering achievement orbiting a morally complex center that simultaneously reframes Nolan’s entire filmography linking each movie together in a way that gradually peels back the layers of the man revealing his soul and the fears and anxieties that keep him up at night. His fear of man’s lust for dominance and arrogant pursuit of knowledge and its cycle of self-destruction.

Oppenheimer isn’t just Nolan’s best film, it’s the most important film of our time. It’s the kind of cautionary tale whose aftermath we’ll forever live in and whose warnings are something we face again in an emerging AI world. You push the boundaries far enough without considering the consequences and there will be irreparable ramifications. You cannot steal fire from the gods and not expect everything to go up in flames. What’s exceptional about this film is how it uses J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb to plead with us to exercise caution when it comes to irreversible ethical dilemmas whether it’s climate change, emerging technologies, unfettered capitalism, regime changes and political movements that threaten our way of life. Oppenheimer asks us to consider the ethics above all else. Through fission and fusion – Oppie and Lewis Strauss – Nolan uses the language of the atom to explore the cracks in our system and the kinds of men who populate it. You see all of the pieces, all the decisions made throughout the film pulling back towards Oppenheimer and Strauss, respectively. Strauss’s craven opportunism – hitching his wagon to someone of status and power (everything he wants) like Oppenheimer – and gravitational pull, the fusing of his “atom” to Oppenheimer’s, forcing a reaction that blows up in his face with the denial of cabinet appointment. A fusion bomb. Likewise, Oppie’s inability to reconcile with his actions, compartmentalizing, rationalizing, not only splits his very soul, but the world as we know it. A fission bomb. So much of Christopher Nolan’s filmography is about the dangers of pursuing too much knowledge. There are consequences, good and bad, that come with it. You have to be prepared to accept and if you aren’t willing to, it’ll destroy you. – GS

20. Before Sunset (2004)

“It would have been fine if it would’ve worked out. Oh well.” So says Ethan Hawke’s slightly jaded, philosophizing Jesse to Julie Delpy’s self-preservative Céline toward the beginning of Before Sunset, after the long-lost lovers find each other again after nine years and start probing as to whether or not either of them made to the train station where they promised to meet each other six months after the events of Before Sunrise. Jesse’s blithe comment about the failure of their idealistic plan of easily reuniting represents the core idea communicated in this sequel: the two, now in their thirties, are slightly more world-weary, and maybe feel a little silly about the romanticized ideas they harbored in their 20s, like deciding not just to exchange phone numbers—such is life. But a new opportunity to amble around another European city while digging into each other’s deep-rooted worldviews and updates about what they’ve been doing with their lives in the interim reveals some of that same yearning still buried deep in their push-and-pull relationship, now borne of a dissatisfaction with the realities of what life has to offer and what could have been if things had worked out differently. 

That’s something that would later be answered in 2013’s Before Midnight, but for this middle chapter, writer/director Richard Linklater develops a brief snapshot of two lives in flux, fluidly capturing both the malaise of having newfound lived experience of a decidedly unromantic world, and how that’s amplified for our two leads who both were left wondering what things may have looked like if their trajectories hadn’t flown off course. The screenplay, co-written by Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke, embodies the diverse ideals of Jesse and Céline simultaneously, as the film unfolds through their naturalistic conversations and emotions, shifting between achingly passionate and pragmatically levelheaded moments. It’s perhaps the most true-to-life of the entire trilogy: things probably won’t work out the way you want them to, but maybe it’s inevitable that we’ll hold on to those dreams. – TS

19. TÁR (2022)

Todd Field’s third feature film is a layered enigma of a movie, one whose luster of austere prestige is betrayed by a sense of mystery, fear, and cunning humor. Ostensibly a high-minded character drama following Cate Blanchett’s title character Lydia Tár, a world-famous conductor whose past and current transgressions begin neatly stacking up in anticipation of an inevitable collapse, Tár has much on its mind in its depictions of a person in a daunting position of status and power in a field of such exclusivity, especially in the context of a social media age where revered individuals are duly taken to task for misconduct. However, amplifying these ambitions is a crafty positioning of the viewer from Lydia’s point of view, which just so happens to be one marred by visions of ghosts, obscure dreams, and other uncanny manifestations, such as the sound of screaming in the woods, one of the film’s several stray elements that remain unresolved. Tár is content to leave some of its contours shaded in with the sly obfuscation of genre allusions, which makes it all the more enamoring as a character portrait—this includes the rug-pull ending, the absurdity of which matches the heightened sense of ego of Lydia herself, gratifyingly sentenced to some cosmically ironic form of recompense. – TS

18. Marie Antoinette (2006)

Right from the opening, Sofia Coppola lets you know that this isn’t going to be your ordinary period piece. With opening credits set to Gang of Four’s “Natural’s Not In It” and a Sex Pistols-esque splash of MARIE ANTOINETTE in pink and black, it says we’re doing things a little bit different.

