The Best Movie of Every Year of the 21st Century So Far

Until then, labeling anything as the best of the century does require an explicit or implicit mention of things being “so far.” And the following isn't even all the best movies so far, because this ranking has one per year, meaning masterful films like Spirited Away, Children of Men, and Uncut Gems don’t get mentioned, since they came out in years when (arguably) at least one other movie was better. They’re some runners-up. No other runners-up will be mentioned. Please, don’t cry. On with the ranking.

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (2000)

There will not be any disqualifications from here on, in terms of a director only getting one mention for this entire ranking. If someone like Ang Lee directed more than one best film for its respective year, then someone like Ang Lee might get mentioned more than once. Oh, and yeah, Ang Lee is going to get mentioned more than once, with his first mention being the martial arts masterpiece that was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Lee can direct anything, and that includes genre-blenders like this one. And yes, it was just called a martial arts movie, but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is also an adventure film, a fantasy(ish) movie of sorts, a romance, and a surprisingly moving drama all at once, and maybe some other things, too. Both it and 1999’s The Matrix did a great deal to help make martial arts movies popular on a more international scale than ever before, and both still hold up splendidly.

• 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' (2001)

The first movie in The Lord of the Rings trilogy is, from a certain point of view, the best one, but The Return of the King was admittedly the one that won most of the Oscars, and perhaps offered the most in terms of spectacle. But what’s important here is that The Fellowship of the Ring was the best movie of 2001, with The Return of the King perhaps not being the best movie of 2003 (it had some strong competition, though it is still masterful).

As the title suggests, The Fellowship of the Ring is all about the fellowship, and having that core cast of characters to follow before they're split up in the subsequent movies is undeniably satisfying. The Fellowship of the Ring is also a spectacular introduction to Peter Jackson’s take on Middle-earth, and it condenses a great deal of plot, character development, and world-building, rather effortlessly, into a runtime of just under three hours (or a little over, if you watch the extended edition).

• 'City of God' (2002)

City of God kind of functions as a gangster movie, and qualifies as one of the best of all time by that metric. But it’s not your usual sort of gangster film, seeing as the setting here is Rio de Janeiro; specifically, the slums of said city. And the characters are also a little younger than the ones in most gangster movies, with some of the film following them as children, and some of it being focused on their teenage/young adult years.

That makes it function also as something of a coming-of-age movie, and a pretty uncompromising one at that. City of God is not always an easy watch, but it is riveting, never boring, and always rather moving, showing a difficult way of life, and depicting some characters falling victim to it, some trying to escape it, and others thriving within it.

• 'Kill Bill: Vol. 1' (2003)

Those looking for an action movie that starts at 11 (then never really slows down, ending at about 23) should prioritize seeking out Kill Bill: Vol. 1. It’s a little weird to include it and not shout out the also excellent Kill Bill: Vol. 2, but they were released far enough apart to make the first volume a 2003 release, and the second a 2004 release. Also, until Quentin Tarantino finally makes The Whole Bloody Affair more accessible, they're going to remain two separate movies for most.

Rant about the lack of a full cut aside, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is awesome, and one half of Tarantino’s masterpiece that, even in its fractured form, is still immensely satisfying to watch in one sitting. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is relentless with its action and style, giving you enough of a reason to care about the revenge storyline at the center of it all, before Vol. 2 fleshes out the characters who are still standing a little more, making for a quieter – yet still intense – finale.

• 'Spider-Man 2' (2004)

If you want to go over the best superhero movies of the 21st century so far, then Spider-Man 2 ought to be included, if not right at the top of said ranking, then very close to it. It follows Peter Parker post-origin story, so he’s got even more problems to contend with, especially since Spider-Man 2 picks up with him out of high school, and trying to balance his superhero duties with surviving in New York City as a young adult.

Spider-Man (2002) was already pretty great, but Spider-Man 2 is an improvement in just about every way. It’s quite possibly the best thing Sam Raimi has ever directed, which is saying a lot, considering how awesome his three Evil Dead movies also are. Spider-Man 2 is just perfectly paced, funny, moving, relatable, exciting, and still quite hard to fault on a technical front, even 20+ years on from release.

