\n<\/p>\n
More than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world voted on the best films released since Jan. 1, 2000. Here is how their ballots stacked up.<\/p>\n
Between streaming services and superhero blockbusters, the way we watch and think about movies has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. But through that period of upheaval, which films have truly stood the test of time?<\/p>\n
To find out, we embarked on an ambitious new project, polling more than 500 filmmakers, stars and influential film fans to vote for the 10 best movies (however they chose to define that) released since Jan. 1, 2000. In collaboration with The Upshot, we compiled their responses to create a list of the 100 best movies of the 21st century.<\/p>\n
Voters included Oscar-winning directors like Pedro Almod\u00f3var, Sofia Coppola, Barry Jenkins and Guillermo del Toro, as well as acclaimed actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mikey Madison, John Turturro and Julianne Moore. Dive in today and check back for updates daily.<\/p>\n
Every generation gets its defining teen comedy. For the 21st century, that\u2019s \u201cSuperbad.\u201d The script by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg \u2014 about pals named Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) trying to get laid before they graduate high school \u2014 is both hilariously profane and surreptitiously sweet. The director Greg Mottola took the antics and elevated them with retro opening titles and an uproarious sequence involving phallic cartoons. But \u201cSuperbad\u201d is also a feat of casting, introducing moviegoers to the talents of Hill, Cera and Emma Stone.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Voted for by Julianne Moore<\/span><\/p>\n See her full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n The first clue that this Korean police procedural isn\u2019t bound by Hollywood genre conventions comes in the opening moments: A detective (played by Song Kang Ho) summoned to investigate a dead body in a rural outpost arrives by hitching a ride on a plodding tractor. The grim laughs continue when other hapless investigators fall quite literally into the crime scene. The director Bong Joon Ho has strong ideas about the limits of men facing unfathomable evil, and he explores them with his hallmark mix of unexpected humor and sharply observed drama.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen that movie at least 20 times and it hits me differently every single time. I remember being frightened, laughing, crying and holding my breath. And it may have the greatest ending, in my opinion, of any film.\u201d<\/p>\n Charles Melton, actor<\/strong><\/p>\n See his ballot here.<\/p>\n It would be easy to assume that this Werner Herzog documentary about Timothy Treadwell, who spent many summers cohabitating with Alaska\u2019s brown bears, would skew educational. But Treadwell wasn\u2019t an expert in the traditional sense, and this film is more about a man grappling with his place in the world. Treadwell left behind hours of self-recorded videos, and his camera\u2019s microphone was on when he and his girlfriend were mauled to death in 2003. We watch Herzog listen to those moments, making it the most haunting audio you\u2019ll never hear.<\/p>\n Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s action film is one of the 21st century\u2019s greatest thrill rides, a real-time survival story about an abandoned astronaut (Sandra Bullock) who must find her way back to Earth while confronting the trauma she has long suppressed. With groundbreaking special effects that outshine most recent releases, Cuar\u00f3n crafts a suspenseful story that suggests the true terror of being lost in space isn\u2019t the prospect of certain death \u2014 it\u2019s being alone with your thoughts.<\/p>\n <\/span>Voted for by Edgar Wright<\/span><\/p>\n See his full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s so much to love. It\u2019s a superhero spectacle that actually has something important to say, about how identity, history and responsibility intersect. Wakanda, the Afrofuturistic world where the story takes place, is a visual wonder. The women (played by Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong\u2019o and Letitia Wright \u2014 all excellent) aren\u2019t just sidekicks or love interests. Michael B. Jordan, as the tragically villainous Killmonger, has never been more swoon worthy. And, of course, Chadwick Boseman shines in the title role, sadly one of his last before dying of cancer.