The 100 Best Films of the 2000s: 100 – 76

After you’ve read this part, check out num­bers 75 – 51, 50 – 26 and 25 – 1.

Reg­u­lar vis­i­tors to these pages will know that we often cel­e­brate and reap­praise old­er films: they might be mod­ern clas­sics, under-the-radar gems or works which, for what­ev­er rea­son, have gained deep­er mean­ing or res­o­nance over time. Typ­i­cal­ly these pieces are pegged to notable anniver­saries, and 2020 has so far seen a num­ber of excep­tion­al, era-defin­ing movies reach the 20-year mile­stone, from Christo­pher Nolan’s Memen­to to Mary Harron’s Amer­i­can Psy­cho to Spike Lee’s Bam­boo­zled. Tru­ly, the start of the new mil­len­ni­um was some­thing special.

Hav­ing already sur­veyed the best films of the 1990s and the 2010s, we thought we’d plug the gap and sat­is­fy our (and hope­ful­ly your) nos­tal­gia by check­ing out what the rest of noughties had to offer. Whit­tling these lists down to a lean ton is nev­er a straight­for­ward task, so we’ve enlist­ed the ser­vices of some of our near­est and dear­est con­trib­u­tors to help us come up with a wide-reach­ing – but by no means com­pre­hen­sive – sur­vey of what the world of cin­e­ma looked liked two decades ago.

The fol­low­ing rank­ing is not intend­ed as a defin­i­tive canon – we sim­ply hope it stim­u­lates some debate and prompts you to revis­it and pos­si­bly dis­cov­er some great films. To keep things inter­est­ing, we’ve lim­it­ed our­selves to just one film per direc­tor. Think we’ve missed some­thing? Share your favourite movies of the 2000s with us @LWLies

For his last State­side project before an extend­ed Euro­pean sojourn, Bri­an De Pal­ma – that imp­ish cin­e­mat­ic inter­roga­tor of con­tent through form – was hand­ed the keys to Disney’s dig­i­tal play chest. A return to the genre roman­ti­cism of The Untouch­ables and one of the great CG-dri­ven spec­ta­cles, it’s a reflex­ive com­men­tary on artistry and cre­ativ­i­ty through FX in ser­vice of a god-killing cre­ation myth. Of course, it bombed, but it’s hard to imag­ine anoth­er block­buster this sub­ver­sive com­ing out of the Mouse House again any time soon. Matt Thrift

Chart­ing the respec­tive rise and fall of Amer­i­can psych-revival groups The Dandy Warhols and The Bri­an Jon­estown Mas­sacre, Ondi Timoner’s 2004 rock­u­men­tary is a riv­et­ing por­trait of ego and hubris, cen­tred around the not-so-friend­ly rival­ry between band lead­ers Court­ney Tay­lor-Tay­lor and Anton New­combe. Cap­tur­ing moments of shame­less excess, uniron­ic brava­do and comi-trag­ic self-sab­o­tage, Dig! plays out like a real-life Spinal Tap, a sober­ing, fre­quent­ly obscene cau­tion­ary tale that shows what life is real­ly like behind the music. It’s enough to make any­one want to put down their gui­tar and take up gar­den­ing. Adam Wood­ward

The third film from M Night Shya­malan is anoth­er sub­dued genre piece (again set in Penn­syl­va­nia) about grief and faith. Though often sil­li­er than his pre­vi­ous works (and Mel Gib­son is per­haps a strange choice for a timid for­mer rev­erend) there’s sim­ple pow­er in that restora­tion of faith, even among events that should shat­ter it entire­ly. It stands as one of the best alien inva­sion films of that decade by (most­ly) let­ting those events play out in the back­ground of its inti­mate, emo­tion­al char­ac­ter study. Kam­bole Campbell

For a few years, before his move into tele­vi­sion, Ti West was one of the bright young things of Amer­i­can hor­ror. Said rep­u­ta­tion rest­ed on 2011’s The Innkeep­ers and this 16mm mar­vel from 2009. Set in 1983 and shot to look as though it could have been made then too – all soft light­ing and soft fur­nish­ings – it’s a rare pas­tiche than eschews a know­ing wink for straight-faced rev­er­ence, its craft bely­ing its mere $900k bud­get. Great Ger­wig eats, while Jocelin Don­ahue gets her Rosemary’s Babysit­ter on. Nota bene: If Tom Noo­nan offers you $400 for a night’s work and says he’s going to make things as pain­less as pos­si­ble… MT

