The lists are at the bottom of this post. Have a look and let’s discuss.
There’s something deliciously human about arguing over movie lists. We know they’ll never match our own—too personal, too chaotic—but we dive in anyway, hunting for that one film that shocks us, the one that doesn’t belong, the one they dared to leave off. The New York Times’ list of the Best Films of the 21st Century does exactly that—it stirs the pot, invites the bickering, and leaves just enough gaps to keep us talking. I couldn’t resist pulling at its loose threads.
When The New York Times dropped its Best Films of the 21st Century list, I did what most of us do: I scanned the top five to see if my favorites made the cut, squinted at the middle ranks, and then went straight to the bottom to see what they wedged in at #100. It turns out the real fun isn’t in the rankings—it’s in the arguments that fall out of them.
A perfect film list doesn’t exist. But I can’t resist poking at this one to see where it creaks, where it soars, and where it trips over its own popcorn bucket.
Let’s start with what surprised me most.
There’s something charmingly chaotic about seeing Superbad parked at #100. You could scroll through 99 films that tug at the grand, the tragic, the gorgeously composed—and then you hit Superbad, a movie about two panic-sweaty teenagers trying to buy alcohol and save a friendship before college pulls them apart.
I love Superbad. It’s hilarious, weirdly tender, and has somehow outlived its decade as the go-to blueprint for coming-of-age stories. But on a list packed with visual poetry, social reckoning, and films that changed the air we breathe, Superbad feels like someone slipped it in as a joke and then defended it passionately enough to make it stick.
Surprising? Completely. Wrong? Maybe not.
This one made me tilt my head: Ocean’s Eleven at #71.
Don’t get me wrong—I could watch George Clooney saunter through a casino with a toothpick and a plan any day of the week. Ocean’s Eleven is cool. It’s smooth. But is it one of the greatest films of the century?
Probably not.
It’s all surface, which is fine—sometimes surface is fun—but compared to films that cracked something open (Children of Men, The Social Network, Moonlight), Ocean’s Eleven feels like a well-dressed guest who showed up to the wrong party.
If I had to boot one? It’s that one.
How did Children of Men land at #13? It should be in the top five, no question.
That film didn’t just predict the future—it built it. You can feel its fingerprints all over modern cinema: the shaky, in-the-mud tension, the one-shot chaos, the slow drip of existential dread. It’s a film that reached inside the chest of the 21st century and pulled out something raw and still beating.
I love Parasite, but I’d move Children of Men higher. It belongs on the short list of films that changed how we see what’s coming.
Bridesmaids is a riot. It smashed open doors for women in studio comedies. It gave us the single most excellent food poisoning scene ever committed to film. But slotting it at #32? Above The Departed, Arrival, WALL-E?
That’s where I raised an eyebrow.
It’s a great comedy, but if we’re weighing craft, ambition, and long-term cultural shape-shifting, Bridesmaids feels a little high on the ladder. I wouldn’t kick it off the list, but I’d let it slide down a few rungs.
This list forgets some heavy hitters.
Where’s The Handmaiden? Park Chan-wook’s masterpiece is a fever dream of precision, beauty, and betrayal. Its absence feels like a door left unlocked.
Manchester by the Sea is also nowhere to be found. That film wrecked me in the quietest way. It understood that some losses don’t heal—they sit beside you like an old coat you can’t throw away.
Oh, and Toy Story 3? Missing. Strange, since WALL-E and Up made the cut. You’d think a film that taught grown adults how to sob uncontrollably in public would have earned a spot.
This one’s easy. Superbad.
There are other contenders—Bridesmaids, Anchorman, Best in Show, Borat—but Superbad wins because it wraps its humor around something real. Beneath the dick jokes and teenage panic is a story about two friends who are afraid of growing apart. That’s why it still sticks. That’s why we’re still quoting McLovin.
Bridesmaids is a sharper comedy. Anchorman is louder. But Superbad has the best mix of absurdity and heart. It’s the one that lasts.
Bridesmaids again. It’s not that it shouldn’t be here—it should—it’s the altitude that’s confusing.
I can’t tell if its high ranking is a correction for how often comedy gets left out of these lists, or if the voters genuinely believe it should hover above The Departed and A Separation. Either way, its spot pulls focus in a way that made me reread the list twice to make sure I hadn’t missed something.
It means no list is sacred. It means we carry our own private rankings, built from the films that changed us, cracked us up, or helped us survive something we didn’t have words for at the time.
Sometimes the list gets it right. Sometimes it throws in a curveball like Superbad and dares you to argue. And maybe that’s the point.
What’s your curveball? What film would you move, swap, or stubbornly defend until the credits roll?
