Nearly four weeks after the infamous 100 list in The Guardian, we at Filmotomy scouted our band of filmaniacs from across the internet. Badgered them to compile their own top ten films between the years of 2000 and 2019. Without engaging too much in when the century actually began or the fact this year is not out yet.
And our list is better than The Guardian’s. Are we even allowed to say that? In fact, the second 100 films (you know, ranked 101-200) made a pretty compelling list too. Such a diverse collection, it certainly rivals the final 100 you will browse through shortly.
Best Picture winners (The Hurt Locker, The Shape of Water); Oscar near-misses (Dunkirk, Silver Linings Playbook); underseen international gems (Millennium Mambo, Incendies); movies from the beginning of the century (Moulin Rouge!, American Psycho) to more recent films (Good Time, Eighth Grade), including favourites from this year (The Farewell, Us).
Films that made us laugh (Sideways, Shaun of the Dead); made us cry (Cold War, Coco); scared us (It Follows, The Descent); outright shocked us (Irreversible, Martyrs); got us talking (mother!, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).
Greta Gerwig surprisingly just missed out twice (Frances Ha, Lady Bird), as did other filmmakers, Michael Haneke (Amour, The Piano Teacher), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained, Kill Bill: Vol. 2), and Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) though the latter three still managed to land in the top 100.
Trilogies were separated (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the best of the three, outvoted); some films were out of this world (Gravity, Interstellar); there were even some classic animated misses (Toy Story 3, Inside Out, Finding Nemo); hits at Cannes (Blue is the Warmest Color, Volver); as well as towering performances from Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln, Phantom Thread). Mouth-watering, but not the top 100.
Fear not, you are about to embark on a wondrous journey of cinema. There are at least double entries for many popular movie fanbases – Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese, Joaquin Phoenix, Alfonso Cuaron, Park Chan-wook, Amy Adams, David Lynch, Yorgos Lanthimos, Coens, Charlie Kaufman, Richard Linklater, Jake Gyllenhaal, PTA. Gasp.
And for those looking for winners of the Palme d’Or, even Best Director winners at Cannes, Best Foreign Language Film Oscar victors, and of course films directed by women – we have you covered in abundance. Enough gabbing, here we go with your tallied votes for the 100 Best Films of the 21st Century.
Love these lists, agree or disagree and for some reason I’ve never seen “Mulholland Drive”, have to remedy that. My person list “Call Me by Your Name” would be number one but grateful to see it represented. Having just seen “Marriage Story”, I sure could see it ranking high on yours. It will on mine.