The Top 50 Movies Of the Century So Far!

If Everyone Else Can Do It, So Can I.

OK folks, dialing it down a notch today. We can all use a little breather and since it’s summer, a little less intensity and more enjoyment away from the fog of politics can go a long way.

I don’t know about many of you, but lately I’ve been inundated with posts about people giving their top 20 movies of the 2000s so far. Well, we have reached the quarter pole of the century and it does seem like a nice moment to do a retrospective I suppose. Besides, who couldn’t use a recommendation to stream while half of the country is blasting away in the heat and you can stay nice in cool, air conditioned comfort?

But we don’t do anything half way here at PurpleAmerica. So instead of 20, we’re going for 50. Numbers 20-50 are given in no particular order. Numbers 11-20 are given in a block as part of the top 20 and the top 10 are indeed counted down for you.

Upon compiling this list, a few things stood out to me:

• It is very 2000-2010 heavy. I’d say that’s because of two reasons; 1) DVDs were still available and streaming was still years off, so it allowed for studios to be a little more creative since there were subsequent revenue streams following the theatrical run, and 2) recently, the quality, creative diversity and range of films has narrowed to practically nothing but comic book films.

• There are a number of documentaries. What can I say, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

• Most of you probably haven’t seen the top three films, and if you have you’ve likely only seen #1 because of availability. Part of what makes lists like this fun is that they actually do offer great recommendations for films you might not have seen. I’d highly encourage you to seek out those films, and any film on this list.

I look forward to hearing the commentary and critiques— this is definitely one where everyone has their own opinions.

So without further ado: Our top 50 movies of the Century so far…

• The Dark Knight. Still the best live action comic book movie ever made.

• The 40 Year Old Virgin. The most I’ve laughed watching a film in the past 25 years, easily. From beginning to end, it’s one laugh after another.

• Borat. The loudest I’ve laughed watching a film in the past 25 years. I literally fell off my chair and into the aisle at the theatre, having a hard time breathing I was laughing so hard. ¹

• Roma. It’s a beautiful film that had it been released in theaters (it had a limited run in theaters for Oscar nominations, then was released on Netflix where most people saw it) would be talked about more often.

• The Royal Tennenbaums. Still the standard for Wes Anderson films. R.I.P. Gene Hackman, my favorite performance of his.

• Gravity. Particularly noteworthy in that there are only two people on screen for the entire movie, and it’s still captivating.

• Waltz with Bashir. Mesmerizing look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by using animation to tell the story.² Especially resonant now.

• Persepolis. Another great Middle Eastern story, this one about the Iranian Revolution, also told by animation.

• There Will Be Blood. I know a lot of people who would put this in their top 10. It’s great, but I don’t like it nearly as much as they do.

• The Hurt Locker. Of the three movies on the list that define the 2000’s Global War on Terror, this is the only one to win Best Picture.³

• Traffic. Outstanding movie on the drug trade from various perspectives. Remember when there was a trend to have huge casts intermixing in different ways centered on an issue (Love, Actually and Crash are two examples). This one started that trend.

• Inglorious Basterds. I like Tarantino films a lot, but the climax of this has defined everything he has done since. Christoph Walz deserved that Oscar and owned this film, and Brad Pitt has never been better.

• Hotel Rwanda. As horrific as this film depicts the Rwandan Genocide, it still somehow underplays truly how horrific it was.⁴

• Slumdog Millionaire. Who doesn’t love a rags to riches movie where the guy gets the girl in the end, and then does a Bollywood dance number over the credits?

• The Pianist. Second only to Schindlers List for the content.⁵ Gut wrenching.

• Apollo 11. The story of going to the moon, as told by only using actual footage. No dramatics. No voice over. Just documentary footage telling the story.

• Searching for Sugar Man. The true story of a destitute man living in Detroit who is a huge star in South Africa (bigger than Elvis) that everyone thinks is dead. Rodriguez, the singer in this documentary, died recently; R.I.P. Sugar Man.⁶

• The Fog of War. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara takes a look back at his life and discusses war and it’s consequences.

• The Passion of the Christ. OK. I do get the criticisms of the film as “torture porn” and for, well, Mel Gibson. However, just viewing it through the lens of its topic (which has been done an infinite number of times before), it’s expertly done and the best version of a passion play that I’ve seen. Let me put it this way; It’s a film spoken in Aramaic and Latin (dead languages), with no real stars (except for Monica Bellucci in a minor role), and told in a way that is both easy to understand and engaging to the eye. You know what they are saying and doing, even if you’re not reading the subtitles. Gibson would follow this up with Apocalypto using the same storytelling techniques and demonstrate just how effective those are.⁷

• Dune (Parts 1 and 2). The book was so dense that I thought it was unfilmable, hence the terrible 1984 version. I was wrong. Fantastic filmmaking.

