The New York Times just recently published its list of the best films of the 21st century and while the list itself is solid, it left out dozens of unforgettable films that have defined cinema in the past two decades—bold experiments, overlooked gems, cult classics, and masterpieces that slipped through the cracks of critical consensus. Since it was a collaboration of 500 artists working within Hollywood, only the most prestige titles made the cut, which normally would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that they had a quarter of a century to pull from. It’s impossible to whittle 25 years down to 100 titles; there were bound to be omissions. Some were baffling, others understandable, but all left us wondering: What about the rest?
This list isn’t a rebuttal—it’s a celebration of what got missed. These are the movies that pushed boundaries, built worlds, broke hearts, or simply did something unforgettable. Some were box office flops, others award-season darlings. Some changed genres, while others created their own. All of them, in their own way, helped shape the cinematic language of the 21st century.
These are the 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century (That Didn’t Make The New York Times’ List).
20. Titane (2021)
I watch movies for two reasons: to feel something, whether it’s a thrilling or emotional response and to see something I’ve never seen before. Plenty of films do the first thing, I mean, action and horror don’t work if there’s no thrills and dramas fall flat if you’re not emotionally invested and few are truly original but I can’t think of many that do both. Titane gave me everything I want from art. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It constantly kept me guessing as to where it was going and it definitely showed me things I had never seen in anything else before.
If all you know about it is “the thing”, I won’t ruin anything by getting into the plot but trust me when I say, it’s far more than just the one thing it will forever be described as. There’s no other film to compare it to, to even pitch it. It has shades of Cronenberg’s Crash mixed with the WTF am I watching feel of insanity of Holy Motors but with an actual human heart at its center. The film isn’t just weird for the sake of weird, there’s a thematic point to everything. I haven’t tied together every symbolic thread but my reading of it is that it’s a story of a father accepting his daughter’s transformation. I won’t go into more than that but the fact that it an actual emotional core, much less a plot, is probably the craziest thing about it. With just two films under her belt, Julia Ducournau has already joined my list of favorite directors.
19. Train to Busan (2016)
Zombies have been done to death, especially over the past couple of decades, so it is tough to get excited over yet another film where a horde of undead attack a group of people. Well, until writer-director Sang-Ho Yeon brought us his glorious Train to Busan. Sometimes the best concepts are the simplest. The film is zombies on a train. That’s it. But that simple change of location makes all the difference in the world. The quickness of the undead combined with a confined location makes the horror unrelenting and the threat inescapable, which in turn makes all the action immediate and the tension unbearable. It also has the best set of characters found in a zombie movie since the original Dawn of the Dead, which raises the stakes even higher. You’re actively rooting for these characters to live, but the film also has no problem killing people off, so knowing every decision they make could be life or death, turns every moment into an edge-of-your-seat experience. It is a pulse-pounding thrill ride with a surprising amount of heart that barely gives you time to catch your breath.
18. The Nice Guys (2016)
Although I would’ve loved to have seen a sequel to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which this was originally supposed to be), I’m glad the project morphed into what it is now. The two films are extremely similar in plot and tone, but The Nice Guys has a couple of things we would’ve lost if it were just a sequel. We wouldn’t have gotten its ’70s setting, we would’ve lost the daughter character (fantastically played by Angourie Rice), and more importantly, we never would have gotten the amazing pairing of Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. The chemistry between these two is off the charts. Both actors are at the top of their game as two mismatched private detectives. One’s a bumbling idiot who relies on luck, and the other is a hulking thug who isn’t afraid to resort to violence. Their rapport is worth the price of admission alone and would almost make this worthy of the list by itself, but good chemistry is nothing without a solid script, and The Nice Guys is Black’s sharpest film to date.
17. In Bruges (2008)
There’s a moment in In Bruges where Colin Farrell, slumped over a beer in a state of depression, states, “If I’d grown up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me… but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.” That single line contains multitudes. It’s funny, mean, existentially sad, politically incorrect, and just Irish enough to count as therapy. Welcome to In Bruges, Martin McDonagh’s blood-soaked confessional booth of a film, where hitmen wrestle with their consciences between pints, prostitutes, and perfectly preserved Gothic architecture.
Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are two hitmen sent to Bruges after a job goes spectacularly, soul-crushingly wrong. Ken, a weary philosopher in a wool coat, wants to soak in the medieval ambiance. Ray, a twitchy goblin with a death wish, wants to drink, shag, and maybe throw himself off a bell tower. They’re both there under the orders of Harry (Ralph Fiennes), a man so tightly wound he makes Voldemort look chill. But In Bruges isn’t really about plot. The narrative is a guilt trip through a fairy tale landscape littered with loaded guns and loaded dialogue. McDonagh, a playwright by trade, treats every conversation like a confession, every joke like a blade, and every silence like a scream. It’s Waiting for Godot if Godot were a cockney psychopath who shoots people for violating honor codes. It’s the funniest movie about hitmen since Pulp Fiction, the movie that proved Colin Farrell was more than just another pretty face, and it acted as proof that McDonagh is a writer to pay attention to.
16. Before Midnight (2013)
Before Midnight is a rarity among sequels, in that it’s a continuation of a love story. A love story that spans three decades. Jesse and Celine (played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, respectively) first crossed paths twenty years ago and fell madly in love but since both were young twentysomethings, they both decided to choose life over love. Ten years later, the two lovers cross paths again and now that they’re older and perhaps wiser, they finally decided to give their story the “happily ever after” it deserves. We catch up with them ten years after that to see where their love has taken them. A perfect end to a perfect trilogy, Before Midnight compliments the first two entries in a way few films have done before or since, in that it tells the entirety of a romance over the course of thirty years. Linklater knew that these films wouldn’t work unless actual time had passed and he was right.
These aren’t the same characters we met in the previous films. They’ve lived an entire lifetime since the last time we saw them and they came out the other side changed but the only thing that remained was the love they had for each other. The Sunrise Trilogy is more than just a story of two people in love, it’s a thorough examination of love itself. Why we can’t choose who we love, why time is unfortunately more important than compatibility and how amazing it feels to be loved and in love. The thirty-year saga of Jesse and Celine is the ultimate love story, with Before Midnight being it’s most emotionally powerful chapter.
15. Incendies (2010)
Have you ever watched a movie that feels like getting punched in the soul? Not the heart. Not the gut. The soul. That part of you that quietly hopes the world isn’t as cruel as history says it is. Incendies doesn’t just punch it, it locks it in a war-torn cell, hands it a letter written in blood, and whispers, “The truth won’t set you free, it’s just another level of hell.”
Before he started sending sandworms into space and making existential thrillers out of alien linguistics, Denis Villeneuve made this emotional masterpiece that’s a mystery that probably shouldn’t be solved. When Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabaldies) dies, she leaves her twins—Jeanne and Simon—with two letters: one for the father they thought was dead, and one for a brother they never knew existed. Their mission? Travel to an unnamed Middle Eastern country (Lebanon in all but name), peel back the layers of her life, and find out just how deep the rabbit hole of their mother’s past goes.
What starts as a family drama turns into a political thriller, then a horror movie, and finally, a tragedy of biblical proportions. It’s Oedipus with AK-47s. It’s The Searchers, but instead of cowboys, you’ve got snipers and secret prisons. And it’s brutal. Not in the blood-and-guts way (though there is that), but in the emotional napalm sense. The kind of movie where even the happiest moments feel like the breath before a landmine goes off. If all you know about Villeneuve is his work within blockbuster IP, go back and watch his work before he became the biggest director working today, and marvel at the stories he used to be interested in telling. They’re far more unforgettable than what he’s doing now and arguably better.
14. Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
Some movies defy genre. Others break it over their knee, kick it through a wall, and then dance on its corpse with cartoon sound effects. Not since Raimi made a little horror movie in the woods with his friends for five dollars has a director tried harder to make a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon. Kung Fu Hustle doesn’t play by the rules—it dropkicks the rulebook into the stratosphere while dressed like a 1940s gangster and humming a classical Chinese opera. Directed, written by, and starring Stephen Chow (Hong Kong’s undisputed king of slapstick), this movie is The Matrix if it got drunk, watched Drunken Master, and decided to become a Saturday morning cartoon. This is a symphony of stylized violence, flying fists, and visual gags so wild they make Road Runner look restrained. If Shaolin Soccer was Chow’s warm-up, Kung Fu Hustle is him going full tilt boogey and somehow, it works.
Sing (Stephen Chow) is a small-time grifter who wants to join the Axe Gang because being good gets you nowhere, and evil gets you dance numbers. But Pigsty Alley, the neighborhood he tries to hustle, is hiding some secrets. And by secrets, I mean retired kung fu legends disguised as a landlord, a tailor, and a barefoot noodle-slinging goddess with a cigarette permanently stuck to her lip. What follows is a genre blender of wuxia wirework, Jackie Chan-style slapstick, Sergio Leone standoffs, Western gangster films, and about five solid minutes of Looney Tunes physics where people turn into Road Runner dust clouds and get punched so hard they leave human-shaped holes in walls. And yet—through all the gags and chaos—it flows. Like a martial arts ballet choreographed by a lunatic with a sense of humor and an encyclopedic love of cinema. Stephen Chow is a madman unafraid to push the limits of cinematic reality to their breaking point. He directs action like he’s trying to outdo every kung fu movie ever made, and makes you laugh until your ribs crack.
13. Inside Out (2015)
While it was nowhere near as bad as the ’80s were for Disney, the 2010s were not a great decade for Pixar. Of the eleven films they released, only four were non-sequels, and of those four, only two were good. With each new cash grab sequel and mediocre entry they released, their reputation as the world’s greatest animation studio was becoming less and less ironclad. Just when everyone thought they had lost their ability to make original films filled with magic and emotion, they proved everyone wrong. Enter Inside Out— a film that’s literally nothing but emotion.
Set inside the mind of an eleven-year-old girl, the film follows Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), and some other emotions as they try and deal with the little girl’s uncontrollable mood swings and unpredictable mental state. By making the emotions characters and putting them front and center, the film joins Winnie the Pooh as the only children’s films that I can think of to address the topic, and in the case of Inside Out, the only one that tells children it’s okay to be sad.
12. The Fall (2006)
Within every genre, there’s a debate over which film is the best representation of that specific genre. Star Wars and Star Trek nerds have been arguing over which film is the best science fiction story for decades, Freddy heads and Jason fans fight over which is the best slasher and so on and so forth. My point being, no one can ever agree what is the best of any type of film because each genre has its own passionate fans. While it most certainly has its share of diehard defenders, few would claim that The Fall is the best fantasy but I doubt anyone would disagree with it owning the title of the most visually arresting film of all time. Makoto Shinkai is the only director to ever make anything as eye poppingly gorgeous and he’s an animator. There’s just nothing else that can even compete. From the impeccable costumes; breathtaking cinematography, which was shot in over 20 countries, including India, Italy, and South Africa, showcasing a variety of landscapes and architecture and its stark black and white scenes that — while used sparingly, leave an impression — everything about Tarsem Singh’s magnum opus is designed to look as opulent as possible.
The story is set in a Los Angeles hospital in the 1920s, where a bedridden stuntman named Roy Walker (Lee Pace) forms an unlikely friendship with a young girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), who is recovering from a broken arm. Roy, depressed and suicidal after a serious injury, begins to tell Alexandria an epic tale of five heroes on a quest for revenge against an evil governor named Odious. As the film progresses, the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur. Roy’s motivations for telling the story become more apparent; he manipulates the narrative to persuade Alexandria to steal morphine for him in a bid to end his own life. The fantastical story and the reality of Roy’s despair intertwine, leading to a climax where Alexandria’s belief in the heroes helps her confront the challenges she faces in her own life. It’s a story filled with emotional depth that has visuals you’ll never forget. It’s like going to the Wonka factory and leaving with your heart broken and your emotional intelligence changed forever. There’s simply nothing else like it.
11. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is like an amazing sandwich: The Fellowship of the Ring is the perfect set up and The Return of the King nails the landing but the best shit is in the middle. While not the best analogy in the world (comparing the 1st and 3rd to pieces of bread, really undercuts the quality of those films), there is a kernel of truth to it. The Two Towers is unquestionably the beating heart of the franchise, for one reason and one reason alone: Gollum.
He isn’t the protagonist, nor is he the only one with a character arc, but the tragedy of Gollum is the most powerfully emotional through line in the series. Wrought with pathos and morally complex, Andy Serkis does Oscar-worthy work in making you despise and sympathize with Gollum in equal measure, and while the CGI has shown its age over the years, at the time, you fully bought into the reality of this digital creation. You didn’t see an animated monster running around; you saw a fully fleshed-out character. This is a testament to the outstanding work done by Serkis. His performance alone puts this above the first movie, and the magnificent battle of Helm’s Deep trumps anything in Return.
10. The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
As fun as Colin Farrell is in In Bruges, The Banshees of Inisherin is the actor’s best work by a country mile. Reteaming him with his co-star from that film did a lot to draw out a performance this good, since he has a partner that can return serve, but the lion’s share of credit belongs to writer/director Martin McDonagh, his greatest collaborator. Yorgos Lanthimos and Farrell have done some incredible work together, but McDonagh just seems to get him. They click in a way Sam Jackson and Tarantino click or Bill Murray and Wes Anderson do. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite cinematic partnerships.
I never thought they’d top In Bruges, and this clears that handedly, so if they can somehow top this, they have a top 100 masterpiece on their hands. That’s how good this movie is. It’s a political allegory, a darkly funny fable, and a unique spin on the break-up movie all rolled up in one. As impressive as juggling three balls is at once, McDonagh one-ups himself by somehow making both characters relatable and sympathetic at the same time. Even as the stakes continue to rise and both men have suffered losses because of the other, you still understand their point of view. Neither character is right nor is he wrong; they’re just doing what’s best for themselves. Is it selfish to end a friendship because of unfulfilled dreams? Is it wrong to be satisfied with a boring yet simple life? The film provides no answers, but the way it asks the questions will stick with me for a long time.
9. Drive (2011)
If I controlled the dictionary, I would replace the definitions of certain words with just pictures or gifs because while those old fucks Merriam and Webster have done a pretty solid job thus far, Refn rewrote the meaning of cool with Drive. Instead of reading some long-winded definition by some old geezer, future generations need to only look at a 4-minute clip of Gosling driving a cool car in his Scorpio Rising-inspired jacket, toothpick in mouth, while Nightcall plays on the radio, to understand what cool means.
Drive isn’t just a cool movie; it is cool. It is the cinematic embodiment of cool. It’s a film that does the ol’ Patrick Swayze, “one for him, one for her” combo, but in the same movie. It is a visceral action film with a good amount of violence and car chases, which appeals to the fellas, but it also has a tender, unrequited love story for the ladies. It has the sexy guy from The Notebook (for the ladies) brutally stomp to death some assassins (for the guys) in order to protect a girl he likes (again, for the ladies). Few films can merge two different genres that appeal to both men and women, but Drive does so effortlessly. It’ll make you wince, it’ll make you swoon, but more importantly, it’ll make you go out and buy the soundtrack and that jacket to get just a modicum of the film’s coolness.
