The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century?
‘The New York Times’ just put out their list of the Top 100 Films of the 21st Century. And while the NYT isn’t quite as credible of a source as Showtime with Shane, I decided to write about some of my reactions to their list, as well as do my favorite thing to do with lists of movies… talks about some statistics.
I won’t be posting the full list in this article, but if you want that full list, I’ve compiled it (in order) on Letterboxd HERE. I found it interesting that they did release their list ordered from 1-100, but appreciate the extra effort put in. One thing I should mention is that I haven’t actually read the article because I don’t have a NYT subscription, so maybe they address some of my issues in that article. But sorry, there’s a paywall.
I guess the first thing I’ll discuss is the split between years. This list starts in the year 2000, but appears to have a cut off of 2023 as no films from 2024 or 2025 appear (I completely understand the exclusion of ‘25 films, though I think ‘24 films should have been included). Personally I think the films that will go down as some of the best of 2024 that could have been included are ‘Conclave,’ ‘Dune: Part Two,’ & ‘Challengers,’ among others. That being said, there were actually very few films from the 2020s in general, with only 8 total. A few other 2020s films I think deserve to be on the list are ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ ‘Barbie,’ ‘The Banshees of Inisherin,’ and even though it may be premature, ‘Sinners.’ Okay, now to the actual splits:
2000: 9 films, making the turn of the century year the most represented on the list
2001: 7 films
2002: 4 films
2003: 4 films
2004: 3 films
2005: 2 films
2006: 7 films
2007: 6 films
2008: 4 films
2009: 5 films
2010: 3 films
2011: 5 films
2012: 4 films
2013: 6 films
2014: 5 films
2015: 3 films
2016: 3 films
2017: 5 films
2018: 3 films
2019: 4 films
2020: 0 films (I have no idea what happened in 2020 for it to get 0 films)
2021: 1 film
2022: 3 films
2023: 4 films
If you take a look at the 9 main genres of film (as established by me), there is a pretty unsurprising split between the genres. I will list out the films for the more underrepresented genres:
Action- 8
Animated- 4 (‘Spirited Away,’ ‘WALL-E,’ ‘Up,’ & ‘Ratatouille’)
Comedy- 26
Documentary- 3 (‘The Act of Killing,’ ‘The Gleaners and I,’ & ‘Grizzly Man’)
Drama- 43
Fantasy- 2 (‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ & ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings’)
Horror- 3 (‘Get Out,’ ‘Let the Right One In,’ & ‘Black Swan’)
Sci-Fi- 9
Western- 2 (‘No Country for Old Men’ & ‘Brokeback Mountain’)
While I do think it was obvious Drama would lead the way, with Comedy being the clear second, I still feel as though the other genres were neglected pretty heavily. If you combine the ‘genre film’ genres (Action, Fantasy, Horror, & Sci-Fi), you only get 22 films. That’s insane. You can even add in the 2 Westerns and still not reach Comedy’s 26. Personally, I would’ve excluded Documentaries as a whole, because judging movies against movies of other genres is already difficult enough without now bringing in the factor of a narrative film versus a documentary.
But what feels the most atrocious to me is the lack of Animation, which I think still speaks to how the general public views animation as an inferior form of storytelling (which I’m so opposed to live action remake films). Only 4 animated films is laughable, especially when other great Pixar films from the 21st century exist: ‘Monsters, Inc.,’ ‘Finding Nemo,’ ‘Inside Out,’ ‘Coco,’ & what I’d consider the studio’s best film, ‘Toy Story 3.’ You also have legitimately great non-Pixar animated films like ‘Shrek,’ ‘Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Ware-Rabbit,’ ‘Coraline,’ ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ ‘Rango,’ ‘Frozen,’ ‘Moana,’ ‘Klaus,’ ‘Flow,’ ‘The Wild Robot,’ ‘The Boy and the Heron,’ ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,’ & the ‘Spider-Verse’ films.