Her third film, Coppola was coming off the huge success of 2003’s Lost in Translation, earning her an Oscar nomination for Best Director (only the third woman ever at the time) and a win for Best Original Screenplay. She was quickly becoming a ‘woman’s woman’ director, crafting stories of girls and women in their most stifled periods. In theory, the idea of taking on the life of Marie Antoinette, the girl queen, seems like a perfect next step and, in retrospect, it was. At the time, between the arduous production (“I was just worn out, and I was just like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore,’” said in an interview last year), the boos at the Cannes Film Festival and overall poor response to the film both commercially and critically upon its release, it all pointed to a bit of a disaster. The anachronistic music, the broadly revisionist history, everyone using different accents, the Converse shoes. All things that at the time, as we know now in retrospect, were ahead of its time. It’s probably not a stretch to say that most of the general public’s knowledge of The Queen of Versailles boils down to four words: “Let them eat cake,” a quote that itself is historians now say was either distorted or never happened but it used today like modern vernacular to describe someone who is out of touch or as an easy jab of the wealthy. Coppola plays with this twice, in the opening as Kirsten Dunst’s devilishly cool Marie is surrounded by tempting desserts and giving the audience a fourth wall break, and then head on, when she’s told of the quote’s attribution to her, “I would never say that,” she says defiantly. 

Taking one of history’s most reviled people and turning the lens to the audience to invite understanding, or even empathy, has been a cornerstone of stories of historically awful men since filmmaking began. Here, Coppola gets to do the same, on her terms, turning Marie into a pop-punk princess, who aged too fast and quite literally, lived fast and died young. There’s a classic romanticism about it and what’s not to love when you have Marianne Faithful, Molly Shannon, Tom Hardy, Jamie Dornan and Dunst all cavorting around in the same time period and draped in arguably the best costuming of Melina Cananero’s career? – EA

17. Lady Bird (2017)

“Write what you know” may be a cliche, but as Greta Gerwig proved with her solo directorial debut, sometimes overused pieces of advice can still be good advice. Lady Bird tells the story of a teenage girl on the brink of adulthood who – like every teenager ever – thinks of herself as already fully matured and ready for the “real world”…whatever that is. While that may sound like the plot of many a mediocre comedy from the latter half of the 20th century, Gerwig’s keen observations and aching honesty set it apart and elevate it. She even injects a level of socio-political commentary that’s relatable to anyone who’s ever clipped a coupon. This energy vibrates underneath the entire film like the gentle hum of financial anxiety that far too many Americans have become used to feeling. With hindsight – and the benefit of two subsequent, Best Picture-nominated films (Little Women and Barbie) – Gerwig’s fascination with coexisting but contrasting dual worlds is apparent in Lady Bird. In Little Women, the past and the present are observed simultaneously and in Barbie, the stark differences between Barbieland and our real world lead to both hilarity and emotional breakthroughs. Here, Gerwig explores the haves and have-nots in modern America. Oh, and it’s funny! Even if simply viewed as a comedy and judged by the number of successful jokes, Lady Bird would still be considered a total triumph. Every performance in the film is perfectly aligned with the film’s tone, an achievement that must be laid at Gerwig’s feet. But top of the pile is Laurie Metcalf’s Oscar-robbed performance as Lady Bird’s mother. Her portrayal rings true to anyone who’s ever had to deal with a parent who shows their love by smothering. She embodies the idea that, to paraphrase Lois Smith’s nun character, love and attention just may be the same thing. Unlike the main character, Lady Bird easily gets an A+ on its report card. – CD

16. Silence (2016)

Martin Scorsese often presents his characters with a mirror. In Taxi Driver, it’s there as Travis Bickle plays with a gun and chillingly repeats, “You talkin’ to me?” In Shutter Island, it sits above a sink as Teddy Daniels desperately looks at his reflection and says, “Pull yourself together, Teddy.” In Raging Bull, it’s in Jake LaMotta’s dressing room as he quotes On the Waterfront, highlighting the repercussions of his violence and hubris. Yet, the most arresting use of the reflected and refracted image in Scorsese’s filmography lies in his long-gestating passion project, Silence, when a weary Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) glances down into a stream to see the face of Jesus Christ. The image evokes the Veil of Veronica and the Myth of Narcissus — simultaneously a glorious, unexplained miracle and a warning of what can befall a man blinded by his ego. 