Steve Coogan’s vir­tu­oso role (beyond Alan Par­tridge) was Tony Wil­son aka ​“Mr Man­ches­ter”, the music impre­sario at the cen­tre of the ​’80s and ​’90s indie boom. He breaks the fourth wall in Michael Winterbottom’s glo­ri­ous, free­wheel­ing com­e­dy-dra­ma biopic that ener­get­i­cal­ly rolls through boom and bust, and bus­tles with well-cast leg­ends of the scene. Sean Har­ris as Ian Cur­tis is a stand out. Sophie Monks Kaufman

This Ital­ian gang­ster epic stormed the fes­ti­val cir­cuit with Kalash­nikovs blaz­ing, ready to show its slick Amer­i­can cousins how it’s done. Mat­teo Gar­rone braids five threads of plot – a teen eager for ini­ti­a­tion, a tai­lor with a life-or-death predica­ment, a moral­ly cloudy mon­ey­man – into one com­pre­hen­sive image of organ­ised crime and the blood­stains it leaves all over Napoli­tana soci­ety. Gar­rone doesn’t skimp on the sur­face plea­sures of his genre, how­ev­er, his whack­ings every bit as dev­il­ish­ly cathar­tic as Mar­tin Scorsese’s or Fran­cis Ford Coppola’s. Charles Bramesco

A few years after the death of Shin­taro Kat­su, the actor respon­si­ble for bring­ing Zato­ichi – the blind, cane-sword wield­ing masseuse – to life across some 25 fea­tures and 100 episodes of tele­vi­sion, the char­ac­ter was res­ur­rect­ed by Takeshi Kitano, who took the Sil­ver Lion at Venice in the process. While it’s arguably his best known film, in ret­ro­spect it feels like a tran­si­tion­al work, bridg­ing the coiled for­mal­ism of his ​’90s pic­tures with the zany exper­i­men­ta­tion that would come in the lat­ter half of the ​’00s. Takeshi sticks to the series tem­plate but swerves pas­tiche, bring­ing a per­cus­sive, syn­co­pat­ed musi­cal­i­ty – includ­ing a cur­tain call dance num­ber – to moments of lev­i­ty amid the rain­storms of CG claret. MT

Michael Mann took a cop pro­ce­dur­al steeped in cheesy ​’80s zeit­geist and dragged it into the present with a top-to-bot­tom dig­i­tal makeover. Not every­one respond­ed to the motion-smoothed high-gloss arti­fice, but his star­tling new aes­thet­ic con­tains snatch­es of futur­is­tic beau­ty unlike any­thing the cin­e­mat­ic medi­um has pro­duced before or since. The grunge-met­al sound­track and fiend-for-moji­to one-lin­ers turned some view­ers off, but Mann’s bold cre­ative choic­es earned him a cult that con­tin­ues to grow today. CB

Rita Azeve­do Gomes’ dream­like sec­ond fea­ture tells of an impos­si­ble love. João (Bruno Ter­ra) and Vera (Maria Gonçalves) appear to have it all: lov­ing fam­i­lies, close friends and space to call their own. But their devo­tion to each oth­er is absolute, and so they decide to leave every­thing behind in search of their own Eden, relo­cat­ing to a remote for­est. Gomes’ impres­sion­is­tic fairy tale – filmed in sepia-tinged mono­chrome with occa­sion­al bursts of colour – is a stun­ning evo­ca­tion of the all-con­sum­ing, tran­scen­dent nature of young love, a theme the direc­tor would return to in 2018’s A Por­tugue­sa. AW

The film that made Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal a star gives BDSM fans a hap­py end­ing, in this elon­gat­ed adap­ta­tion of Mary Gaitskill’s brit­tle short sto­ry. James Spad­er is the pre-Chris­t­ian Grey man-of-means-with-uncon­ven­tion­al-tastes. His chem­istry with Gyl­len­haal is absorb­ing, but this is Maggie’s film, and she embod­ies every inch of her character’s curi­ous flesh with flushed panache. SMK

It’s a crime that Court­ney Hunt has only man­aged to get one film made in the 12 years since she announced her­self with this sear­ing debut, star­ring Melis­sa Leo as a des­per­ate sin­gle moth­er whose hard­ened exte­ri­or match­es the frost-bit­ten set­ting. Tempt­ed into ille­gal­ly traf­fick­ing peo­ple across the bor­der from Cana­da after her hus­band runs off with the down­pay­ment on their mobile home, Leo’s Ryan does what­ev­er it takes to pro­tect her chil­dren as Hunt exam­ines the thorny moral and legal impli­ca­tions of her actions. A sur­vival sto­ry to savour. AW