Now if you look at the breakdown of subgenres:
Black Comedy- 7 (out of 23 Comedy films)
Coming of Age- 8
Crime- 7
Dystopian- 2 (‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ & ‘Children of Men’)
Legal- 2 (‘Anatomy of a Fall’ & ‘Michael Clayton’)
Martial Arts- 2 (‘Kill Bill: Volume 1’ & ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’)
Mockumentary- 2 (‘Borat’ & ‘Best in Show’)
Musical- 1 (‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’)
Mystery- 2 (‘Mulholland Drive’ & ‘Zodiac’)
Psychological- 5
Romance- 15
Rom Com- 3 (‘Lost in Translation,’ ‘Amélie,’ & ‘Punch-Drunk Love’)
Sports- 1 (‘Moneyball’)
Superhero- 2 (‘The Dark Knight’ & ‘Black Panther’)
Thriller- 4
War- 2 (‘Inglorious Basterds’ & ‘The Hurt Locker’)
When it comes to great directors, some got several entires on the list, which I’ll list momentarily. Something worth noting though is how many modern great directors only had a single entry. Some of those directors with only a single film are Barry Jenkins, Damien Chazelle, David Lynch, Denis Villeneuve, Greta Gerwig, Guillermo del Toro, Hayao Miyazaki, Jordan Peele, Luca Guadagnino, Ridley Scott, Ryan Coogler, Steve McQueen, Steven Soderbergh, Steven Spielberg, & Yorgos Lanthimos. While some of these directors do have admittedly limited filmographies, I think every single one of them has at least one other film that could have been argued onto the list. While others (really just Spielberg) saw most of their more critically successful films come out pre-2000. But the 13 directors who did feature multiple films were:
Ang Lee (2): #16 ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ & #17 ‘Brokeback Mountain’
Bong Joon Ho (2): #1 ‘Parasite’ & #99 ‘Memories of Murder’
Jonathan Glazer (2): #12 ‘The Zone of Interest’ & #69 ‘Under the Skin’
Martin Scorsese (2): #20 ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ & #31 ‘The Departed’
Richard Linklater (2): #23 ‘Boyhood’ & #49 ‘Before Sunset’
Spike Jonze (2): #24 ‘Her’ & #27 ‘Adaptation.’
Wes Anderson (2): #21 ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ & #22 ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’
David Fincher (3): #10 ‘The Social Network,’ #19 ‘Zodiac,’ & #64 ‘Gone Girl’
Quentin Tarantino (3): #14 ‘Inglorious Basterds,’ #44 ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’ & #61 ‘Kill Bill: Volume One’
Alfonso Cuarón (4): #13 ‘Children of Men,’ #18 ‘Y tu mamá también,’ #46 ‘Roma,’ & #97 ‘Gravity’
Coen Brothers (4): #6 ‘No Country for Old Men,’ #36 ‘A Serious Man,’ #76 ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?,’ & #83 ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’
Paul Thomas Anderson (4): #3 ‘There Will Be Blood,’ #25 ‘Phantom Thread,’ #42 ‘The Master,’ & #56 ‘Punch-Drunk Love’
Christopher Nolan (5): #28 ‘The Dark Knight,’ #55 ‘Inception,’ #62 ‘Memento,’ #65 ‘Oppenheimer,’ & ‘#89 ‘Interstellar’ (and I’ll take this as my opportunity to say ‘Interstellar’ should be SIGNIFICANTLY higher)
Some directors who were entirely excluded are Spike Lee, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Chloé Zhao, Clint Eastwood, Ron Howard, James Mangold, Sam Mendes, David O. Russell, & James Cameron, all of whom have one or more films I think a case could be made for. Only 11 female directors made the list, with each of them only making one appearance.
This next portion was the hardest for me to calculate & there is a solid chance it may be inaccurate. What I did was add the top 3 billed actors from each film to a list to see what actors appear the most frequently. These 18 actors appeared in the top 3 billed actors in 2 films: Adam Sandler, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett, Daniel Day-Lewis, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Renner, Jessica Chastain, Kirsten Dunst, Margot Robbie, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michelle Yeoh, Noemie Merlant, Rooney Mara, Scarlett Johansson, & Song Kang-ho.
Then, these 7 actors appear 3 times in the top 3 billed actors: Amy Adams, Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender, Philip Seymour Hoffman, & Sandra Hüller.
But three actors pulled out on top with 4 appearances each across the top 3 billed actors:
Brad Pitt: ‘The Tree of Life,’ ‘Inglorious Basterds,’ ‘Moneyball,’ & ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’
George Clooney: ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?,’ ‘Michael Clayton,’ & ‘Gravity’
Leonardo DiCaprio: ‘The Departed,’ ‘Inception,’ ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’ & ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and make note that Leo is the only one of these three to be the top billed actor in all 4 of his films.
When it comes to film length, it would appear 2 hours is the sweet spot as the average runtime is 124 minutes. The shortest films (I included any 90 min. or under) are ‘Best in Show’ at 90 min., ‘Frances Ha’ at 86 min,’ Borat at 84 min., ‘The Gleaners and I’ at 82 min., & ‘Before Sunset’ drawing the shortest straw at 80 minutes. Surprisingly, only two 3+ hours films made the list: ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ & ‘Oppenheimer’ both of which are a flat 180 minutes.