• I, Tonya. Margot Robbie playing Tonya Harding in a madcap comic caper to shatter Nancy Kerrigan’s kneecap? She should have won the Best Actress Oscar for it.

• Gone Girl. The more times I come across this, the better it gets. Just a great whodunit for our modern sensationalized media culture.

• Her. As AI takes over more and more, this film gets more and more prescient.

• Blade Runner 2049. Simply one of the best looking films I’ve ever seen. And I’m not just saying that because Ana de Armas appears naked in it.⁸ Like it’s predecessor, a thoughtful film about what defines the dividing lines of life and human emotions.

• Parasite. Another one that gets better with multiple viewings. Just a really smartly made film.

• Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. The best and most creative animated film of the past 25 years, easily. What they were able to accomplish here is still jawdropping.

• Adaptation. Nicholas Cage playing twin versions of himself as the writer Charlie Kaufman (and his non-existent twin brother), adapting the movie that you are watching the result of. Yes, it’s that mind bending, and perfect.

• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The scene where a man who can only communicate through blinking tells his mistress he loves her through his wife translating the blinks, still gets me. When the wife chokes up, relays the message and tries to hold back the tears, so do we as the audience.

• No Country for Old Men. Javier Bardem steals the film in every scene he’s in. Just Death incarnate. That scene with Woody Harrelson is the best and most tense of any Coen Brothers film. When the phone rings and Woody reacts to it, so do we.

• Brokeback Mountain. We started the top 50 with Heath Ledger, and we’re ending this section with him.

What do you think so far? Some GREAT films in there that many of you think should probably be higher, some you think may be missing? I know. I get it. But there are still some great films to come. Let me know your thoughts.

And without further ado, films 20 to 11 (a reminder, all of these are interchangeable in this range— they are not in any particular order).

• The Artist. Had you told me back in 2000 that a silent black and white film would be one of the best films of the century so far I would have thought you were crazy. Guess what— it is.

• Lincoln. Daniel Day Lewis is such a good actor that you actually think you’re seeing Lincoln on screen. The single best acting job of the century, possibly ever.

• Boyhood. Filmed over a boy’s adolescent years, it just exemplifies teenage struggles and events better than any John Hughes movie ever could. ⁹

• 12 Years a Slave. Just a harrowing experience to witness. Words escape me.

• Lord of the Rings. I’m grouping all three together because they’re all one film really. But people need to remember that fantasy films were DEAD before this came along and completely redefined the filmmaking landscape. Every Marvel film owes something to Sam and Frodo.

• Letters from Iwo Jima. I like war films.¹⁰ No other war film, especially one about World War II, has ever depicted war from the losing side—the decline in morale, the loss of hope, the futility of many actions, the dehumanization of those fighting a lost cause— quite like Clint Eastwood does here. The studio wanted him to make “Flags of our Fathers” but Eastwood agreed only if he could make this one at the same time. It’s the much better film of the two.

• City of God. This Brazilian film is a masterpiece on the beauty of growing up, elevating oneself beyond one’s environment, the destitution of favela culture, and the horrors of gangs ravaging a community.

• Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind. Probably the most romantic and simultaneously unromantic movie I’ve ever watched. Everything about this film is told perfectly.

• 1917. Shot in a single take style, it tracks two soldiers delivering a message through the war torn landscape of trench warfare and occupied villages. Every scene is outstanding.

• The Social Network. This smartly made film covers the rise of social media by telling the story of Facebook, but also anticipates many of the social problems that result as our lives get further online.

OK— How am I doing so far? Like, Dislike? Put your thoughts in the comments. What the remaining movies all have in common is that they all have something unique or original that I hadn’t seen in films before, and in many since. They are all top notch movies that changed my perspective on various aspects of how I viewed the world, and in some cases profoundly changed them.

And now what you have been scrolling for. Here are PurpleAmerica’s Top 10 movies of the century so far:

10. Zero Dark Thirty. The film is a typical procedural, but it covers the single biggest manhunt in world history, across a decade, and the masterminds of the biggest event of the century so far. I started the list with The Dark Knight, which describes the lengths we go to fight crime; this film demonstrates it all too closely, the politics, the dirty hands, the bureaucratic inertia, the secret deals and intelligence, warts and all.

9. Memento. Chrisopher Nolan gave us this story about a person with memory problems told backwards, letting us experience events as he does; only Pulp Fiction and Citizen Kane do a better job of non-linear storytelling, which is some great company to be in.

8. Oppenheimer. The sheer scope and scale of this picture is beyond huge; the complexity of what it is talking about (nuclear physics) and how it is able to provide the audience with enough to follow and still understand many of the issues at play, says a lot about the film. That Nolan was able to pull it off and still tell a compelling story about the birth of the atom bomb is incredible.

