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.
Every generation gets its defining teen comedy. For the 21st century, that’s “Superbad.” The script by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg — about pals named Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) trying to get laid before they graduate high school — 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 “Superbad” is also a feat of casting, introducing moviegoers to the talents of Hill, Cera and Emma Stone.
Voted for by Julianne Moore
See her full ballot here.
The first clue that this Korean police procedural isn’t 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.
“I’ve 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.”
Charles Melton, actor
See his ballot here.
It would be easy to assume that this Werner Herzog documentary about Timothy Treadwell, who spent many summers cohabitating with Alaska’s brown bears, would skew educational. But Treadwell wasn’t 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’s 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’ll never hear.
Alfonso Cuarón’s action film is one of the 21st century’s 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, Cuarón crafts a suspenseful story that suggests the true terror of being lost in space isn’t the prospect of certain death — it’s being alone with your thoughts.
Voted for by Edgar Wright
See his full ballot here.
There’s so much to love. It’s 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’o and Letitia Wright — all excellent) aren’t 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.
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?
The image of a nearly bald Samantha Morton shouting “Run!” is just one reason Steven Spielberg’s Philip K. Dick adaptation is still haunting. In this dystopia, crime is stopped before it happens thanks to the foresight of human “precogs” like Morton’s 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’s noir in which color has almost been drained from the world.
“I’m not a miracle worker, I’m a janitor,” 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’s 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’s conscience is the crux of the writer-director Tony Gilroy’s gripping thriller.
“‘Michael Clayton’ 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.”
Arian Moayed, actor
See ballot here.
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’s what made “Gladiator” so gripping.
Voted for by Nicholas Sparks
See his full ballot here.
Few movies about adolescent girls are quite this raw or daring. Andrea Arnold’s story concerns a girl (Katie Jarvis) who desperately wants to be a hip-hop dancer, a pursuit her mother’s 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’s fearless and electric, one of Arnold’s finest.
Voted for by Lena Dunham
See her full ballot here.
Before Greta Gerwig struck out on her own to make “Lady Bird,” the first sign of her ascension was “Frances Ha,” 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, “Frances Ha” is a character study that captures the moment adulthood takes hold.
Voted for by Mike Birbiglia
See his full ballot here.
The plot of Christopher Nolan’s 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 children, father-in-law 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.
Voted for by Simu Liu
See his full ballot here.
The “I” is Agnès 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 — take only what you need, share everything you have — that is itself a tour de force of cinematic gleaning.
With the first installment of his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Peter Jackson did the almost impossible: He brought J.R.R. Tolkien’s 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’s score kicks in, it’s hard not to feel transported.
Voted for by Tony Hale
See his full ballot here.
The opening scene of Celine Song’s 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’s 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’s story unfolds in New York City and Seoul and is filled with exquisite reflections on time, love, fate and reinvention.
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 — this comedy is the perfect antidote to whatever ails you. Does the story make sense? Not really. Does that matter? No. You’re 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 “San Diago” means “a whale’s vagina” in German.
Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” 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.
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’s 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.
Voted for by Rachel Zegler
See her full ballot here.
Joshua Oppenheimer’s 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 — all the more petrifying because it is nonfiction.
“What Joshua Oppenheimer achieves is a completely profound meditation on guilt. The human cost on the people themselves who did these killings is so fascinating.”
Chiwetel Ejiofor, actor
See his ballot here.
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 “Swan Lake” 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’s hallucinations infuse body horror with an unforgettable dark grandeur.
Death, resurrection, family bonds and an electrifying performance by Penélope Cruz make up this gem of a drama from Pedro Almodóvar. Multiple generations of women show resolve as they navigate obstacle after obstacle. It’s an empowering work, dripping with beauty and passion (as so many of Almodóvar’s films are), and sprinkled with a dash of magical realism that opens up its narrative to new realms.
Voted for by Pamela Anderson
See her full ballot here.
There’s ambitious subject matter and then there’s Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning “The Tree of Life,” which tries to wrap its arms around all of creation. A meditation on memory and loss, this impressionistic film loosely follows a suburban family in 1950s Texas and a troubled son (Sean Penn) decades later. But in its audacious “history of the universe” sequence, the movie searches for the meaning of one human life by examining the violent, beautiful, mysterious origins of life itself.
Watching this quietly devastating feature debut from Charlotte Wells, it feels as if you’re seeing someone’s home movies — even in the scenes that aren’t shot to look like camcorder footage of a father and daughter’s Turkish vacation. The perfectly tuned performances by the young newcomer Frankie Corio and a breakout Paul Mescal (who was nominated for a best actor Oscar) add to the intimate realism. When hints of darkness seep into their sun-dappled trip, and it becomes clear their time together is in the past tense, it’s heartbreaking.