That’s the conflict at the center of Silence, the beauty and the danger of faith and one’s place within the constructs of organized religion. It’s an idea that has been present throughout Scorsese’s filmography, but perhaps never quite as potent and clear as in this 17th-century-set epic. Rodrigues’ journey begins alongside fellow Jesuit priest and missionary Father Garupe (Adam Driver), as they set out to find their mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), after learning that he has recently renounced his faith. As the two young, idealistic priests venture into Japan to search for Father Ferreira, they’re forced to reckon with their own beliefs, especially as they meet the cunning, politically motivated (and formerly Christian) Inquisitor (a phenomenal Issey Ogata). What’s striking about Silence is just how Scorsese, alongside his actors and the Baroque-inspired visuals from his cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, translates the characters’ turbulent interior worlds into something deeply external and vivid. When describing the film, Garfield shared that “it was like being dropped in the middle of an unanswerable question.” It’s in that ambiguity and the long stretches of literal silence that Scorsese crafts his most mature film and his modern opus. Silence confronts the questions he has attempted to answer for decades, creating a cinematic experience that mirrors the complex feelings of faith and doubt. – SC

15. Almost Famous (2000)

Told through the wide eyes of a teenage journalist chasing rock and roll dreams, Almost Famous is a coming-of-age story that wears its heart on its sleeve. Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical film captures the magnetic pull of 1970s music culture, but its deeper focus is the quiet erosion of innocence. Patrick Fugit brings a quiet sincerity to William Miller, whose transformation from fan to journalist becomes a pursuit of honesty in a world built on façades, an experience many of us who began writing online have come to understand firsthand. Kate Hudson’s Penny Lane is both muse and enigma, offering a fleeting glimpse of freedom and heartbreak wrapped in a single name. What begins as a love letter to rock evolves into a quiet reflection on the distance between our private selves and the personas we perform under the spotlight. Crowe directs with warmth and restraint, choosing sincerity over cynicism. The film is rich with nostalgia, but it avoids becoming overly self-indulgent. Its greatest strength lies in how it acknowledges disillusionment without a trace of bitterness. With its iconic soundtrack, tender performances, and Oscar-winning screenplay, Almost Famous remains Crowe’s most complete achievement. In capturing the fragile joy of falling in love with music and meaning for the first time, it leaves a lasting impression. – MJ

14. Under the Skin (2013)

Jonathan Glazer’s arthouse sci-fi film starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien masquerading as a human woman who drives around Scotland to pick up and slaughter unassuming local men is as uncanny and disturbing as it is starkly beautiful and compassionate—a strange concoction between the eldritch framing of this story and the sensitive humanism brimming underneath the surface. Based on Michel Faber’s novel of the same name, Glazer’s film is mesmeric in its sense of progression and its spectral observations of the Scottish locales, from the busy streets of Glasgow to desolate beaches marked for tragedy, and eventually to the highlands cast under a somber, ethereal gloom. Johansson maintains a tenacious grip on viewers and carries every scene with her cold sense of distance and detachment, until her motives and sense of self begin to unravel into some emerging understanding of humanity (partially with the help of breakout actor later seen in 2024’s A Different Man, Adam Pearson) that is ultimately at odds with a species that would never eventually offer the same sense of curiosity. Glazer’s vision is generally abstract and ambiguous, but he never withholds the ethos of his film at too far of a remove for those with the inclination to follow its caustic beauty and terror to its final moments. – TS

13. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

In 2009, Quentin Tarantino decided to dip his toe in the world of historic revisionism, and he hasn’t looked back since. Inglourious Basterds found Tarantino teaming up with American movie stars and relative unknowns (to Americans, anyway) to bring to the screen a World War II film equal parts prestige and trash; ya know, that thing Quentin Tarantino is really good at. The dialogue is so tense and staged so elegantly when it should be, and there are also scenes of cranial bludgeoning that would make the likes of Sam Peckinpah proud. From the very first scene (one of the greatest openings in film history, by the way), which has a taut elegance undercut by harsh violence, a state of being exemplified by Christoph Waltz’s performance as SS Col. Hans Landa. The titular “Basterds”, memorable as they are, really aren’t the main characters, instead giving way to Shosanna Dreyfus, whose family was murdered by Landa’s cronies years earlier. Mélanie Laurent possesses that same combination of grace and rage as she is unexpectedly tasked with planning a Nazi film premiere. Along the way, she meets face-to-face with Landa, who doesn’t recognize her, in another firecracker scene of people talking in rooms, this one reaching a crescendo when Landa offers Shosanna cream for her strudel.