Based on her graph­ic nov­el of the same name, which in turn was based on her own child­hood, Perse­po­lis’ unique style and per­spec­tive places it among the best and most valu­able pieces of ani­ma­tion of the decade. Like its source the film unfolds in black and white, mix­ing expres­sion­ist visu­als with a punk­ish atti­tude as it nav­i­gates Mar­jane Satrapi’s com­plex iden­ti­ty. It’s brisk and sharp and fun­ny and affect­ing, encom­pass­ing all the great and small dra­mas of a whole life­time. KC

The many faces of mod­ern hero­ism is a sub­ject that has obsessed Clint East­wood for much of the 21^st cen­tu­ry. Despite the fact that Flags of our Fathers is osten­si­bly a war movie, it takes place on taint­ed Amer­i­can soil, as the deci­sion is made to ​“print the leg­end” when it comes to par­lay­ing the icon­ic prop­er­ties of a pho­to­graph­ic depic­tion of a flag rais­ing at the Bat­tle of Iwo Jima into patri­ot­ic pro­pa­gan­da. It’s about lies and manip­u­la­tions at the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment – also one of Big Clint’s major bug­bears. David Jenk­ins

There is chem­istry and rival­ry from the moment that Mon­i­ca and Quin­cy meet on the bas­ket­ball pitch aged 12. Gina Prince-Bythe­wood traces the con­tours of their rela­tion­ship cen­tring it with­in fam­i­lies and the pres­sures of the game, as time makes every­thing more loaded. Gen­tle obser­va­tions pow­er this map of grow­ing pains, with auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal tid­bits adding ten­der speci­fici­ty. SMK

Dar­ren Aronof­sky announced him­self in strik­ing fash­ion with 1998’s Pi, but it was his gru­elling addic­tion dra­ma, based on the nov­el by Hubert Sel­by Jr, that cement­ed his rep­u­ta­tion. Star­ring the impos­si­bly beau­ti­ful trio of Jared Leto, Jen­nifer Con­nel­ly and Mar­lon Wayans as young junkies who fall deep­er into their addic­tion and despair. But it’s vet­er­an Ellen Burstyn’s sto­ry­line as the retired house­wife who unwit­ting­ly becomes addict­ed to amphet­a­mines try­ing to lose weight that ele­vates the film about your bog stan­dard drugs-are-bad warn­ing film. Anna Bogut­skaya

The Dubya years were beg­ging for a satirist like Sacha Baron Cohen, who need­ed to do lit­tle more than hold out his micro­phone for Amer­i­ca to tell on itself. As mishap-prone Kaza­kh reporter Borat Sagdiyev, he coaxed out the con­de­scen­sion, anger, and out­right big­otry smoul­der­ing beneath the placid sur­face of polite soci­ety with unscript­ed on-the-fly pranks — while still leav­ing ample space for a high­ly chore­o­graphed nude wrestling match that can nev­er be unseen. Very nice! CB

The high­est achieve­ment for a film is to become a whole sub-genre. Bat­tle Royale inspired a wave of enter­tain­ment where a select group of peo­ple kill each oth­er off, until a sin­gle vic­tor remains. Set in a dystopi­an future, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment has cre­at­ed a high­ly organ­ised, bloody bat­tle-to-the-death sys­tem to man­age the nation’s unruly youth. Bat­tle Royale is pure car­nage, but at the cen­tre of it is the uni­ver­sal ten­sion between gen­er­a­tions. AB

Australia’s fore­most cin­e­mat­ic ethno­g­ra­ph­er, Rolf de Heer, shared direct­ing duties on 2006’s Ten Canoes with the promi­nent Abo­rig­i­nal fig­ure Peter Dji­girr, begin­ning a fruit­ful cre­ative part­ner­ship between the pair. We’re trans­port­ed back to a time before Euro­pean set­tlers had reached the con­ti­nent, ini­tial­ly observ­ing a group of Yol­ngu natives on a hunt­ing expe­di­tion. What unfolds is a spir­i­tu­al and fre­quent­ly humor­ous cel­e­bra­tion of an ancient com­mu­ni­ty erased by coloni­sa­tion. Nar­rat­ed in Eng­lish by David Gulpilil (anoth­er or de Heer’s reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tors), this was the first Aus­tralian fea­ture shot entire­ly in indige­nous lan­guages. AW

Although of late he’s more inter­est­ed in mak­ing slick polit­i­cal movies based on cur­rent events, Adam McKay’s finest work is the 2008 com­e­dy Step Broth­ers, which stars Will Fer­rell and John C Reil­ly as two adult men forced togeth­er when their par­ents mar­ry. The slap­stick juve­nil­i­ty of Step Broth­ers resem­bles McKay’s past work on Anchor­man and Tal­lade­ga Nights, but there’s some­thing won­der­ful­ly pure about this tale of (step-)brotherly love, not to men­tion how infi­nite­ly quotable the (large­ly impro­vised!) script is. See­ing Will Fer­rell belt out ​‘Por Ti Volare’ nev­er fails to bring a tear of joy to my eye. HW