8. Battle Royale (2000)
Before American teens were forced to pretend that The Hunger Games was edgy, there was Battle Royale—the granddaddy of all teens-killing-each-other-for-sport media. And unlike its Hollywood descendants, this film doesn’t blink, doesn’t flinch, and doesn’t pretend it’s a metaphor for hope. It’s a boot to the face wrapped in a school uniform. It’s Lord of the Flies with GPS collars and semi-automatics. Battle Royale is what happens when a dystopia stops monologuing and just pulls the trigger. It’s punk rock cinema soaked in blood, betrayal, and the bitter aftertaste of a society that eats its young. Quentin Tarantino picked it as the number 1 movie he wished he had made since he became a filmmaker in 1992. That should tell you how violent and clever it is.
In Battle Royale, the government, tired of youth rebellion, passes the BR Act: once a year, a randomly selected class of 9th graders is sent to a remote island, fitted with exploding collars, and forced to murder each other until only one survives. No alliances. No mercy. Just hormones, fear, and weapons distributed like party favors. This time, it’s Class 3-B’s turn. One minute they’re on a field trip, the next they’re in a fascist hellscape run by Beat Takeshi in a tracksuit holding up a chalkboard like he’s announcing karaoke rules, not child slaughter. And that’s part of the genius—everything is absurdly casual. Like, state-sanctioned murder is just another Tuesday.
The kids? A variety of killers, immediate victims, and surprise survivors. Some cry. Some kill. Some form alliances doomed to collapse faster than your high school friend group. Some just wander off to die alone. You’ve got the sweet ones (Noriko and Shuya, the closest the film has to protagonists), the psychos (Kiriyama, a mute Terminator in a schoolboy uniform), and the tragic (Mitsuko, the film’s queen of pain, violence, and weaponized trauma). And somehow, every single one leaves a mark. You may not remember all 42 names, but you’ll feel every death. Battle Royale is pure cinematic nerve. It’s violent, yes. But also poetic. Savage, but weirdly tender. It stares down the abyss of teenage angst and government overreach, then laughs in its face while hurling a knife at your jugular. Since it came out pre-9/11 and pre-Columbine, there’s no way in hell it could ever get made like this now, but thank God it got made when it did.
7. Ex Machina (2014)
Chosen to participate in a ground-breaking experiment, a young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) is tasked with evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid AI to see if she can pass as human. Written and directed by the premier sci-fi filmmaker of the 2010s, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina is a tense, pulpy sci-fi yarn that starts off as a simple Turing test but turns into something more. An examination of what it means to be human and how difficult it would be to prove you actually were, the film raises a lot of interesting questions, and while it doesn’t answer them all, it never feels annoyingly cryptic. It gives the audience a series of difficult math problems and enough resources for them to solve them. It’s smart sci-fi done right.
6. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Some movies, despite their quality, sometimes fall out of the conversation as being amongst the best ever made. When Million Dollar Baby came out, the critical reception was through the roof. Roger Ebert called it the best film of 2004, and he wasn’t alone. Everyone lost their minds over this movie, and now, twenty years later, no one mentions it. Not as one of the best of the decade, not as one of the best sports movies ever made, and it doesn’t even come up when talking about Eastwood’s filmography. It’s like the Men in Black showed up and hit everyone with a neuralyzer, erasing their feelings about this movie. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why it isn’t mentioned along with the greats.
The reason why everyone loved Million Dollar Baby at the time might also be the reason everyone immediately forgot about it—it isn’t a boxing movie. It’s a bait-and-switch gut punch masquerading as an underdog fairy tale. It tricks you into cheering, then blindsides you with existential despair. It walks into the ring all heartwarming and inspirational, and by the final round, it has beaten you bloody with sadness. The film follows Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a waitress who has never thrown a punch in her life but dreams of becoming a boxer. She is poor, Southern, and scrappier than a raccoon in a dumpster fire. She wants to box. She needs to box. She begs grizzled trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) to teach her how to fight. He refuses. She persists. He grumbles. She persists harder. He gives in. Cue the montage. But this isn’t a feel-good story. Without giving away the third act that hits you harder than a freight train, Maggie accomplishes her goal, but it comes at an impossible price. Million Dollar Baby is a love letter to the broken, the battered, and the forgotten. It doesn’t ask if you’re strong enough to fight, it asks if you’re strong enough to let go.
