What's Your Favorite Movie of the 21st Century

The New York Times is spending the summer ranking 100 of the best movies of the 21st century so far, based around the voting of over 500 directors, actors and producers in Hollywood. Kyle Buchanan, New York Times pop culture reporter and awards season columnist, discusses the list, his favorite 21st century movies, and listeners share their picks.

More Info:

• 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century
• How Actors and Directors Voted
• Readers Topp 100 picks
• The Quiz
• Looking for a great movie to watch?
• Cast Your Vote / Make Your Ballot

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The New York Times recently embarked on a massive and let's face it, very entertaining project, figuring out what the 100 best movies of the 21st century are so far. To do it, they polled more than 500 directors, actors, and other influential names in Hollywood and around the world, asking them for their top 10 films released since the start of this century. That's the year 2000 for anyone still in denial.

The final list comes after the rise of streaming services and the proliferation of superhero blockbusters. We were definitely curious here at All Of It what made the list, and if you want to join the fun like we did, The Times also published a separate list of readers' top 100 picks. You can still fill out your own ballot or try their movie-ranking quiz. There's even a handy guide if you need help deciding what to watch next. You can find these links on our website later today.

Our guest today is Kyle Buchanan. He helps spearhead this project. Kyle is the pop culture reporter at The New York Times. He's the awards season columnist, known as The Projectionist. He reports from all the major film festivals. He is also the author of the bestselling book Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road. Kyle, it is nice to talk to you.

Kyle Buchanan: Alison, I got hyped just listening to you tout that project, and I've been knee deep in it for months.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Kyle Buchanan: You were giving it your best, Mr. Moviefone. I really appreciate that.

Alison Stewart: I'm giving it the most.

Kyle Buchanan: [laughs]

Alison Stewart: How did this idea for this project come about?

Kyle Buchanan: The Culture Desk had done a version of this with books last year, and it felt sort of like the exciting next step. I think especially with movies, people might be sort of surprised to find that they've watched a lot of the movies on this list. I mean, number 100 is Superbad. Not far above that are films like Black Panther and Gravity, but at the same time, there are films on this list that I know that the average moviegoer hasn't seen. I thought that would be a very exciting mix, to be able to entice people in with mainstream films that are superlative, and then hopefully coax them in all sorts of different directions.

Alison Stewart: Why did you choose to do a readers' list versus a filmmakers, actors, and industry's list?

Kyle Buchanan: The original list is, we polled a little bit more than 500 major figures in and around the film industry. We have Oscar-winning directors, actors, people behind the scenes. That's the main list, but the thing that took off like a rocket is the ability for a reader to craft their own ballot. Just like the people who had voted in the Hollywood poll, you could select your 10 favorite, 10 best, whatever you want to call it, films released since January 1st, 2000.

That's a feature that went mega viral over the last few weeks. I saw it everywhere and was thrilled to see it. What we ended up with was over 200,000 reader ballots, and we thought it would be really interesting to publish that list of 100, especially in comparison and in conversation with Hollywood's own list.

Alison Stewart: All right, I'm going to throw this skunk on the table.

Kyle Buchanan: Do it.

Alison Stewart: Mad Max: Fury Road was number 11 out of 100 movies on the list. All right. To be honest, did you have anything to do with this?

Kyle Buchanan: No. Well, I mean, look, it was on my own ballot, and I was thrilled to see it on so many other ballots. It's the highest-placing action movie of the last 25 years on that list, as it should be. I personally-- Look, if I had any leverage whatsoever, I would have snuck it into the top 10, but the chips fell where they may on that one.

Alison Stewart: Why did you think it made it at least to the top 20? What is it about Mad Max: Fury Road that was important to you, important in terms of its moviemaking?

Kyle Buchanan: I think it's just a staggeringly visceral original action vision. I don't think we'll get movies like that anymore for as impactful and influential as it was, it kind of was a movie of its time, and it took place in a vanishing window where you could shoot and stage almost all of those action sequences for real, instead of ultimately inside a computer. Not that it didn't have computer-aided enhancement, but I just think that movie-- and it's more than just looking incredible and feeling incredible, it's also what it's about.