The average budget size is $37.6 million with 20 films with budgets under $5 million and 13 films with budgets exceeding $100 million. The 5 films with the smallest budget are:
‘A Separation’ at $800,000
‘The Act of Killing’ at $1 million
‘The Florida Project’ at $2 million
‘The Lives of Others’ at $2 million
‘Before Sunset’ at $2.7 million
And the 5 films with the largest budget are:
‘Up’ at $175 million
‘WALL-E’ at $180 million
‘The Dark Knight’ at $185 million
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ at $185.2 million
‘Black Panther’ at $200 million
The average gross of the listed films was $184.8 million with 7 films grossing less than $10 million and 2 films grossing over $1 billion. The 5 lowest grossing films are:
‘The Act of Killing’ at $700,000
‘Yi Yi’ at $1.2 million
‘Grizzly Man’ at $4.1 million
‘Roma’ at $5.1 million
‘Fish Tank’ at $5.9 million
And the 5 highest grossing films are:
‘Inception’ at $839 million
‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ at $887.4 million
‘Oppenheimer’ at $975.8 million
‘The Dark Knight’ at $1.009 billion
‘Black Panther’ at $1.35 billion
A majority of the films were in English, with 75 of the 100 films being English language films. Of the 25 non-English films, the language breakdown is:
Cantonese (1)- #4 ‘In the Mood for Love’
French (6)- #26 ‘Anatomy of a Fall,’ #35 ‘A Prophet,’ #38 ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire,’ #41 ‘Amélie,’ #75 ‘Amour,’ & #88 ‘The Gleaners and I’
German (3)- #12 ‘The Zone of Interest,’ #48 ‘The Lives of Others,’ & #59 ‘Toni Erdmann’
Indonesian (1)- #82 ‘The Act of Killing’
Japanese (1)- #9 ‘Spirited Away’
Korean (3)- #1 ‘Parasite,’ #43 ‘Oldboy,’ & #99 ‘Memories of Murder’
Mandarin (2)- #16 ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ & #40 ‘Yi Yi’
Norwegian (1)- #95 ‘The Worst Person in the World’
Persian (1)- #33 ‘A Separation’
Portuguese (1)- #15 ‘City of God’ which is my personal favorite non-English film
Spanish (4)- #18 ‘Y tu mamá también,’ #46 ‘Roma,’ #54 ‘Pan’s Labyrinth,’ & #80 ‘Volver’
Swedish (1)- #70 ‘Let the Right One In’
The average Rotten Tomatoes score of the 100 films is a very modest 91% with 5 films coming in under 80% and 8 films coming in at 98% or higher. The five lowest are:
‘Anchorman’ at 66%
‘Interstellar’ at 73%
‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ at 78%
‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ at 79%
‘Punch-Drunk Love’ at 79%
While the following films all achieved a 98% (‘Moonlight,’ ‘Get Out,’ ‘Up,’ ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ & ‘Let the Right One In’), the three highest were:
‘Lady Bird’ at 99%
‘Parasite’ at 99%
‘A Separation’ at 99%
Notably there were no films that achieved a 100% despite their being a large number of 21st century films that have earned this score.
The films have been nominated for a cumulative 410 Oscars, winning on 126 of those nominations. Still, there are 21 films that received not a single nomination, with an additional 14 that received only a single nomination. 10 of the films received 10+ nominations, with the most nominations being a two way tie between ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ & ‘Oppenheimer’ are 13 apiece. When it comes to actual wins, the win is this time a three way tie between ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Gravity,’ & ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ at 7 wins each.
36 of the 100 were nominated (but lost) Best Picture at the Oscars, with an additional 10 winners making the list. Since 2000 there have been 25 Best Picture winners, meaning 15 of them didn’t make the cut for this article. Those 15 are:
2001’s ‘A Beautiful Mind’
2002’s ‘Chicago’
2003’s ‘The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’
2004’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’
2005’s ‘Crash’
2008’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’
2010’s ‘The King’s Speech’
2011’s ‘The Artist’
2012’s ‘Argo’
2014’s ‘Birdman’
2017’s ‘The Shape of Water’
2018’s ‘Green Book’
2020’s ‘Nomadland’
2021’s ‘CODA’
2024’s ‘Anora’
This also feels like a good opportunity to bring up one of the most shocking exclusions, 2016’s ‘La La Land’ which received a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations & 6 wins.
Some other random tidbits include:
The most popular film (according to logs on Letterboxd) is ‘Parasite’ which also ranks #1 on the list, while the least popular is the documentary, ‘The Gleaners and I.’
There are a handful of films on the list that have a sequel (e.g. ‘Borat,’ ‘Anchorman,’ ‘Kill Bill Volume One,’ & ‘Ocean’s Eleven’) while there are also three films that are sequels themselves, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ ‘The Dark Knight,’ & ‘Before Sunset.’ There are also two more films that aren’t sequels (but do have them) that I’d put in a different category from the rest, as franchise films; ‘The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring’ & ‘Black Panther.’
Two of the films contained only a single actor in the billing: Sacha Baron Cohen for ‘Borat’ & Scarlett Johansson for ‘Under the Skin.’
Embarrassingly, I’ve only seen 45 out of the 100 movies, which feels like a pretty low number for a guy with a movie blog. Get it together Shane.