5. Team America: World Police (2004)
Imagine if Thunderbirds was directed by a cocaine-addled George Carlin after binging Michael Bay’s greatest hits and getting into a bar fight with the ghost of Ronald Reagan. That’s Team America: World Police — a movie where America fights terrorism with Broadway ballads, puppet sex, and missile-firing Hummers. It’s not just satire, it’s an obscene marionette war opera soaked in blood, jingoism, and profanity so glorious it should be etched on the side of Mount Rushmore with a flamethrower.
Directed by Trey Parker and written with the same unhinged brilliance that birthed South Park, the movie is a hand-crafted puppet show of global destruction, where the strings are visible, the stakes are absurd, and subtlety was executed in the opening scene for treason. The world is under attack by terrorists, so the U.S. does what it always does in movies written by people who own at least one bald eagle statue: they go full throttle into another country and blow it the hell up. Enter Team America, a jacked-up, over-armed paramilitary squad made entirely of action figures with enough firepower to turn Paris into an ashtray while screaming about freedom. When one of their operatives bites the dust, they recruit Gary, a Broadway actor with a gift for accents, a tortured but hilarious past, and no fighting experience whatsoever. He’s going undercover with the mission to save the world. The weapon? Acting. The price? His dignity.
Team America is satire taken to the extreme and then duct-taped to a rocket to go even further. It skewers everyone — the left, the right, Hollywood, foreign policy, Michael Bay, Michael Moore, Broadway, Sean Penn, Matt Damon, and the concept of tasteful filmmaking. It’s crass. It’s offensive. It’s immature. And yet, it’s smart as hell, hiding razor-sharp political commentary behind fart jokes and puppet gore.
4. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Before The Walking Dead turned zombies into a post-apocalyptic soap opera for dads, before World War Z turned them into parkour ants, Shaun of the Dead waltzed in and, through sheer force of will, single-handedly brought the undead genre back. How? By making them funny. Directed by Edgar Wright (the king of kinetic editing) and co-written with Simon Pegg (who also stars as the world’s most lovable screw-up), Shaun of the Dead is the first entry in the Cornetto Trilogy—a loosely connected hat trick of genre-bending brilliance. But this one? This is the one that turned zombies into relationship therapy with a body count. Shaun is not having a good week. He’s stuck in a dead-end job, his girlfriend just dumped him, his mum treats him like a teenager, and his best friend Ed (Nick Frost) is a farting, belching man-child glued to the couch. And then (because karma is cruel and the undead don’t knock), London gets overrun by zombies.
But Shaun doesn’t rise to the occasion. He bumbles into it. His plan to save everyone? Go to Mum’s. Kill Phil. Grab Liz. Go to the Winchester. Have a nice cold pint. And wait for all of this to blow over. Spoiler: It does not blow over. What follows is a glorious blender of zombie gore, British wit, pitch-perfect parody, and actual character growth. Yes, there’s head-smashing. Yes, there’s gut-chomping. But between the blood and brains is a story about a man finally growing up—using the zombie apocalypse as a crucible for maturity. It’s a quarter-life crisis with zombies, and it absolutely slaps. It’s the kind of movie where you laugh hard the first time, and harder the second because you realize every gag was a setup. Shaun of the Dead is a masterclass in genre-mashing, character-driven storytelling, and how to make you laugh while your heart is quietly breaking. It’s hilarious, heartfelt, and blood-soaked in all the right ways.
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
This is it. The final level.
The boss fight to end all boss fights.
