With award season fading in our rearview mirror and the first summer movie season of a new decade truly in swing this Memorial Day weekend, we now have two decades’ worth of films to which we can look back and select the finest examples of cinema from the 21st Century so far.
Official poster for "City of God"
It was hard selecting just 150 films across 20 years of exceptional artistry. That’s an average of only 7.5 films each year, or less than the average number of films nominated for the Best Picture category at the Oscars every year for the past dozen years. And I included films from live-action, animated, and documentary categories together on the list. So all in all, I’ve selected the equivalent of less than half as many films per year as would typically be nominated for Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Animated Feature every year.
However, I didn’t commit to choosing the same number of movies from each individual year, since the number of films qualifying as truly among the greatest of the century will vary year to year. I picked the very best from every year, then compared them all against one another until I paired the list down to 150.
I would’ve kept cutting until I got it down to 100 films, but by the time I reached 150 it felt like I was no longer just culling films that were on the outer edges of “greatest of the century” quality and had removed a lot of titles I think solidly qualify for consideration in that category. So I vowed I’d stop at 150.
And what a 150 they are. These are motion pictures that achieved the heights of what cinema is capable of, examples that will stand out in the history of the art of filmmaking.
So here in no particular order are the 150 greatest films of the first two decades of the 21st Century!
- City of God
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Mudbound
- Detroit
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Tree of Life
- Judas and the Black Messiah
- Short Term 12
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- The Dark Knight
- The Father
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
- Inside Out
- The Revenant
- Kubo and the Two Strings
- The Martian
- Get Out
- The Lives of Others
- Shoplifters
- American Hustle
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- If Beale Street Could Talk
- The Jungle Book
- Adaptation
- Frailty
- Lost in Translation
- Never Rarely Sometimes Always
- Sorry To Bother You
- Nomadland
- Mulholland Drive
- Avatar
- Da 5 Bloods
- Synecdoche, New York
- Zodiac
- Oldboy
- Melancholia
- I Am Not Your Negro
- Django Unchained
- Joker
- Wild
- Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
- Primer
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire
- Mustang
- Precious
- Brokeback Mountain
- We Need to Talk About Kevin
- There Will Be Blood
- Coco
- Loving
- Ida
- Akeelah and the Bee
- The Hurt Locker
- Dolemite Is My Name
- Ford vs Ferrari
- Promising Young Woman
- The White Ribbon
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
- Before Sunrise
- Bad Education (La Mala Educación)
- The Witch
- Parasite
- Starred Up
- Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
- The Baader Meinhof Complex
- 12 Years A Slave
- Midsommer
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- Che
- The Edge of Heaven
- Head-On
- Spider-Man 2
- Room
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
- Lion
- Hereditary
- Casino Royal
- Sin Nombre
- Straight Outta Compton
- Dunkirk
- Moonlight
- Nightcrawler
- Toy Story 3
- Inception
- The Handmaiden
- Black Swan
- Bug
- Gomorrah
- Roma
- Birds of Passage
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Beasts of No Nation
- Grizzly Man
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Whiplash
- Wall-E
- Hell or High Water
- Avengers: Endgame
- Batman Begins
- Children of Men
- Chi-Raq
- Arrival
- Black Panther
- The Hateful Eight
- Inglourious Basterds
- Gravity
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Wonder Woman
- Tsotsi
- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
- Spirited Away
- The Secret in Their Eyes
- The Aviator
- The Bourne Identity
- Selma
- Bliss (Mutluluk)
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- The Town
- Son of Saul
- King Kong
- Monster
- A Separation
- Drive
- The Matrix Reloaded
- Pariah
- X-Men: Days of Future Past
- March of the Penguins
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Gone Baby Gone
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
- Frida
- Minari
- Blade Runner 2049
- Maudie
- Soul
- First They Killed My Father
- Novitiate
- One Night in Miami
- Patriots Day
- Little Women
- Amélie
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Watchmen
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- A Prophet
- The Sound of Metal
- Mangrove
- Hunt for the Wilderpeople
And there you have it, dear readers, my list of the top 150 best films of the 21st Century so far. Two decades deep, this century has produced some of the finest art ever to grace the silver screen, and I can’t wait to see how our current era of cinematic innovation and evolution changes the face of filmmaking for decades to come.
I hope you and your families have a safe and happy Memorial Day!