The best thing one can say about Inglourious Basterds is that it’s possible that neither the opening scene nor Shosanna’s meal with Landa and Co. are the best scenes in the film. In addition to those unforgettable scenes, there is a bar scene involving the Basterds, a British intelligence agent, and a movie star that may take the cake. It is hard to think of a film this century that has more iconic scenes than Basterds. The confidence (verging on arrogance) on display is second to none in the last 25 years. It all culminates in what one could call great vengeance and furious anger with an incredibly bold, controversial narrative choice that cements the film as an object of fascination, whether you love it or hate it. Tarantino goes so far as to metatextually call the film his masterpiece, so who are we to argue? – JL

12. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

When talking about the great writer-director pairings of all time, we have to consider Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry. Separately, they can be over-indulgent, but the one film they made together is an all-timer, a perfect fusion of Kaufman’s melancholy and Gondry’s whimsy. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reminds you that cinema is a living, breathing art form, one that can connect us to emotions, both our own and those of others, in ways that nothing else can. Kaufman’s constantly inventive, tonally tricky screenplay requires a director who can make the convoluted plot legible while throwing all sorts of eye-popping imagery at you, and Gondry is the exact right man for the job. His light touch with the material belies the difficulty of the task at hand: As Jim Carrey’s sadsack Joel Barish undergoes a medical procedure to remove Kate Winslet’s Clementine Kruczynski from his memories, just like she did with him, Kaufman’s story criss-crosses between different timelines and realities at an increasingly dizzying pace. But Gondry and Kaufman share the same wavelength, and their collaborators are all in alignment with them. Cinematographer Ellen Kuras creates strikingly magical practical effects shots in the memory/dream world (the shot of Clementine being pulled away from Joel into the darkness of memory is one of the best single shots of the century), and Valdís Óskarsdóttir’s kaleidoscopic yet precise editing moves us back and forth in time and between worlds seamlessly. Most importantly, composer Jon Brion’s instant classic score, which set the template for the next two decades of quirkily melancholic indie film scores, feels downright revelatory in its original context as it’s perfectly designed to fit this film’s unique, ever-evolving mood. Combine all that with Carrey and Winslet’s career-high performances and an immaculate ensemble including Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, and Elijah Wood, and you get one of the best, most original, and most rewatchable films of the century. – DB

11. No Country For Old Men (2007)

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell’s weary voice frames No Country for Old Men as a lament for a vanished moral order, confronting us with a world where the ethical anchors of his youth have crumbled. Tommy Lee Jones delivers a quietly devastating performance as Bell, a third-generation Texas lawman who mourns a time when sheriffs carried no weapons, only their word. That memory fades against the harsh 1980 backdrop, where Anton Chigurh, played with chilling detachment by Javier Bardem, embodies a new kind of evil—one that defies logic, justice, and Bell’s deepest convictions. His quiet reckoning with a world he no longer understands mirrors our own unease in an era where violence feels senseless and morality increasingly obsolete. Since its release in 2007, the film’s meditation on decay and futility has only grown more resonant, affirming my belief that it ranks among the greatest of this century.

Guided by the Coen Brothers’ spare, unflinching vision, No Country for Old Men pulses with the existential dread once found in the cinema of the 1970s. It channels the grit of Taxi Driver and the disillusionment of Chinatown while forging a legacy entirely its own. Roger Deakins’ stark, sun-bleached cinematography, paired with the Coens’ minimalist dialogue and the haunting absence of a musical score, creates a mood of sustained, almost unbearable tension. Like Badlands, it thrives on that restraint, trusting silence and stillness to speak volumes. Its refusal of tidy resolutions forces us to grapple with the futility of morality and the frailty of mortality, a boldness honored with Oscar wins for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor (Bardem). With its narrative precision and unflinching portrayal of a world tilting into chaos, No Country for Old Men stands as the Coens’ defining achievement, and my personal choice for the most essential film of the twenty-first century. – MJ

10. Far From Heaven (2002)

Often when a film is called ‘Lynchian’ or ‘Hitchockian’ we’re talking about a director who makes stylistic or aesthetic choices that are either reminiscent of or pay homage to those iconic directors. In the case of Todd Haynes and Far From Heaven, Sirkian is an understatement as every moment of Far From Heaven, from Elmer Bernstein’s lush opening theme to cinematographer Ed Lachman’s sweeping crane shot to the font of the film’s title card is putting right into a Douglas Sirk film. The title alone is a riff on Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, with themes borrowed from 1956’s Written on the Wind and 1959’s Imitation of Life.

There’s an argument to be made of where the line is between homage and copycat but I think intent is where it’s defined. Director Brian de Palma has lifted shot for shot scenes from Hitchcock films for scenes in his own but what Haynes is doing is different; he’s taking us into the world of Douglas Sirk but with a decidedly more modern storyline that never would have been able to make its way during Sirk’s heyday. Haynes gives us a classic period Connecticut housewife protagonist in Cathy Whitaker (played the greatest portrayer of 1950s housewives, Julianne Moore); ultra liberal, supportive of the NAACP, congenial and thoughtful with her maid Sybil (Viola Davis), all very progressive. 