“One of the really powerful things to me, as a producer on this, is how much Charlotte believed in this story and these performances to communicate this really deep feeling that she had from her childhood with her father. And the ending is killer.”
Barry Jenkins, director
See his ballot here.
How do you type when you have hot dogs for fingers? Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s wildly inventive movie might have you asking this, and so many other questions you never thought you would contemplate. Raining down ideas by the bucketful, this movie should not work as well as it does, but the sure-footed filmmakers distill their multiverse-themed, genre-hopping narrative into truths about love and family. Turns out those hot dog fingers can hug easily.
Voted for by Justice Smith
See his full ballot here.
This sepia-toned Coen brothers adventure is presented as an adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey,” and while that thread is loose at best, it delivers a hearty stew of folklore, tall tales and even fantasy. In dusty Depression-era Mississippi, three dimwitted escaped convicts take off on a treasure hunt. A whimsical, rollicking ride ensues, but it’s the filmmakers’ use of Americana music including gospel, Delta blues and bluegrass that elevates this quest into an allegory about freedom, forgiveness, hope and the many ways we are inherently flawed.
“It’s gotta be George Clooney — his elasticity, his voice, his optimism, just everything about that performance. Tim Blake Nelson’s amazing in it, too. There’s something about the friendship and the journey and the humor, everything all mixed together. And the music! It’s profound, but it’s also an adventure.”
Benny Safdie, actor-director
See his ballot here.
Michael Haneke, the provocateur director of “Funny Games,” brought a surprisingly tender touch to this wrenching portrait of spousal devotion. Drawing on the audience’s memories of his octogenarian stars, Jean-Louis Trintignant (“The Conformist”) and Emmanuelle Riva (“Hiroshima Mon Amour”), Haneke cast them as Georges and Anne, married former music teachers. Georges tends to Anne as her health deteriorates; he recognizes that there is nothing much to be done, and that he is gradually closing off his own life.
Voted for by Pedro Almodóvar
See his full ballot here.
A heart-rending portrait of childhood imagination and innocence amid poverty and marginalization in America. Moonee, age 6 (Brooklynn Prince), runs riot at a tawdry motel near Disney World. You alternately want to squeeze her with joy and put her in a long timeout, and that’s the point: She’s a kid, effervescently so. The film draws power from an unspoken tension (this existence is unlikely to end well) and the way a magical fantasy world — manufactured and marketed by Disney — sits just out of her reach.
Voted for by Mikey Madison
See her full ballot here.
A cartoon rodent, a Paris backdrop, an underdog (OK, under-rat) story: It’s the setup for many animated tales. But there’s a difference between rehashing the same-old and elevating a classic, much like the trajectory of this movie’s titular dish. Remy, a country rat with a sophisticated palate and a belief in himself, heads to the city to make his culinary dreams come true — setting off an enchanting, witty and touching adventure. Its lessons about reigniting our passions, even when they have long turned to drudgery, linger well after the feast.
You could call it the lesbian “Brokeback Mountain” — a moving same-sex love story with big stars (Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara), unpolitical except that it exists, set in a time (in this case, the 1950s) when gay people survived through self-imprisonment (notice how the motel blinds in “Carol” cast prison-bar shadows). “Carol,” however, ends on a slightly happier note. Blanchett’s high-society mother must relinquish custody of her beloved daughter, but she’s at least no longer fearful of her sexuality. Mara’s young photographer says it aloud at the end: “I’m not afraid.”
Star power has never been more glittery than in Steven Soderbergh’s remake of the 1960 Rat Pack heist picture. This version pairs George Clooney at his most suave with an impish, spiky-haired Brad Pitt for a romp that keeps tension high while remaining impeccably sleek and stylish. Each member of Danny Ocean’s team is an utter delight, including Elliott Gould in oversize glasses and Don Cheadle with a British accent. And Soderbergh gives Las Vegas a dreamy aura that matches the celebrities onscreen.
Voted for by Joel Kim Booster
See his full ballot here.
This one is for the outcasts. Unfolding for the most part with a chilly sense of calm, Tomas Alfredson’s drama follows a friendship between a detached boy, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), and his offbeat neighbor, Eli (Lina Leandersson), who just might be a vampire. The film is tempered, bloody when it needs to be, but sympathetic to the challenges of its lead characters and generous in how it portrays their connection as it pushes the vampire movie in fresh directions.
Voted for by Jemaine Clement
See his full ballot here.
