The Best Movies of the 21st Century
Part One: #100-#91
Time to take stock of what the century has offered us on the big screen so far, with a new series of lists exploring the 100 greatest movies of the last twenty-five years. I hope you enjoy. Don’t forget to comment which films you would like to see on any upcoming pieces!
100: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
The Planet of the Apes franchise has gone through so many changes over the years, it can be easy to forget just how many films there’s been. The first is a classic, its sequels vary so wildly in quality watching them together can give you whiplash, and the infamous Tim Burton reboot is actually far worse than its reputation. To see the franchise at its best, you need look no further than Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the second is a new trilogy helmed by The Batman’s Matt Reeves that follows the ape Caesar (Andy Serkis) as he leads his community of talking primates against a new human threat. There are no villains here, only desperate survivors driven by fear, abandoned by hope, overcome with rage. Reeves injects the film with so much awe-inspiring spectacle and humanity it’s nothing short of intoxicating, and a nice reminder that in this soulless MCU-dominated world, the true blockbuster is still alive and well.
99: Everything Everywhere All At Once
How refreshing it was when the Daniels’ surreal acid trip of a sci-fi drama Everything Everywhere All At Once scooped Best Picture at the Oscars. Here was a film, after all, that features giant sausage fingers, dildo fight scenes, talking rocks, interdimensional travel and obscene humour impossible to adequately describe here. It’s a brilliant feat of imagination and comedy, but also much more than that — a beautifully layered, personal tale of a mother (Michelle Yeoh) and her daughter (Stephanie Hsu) fixing their relationship whilst fighting for the fate of the multiverse. Films this brave and stylistically bold are a rare breed to be treasured, and that the Academy (who get things wrong so often) recognised this is almost as big a miracle as the film itself.
98: Syndromes and a Century
Some films hinge entirely on a clear-cut narrative and obvious genre trappings, but Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s gorgeous drama Syndromes and a Century is no such beast. Split into two distinct parts, it examines the relationship between a couple based heavily on its director’s own parents, and therefore works as a thoughtful memoir. Made with heart to spare, Syndromes has no such thing as a conventional narrative, but instead relies on tender emotional cues and ingenious imagery to sell its meaning. Boldly inventive and deeply felt, Weerasethakul’s personal odyssey into the life of his parents is a spiritual journey uniquely crafted by a man pouring his heart onto the screen, and the results are as visually luminous as they are poignant.
97: A Touch of Sin
In form and in style, A Touch of Sin is a film of such unique experience it begs to be re-watched as soon as the credits finish rolling. An anthology movie split into four vaguely connected vignettes, Jia Zhangke’s drama follows a series of people disenfranchised, violently seeking feeling, lost and without hope. Based on real life tragedies that plagued China during the turn of the millennium, as well as seeking inspiration from classic folklore and operas, the film offers no answers to the questions it raises, only action — bloody, yes, but also gracefully choreographed and without exploitation. It offers death, corruption, love, murder, avoidable tragedies and random acts of violence, and does so with svelte visual lyricism, unshakable imagery, and effortlessly emotional insight into the human mind.
96: The Handmaiden
He may be best remembered for his 2003 action mindfuck Oldboy, but Park Chan-Wook’s finest project remains The Handmaiden, an erotic, tender, heartbreaking thriller based on Sarah Waters’ bestseller “Fingersmith.” Set during Japanese-occupied Korea, the film follows a disillusioned heiress (Kim Min-hee) who falls in love with her new handmaiden (Kim Tae-ri), who just so happens to be a woman initially hired to trick her into a loveless marriage with a conman (Ha Jung-woo). At once a heartfelt romance and a rapid-fire thriller about identity and betrayal, Chan-Wook’s masterstroke is a very bleak, occasionally funny, often sexy, and wholly surprising feast that keeps you guessing to the very end, and never pulls its punches.
95: Ad Astra
There have been a great many sci-fi hits over the last twenty-five years, but few as assured and existential as James Gray’s Ad Astra. The story of an astronaut (Brad Pitt) sent into space to find his father (Tommy Lee Jones) before his search for existential life dooms the earth, the drama is first and foremost a visual treat, crafted with some of the finest images of space and interdimensional travel in the movies. But under the visual allure, Ad Astra is so much more, most notably a life-affirming ode to the relationship between a man and his child, and the conclusions it draws — about life, space, time, family, hope — are so finely measured and subtle, they sneak up on with the force of a successful rocket launch.
94: Interstellar
Though well received upon its initial release, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar has only grown more beloved and powerful as the years have gone by. Perhaps the most visually spellbinding space opera of its time, Nolan’s vision doesn’t play by the usual rules. At first a race-against-time thriller about a man (Matthew McConaughey, in his finest role) who leaves home to save the world from an inescapable calamity, the true nature of the mission quickly shows that this is no normal sci-fi flick. Covering time travel, complex metaphysics and wormholes, Interstellar is an epic about heroism and fate, but also a heartrending tale of familial love that bowls you over with its visuals before it turns you into a crying mess. Nolan has never been this bold, but make no mistake, this will not be the last time you see him in these lists.
93: The White Ribbon
This German drama film from the incomparable Michael Haneke concerns many number of things, from the dark side of family life to the looming spectre of war, but perhaps the key takeaway lies its humanism, and how that colours the many themes Haneke wishes to explore. Set just before the First World War in a fictional German village, The White Ribbon probes the concept of blind devotion to political causes, the hardships of pre-war civilian life, and the hardships endured by those under occupation, both at home and on the grander political scale. Uncompromising and horrendously heartbreaking, it’s vintage Haneke without fault — raw, honest, superbly crafted, and full of life even in the face of certain death.
92: The Hurt Locker
As it stands, Kathryn Bigelow’s Best Picture winner deserves to sit high in the vast pantheon of great war movies. Not only is it a stunningly shot journey into the hell of modern warfare, but it’s also much more intimate than its contemporaries, more focussed on psychology than bloodshed. The focus is Jeremy Renner’s radical bomb disposal soldier William James, a dangerous adrenaline junkie who thrives under pressure but clashes with his fellow soldiers whilst serving a tour in Iraq. Gritty and bleak, The Hurt Locker leaves nothing unsaid when exploring the mental stress of combat, and Bigelow crafts countless sequences impossible to shake in selling her message. Few war movies capture the toll of war as well as this.
91: The Aviator
Martin Scorsese’s greatest films often offer the same repeating themes, only attributed to radically different men in radically different times and situations: the pitfalls of greed, the dangers of arrogance, the way powerful men can be so easily torn down. To that end, in a career so full of great dramas, The Aviator is one of the filmmaker’s most underrated tales, following ingenious pilot/director/entrepreneur Howard Hughes (a career-best Leonardo DiCaprio) as his desire for cultural innovation is upended by crippling OCD and political upheaval. A drama of obsession and the tragic flaws of a brilliant man, The Aviator is epic and intimate in equal measure, making it a big booming heartstopper as only Scorsese could craft.
That’s all for now. Be good to each other, and I’ll see you soon!