Cathy’s husband Frank (an excellent Dennis Quaid) is secretly gay, and what would be intimated then is front and center here (while still living in the world of PG-13). Haynes isn’t aiming for shock value though, any movie about the 1950s made in the 2000s could have featured language or sex or nudity but he’s more interested in taking what was just under the surface and making it visible. Ultra liberal Cathy’s friendship with her gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) is the real scuttlebutt in town, with gossips like Mona Lauder (Celia Weston) fueling the fire of what Cathy’s really up to with a “colored” man while her friend Eleanor (a divine Patricia Clarkson) comes to her defense, until she doesn’t. 

Taking place over a short time of the fall and winter months of 1957, Lachman’s lighting techniques mirror Technicolor but with a slightly elevated and exaggerated saturation, just as Sandy Powell’s costume creations dip into the quill reds, blues, greens and yellows so rich they jump off the screen.

I love something Haynes said  just earlier this month about this genre of film; “Similarly, the melodrama, which is more directed at female audiences, is not about heroic stories of women overcoming their limitations and their constraints or their oppression. It’s about people buckling under those very constraints, and ending up smaller and more dignified but passive examples of who they were at the beginning of the movie.”

And that’s exactly where we end with Cathy. At the train station, both bereft at the dissolution of her marriage and a future with Raymond that can never happen. What is she going back to, as she’s surely now the most notorious pariah in Hartford? We’ll never know, but Haynes’s choice to end on a crane shot identical to the opening implies the tiniest sliver of hope. Or maybe just the façade of one, which is all she, and we, have to hold on to. – EA

9. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

There’s a lot to love about Céline Sciamma’s masterpiece – Claire Mathon’s lush, velvety cinematography, the elegant precision of the framing and the screenplay, how the way Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel look at each other evolves from scene to scene – but I always come back to two scenes whenever I think about the gorgeous Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The first is the final scene, one of the all-time great endings, which weaponizes one of the most famous and overused pieces of classical music to reduce the audience to tears just as it does Haenel’s Héloïse as the camera slowly pushes in on her and takes your breath away. In the second, Héloïse and Merlant’s Marianne are alone with the housemaid Sophie in the grand house where Marianne has been painting Héloïse, first in secret from her memory but now with the reticent Héloïse posing for her. Finally free from the watchful eye of Héloïse’s class-conscious, marriage-minded mother, the three women create a little world of their own. As the two older women care for the young maid after she gets an abortion, we witness a vision of what the world could be, what society might have looked like if it were a matriarchy instead of a patriarchy. The walls the world has built between the three women vanish, creating an idyllic sphere in which they each teach, learn from, and care for the others. Like Héloïse and Marianne’s burning romance, it’s a dream from which they all must eventually wake, but it’s lovely while it lasts, an oasis of feeling and love in a world that wants to repress women’s minds, hearts, and bodies. Their attentiveness to each other is part of what separates the male and female gaze – while men desire the outer being, women desire the inner being. In order to truly know and love a person, you have to see who they are inside. What Sciamma shows us, in the most cinematically beautiful way, is how someone else really seeing you can change not just your perspective, but your whole life. The film may not end happily, but its message is heartening. Marianne and Héloïse have tasted true love and immortalized it into art. In this way, their love will never die, continuing to inspire generations of film lovers to see beyond a person’s contours to who they are inside. – DB

8. Phantom Thread (2017)

Early in Paul Thomas Anderson’s deviously funny, poisonous romance, Phantom Thread, Alma (Vicky Krieps) takes the elaborate breakfast order of a handsome diner. She has no idea that the man at the table is esteemed fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and that he’s taken a short respite from London after losing interest in his last muse. He flirts with Alma, smirking through the order (“and some sausages”) and finally takes what she’s written down, asking her, “Will you remember?” Impressively, Alma remembers, and their complicated relationship begins. Like Reynolds’ breakfast order, Phantom Thread is a delectable meal of a movie, full of rich detail and a wicked sense of humor. It’s impossible to forget. 

At first, it’s tempting to view the film as the story of Reynolds Woodcock simply because the character is perfectly brought to life by our greatest living actor. This film, however, is not There Will Blood, or another tale of an obsessive, toxic “Great Man,” who subjects those around him to his bouts of terror. If you look closely at the intricate stitchings and the fabric of the narrative, it becomes clear that Phantom Thread is actually a story about the women who occupy and upend Reynolds’ world: his force of a sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) who runs the House of Woodcock, the ghost of his mother, his team of seamstresses, the countesses and princesses who wear his gowns, Barbara Rose (how could we forget Harriet Sansom Harris), and, of course, Alma, my favorite character in Anderson’s filmography. It’s a testament to Anderson’s brilliant writing and direction that, despite the film’s traditional trappings, I could never anticipate its twists, turns, and thrilling conclusion (“Kiss me, my girl before I’m sick” hits every time). 

