Here is a list of my favorite films from 2000 to 2030. A caveat: I am behind on catching some key films from the last decade, so I will add films to this list over time. As of now, I have seen around 1000 movies from the 2000s, and this list has about 300 of them, with about 50 of them being worthy of “all-time great film” status.
I have watched well over 3000 films across all genres and countries from the start of cinema to the present. While there are exceptions, the quality of film overall has noticeably declined quite a bit, which makes the movies on this list more difficult to justify. If the film is in bold, that means I think it is one of the best films of the twenty-first century so far and belongs in a “must-see” category. As for everything else, a movie made the list if I believe it meets one of the following criteria: quality writing, acting, and directing that may not be “high art” but at least it is not the typical Hollywood schlock; interesting artistically or thematically, even if it does not come together as best as one could hope; solidly funny or delightfully weird.
What have I missed? Tell me some great movies from the past twenty years and I will watch them and (possibly) add them.
To see the films I have watched since 2000, visit my Letterboxd.
To see what I think are the core films in every genre from 1900 to 2000, visit my Must-See Films post.
Ghost World (2001)
2000 Werckmeister Harmonies
2000 Yi Yi
2000 American Psycho
2000 The Sinister Saga of Making The Stunt Man
2000 Traffic
2000 High Fidelity
2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2000 Quills
2000 Memento
2000 Best in Show
2000 Chocolat
2000 In the Mood for Love
2000 Songs from the Second Floor
2000 Requiem for a Dream
2000 Bamboozled
2000 Battle Royale
2001 The Gleaners and I
2001 Monsoon Wedding
2001 Y Tu Mama Tambien
2001 The Piano Teacher
2001 Fat Girl
2001 Kissing Jessica Stein
2001 Snatch
2001 Almost Famous
2001 Super Troopers
2001 How High
2001 Hedwig and the Angry Inch
2001 13 Conversations About One Thing
2001 Wet Hot American Summer
2001 Amelie
2001 Mulholland Drive
2001 Ghost World
2001 Royal Tenenbaums
2001 Ocean’s Eleven
2001 Waking Life
2001 America’s Sweethearts
2001 Zoolander
2002 Real Women Have Curves
2002 Russian Ark
2002 Distant (Uzak)
2002 City of God
2002 Bubba Ho-Tep
2002 Devil's Playground
2002 Death to Smoochy
2002 Punch-Drunk Love
2002 Hero
2002 Adaptation
2002 Frida
2002 Bowling for Columbine
2002 Equilibrium
2002 Naqoyqatsi
2002 Funny Ha Ha
2003 A Mighty Wind
2003 Saraband
2003 Dogville
2003 Memories of Murder
2003 The Triplets of Belleville
2003 Good Bye Lenin!
2003 American Splendor
2003 Love Me If You Dare
2003 Intolerable Cruelty
2003 Born Rich
2003 Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem
2003 Coffee and Cigarettes
2003 Kill Bill: Volume 1
2003 Lost in Translation
2004 Nobody Knows
2004 Tropical Malady
2004 The Dali Dimension
2004 Sideways
2004 Saved!
2004 In the Realms of the Unreal
2004 Kung Fu Hustle
2004 Napoleon Dynamite
2004 Dig!
2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2004 Kill Bill: Volume 2
2004 Mean Girls
2004 EuroTrip
2004 House of Flying Daggers
2004 2046
2004 The Inner or Deep Part of an Animal or Plant Structure
2004 Outfoxed
2004 Supersize Me
2004 I Heart Huckabees
2004 Ray
2004 Moog
2004 Team America: World Police
2004 The Aviator
2004 Crash
2005 Paradise Now
2005 Syriana
2005 Brick
2005 Transamerica
2005 Grizzly Man
2005 The New World
2005 Thank You for Smoking
2005 The Aristocrats
2005 The Devil and Daniel Johnston
2005 The Squid and the Whale
2005 You’re Gonna Miss Me: A Film about Roky Erickson
2005 Match Point
2005 Sin City
2005 Don’t Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrrl
2005 Broken Flowers
2005 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
2005 They’re Made Out of Meat
2005 Ocean’s Twelve
2005 Junebug
2005 The 40-Year-Old Virgin
2005 Waiting
2006 The Wind That Shakes the Barley
2006 The One Percent
2006 Babel
2006 Old Joy
2006 Climates
2006 Pan’s Labyrinth
2006 Paprika
2006 Children of Men
2006 The Departed
2006 Grandma’s Boy
2006 Jesus Camp
2006 Borat
2006 Idiocracy
2006 Little Miss Sunshine
2006 The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema
2006 Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny
2006 For Your Consideration
2006 Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here)
2006 A Scanner Darkly
2006 Delirious
2006 The Prestige
2006 The Illusionist