• 'Brokeback Mountain' (2005)

As mentioned before, Ang Lee was going to get mentioned again, and here it is. He also directed Brokeback Mountain a few years on from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it’s similarly masterful. Here, the scope of the film is a little smaller, and it’s also different genre-wise, seeing as Brokeback Mountain is mostly focused on being a romantic drama about a complicated relationship between two men.

They fall in love, but societal pressures – and other parts of their lives – make the continuation of that love both difficult and unlikely. That’s all to say that Brokeback Mountain is inevitably quite sad, but it’s also powerful, extremely well-filmed, and features some incredible performances, most notably from the lead actors here: Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (and it’s not the only classic Ledger starred in from this decade, for a little more foreshadowing).

• 'Pan's Labyrinth' (2006)

Pan’s Labyrinth is the best film of Guillermo del Toro’s directing career to date, even if 2017’s The Shape of Water was more praised come that year’s awards season. Pan’s Labyrinth didn’t manage to win Best Picture, and it didn’t even win Best Foreign Film, either, since 2006 also saw the release of the (admittedly also excellent) The Lives of Others.

2006 was a great year for cinema, essentially, but Pan’s Labyrinth does feel like it stands tall as the greatest of the greats. It’s a dark fantasy movie that also feels like a grim war film, and it’s very moving without ever being too depressing (coming right up to the line, though, it should be stated). There’s beauty and brutality in equal measure, and it’s the sort of film that, once watched, is never really forgotten.

• 'Ratatouille' (2007)

Consistently, throughout much of the 2000s (and some of the 2010s), Pixar was responsible for putting out films that could be considered among the best of their respective years. In the case of Ratatouille, though, Pixar put out the very best of a year; namely, 2007. This film has it all, which is surprising, considering it’s about a rat who wants to be a chef, and the way he puppeteers a clumsy young man by hiding under a chef’s hat and pulling said man’s hair.

It is a movie about a rat cooking, and it is oddly beautiful, funny, moving, and exciting. Ratatouille has a high-concept premise that is somehow properly executed, not merely in a way that resulted in a surprisingly good film, but in a way that resulted in a shockingly perfect one. There are many other great Pixar movies worth exploring, but if you’ve been living under a rock (or a very large chef’s hat) and have somehow not seen any, then Ratatouille might well be the one to start with.

• 'The Dark Knight' (2008)

Most of the Christopher Nolan films that feel close to perfect do not belong to the superhero genre, but The Dark Knight is one of his masterpieces that can be defined as such. Though it’s also more than just another superhero film, seeing as this one strives to also be something of a crime thriller, and though it’s still heightened compared to real life, there is a dedication to depicting a kind of reality here that’s admirable.

It sounds like just another Batman film on paper, with Bruce Wayne/Batman clashing with the Joker during a battle for control over Gotham, but it’s the execution that makes The Dark Knight really sing. It’s an intense and often exciting film, and quite possibly one of the fastest-paced films over 2.5 hours long ever made.

• 'Inglourious Basterds' (2009)

Like with Kill Bill, there’s a strong element of revenge involved in Inglourious Basterds. There’s a young woman named Shoshana who barely escaped from Nazi forces after witnessing her entire family get murdered, and so she plots to blow up an entire cinema when numerous high-ranking Nazi officials will be inside. Also, the titular Basterds are doing their own thing in Nazi-occupied France, having the same targets, and eventually crossing paths with Shoshana (kind of) and her plan.

So, Inglourious Basterds is a bit more ambitious as far as scale and having an ensemble cast is concerned, which can make it feel a little like a more chronological Pulp Fiction, and set during World War II. And it’s an overall fantastic film, being one of many great Tarantino movies, and perhaps his best… well, if you disqualify Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. So it’s his third-best. Maybe. They're all brilliant, it’s splitting hairs a little. Anyway, Inglourious Basterds trumps a bunch of other remarkable movies released in 2009; that’s the main thing.