In what seems like the blink of an eye, we’ve gone through twenty-five years in this millennium so far. Wasn’t Y2K just yesterday? In the spirit of nostalgia, though, it’s time for a list! And not just any list. Oh no. It’s time to look at the top 25 films of the past twenty-five years. This is my own list, not balanced against the rest of the staff, but I did my best to be both subjective, as I think you all are curious about what I think, as well as objective, to allow for more critical analysis and results. I also voided any films that got released during this time period. So I hope you enjoy this list, and I’d be curious what some of your favourite films of the last quarter century have been!
Honourable mention:
There Will Be Blood
It’s a good movie, but in my view, not a top 25. But I have to commend that Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in this movie is arguably the best performance of the last 25 years, so for that, it at least gets the honourable mention.
25-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
A perfectly blend of romance, fantasy, and wuxia martial arts, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of those films that seemingly has something for everyone. It’s intimate, but epic in scope and features some of the best fight choreography this century, thanks to legendary choreographer Yuen Woo-ping. A beautiful film.
24-Your Name
I would advise not looking too much into the plot of Your Name, as this film goes to some really unexpected places that are not featured in the marketing. To keep it vague, it’s a body swap movie akin to Freaky Friday, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a gorgeously animated film from Makoto Shinkai that straddles the line between fantasy and grounded human emotions. Pack a lunch with this one, as you’re going on a feels trip.
23-Blade Runner 2049
I’m not a big fan of Blade Runner, but I find the sequel by Denis Villeneuve to be a superior film, thanks in no small part to the outstanding cinematography from Roger Deakins. This may be one of the best-looking films of the last 25 years, with sets that feel real and lived in.
22-Gladiator
Are you not entertained? I know I was. Gladiator has it all. Great performances, great action, great story. It’s Ridley Scott’s best film this century (sorry, Tarantino) and is so wonderfully rewatchable.
21-Almost Famous
A coming-of-age story from Cameron Crowe set during the heyday of 1970s rock and roll, Almost Famous is a great tale that’s also semi-autobiographical. It feels like a love letter both to music and time on the road as a band, from the point of view of a young aspiring journalist, who hits the road with the fictitious band Stillwater while “working” for Rolling Stone magazine. The “Tiny Dancer” scene is iconic, and there’s some seriously memorable lines (I am a golden god!” and an always reliably stellar Phillip Seymour Hoffman as real-life critic Lester Bangs.
20-Casino Royale
I’d make the case that Casino Royale is the best of the Daniel Craig James Bond films and ranks as one of the best 007 films of all time. It humanizes the cold-blooded spy by grounding his relationship with Vesper into a believable and earnest romance. It’s got outstanding action, great acting, and interesting locations. The poker game at the end is hilariously unrealistic, but it does have Craig going up against Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre, so we’ll forgive that.
19-Dune: Part Two
One of a very short list of films this century that completely transported me to a new and fantastical world. Dune: Part Two is bigger than the first half, with a cinematic style that often evoked the old epics from the 50s and 60s, like The Ten Commandments or Lawrence of Arabia. Cinematographer Greig Fraser should be on everyone’s radar after this movie. This film is majestic.
18-Past Lives
A half-Korean, half-English-language film, Past Lives explores the what-ifs and the choices we make through our lives. It chronicles the friendship of two students in South Korea and what happened after one of them, Na Young, who later changes her name to Nora, moves to Canada and then America and integrates into western culture, learning the language and eventually getting married and having a life. But what would her life have been like had she stayed with that guy she really liked back home? I liked that this movie wasn’t about an affair or some secret romance, just an exploration of how these moments in life set us on different paths that may or may not be the right paths for us.
17-The Departed
The Departed is Martin Scorsese’s best film this century. Featuring an ensemble cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, it’s a remake of Infernal Affairs and chronicles the lives of two undercover agents, one within the FBI, and one of their own agents within the Boston organized crime network run by Nicholson’s Frank Costello. Great direction, dialogue, and music, this is a must-watch.
16-La La Land
I’m not a big fan of musicals when the characters randomly break into song and dance within the narrative. People don’t do that in real life. So colour me surprised when I simply fell in love with La La Land from Damien Chazelle. Not only is it an ode to old musicals, but it’s a tribute to jazz and old Hollywood in general, all wrapped up with a compelling and tragic romance between two actors with serious chemistry together.
15-No Country for Old Men
The Coen Brothers, for me, are a hit or miss duo of directors, but they certainly made a hit with No Country for Old Men. Written by Cormac McCarthy, it features one of the best villains in all of cinema with Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh. It’s a moody, bleak, dour, and tense film of crime, greed, and retribution featuring some stellar acting and tone.
14-Zodiac
A complex film that’s a serial killer investigation and a journalism film, it brings together David Fincher behind the camera with Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr, and Mark Ruffalo. This century, it’s one of Fincher’s best films, and is a fantastic exhibition of top-tier acting and directing working in tandem. There’s a lot of nuance with the characters that encourages, if not requires, you to watch it more than once.
13-Before Sunset
While not the best of the “Before” trilogy, this one is the best this century. It’s a wonderfully human tale, where two people simply stroll through the streets of Paris and have a conversation in real time. The movie is just under an hour and a half and it’s just Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy talking about life, but it’s done so well thanks to the chemistry between the leads and Richard Linklater’s wonderful directing. All three helped write the screenplay, which likely contributes to the more nuanced and human nature of the conversations these characters have. It’s a film about love, but without a lot of the clichés and tropes that often bog the genre down.