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THE LIST:
01. Parasite (Bong Joon Ho)
02. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
03. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)
04. In the Mood For Love (Wong Kar Wai)
05. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
06. No Country For Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen)
07. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
08. Get Out (Jordan Peele)
09. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki)
10. The Social Network (David Fincher)
11. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
12. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
13. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)
14. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
15. City of God (Fernando Meirelles)
16. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)
17. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee)
18. Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron)
19. Zodiac (David Fincher)
20. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
21. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson)
22. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
23. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
24. Her (Spike Jonze)
25. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
26. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
27. Adaptation (Spike Jonze)
28. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)
29. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)
30. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
31. The Departed (Martin Scorsese)
32. Bridesmaids (Paul Feig)
33. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
34. WALL-E Andrew Stanton)
35. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
36. A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen)
37. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)
38. Portrait of A Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma)
39. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
40. Yi Yi (Edward Yang)
41. Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
42. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
43. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook)
44. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
45. Moneyball (Bennett Miller)
46. ROMA (Alfonso Cuaron)
47. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe)
48. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck)
49. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)
50. Up! (Pete Docter)
51. 12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen)
52. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)
53. Borat (Larry Charles)
54. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro)
55. Inception (Christopher Nolan)
56. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
57. Best in Show (Christopher Guest)
58. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)
59. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
60. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
61. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino)
62. Memento (Christopher Nolan)
63. Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton & Faris)
64. Gone Girl (David Fincher)
65. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
66. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
67. TAR (Todd Field)
68. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
69. Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
70. Let The Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
71. Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh)
72. Carol (Todd Haynes)
73. Ratatouille (Brad Bird)
74. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)
75. Amour (Michael Haneke)
76. O Brother, Where Art Thou (Joel & Ethan Coen)
77. Everything Everywhere All At Once (The Daniels)
78. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
79. Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
80. Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
81. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
82. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer)
83. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen)
84. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)
85. Anchorman (Adam McKay)
86. Past Lives (Celine Song)
87. The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson)
88. The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda)
89. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
90. Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)
91. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)
92. Gladiator (Ridley Scott)
93. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy)
94. Minority Report (Steven Spielberg)
95. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)
96. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)
97. Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)
98. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog)
99. Memories of A Murder (Bong Joon-ho)
100. Superbad (Greg Motolla)
CATEGORIES, WITH HIGHEST RANKING FILM IN EACH CATEGORY:
Drama – 49 films – There Will Be Blood (#3)
Comedy – 12 films – The Royal Tenenbaums (#21)
Science Fiction / Fantasy – 10 films – Arrival (#29)
Historical / War / Political – 8 films – The Zone of Interest (#12)
Psychological/Thriller – 5 films – Parasite (#1)
Thriller / Crime – 4 films – Mulholland Drive (#2)
Romance – 4 films – In the Mood For Love (#4)
Action / Adventure – 3 films – Mad Max: Fury Road (#11)
Documentary – 2 films – The Gleaners and I (#88)
Animation – 3 films – Spirited Away (#9)
DIRECTORS:
Christopher Nolan – 5 films: The Dark Knight, Inception, Memento, Oppenheimer, Interstellar
Joel & Ethan Coen – 4 films: No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Inside Llewyn Davis
Paul Thomas Anderson – 4 films: There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread, The Master, Punch-Drunk Love
Alfonso Cuaron – 4 films: Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien, ROMA, Gravity
David Fincher – 3 films: The Social Network, Zodiac, Gone Girl
Quentin Tarantino – 3 films: Inglourious Basterds, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Kill Bill Vol. 1
Martin Scorsese - 2 films: The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed
Wes Anderson – 2 films: The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Spike Jonze – 2 films: Her, Adaptation
Jonathan Glazer – 2 films: The Zone of Interest, Under The Skin
Ang Lee – 2 films: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain
ACTORS/ACTRESSES:
Brad Pitt – 5 films: Inglourious Basterds, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Moneyball, Ocean’s Eleven, Tree of Life
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Inception
George Clooney – 4 films: 4 films: Ocean’s Eleven, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Michael Clayton, Gravity
Sandra Hüller – 3 films: The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall, Toni Erdmann
Jonah Hill – 3 films: The Wolf of Wall Street, Moneyball, Superbad
Joaquin Phoenix – 3 films: Her, The Master, Gladiator
Song Kang-ho – 2 films: Parasite, Memories of A Murder
Daniel Day-Lewis – 2 films: There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread
Michelle Yeoh – 2 films: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Heath Ledger – 2 films: Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight
DIRECTOR/ACTOR/ACTRESS COLLABORATIONS:
Bong Joon Ho and Song Kang-ho – 2 collaborations
Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis – 2 collaborations
Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt – 2 collaborations
Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke – 2 collaborations
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio – 2 collaborations
MOST OSCARS::
7 Oscars: Gravity, Everything Everywhere All At Once
5 Oscars: Gladiator
4 Oscars: Parasite, The Departed, Inception, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
3 Oscars: Brokeback Mountain
2 Oscars: The Dark Knight, There Will Be Blood, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, The Zone of Interest
1 Oscar: Michael Clayton, Anatomy of a Fall, Her, Phantom Thread, Inglourious Basterds
