The Best Films of the 21st Century
The NY Times is doing “Greatest Films of the 21st Century” list and asking for reader votes. This prompted me to do a quick review what I've watched over the past 25 years.
Straight to the point, here is how I voted:
Yi Yi (2000) Edward Yang d/s
The White Ribbon (2009) Michael Haneke d/s
Mulholland Drive (2001) David Lynch d/s
Caché (Hidden) (2005) Michael Haneke d/s
The Great Beauty (2013) Paolo Sorrentino d, Paolo Sorrentino & Umberto Contarello s
The Best of Youth (2003) Marco Tullio Giordana d, Sandro Petraglia & Stefano Rulli s
Code Unknown (2000) Michael Haneke d/s
Before Sunset (2004) Richard Linklater d, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke s
Three Times (2005) Hou Hsiao-hsien d, Hou Hsiao-hsien & Chu Tien-wen s
Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut) (2005) Ridley Scott d, William Monahan s
To compile the list I followed the NYT methodology. I created a long list, then did a head to head on the films until they were ordered. Ultimately, I gave preference to films that provide an interesting perspective on the world, and do so with craft and artistry.
I’ve kept a film diary since 2012 and usually write up a top ten of the year for myself, so some of this was relatively easy to do. Though there are definitely missing films from that diary, I don’t think any would have made the top ten.
Here was the long list:
In The Mood For Love (2000) - Wong Kar-wai
Amour (2012) - Michael Haneke
Tár (2022) - Todd Field
5x2 (2004) - François Ozon
There Will Be Blood (2007) - Paul Thomas Anderson
Michael Clayton (2007) - Tony Gilroy
No Country for Old Men (2007) - Joel & Ethan Coen
Children of Men (2006) - Alfonso Cuarón
Parasite (2019) - Bong Joon-ho
Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo)
The Five Obstructions (2003) - Lars von Trier & Jørgen Leth
Carlos (2010) - Olivier Assayas
Perfect Days (2023) - Wim Wenders
Certified Copy (2010) - Abbas Kiarostami
Millennium Mambo (2001) - Hou Hsiao-hsien
Memories of Murder (2003) - Bong Joon-ho
Killing Them Softly (2012) - Andrew Dominik
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) - Andrew Dominik
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) - Woody Allen
Match Point (2005) - Woody Allen
Rachel Getting Married (2008) - Jonathan Demme
Drive (2011) - Nicolas Winding Refn
Antichrist (2009) - Lars von Trier
Sideways (2004) - Alexander Payne
Inception (2010) - Christopher Nolan
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - Peter Jackson
Gladiator (2000) - Ridley Scott
Personal Shopper (2016) - Olivier Assayas
Black Swan (2010) - Darren Aronofsky
Carol (2015) - Todd Haynes
Zodiac (2007) - David Fincher
It Follows (2014) - David Mitchell
Margaret (2011) - Kenneth Lonergan
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019) - Quentin Tarantino
Since this was a reader survey I had to squeeze in Kingdom of Heaven, Directors Cut into the top ten. I think it is one of the most underrated films of this period and needs a vote.
If I was being more rigorous I’d probably have switched out Kingdom of Heaven for In the Mood for Love. Kingdom of Heaven would be 11. This kind of nitpicking rank is kind of course ridiculous, but thats the game.
The point of these things, I think, is not to assign value to “the best” but to open up questions of value and to reveal differences and similarities of opinion.
And more than anything: to find movies you may not have seen!
I do feel that Gladiator, Memories of Murder, Millennium Mambo, The Five Obstructions, and In The Mood For Love feel like the last hurrah of the 20th Century. I’m not sure why.
Three films from Haneke, two from Hou Hsiao-hsien, two from Ridley Scott, two from Andrew Dominik, two from Woody Allen. Only Tàr and Perfect Days make the cut from films in the past 5 years. I feel I’m somehow missing more Hou, Kiarostami, Assayas. Also curious: three films from 2005 on the top ten and 8 of the 10 films are from before 2005.
The main thing I noticed is a shift away from English language cinema. That’s not to say there haven’t been great films but as time has gone on, fewer are coming from Hollywood, and fewer of them have been in English.
This is often pinned on the loss of the mid-budget film. However, this category of film that is often called “mid-budget” I don’t think is really defined by budget. It’s about the type of storytelling. These films have a focus on being entertaining while at the same time, have something interesting to say about the world. They are made on a budget that is high enough not to restrain the visual storytelling, as well as hire good actors and good writers to work on them. That amount differs from time period to time period and country to country.
Personally, I don’t find a lot of arthouse cinema much fun these days. And this is coming from someone who thinks Michael Haneke is fun (indeed, I think he has good claim to being the greatest living director). A lot of films that seem to get distributed (made?) are miserableist, pretentious and/or meretricious.
That said, there are films made by local industries (particularly the ones with robust local production) that are not - and they are not exported. The major issue is that they are too arthouse to be mainstream because they require subtitles, and too mainstream to succeed as arthouse. South Korea’s back catalogue is filled with these films - particularly if you enjoy thrillers, Memories of Murder and A Hard Day are classic examples that did get distribution. The same is true about France, Japan, South Korea, India, Hong Kong, China and so on.
This could be an opportunity ready to grasp. I will be very interested to see if AI translation and dubbing solves this problem. If you can have Korean actors speak in their own voice, but in English, and have the lips move in sync then… I think quite some of these films could do well in big streaming catalogs - hidden gems waiting to be found.
I’m sure I’m missing stuff but after my quick skim of 25 years of movies, I can’t help but feel it’s been a little bit of an underwhelming 25 years - particularly for Anglo-American filmmaking.
As for the missing - I doubt any of these would make the top ten, but some of these would definitely make a long list. These are films I've not seen, or haven’t seen recently enough to remember them properly.
Under the Skin, Birth, Zone of Interest, A Touch of Sin, Drive my Car, Ten, Syndromes and a Century, Conte de Cinema, Tokyo Sonata, In Another Country, Inherent Vice, Toni Erdmann, Inland Empire, Phantom Thread.