Few nar­ra­tive films evoke the col­lec­tive trau­ma of the Holo­caust more poignant­ly or poet­i­cal­ly than Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky’s Wer­ck­meis­ter Har­monies. Based on the 1989 nov­el ​‘The Melan­choly of Resis­tance’ by Lás­zló Krasz­na­horkai, whose stark, dystopi­an themes are a per­fect fit for Tarr’s doom-laden cin­e­ma (1990’s Sátán­tangó was based on anoth­er of his books, and he lat­er co-wrote the screen­play for 2011’s The Turin Horse), the film fol­lows a provin­cial post­man whose snow­bound vil­lage becomes blan­ket­ed in hys­te­ria fol­low­ing the arrival of a mys­te­ri­ous trav­el­ling cir­cus. AW

Avatar’s free-fall in pub­lic opin­ion over the 11 years since its release speaks more to the seis­mic shifts in the pop-cul­tur­al land­scape than it does to any­thing with­in the film itself, the same demo­graph­ic that crowned it king of the box office now deem­ing it at best a pari­ah, at worst an exis­ten­tial threat to their very iden­ti­ty. James Cameron’s mas­ter­class in world-build­ing and action con­struc­tion could nev­er be green-lit today, with no reli­able prece­dents to excite the mono­lith­ic stu­dios nabobs. It’s a mug’s game to bet against Cameron’s track record – so roll on 2022, when we can once again hold up the set-pieces of a mas­ter film­mak­er against those algo­rith­mi­cal­ly-gamed by Casa Mar­vel. There’s only one endgame we’re inter­est­ed in. Ooh-rah. MT

If Paul Thomas Ander­son changed how audi­ences saw Adam San­dler, Michel Gondry changed how they saw Jim Car­rey. In a depar­ture from his larg­er-than-life com­e­dy per­sona, he plays the intro­vert­ed Joel Bar­ish, who falls in love with Kate Winslet’s defin­i­tive man­ic pix­ie dream girl Clemen­tine Kruczyn­s­ki. The non-lin­ear script writ­ten by Char­lie Kauf­man details their romance’s rise and fall, inves­ti­gat­ing whether ​“I wish I’d nev­er met you” is a max­im worth pur­su­ing. HW

At once a doc­u­men­tary, mem­oir and psy­cho­geo­graph­ic essay film from Guy Maddin, My Win­nipeg takes a droll stroll through the per­son­al his­to­ry of the sin­gu­lar Cana­di­an auteur’s ​“always win­ter, always sleepy” home­town. ​“Who gets the chance to vivi­sect their own child­hood?” he asks, before mount­ing a for­mal col­lage of archive footage, rear pro­jec­tions, silent and ani­mat­ed rec­ol­lec­tions of a child­hood real and imag­ined. It’s a heart­felt, minor key city sym­pho­ny of sorts too, that takes in every­thing from the 1919 Gen­er­al Strike to occult mason­ic rit­u­als, all in just 80 min­utes. A minia­ture won­der. MT

This, in its own ram­bling, ambling way, is a road trip movie that heads right down into the human psy­che. With the use of brain-fraz­zling Roto­scope ani­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, devel­oped sole­ly for the cre­ation of this film, Lin­klater allows us to ear­wig on var­i­ous con­ver­sa­tions which touch on dream log­ic, phi­los­o­phy, pol­i­tics and film the­o­ry, while remain­ing in the com­pa­ny of a kind­ly slack­er who doesn’t appear to be able to wake from this lucid, frag­men­tary dream. It’s a part­ner pic­ture to his exquis­ite corpse break­through, Slack­er, and, to lean on that old cliché, it’s a film that real­ly makes you think. DJ

In small­town Roma­nia cir­ca 1987, two young women endeav­our to pro­cure an abor­tion. Between the fact that the pro­ce­dure is ille­gal, its pro­hib­i­tive cost, the dif­fi­cul­ty of secur­ing a hotel room for the oper­a­tion, and a lech­er­ous doctor’s own demands, this proves much more eas­i­ly said than done. It’s not all that easy to watch, either; Cannes crowds hailed Cris­t­ian Mungiu’s unspar­ing neo­re­al­ism as a tri­umph, albeit one forged from excru­ci­at­ing pain. CB