The Return of the King isn’t just the end of a trilogy—it’s the end of an era. The cinematic equivalent of dropping your mic, setting it on fire, and riding an eagle into the sunset while Howard Shore scores your victory lap. Peter Jackson didn’t just stick the landing; he pulled off the impossible and won 11 Oscars while doing it. It’s the crown jewel of the trilogy. The emotional, epic, and occasionally overlong climax to a story that started with a birthday party and ends with the literal reshaping of the world. Frodo and Sam are staggering toward Mount Doom like hungover backpackers in Mordor’s worst Airbnb. Gollum’s whispering sweet nothings about precious things and betrayal. Aragorn finally stops brooding and picks up the sword he was clearly born to swing. Gandalf’s doing wizard shit. Legolas surfs an oliphaunt. And Gimli’s still out here for the short king representation.
Meanwhile, all of humanity, elves, dwarves, and spectral dead dudes team up to buy Frodo time to throw a ring into a volcano. That’s the mission. The entire fate of Middle-earth rests on one hobbit who looks like he hasn’t had a decent meal or nap since film one. And despite it being the most important task in existence, he’s failing. His soul is being slowly eaten by a sentient ring with a whisper kink and a lust for world domination. It’s up to Sam (the real MVP, the ride-or-die potato-loving hero of the franchise) to carry his best friend, emotionally, physically, and narratively, to the end of all things. There’s a siege at Minas Tirith that makes Helm’s Deep look like a minor scuffle. There are elephants the size of small office buildings getting taken out like they’re made of cardboard.
And then—just when you think it’s done—The Mouth of Sauron shows up with more menace in his one rotten tooth than most villains have in a whole trilogy. It’s an epic that redefines what an epic is. And yes, the movie ends. And ends again. And ends again. And then ends five more times just to make sure you felt all the feelings. But after three movies, 11 hours, and more emotional damage than therapy can fix, you earned every last teary farewell. Return of the King is the kind of finale most franchises can only dream of. Grand. Intimate. Epic beyond comprehension. It’s not just the end of a trilogy—it’s a cinematic flex so legendary, it tied Titanic for Oscars and still managed to make you cry over a man saying goodbye to his gardener.
2. Holy Motors (2012)
Less a film and more a series of mini art installations, Leos Carax’s Holy Motors is a film unlike anything else out there. In a world where every possible story has been told over and over again, finding something truly original is a real rarity. Even its detractors, who think it’s pretentious nonsense with no real meaning, have to admit that it’s unique nonsense. There have been cinematic art installations before this (Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series is the definition of self-indulgent) and there will be WTF films released before and after this, but when it comes to WTF art installations, Carax made the definitive version.
We follow 24 hours in the life of a man (Denis Lavant, in an unbelievably great performance) moving from life to life, like an actor performing roles. Each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity. Each one more bizarre than the last. Sometimes he’s a young man, sometimes he’s an old man and sometimes he’s not even a man. The meaning behind the identities is never revealed. Why is he doing this? What does it all mean? I have no idea but I’m left thinking about the Chaplin quote, “We think too much and feel too little.”
1. Synecdoche, New York (2008)
When it comes to the work of Charlie Kaufman, you either think he’s a genius or one of the most pretentious writers working today. There’s almost no in-between with Synecdoche, New York being the perfect litmus test. Roger Ebert named it the best film of the decade, while Rex Reed, Richard Brody, and Roger Friedman all labeled it one of the worst films of 2008. Where you’ll fall depends on the level of enjoyment you get from dissecting motifs, unraveling symbolism, your knowledge of Jungian psychology and postmodernist philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra and simulation, your threshold for surrealism, and your love for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
That checklist alone is about as hipster douchebag pretentious as you can get, so I get it if you just checked out completely but if you managed to make it to the end without your eyes rolling so hard that they popped out of your skull, you most likely subconsciously nodded in appreciation of Philip Seymour Hoffman. There’s not a single cinephile walking the Earth who didn’t love him when he was here and doesn’t miss him now that he’s gone. He was one of the greats, and his performance as ailing theater director Caden Cotard is one of the best he ever gave.
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Were you surprised by which movies made (or didn’t make) The New York Times’ list? Did you agree with my selection? Let us know in the comments below!