7. Everything Everywhere All at Once. The first part of this I was like “This is boring.” Then it was “This is dumb.” Then I smiled. Then I giggled. Then I laughed. Then I realized how brilliant it really was. The single most creative film I’ve seen in 25 years.

6. Get Out. Another “WTF” film where you don’t know what you are seeing until the end when it is made plain as day for you. However, what it absolutely did better than any film of the past 25 years is take the perspective of a young, black man navigating upper class white progressive culture, in an absurdly interesting way and analyze it as if it were The Twilight Zone.

5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Completely changed how action movies are made. Every Marvel movie, every Mission Impossible, every single action movie released since then owes a debt to Ang Lee’s classic. Outstanding in every way, and contains the single best martial arts fight scene in memory; and it’s between two women.¹¹

4. Pan’s Labyrinth. A wonderful story about a girl escaping her setting (which is the Spanish Civil War) by diving into a fantasy world of her imagination. Multi-layered and each level is a great story on its own.¹²

3. United 93. This film came out when the feeling of 9/11 was still a little too raw. That’s too bad, because everything about it is incredible. Using a cast of no name actors, including many of the actual people who had to make very fateful decisions that day, running in real time, putting you in the shoes of people who make a truly heroic decision, and filming it as if it were a documentary, this film should be shown to every high school student who wants to know what it was like living in America for a single hour on that day.

2. The Lives of Others. A german film about the East German Stasi in 1984, surreptitiously listening to conversations and turning neighbors and friends against one another; its the kind of police state most liberals on BlueSky throw out that we are in now (FYI— not even close). A beautiful portrait that art and love transcend one’s surroundings, and appreciation knows no bounds.

1. O.J. Made in America. An eight (!) hour documentary about O.J. Simpson and the murders for which he was acquitted. When I first heard of this project, I thought it was overkill; as it turns out you needed 8 hours to tell O.J.’s story. So profound in so many different ways; describing the historical backgrounds of O.J., Los Angeles, the 1990s generally, Fuhrmann, Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, as told by some of the people who knew them all closely (including Fuhrmann himself), you track the rise of an American icon, the circus show trial that defined the era, and the aftermath and downfall that put Simpson behind bars. The whole time your eyes are glued to the screen, and at the end of each section (or episode, as it is online streaming in four episodes) the only word that comes to mind is “more.” Genuinely one of the greatest documentaries of all time.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. For refernce, it was the scene where a naked Borat and his filming partner get into a fight that extends out of the hotel room and out into a conference room full of unlookers. Priceless.

2. The single biggest “gut punch” I’ve had watching a film this century was in the closing of this movie when the animation gives way to actual footage. The animation allows you to be detatched more from what is occurring on-screen, that when reality kicks in, it is truly horrifying.

3. It was also the name of my Fantasy Football team for a few years.

4. When I was in law school, my criminal procedure professor was an appointed lawyer during the War Crimes Tribunals, and was even locked in prison for a while for effectively representing prisoners. His general stories about the events leading up to the genocide, what occurred during, and the aftermath are truly horrific and spine-tingling. Not since the Holocaust has an act of mass murder been so institutionally driven and so widespread, and uncontrolled.

5. Roman Polanski won the Best Director Oscar for this film about a Polish musician evading capture during the Holocaust. Many believe he shouldn’t have won it on account of his personal history (indeed, he could not even go to the ceremony to accept it, since he would be arrested for rape the moment he landed). Nonethless, that doesn’t take away from the depictions on film and the art on display. All things considered, it was a well deserved Oscar for the film.

6. Buy the soundtrack too. There are some great songs on there.

7. And let’s be clear, Gibson is swine but he knows how to direct a good movie.

8. Although that is a huge bonus.

9. The level of empathy in this film amazes me. Most men I know who have also seen this film point to parts of it that they themselves also experienced and went through in varying ways during their formative years. It’s just one of those films that people can genuinely relate to.

10. What can I say, I’m a middle aged guy.

11. That scene, between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi, is a masterpiece of choreography, film direction, action, timing and pure filmmaking. I’ve watched it probably 50 times and it is just as amazing as the first time I saw it. This stands up against any martial arts scene in any other movie—I dare you to find one better. (and yes, it’s better than the Bruce Lee mirror scene in Enter the Dragon).

12. Another reason I like this film so much is that when I first saw it, there was a question and answer with Doug Jones, the actor who portrays many characters in Benicio Del Toro films. His discussion was one of the best I’ve ever been at as he talked about his background (as a mime!) and the difficulties of acting under layers of makeup and prosthetics. Fascinating guy.