<\/p>\n At first, Julie (Renate Reinsve) may strike you as a dilettante. An Oslo college student, she changes majors like outfits; later, in her 20s, she dates tetchy Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) while fantasizing about a life spent with the simpler Eivind (Herbert Nordrum). But this empathetic dramedy from Joachim Trier never judges Julie for her indecision, since a life lived robustly is bound to include some detours. How are you supposed to find yourself without looking everywhere first?<\/p>\n The image of a nearly bald Samantha Morton shouting \u201cRun!\u201d is just one reason Steven Spielberg\u2019s Philip K. Dick adaptation is still haunting. In this dystopia, crime is stopped before it happens thanks to the foresight of human \u201cprecogs\u201d like Morton\u2019s character. Tom Cruise is appropriately on edge as a falsely accused police officer, infusing a deep sadness into his actions as he draws closer to the center of a huge conspiracy. A gnawing agony powers Spielberg\u2019s noir in which color has almost been drained from the world.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a miracle worker, I\u2019m a janitor,\u201d Michael Clayton tells a disgruntled client of the law firm he works for. George Clooney, in his finest performance, delivers the line with a mixture of seen-it-all bitterness and intelligence. His character is nominally an attorney, but really he\u2019s a fixer trying to undo the damage after a colleague (Tom Wilkinson, at his absolute best) goes off his meds and finds his moral compass. What that does to Clayton\u2019s conscience is the crux of the writer-director Tony Gilroy\u2019s gripping thriller.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Michael Clayton\u2019 is the perfect David vs. Goliath story. All the plot points are given to you in the very beginning, but you as an audience member have to put the puzzle pieces together. And that is a really exciting way of making things tangible and entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n Arian Moayed, actor<\/strong><\/p>\n See ballot here.<\/p>\n Sword-and-sandal epics were long out of fashion when Ridley Scott charged in with this exciting drama full of intrigue and action. It helped that he had Russell Crowe, as the honorable soldier out for vengeance, working at the height of his artistry and a fresh, unaffected Joaquin Phoenix as the emperor longing to be beloved. The film set off a mini-resurgence in the genre, but none of the imitators understood that spectacle needs heart to match. That\u2019s what made \u201cGladiator\u201d so gripping.<\/p>\n <\/span>Voted for by Nicholas Sparks<\/span><\/p>\n See his full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n Few movies about adolescent girls are quite this raw or daring. Andrea Arnold\u2019s story concerns a girl (Katie Jarvis) who desperately wants to be a hip-hop dancer, a pursuit her mother\u2019s new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) encourages. But really the film is about her awakening passions, sexual and familial and more, and the ways in which this seemingly tough girl is achingly vulnerable. It\u2019s fearless and electric, one of Arnold\u2019s finest.<\/p>\n <\/span>Voted for by Lena Dunham<\/span><\/p>\n See her full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n Before Greta Gerwig struck out on her own to make \u201cLady Bird,\u201d the first sign of her ascension was \u201cFrances Ha,\u201d which she co-wrote with the director Noah Baumbach. Gerwig also stars as Frances, a woman in her late 20s who is holding onto her youth in a way that is both irrepressibly joyful and deeply immature. Shot in nostalgic black and white, \u201cFrances Ha\u201d is a character study that captures the moment adulthood takes hold.<\/p>\n <\/span>Voted for by Mike Birbiglia<\/span><\/p>\n See his full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n The plot of Christopher Nolan\u2019s dazzling, ambitious space epic is a puzzle that even today remains mind-bending, mirroring how little we understand about where we are in the universe and why we exist. At its center is Matthew McConaughey as a widower who leaves behind his father, children and an Earth ravaged by climate change to join a NASA team trying to find a new planet. For all the far-off horizons, the movie is at its best exploring the precarious yet seductive concept of home.