12-Whiplash
Way to go Damien Chazelle for having two films on this list! Whiplash is perhaps one of the most stressful movies I’ve seen, thanks in no small part from an excellent performance from J.K. Simmons as an abusive conductor at a prestigious music school where Miles Teller’s Andrew happens to be attending. The movie is raw, compelling, unsettling, and taps into that drive and passion that so few of us actually have. Plus, it features a lot of jazz.
11-Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
I’m a sucker for a good swashbuckling adventure, and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ticks that box and then some. It’s a wonderfully fun film that’s well directed, has engaging characters, enough supernatural elements to hook you but never feel overblown (something all of the sequels suffered from), and an iconic performance from Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow (Captain, sorry) that scored him an Oscar nomination. I wouldn’t really recommend it for fans of historical pirate fans, but if you’re into films like Princess Bride or Zorro, then this one is an easy watch.
10-City of God
While not one of my personal favourites, I have to recognize that City of God is a powerhouse of a film and 100% deserves its place on this list as one of the best made this century. A crime epic set in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s through the 1980s, it’s an exploration of the rise of organized crime in an extremely impoverished part of the world. It’s raw, fascinating, gritty, and certainly worthy of your time and my recognition.
9-Hell or High Water
I simply love the screenplay to Hell of High Water from Taylor Sheridan. I’d argue this is one of the best scripts of this century, with great dialogue (“so, what won’t you have?”), a wonderful lack of overexplaining/exposition, and using subtlety and nuance to get the larger point across. It’s a bank heist movie, but there’s so many shades of grey it makes it hard to know who to root for, the desperate lead in Chris Pine who needs his deranged criminal brother for assistance, or the old cop in Jeff Bridges, tapping into the last case before retirememnt trope, but does it in such a compelling and refreshing way that it didnt feel old.
8-Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is such a joy to watch. It’s endearing, hopeful, funny, with positive messages and downright awesome animation. I love the oceanic tale of an overprotective father going to extremes to rescue his son, while said son, who has a visible handicap with a smaller fin, finds the courage and determination to become his own fish, so to speak. There’s wonder and awe, but also tenderness and strong emotions, despite the central figures being fish.
7-1917
Filmed to imitate a one-take, 1917 is a harrowing film about delivering a message across the French countryside during WWI. Part of what makes the movie so good is how it was filmed. I’m not sure it would have been as memorable with a traditional staging and edit, but with the oner technique, the audience becomes an unseen third participant in this journey. You end up feeling unsafe and on edge the whole time, resulting in a wildly effective thrill ride.
6-Spirited Away
The film with the most imagination on display this century has to be Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. It’s the first foreign language animated film to win the Best Animated award at the Oscars, cementing its place as a landmark and widely respected film that’s full of magic, wonder, demons, and witches. This is a fairy tale unlike anything you’ve seen and is the best animated film of the last twenty-five years.
5-Inglourious Basterds
Inglourious Basterds ticks the box as not only the best Tarantino film of the century thus far, but I’d argue it’s his best film period. The revisionist history is a tribute to cinema, offering a film that’s in English, French, and German during the Second World War. It tells multiple stories and weaves them together in wild and unexpected ways. It also has one of the most iconic villains of all time in Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa, a terrifyingly articulate SS soldier. It’s also unexpectedly hilarious, but equally tense in ways that can put horror films to shame. An instant classic. Tarantino may be a jerk for his comments against Paul Dano recently, but looking at the film and not the filmmaker, you can’t deny that this is a fantastic film.
4-The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight is an exceptional movie. It transcends the superhero genre, offering a film that’s more in line with Heat than it does Batman. It’s a crime thriller that just so happens to be taking place in Gotham. The more grounded and realistic approach is quite the departure, but it works. And to no one’s surprise, the film boasts arguably the best villainous role in the 20th century, Heath Ledger’s Joker.
3-The Social Network
I would argue that Fincher’s The Social Network is the defining film of the last twenty-five years. How it explores ambition, social relationships, online connections, and so much more encapsulates where we are and then some in this age of social media. One not to be missed.
2-Mad Max: Fury Road
The best action film of the century also happens to be more than just that. It’s got some pretty meaty and heavy themes in the subject, from subgucation, patriarchy, and control. But when this movie is showcasing action, it’s firing on all cylinders. The whole movie is more or less one chase scene, with almost of the runtime taking place on wheels. It’s a wild ride, especially when so much of it is practically shot.
1-The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
I struggled a lot with this one. The Lord of the Rings films are so good, but I didn’t want to include all three on this list. So which of the three would I include? I was initially leaning towards The Two Towers, as I mentioned on the podcast, but I’ve opted to switch to Fellowship of the Ring after a holiday rewatch. It’s the most fun of the movies, with a great sense of adventure and stakes. It also has the best pacing I’d say, something crucial in films that are three hours long, more if you’re watching the extended cuts. There’s a warmth and wonderful sense of scope and wonder with the first entry which sets the stage for things to come, introduces our heroes, all while balancing action and character drama. Plus, it’s the most visually pleasing of the three, showcasing a more diverse range of locales.
So that’s the list! This was a fun, but really difficult article to write, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. What’s your top film of the last quarter-century? Let us know, would love to talk about it all with you!