Anderson was inspired by everything from his relationship with his partner, Maya Rudolph, to Hitchcock’s Rebecca, to ghost stories by M.R. James. My favorite influence, however, is a story by Beatrix Potter called “The Tale of Gloucester,” that Day-Lewis used to read to his children at Christmastime. In the story, a tailor falls ill and is unable to finish a suit, so the mice chip in and decide to complete the suit overnight, all while trying to fend off a cat. What makes Phantom Thread a modern classic doesn’t lie simply in its Gothic design, but in its lightness and humor that could only come from the brilliant mind of Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s that personal touch that gives it its edge and a refreshingly contemporary feel, removing any trace of the buttoned-up nature often found in costume dramas. Nearly ten years after its release, the film has only become more quotable, frequently discussed, and cited as a favorite for many cinephiles. As Alma says about her relationship with Reynolds, to be in love with Phantom Thread makes life no great mystery. – SC

7. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

“Can’t believe I left my damn shirt up there.” “Yeah…”

There are a lot more memorable quotes in Brokeback Mountain (“I wish I knew how to quit you!”) but the foreshadowing of this one for the eventual gut punch of the ending hits hardest. It’s one best found on repeat viewings but, much like its Oscar-winning score, the moment you hear it you’re transported. In 2005, the chatter about ‘the gay cowboy movie’ just ahead of its Venice and Telluride film festival debuts hit a pressure point. A film long in development, with an ever-revolving door of (straight) male leads who went from all in to too scared to play the doomed lovers (that included Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) found its way to young soon to be stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal and it’s impossible to imagine anyone else. Ledger’s marble-mouthed, clenched jawed performance is one for the ages and anyone who knows me knows how I feel about all things Jake. But one of the best things it did for both actors was begin to erase the stigma of playing gay characters being a career killer. Both thrived, Ledger won an Oscar three years later. Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway’s dramatic careers were built here; Williams a five-time nominee and Hathaway a winner. Director Ang Lee, who was off the critical flop that was 2003’s Hulk, has had a career of such diversity and range you could put it up against any top tier filmmaker, because he is a top tier filmmaker.

Legacy is a funny thing. Brokeback’s Best Picture loss was both a statistical shock and a crisis of conscience for the Academy. It was the new era and the old era at their most dramatic battle and while Crash won, the legacy of that win (and of the film) has aged like milk. But for Brokeback Mountain, it’s a love that will never grow old. – EA

6. The Social Network (2010)

The last twenty-five years might be summed up by two words; social media. It has consumed our world, giving us some of the greatest moments that define our culture as well as showcase the genuine worst in humanity. It is the defining legacy of every generation post-Millennials in how we use or abuse this tool, created as mostly a form of communication for all of us to share information and connect with anyone, anywhere around the world. This is where you find The Social Network, director David Fincher collaborating with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin about the creation of Facebook, the lawsuit over the ownership rights, and an examination of the man at the heart of the company, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). As a legal drama within a biopic with Sorkin’s signature memorable dialogue, complete with Fincher’s masterful, patient eye alongside a breathtaking score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, it’s a sensational film. But what makes The Social Network one of the best films of the modern era is that it’s more of an origin story for one of the greatest villains in modern society. The film foretells how Zuckerberg’s creation is a dangerous weapon, invited off the back of being rejected by a girl, thus turning the female students at Harvard against each other by using a rating system of their faces based on how attractive they are with the click of a single click. Fincher and Sorkin’s film accurately predicts that the same man who screwed over his friend because he didn’t get into the fraternity he wanted to get into would also turn into the same man who created a platform that would spawn into a harmful invention that would create other spaces of the internet where our worse habits are heightened to incredibly sadistic levels of human behavior. In my piece from five years ago for the ten-year anniversary of the film, I highlighted how the film views Zuckerberg as “a modern-day gangster who gets away with what he did with no repercussions,” “a disgusting opportunist,” and “the loneliest billionaire in the world,” sitting in a conference room refreshing the Facebook page of the girl who rejected him, hoping she will accept his friend request. After nearly a decade and a half of existing, The Social Network needs no follow-up chapter to find out just how evil Zuckerberg and his kind have become, as the film is enough of a cynical statement on a social media age, showcasing how vile and petty we’ve allowed our world to become at the hands of those who were supposed to provide the hopeful changes needed to bring on the next great generation. Instead, the wheel of greed and unchecked power that has made the world spin keeps on spinning. – RM