What a haunting head trip Jonathan Glazer delivers in this electrifying thriller. Scarlett Johansson plays an alien with a come-hither stare that makes men shed their clothes and follow her into a liquid void. The imagery is hypnotizing and disturbing at once. It’s a lyrical slow burn, with a score by Mica Levi that ratchets up the dread. And Johansson’s commanding presence just might make you follow her into that void as well.
“It’s just a genuine vision. It’s a vivid, strange, dislocating film that feels genuinely alien.”
Ari Aster, director
See his ballot here.
“This hypnotic sci-fi horror show is a miracle of economy. Johansson’s performance is a testament to the idea that less is more. There’s no shoe leather, no extraneous sound or image. You simply can’t escape the spell Glazer casts. Like all good art, it scalds you.”
Todd Field, director
See his ballot here.
“How many bombs have you disarmed?” an officer asks Staff Sgt. James (Jeremy Renner), who has just extinguished a flaming car and neutralized its trunkful of explosives. “Eight hundred seventy-three, sir,” he answers. Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the best director Oscar for this nerve-shredding film about a U.S. ordnance team in Iraq. In capturing the 21st-century warfare of insurgents and roadside I.E.D.s, “The Hurt Locker” also looks at the psyche of an adrenaline junkie more at home in a blast suit than in the cereal aisle.
“It’s ‘competence porn’ at its best — an electrifying portrait of men who are very good at their jobs, by a filmmaker who is really [expletive] good at hers.”
Samara Weaving, actress
See her ballot here.
“I’ve never forgotten that scene where he’s staring at the immense, mind-boggling array of cereals in a supermarket, and the next shot is him stepping back off that big huge transport thing into Iraq again. He’s gone back to war. He can’t handle this.”
Dennis Lehane, author
See his ballot here.
After a 16-year absence, Todd Field returned to directing with what is perhaps the defining movie of the cancel culture era. Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a virtuosic conductor with perfectly tailored shirts and a hubristic streak that is both her greatest asset and her ultimate downfall. The trick of “Tár” is that Field and Blanchett so meticulously craft Lydia that it’s occasionally hard to remember she’s not a real person. And considering that it makes for a weighty dissection of power, it’s also often hilarious.
Voted for by Matthew Weiner
See his full ballot here.
A detective story about journalists uncovering the Boston archdiocese’s efforts to hide a huge child sexual abuse scandal, “Spotlight” is an understated procedural about heroes in dogged pursuit of the truth. This best picture Oscar winner was beloved precisely because it lacked the big speeches and exploitative flashbacks that often accompany newspaper dramas and instead committed itself to the unglamorous details of an often unglamorous job.
The father of the atomic bomb, and thus of our apocalyptic age, provides the director Christopher Nolan an ideal subject for his magnum opus. Nolan is obsessed with the collision of science and humanism; in structuring the film explicitly around the ways power is created — fission and fusion, each potentially generative and destructive — he has made an operatic epic that is history, thriller and warning, all in one.
Voted for by Stephen King
See his full ballot here.
A perfect example of the unreliable narrator, “Gone Girl” takes the he said/she said tale to new heights. Written by Gillian Flynn, author of the best-selling novel on which it’s based, the movie gives contradictory accounts of the marriage between urbane Amy and Midwestern Nick, played with pitch-perfect precision by Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, and keeps us guessing over who is the hero and who is the villain. In the end, are there any winners in the land of toxic domesticity?
If only every dysfunctional family could be this supportive of one another’s dreams. Perhaps that’s the takeaway from “Little Miss Sunshine,” which centers on the downtrodden, eclectic Hoovers, including a suicidal uncle, a heroin-ingesting grandpa and a father always looking for the next get-rich-quick scheme. They all pile into a VW bus to give 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin) the chance to win a child beauty pageant. Part comedic road trip, part commentary on contemporary America, “Little Miss Sunshine” delights for both its heart and stunning performances.
This Christopher Nolan thriller stands out for its ingenious structure: starting at the story’s end and backtracking scene by scene. The disjointed narrative gives us a taste of what life is like for Leonard (Guy Pearce), who can’t store short-term memories and who tattoos his body with clues about his wife’s murder. It’s a clever puzzle, but what makes “Memento” unforgettable is what it says about identity and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, right up to its rug-pull of an ending — er, beginning.
Never before have shootings, stabbings, beatings, beheadings, disembowelings, amputations, mutilations, gougings, slicings, choppings and bitings been so much campy fun. Uma Thurman’s character, the Bride, awakens from a coma and vows revenge on her code-named assailants; they include the kimono-wearing, katana-wielding Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu) and the seemingly ordinary Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox), who keeps a gun in her daughter’s cereal box. Quentin Tarantino lovingly uses B-movie styles — spaghetti western, kung fu, anime, grindhouse — to tell his dark story.
Voted for by Arian Moayed
See his full ballot here.