2006 Inland Empire
2006 An Inconvenient Truth
2006 Private Fears in Public Places
2006 Art School Confidential
2006 The Fall
2007 Encounters at the End of the World
2007 Timecrimes
2007 Water Lilies
2007 The Counterfeiters
2007 Smiley Face
2007 Superbad
2007 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
2007 Persepolis
2007 There Will Be Blood
2007 La Vie en Rose
2007 No Country for Old Men
2007 Ocean’s Thirteen
2007 Ratatouille
2007 Eagle vs. Shark
2007 Hot Fuzz
2007 Sicko
2007 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
2007 King of Kong
2007 Lars and the Real Girl
2008 The Headless Woman
2008 Largo
2008 Let the Right One In
2008 Still Walking
2008 The Beaches of Agnes
2008 Phoebe in Wonderland
2008 Burn After Reading
2008 Synecdoche, New York
2008 Slumdog Millionaire
2008 Che
2008 35 Shots of Rum
2008 In Bruges
2008 Tropic Thunder
2008 Forgetting Sarah Marshall
2008 The Onion Movie
2008 Role Models
2008 Hamlet 2
2008 Cadillac Records
2009 The New Tenants
2009 Logorama
2009 The Road
2009 Dogtooth
2009 About Elly
2009 Fish Tank
2009 Air Doll
2009 Antichrist
2009 Mary and Max
2009 The Secret of Kells
2009 Capitalism: A Love Story
2009 The Limits of Control
2009 The White Ribbon
2009 Notorious
2009 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
2009 Pirate Radio
2009 Inglourious Basterds
2009 In the Loop
2009 (Untitled)
2009 A Serious Man
2009 I Love You, Man
2009 World’s Greatest Dad
2009 Black Dynamite
2009 Funny People
2010 The Illusionist
2010 In Space
2010 True Grit
2010 Another Year
2010 Cave of Forgotten Dreams
2010 Restrepo
2010 Four Lions
2010 Tabloid
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
2010 Beginners
2011 Tomboy
2011 Bridesmaids
2011 The Tree of Life
2011 Midnight in Paris
2011 Bernie
2011 I Wish
2011 The Artist
2011 Le Havre
2011 Into the Abyss
2011 A Separation
2011 Samsara
2011 The Turin Horse
2011 Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2011 Melancholia
2011 The Story of Film: An Odyssey
2012 Amour
2012 Electrick Children
2012 Frances Ha
2012 Moonrise Kingdom
2012 The Master
2012 Spring Breakers
2012 No
2012 Gimme the Loot
2012 Django Unchained
2012 The Perks of Being a Wallflower
2012 The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology
2012 Holy Motors
2012 Post Tenebras Lux
2012 To the Wonder
2012 Seven Psychopaths
2012 Magic Mike
2012 GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling
2012 The Artist Is Present
2012 Kauwboy
2013 Blue Jasmine
2013 Her
2013 This Is the End
2013 Mother of George
2013 The Wolf of Wall Street
2013 Only Lovers Left Alive
2013 Inside Llewyn Davis
2013 12 Years a Slave
2013 A Field in England
2013 Snowpiercer
2013 Inequality for All
2013 Jodorowsky’s Dune
2013 The Dance of Reality
2013 Dirty Wars
2013 Ida
2013 Like Father, Like Son
2013 Omar
2013 Blue Is the Warmest Color
2014 Grand Budapest Hotel
2014 While We’re Young
2014 Birdman
2014 Life Itself
2014 Interstellar
2014 The Interview
2014 The Babadook
2014 Winter Sleep
2014 A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
2014 What We Do in the Shadows
2014 Chef
2014 Mr. Turner
2014 Transcendence
2014 Ex Machina
2014 Inherent Vice
2014 Pride
2014 Girlhood
2014 Boyhood
2015 What Happened, Miss Simone?
2015 The Big Short
2015 Irrational Man
2015 Look Who’s Back
2015 Tangerine
2015 Carol
2015 The Lobster
2015 Cemetery of Splendor
2015 Knight of Cups
2015 Entertainment
2015 The Revenant
2015 The Witch
2015 The Hateful Eight
2015 The Second Mother
2015 Youth
2016 Deadpool
2016 Hail, Caesar!
2016 The Occupation of the American Mind
2016 American Honey
2016 Evolution
2016 Moonlight
2016 Reluctantly Queer
2016 20th Century Women
2016 Arrival
2016 Hell or High Water
2016 Keanu
2016 The Founder
2016 Voyage of Time
2016 Paterson
2017 The Incredible Jessica James
2017 The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
2017 I Love You, Daddy
2017 The Florida Project
2018 Eighth Grade
2018 Sorry to Bother You
2018 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
2019 Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2019 Parasite
2019 Midsommar
2019 Booksmart
2019 Hustlers
2019 Uncut Gems
2019 Joker
2019 Knives Out
2020 Shiva Baby
2021 Spencer
2021 Bo Burnham: Inside
2021 Don’t Look Up
2022 The Northman
2022 Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
2022 Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe
2023 American Fiction
2023 Bottoms
2023 Killers of the Flower Moon
2024 Challengers
By Shalon van Tine