<\/p>\n <\/span>Voted for by Simu Liu<\/span><\/p>\n See his full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n The \u201cI\u201d is Agn\u00e8s Varda, the pioneering filmmaker who helped kick-start the French new wave. With an intimate voice-over and hand-held digital camera, Varda travels throughout France to consider the personal and political identity of gleaners, people who traditionally collected grain left in fields after harvest. The result is a profound, uncommonly tender and searchingly philosophical dream of what it could mean to live in the world \u2014 take only what you need, share everything you have \u2014 that is itself a tour de force of cinematic gleaning.<\/p>\n With the first installment of his \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d trilogy, Peter Jackson did the almost impossible: He brought J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s Middle-earth to life in the hills of New Zealand, appealing to longtime fans and newcomers who might be wary of the jargon about elves and orcs. The film set a new bar for fantasy blockbusters with makeup and effects that still hold up, and set pieces that are immersive and occasionally terrifying. As soon as Howard Shore\u2019s score kicks in, it\u2019s hard not to feel transported.<\/p>\n <\/span>Voted for by Tony Hale<\/span><\/p>\n See his full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n The opening scene of Celine Song\u2019s debut feature beguiles you: Late at night in a New York bar, a woman (played by Greta Lee) is seated between two men (Teo Yoo and John Magaro) and it\u2019s unclear who they are to one another. The closing scene with the same three people, filmed in one take on a sidewalk, may well shatter your heart. In between, Song\u2019s story unfolds in New York City and Seoul and is filled with exquisite reflections on time, love, fate and reinvention.<\/p>\n The endless one-liners, the absurd set pieces, the big dumb sexist lunk of an anchorman played with just the right amount of lunacy by Will Ferrell, at arguably his best \u2014 this comedy is the perfect antidote to whatever ails you. Does the story make sense? Not really. Does that matter? No. You\u2019re there for the jokes, the rumble between rival news teams and the sense that cast members had the time of their lives making this movie. Plus now we all know \u201cSan Diago\u201d means \u201ca whale\u2019s vagina\u201d in German.<\/p>\n Lars von Trier\u2019s \u201cMelancholia\u201d is here to bum you out in ways both breathtaking and contemplative. Kirsten Dunst stars as a bride who is falling apart, all the better to match the state of the world, which just might be about to collide with a rogue planet. When it comes to bleak and brutal, von Trier does it best, yet the Danish auteur somehow manages to make total annihilation a thing of beauty in the process.<\/p>\n The Coen brothers dug into the 1960s folk scene by focusing on one of its losers. The title character, played by a breakout Oscar Isaac, is a sad sack, mourning the loss of his musical partner, and a jerk, prone to taking advantage of supposed friends. Llewyn\u2019s music is good, but not Bob Dylan good. This makes the movie one of the quintessential works of art about being an artist on the outside of greatness. The irony that the film itself is great is just the kind of karma Llewyn deserves.<\/p>\n <\/span>Voted for by Rachel Zegler<\/span><\/p>\n See her full ballot here.<\/span><\/p>\n Joshua Oppenheimer\u2019s documentary masterpiece concerns the perpetrators of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66. Really, though, the subject is the incredible capacity of the human mind to compartmentalize and rationalize monstrous acts of cruelty toward other people. The way Oppenheimer goes about it makes for a movie that plays like psychological horror \u2014 all the more petrifying because it is nonfiction.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Joshua Oppenheimer achieves is a completely profound meditation on guilt. The human cost on the people themselves who did these killings is so fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n Chiwetel Ejiofor, actor<\/strong><\/p>\n See his ballot here.<\/p>\n Where is the line between the drive for perfection and unhealthy obsession? Natalie Portman took home the best actress Oscar for her role as Nina, a ballerina whose competition with a rival (Mila Kunis) for the lead role in \u201cSwan Lake\u201d pushes her into madness. The director Darren Aronofsky ratchets up the tension and disorientation in this psychological thriller until our heads are spinning along with the dancers. The scenes depicting Nina\u2019s hallucinations infuse body horror with an unforgettable dark grandeur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world voted on the best films released since Jan. 1, 2000. Here is how their ballots stacked up. 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