5. Moonlight (2016)

It was quite a journey for writer-director Barry Jenkins to follow up his 2008 directorial debut, Medicine for Melancholy. After announcing himself to the world with such a tender, assured first feature, Jenkins spent an extended period of time writing multiple scripts that never got the green light, waiting for the chance to get his next film made. In looking for his next project, Jenkins and his producer, collaborator Adele Romanski, searched for the right story to tell, and that’s when Tarell Alvin McCraney’s semi-autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue came to the director’s attention, and the rest is history from there as Moonlight was born. Set in a three-act structure, it follows Chiron through three impactful periods of his life, showcasing a shy, vulnerable child navigating his life in South Florida during the height of the crack epidemic. Between a cast of characters that include the bullies at school, his abusive, neglectful mother, a sympathetic local drug dealer, and a friend who shows him what real affection is, we watch Chiron grow, establishing the man he wants to be, while he discovers who he is physical, sexually, socially, and emotionally. In doing this, Jenkins delivers an epic, personal tale of empathy, one that breaks down the stereotypical, hardened barriers of toxic masculinity found within not just the black community, but all of society. Within Chiron’s journey, Jenkins showcases how love, forgiveness, and acceptance are the answers that can heal the wounds inflicted on the soul over the course of a life spent struggling for years to be their true self. Moonlight is an elegant, tender achievement of grace that stands out beyond your average coming of age story because it carries within it the power of a singular, masterful voice at the height of his powers, rediscovering the passion for their art in the familiar history they grew up around. Often is the case in transcendent, timeless art, the more personal the undertaking, the more impactful it can be on all who take it in, and with Moonlight, Jenkins crafted a generational film, one that deepens in meaning after every viewing. – RM

4. In the Mood for Love (2001)

It’s 1962 in Hong Kong, and, as fate would have it, two couples move into adjacent apartments on the same day. The movers mix up their items, placing books and shoes in the wrong apartment, foreshadowing what should inevitably intertwine. What begins as a series of polite, neighborly interactions between journalist Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) and secretary Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) soon smolders with each glance and gaze between the two. They become even further entangled when they learn that their respective spouses are having an affair together. The two begin to salt and lick their wounds, roleplaying their spouses just to try to imagine how the affair started. In Wong Kar-wai’s haunting, sumptuous masterpiece, In the Mood for Love, yearning isn’t just palpable; it’s felt on a molecular level. As our two characters pass by each other on the staircase, brush hands in the car, or stand next to each other in that alleyway where it always rains, we wonder. Why can’t they? Or perhaps more appropriately, why won’t they? 

With a rich color palette of red, yellow, and jade green, and a unique relationship to time, Wong creates a visual language that has inspired filmmakers over the past twenty-five years. From Sofia Coppola to Barry Jenkins to RaMell Ross, it’s impossible not to see traces of In the Mood for Love’s structure and imagery within their work. For Wong (and his fellow contemporaries), time is often not linear, and the emotional weight in the film comes directly from the image and our association with it. Here, with long stretches absent of dialogue, that feeling is communicated through Cheung and Leung’s soul-bearing eyes. A character sees a piece of fruit, hears a familiar song, and there is a Proustian connection, drawing them (and the audience) to what has been and what is to come. In the world of Wong Kar-wai, longing doesn’t feel unrequited, but attainable. The pain and beauty of In the Mood for Love lies in what’s withheld. Each image–a pair of apples, the smoke floating above Mr. Chow’s head like a spectre–acts as a still-life painting; something that, like a memory, you can see but can’t reach out and touch. – SC

3. The Tree of Life (2011)

Before The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick had been exploring existential ideas via familiar stories, be they tales of lovers on the run, war movies, or period dramas. With The Tree of Life, Malick made the subtext text, literally putting the creation of the universe on screen juxtaposed against the seemingly straightforward depiction of a military family living in Texas in the 1950s. It is a work of reflection for both the film’s main character and for Malick, who loosely (or not so loosely, it’s hard to know when it comes to one of Hollywood’s most famous hermits) based the film on personal experiences. With that in mind, the creation sequence takes on a sense of power rarely captured on film. In The Tree of Life, Malick seeks to answer the question, “What is the meaning of life?” by equating the death of a loved one to existence itself. In the grand context of the universe, our lives are inconsequential, a blip in space and time. There is both comfort and terror in that fact, but the film is also about the ways that the events in that “inconsequential” life possess a transcendental might that matches the sensation of volcanoes forming and an unknowable beauty comparable to the cosmos itself. 

