The year 2000 didn’t just mark the start of the 21st Century, but it also became the year known for producing many classics that have remained some of the greatest and highest-rated films of all time.
Many first installments of popular film series such as X-Men, Final Destination, and Scary Movie were released in that year but from an extensive list of great films to choose from, Rotten Tomatoes has narrowed the list down to the top ten that made an impact in the film industry.
‘Chicken Run’
Chicken Run is a stop-motion animated comedy film that tells the story of a band of British chickens whose lives are dictated by the grueling daily task of laying eggs. Their owners, Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy (Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson), will eat them in the form of chicken pies if they stop laying eggs. Their lives change once an American rooster, Rocky Rhodes (Mel Gibson), crash lands on their coop. As Rocky seems to be the only chicken who knows how to fly, the leader of the British chickens, Ginger (Julia Sawalha), begs Rocky to teach him and the rest of his coop to fly away to their freedom.
With a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 97%, Chicken Run was deemed one of the highest-rated films, if not the best film of the year 2000, and later became the highest-grossing stop-motion animated film of all time. It grossed an estimated total of $227 million against a production budget of $42 to $45 million.
‘Yi Yi’
Yi Yi is a Taiwanese drama film that is told from alternating perspectives of three members of the same family, the father and engineer, N.J. (Wu Nien-jen), teenage daughter Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), and the young son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang). While N.J. struggles with feeling content with his profession and tries to transition to a video gaming business, Ting-Ting and Yang-Yang grapple with the problems many youths face while simultaneously having to take care of their father N.J.’s mother-in-law, who is in a coma.
Director of Yi Yi, Edward Yang, earned recognition as the Best Director at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival where the film made its debut and also took the trophy of the Palme d’Or (the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival). Yi Yi has a rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
‘Memento’
Considered one of Christopher Nolan’s best works, Memento follows a man named Leonard (Guy Pearce) and his attempts to find the perpetrator who raped and murdered his wife, Catherine (Jorja Fox). However, his task is made more difficult due to suffering from Anterograde Amnesia, a rare condition where a person is unable to make new memories after suffering amnesia from an incident or accident. Although he can recall memories and events of his life before the accident, he is unable to remember what happened ten minutes ago and the how, where, when, and why of everything he does.
Met with many positive reviews from the audience and film critics, Memento garnered a rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Five years after the release of the film in 2005, the Writers Guild of America included Memento in their list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.
‘The Taste of Others’
The Taste of Others is a French film directed and written by, and starring Agnès Jaoui. The film follows the story of a successful businessman, Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri), who, out of boredom, agrees to his wife Anglique's (Christiane Millet) invitation to a performance of Racine’s “Bérénice”. Instead of focusing on the show, he finds himself infatuated with the lead actress, Clara (Anne Alvaro).
As he decides to attend another performance of Clara and later joins her for lunch after the show, his fascination with her deepens, and his relationship with his wife Angelique drifts apart. What makes the film unique is the comedic take on a somewhat controversial affair. The site also gave the film an impressive rating of 98%.
‘You Can Count on Me’
You Can Count on Me is a drama film written and directed (his directorial debut) by Kenneth Lonergan. Sammy (Laura Linney), works at a bank and is a protective mother of an eight-year-old son, Rudy (Rory Culkin). When Sammy’s brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) visits her and decides to stay with her, Terry forms a close relationship with Rudy, and they bond well. At work, Sammy struggles with a new manager and reconciles with an old boyfriend, Bob (Matthew Broderick), while simultaneously trying to juggle between helping her brother to get his life back on track and protecting her son at all costs.
The film showcases the struggles of being a single mother, balancing living her own life, while also having to consider the lives of others around her. It has a rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.
‘Traffic’
Traffic is a film that explores America’s war on drugs and is told in three separate but interconnected stories. The first story involves two police officers, Javier Rodriguez (Benicio del Toro) and his partner Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas) who deduce that General Salazar (Tomas Milian), a high-ranking Mexican official, turns out to be secretly involved in corruption and playing the Cartels.
The second storyline follows an Ohio judge, Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), who gets appointed the title of a drug czar: a person who is in control of directing drug-control policies. While he takes his profession seriously, Wakefield is unaware that his daughter is a heroin addict. The last storyline surrounds two DEA agents, Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle) and Ray Castro (Luis Guzmán), who are in pursuit of the wife, Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who, after finding out that her jailed husband is a drugs baron, turns to his underworld and continues to profit from his business. Traffic is rated 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for approximately 150 awards, winning some from the Academy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
‘High Fidelity’
High Fidelity is a romantic comedy that follows the life of an owner, Rob Gordon (John Cusack), of a failing-record store in Chicago, where he spends a lot of his time with his friend Barry Judd (Jack Black). Gordon’s only momentum in life is his encyclopedic knowledge of pop music and culture, but when his long-time girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) puts an abrupt end to their relationship, he examines his previous failed romances and the reasons behind these break-ups.
Gordon discovers that he has never taken anything seriously and always has one foot out of the door, a recurring pattern that is present in his romantic life and personal ambition. High Fidelity received many positive reviews from film critics such as Roger Ebert, Desson Howe, and Stephen Holden and has favorable reviews from the general audience with a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
‘Best in Show’
You might recognize the iconic duo from Schitt’s Creek, but Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara have collaborated and starred in eight films and a show together, and one of them was Best in Show. The mockumentary comedy film follows five entrants in what is considered the country’s most awaited dog competition show, the Mayflower Dog Show.
The five entrants and owners with amazingly distinctive personalities: a middle-class couple from Florida, Gerry and Cookie Fleck (Eugene Levy and Catharine O’Hara), a yuppie (young urban professional) couple Meg and Hamilton Swan (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock), and gay couple Scott Donlan and Stefan Vanderhoof (John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean) take pride in their dogs and compete against each other in America's most highly-anticipated dog show. With an approval rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, Best in Show is a widely-loved comedy with an appealing premise and a talented cast.
‘Dark Days’
Marc Singer’s Dark Days is a documentary that follows the lives of homeless people who live among Manhattan’s underground tunnels that are no longer in use. Dark Days had to be filmed within the period of two and a half years due to financial difficulties and protecting the tunnel residents who were under threat of being forcibly evicted by the Amtrak tunnel.
Dark Days won three awards at Sundance Film Festival, namely for Audience Award: Documentary, Excellence in Cinematography Award: Documentary, and Freedom of Expression Award. Dark Days have an approval rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.
‘The Filth and the Fury’
The Filth and the Fury is a British rockumentary in the style of punk fashion, which consists of unseen archive footage of the Sex Pistols. It is also director Julien Temple’s second film about the band, the first one being The Great Rock and Roll Swindle.
It explores the rise, decline, and ultimately the fall of the Sex Pistols. Most of the rockumentary is based on interviews with the surviving band members. The Filth and the Fury garnered an approval rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.