Malick poses that the seeming objectivity of the universe’s fashioning eventually gave way to a spiritual empathy, exemplified by the oft-ridiculed, but genuinely brilliant, dinosaur sequence, representing a transcendental “grace” piercing through the veil of what we expect from “nature”. Meanwhile, the sequences in Texas balance the abstractions of the creation sequence with moments so impressionistic one may mistake them for memories. Partnered with a soundtrack featuring compositions from the likes of Brahms, Mahler, and Bach, as well as cinematography from Emmanuel Lubezki that floats like some sort of otherworldly entity, The Tree of Life makes the small feel massive. A baby’s first steps, a father’s tough love, a mere walk down the street… these are foundational to the self the same way that tetrapods emerging from the water were foundational to the eventual introduction of human life and, perhaps, the unknowable self, at least spiritually, may transcend the power of the infinite universe. The magic of The Tree of Life is that it feels like a new experience every time you watch it, the characters you recognize reflecting back at you as if you were looking in a mirror reflecting light in new ways with each passing month. The Tree of Life is a malleable object that challenges the very form of film. It is often said that Terrence Malick, “Find his films in the edit.” That sort of attempt to organize chaos is at the heart of the director’s magnum opus, revealing to the viewer things that they had never considered. It is, quite simply, one of the greatest films ever made. – JL

2. There Will Be Blood (2007)

From the moment you hear Jonny Greenwood’s eclectic score wind up as we take a look at the first shot of There Will Be Blood, you know that writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is operating on a whole other level unseen within his short yet celebrated career. Before this film has come out, Anderson was one of the most exciting modern filmmakers, making acclaimed films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love, each borrowing a bit from the directors he admired (Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese mainly) to create his own unique, highly engrossing forms of entertainment. But within his 2007 epic, Anderson not only delivered the best film of his career so far, but unleashed a side of himself he would go on to continue to explore with every film after, establishing himself as the definitive modern auteur of the last twenty-five years in cinema. There Will Be Blood follows the devilish Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, in a career-defining role), an oilman who embarks on a relentless quest for wealth during the California oil boom in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. In doing this, Plainview, alongside his son H.W., lands in the town of Little Boston, a small Californian town that has an ocean of oil under their feet, and he is just the man to take it from them. Though it isn’t that easy as he suffers personal battles along the way in claiming the oil, as well as a constant battle for power within the town with the local preacher, Eli Sunday (an equally excellent Paul Dano). At the core of There Will Be Blood lies man’s struggle with greed, corruption, religious hypocrisy, and thirst for abundance till one’s competition has nothing left. Anderson, using Day-Lewis as his vessel, demonstrates that the world we live in is morally bankrupt, and if you want something, you viciously have to take it for yourself. Deeply profound and darkly humorous, Anderson’s fifth feature is a searing portrait of the American dream, a primal look into what it takes to sell your soul in order to make an extra buck. An all-time American epic that’s “one god damn hell of a show,” as Plainview would say. – RM

1. Mulholland Drive (2001)

Mulholland Drive takes place in Los Angeles. Well, sort of. It’s a Los Angeles that looks authentic and feels truthful, even if it’s obfuscated away from the rules of reality. David Lynch’s crowning achievement (at least on film – I see you, Twin Peaks) externalizes the dread and horror that’s invisible yet apparent in LA. If Hollywood is the dream factory, Lynch has taken over as factory foreman with this movie, physicalizing and making visual the pain that seems to be a requirement when pursuing a life in the arts. Here, said hopeless dreamer is played by Naomi Watts in a dual performance that’s not just one of the best film breakthroughs of all time, it’s one of the crowning achievements of the acting form. She plays a woman who, like so many noir heroes, gets caught up in a mystery of identity and death in sunny LA, all while trying to make a name for herself in Hollywood. She looks to be on the brink of a breakthrough, but just as it feels like we’re about to witness her star-is-born moment, Lynch yanks us into the depths of depravity like Eurydice being dragged to the underworld. And that’s reality, kid. Or a nightmare. Whatever it is, this world beats Watts’ character down. Rejections in both her romantic and working life push her to the brink and Lynch doesn’t give us the option of forcing ourselves awake. We’re trapped in this world, stuck in the blue box without a key. And yet, it’s a world that calls us back again and again. Just as the siren song of Hollywood never leaves the charts for those hoping to make it big, Mulholland Drive draws its viewers in with a carefully-constructed world that’s so fascinatingly put together that it’s hard to look away. Or perhaps we revisit its twisty plot that winds around like the titular road because we hope against hope that, this time, things will turn out okay. We’ve heard this story before but if it’s told one more time, maybe we’ll get a happy ending. And even if we’re aware of the horrors that hide behind dumpsters, in darkened apartment complexes, and in Hollywood boardrooms, we take the drive down Mulholland anyway. Horror is just as magnetic as hope, and David Lynch gives us the best of both with his depiction of the contrasting fates of Betty/Diane. – CD