I think that the post-apocalyptic landscape of that film feels more and more uncomfortably real these days. Honestly, a lot of the movies that did well in this poll seem to be speaking to our current moment, or at least the last 25 years. It wasn't just that people were thinking, "Well, what are our favorite movies of the last 25 years?" I think they're also taking the context of those last 25 years into account and choosing movies that speak to that.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask you, what were the guidelines for people in ranking the films? What criteria was used in their choices?

Kyle Buchanan: We really tried to give them as little as possible. All we said was it had to be released in a theater in the US since January 1st, 2000. That's it. It could be a documentary, it could be an animated film, all of that, and we didn't even tell them that because I was really curious to see what are people going to pick when left to their own devices. I was heartened to see how differently everybody interpreted that, but especially because, I don't know, my fear was that people were just going to default to the same sort of prestige movies and not answer it with maybe their favorites or less-acclaimed films that they have really taken a shine to.

That, for the most part, was not the case, certainly at least with the Hollywood ballot. I'd wager with the reader ballots, people voted with their hearts. I think that when a movie is really good, that's where it hits you. I think that this list period is a tribute to movies that you keep thinking about long, long, long after you've seen them.

Alison Stewart: I was really worried there was going to be a recency bias in this film--, but that didn't happen.

Kyle Buchanan: Yes. Honestly, I think a lot of the films released in the last few years maybe were at a disadvantage. I really do think people took it pretty seriously, and they said, "No, no, no." It's got to have stood the test of time, even if that time is a relatively recent block of just a couple years, but we did have some things that surprised me as far as recency. The highest-placing movie directed by a woman on the list is Anatomy of a Fall, which placed fairly highly in and above Lost in Translation by Sofia Coppola, which I might have thought it would be reversed, but it's an impressive testimonial to Anatomy of a Fall, that when people were putting their ballots together, that popped up on so many of them.

Alison Stewart: When you were comparing the readers' list versus the we'll call it experts' list, they were actually pretty close. Did you derive any insights from comparing the two?

Kyle Buchanan: I was very startled, and we'll get to the top 10 soon. I don't want to spoil anything, but I was very surprised that even before we had announced our top 10 films, because we released them in increments of 20 through the week when it launched, the reader ballots indicated that many of those same top 10 films that the industry had chosen were going to rise to the top for the readers. In fact, the same two films topped both lists.

That said, beyond that top 10, and even somewhat inside that top 10, there are somewhat more populist leanings from the reader ballot. Not that the Hollywood ballot didn't have those, but certainly the readers were a lot less afraid of franchise fare. [crosstalk] You had a lot of-- You had many, many, many Chris Nolan movies in the readers' poll, and there were plenty in the Hollywood poll too. Also, all three Lord of the Rings movies, both Dune movies that have come out so far. Even Avengers: Endgame, which was number 100 on the readers' ballot.

Alison Stewart: Were there any films that you assumed would make the list and didn't?

Kyle Buchanan: Yes, it was interesting on social media to see people speculating as to what would be in the top 20 or the top 10. A movie that I kept seeing mentioned. People would deduce, "Well, it hasn't appeared yet, so it's certain to be in the top 10," was La La Land. La La Land wasn't in the top 100 at all on the Hollywood list. Very surprising, and placed fairly high on the readers' list. I might have thought that would make it. There's no films by Alejandro González Iñárritu, who won Best Director twice, a pretty rare feat.

In fact, there are a lot fewer Best Picture winners on this list than you think. I think that is a really revealing indication of sometimes the movie that wins the top award that Hollywood has to offer is the movie of the moment but maybe not the movie of all time, and other films come to the fore. Maybe films that were a little more daring at the time that didn't have that consensus. It's interesting to see which of these previous Best Picture winners have faded away and which stayed put.

Alison Stewart: All right, we're going to get to the top 10 in just a minute, but before we go to break, I want to know what were your top three movies? Your list.

Kyle Buchanan: Oh man, [laughs] you're going to make me choose my favorite--

Alison Stewart: Today. Your favorite list today. How about that?

Kyle Buchanan: I'll say this, Alison. Even whittling it down to 10 was way harder than I thought, and I think that's true of a lot of our participants. For me personally, I had-- There's no way Mad Max was not going to be on there. I'll actually give it to two movies that did not ultimately make the top 100,-

Alison Stewart: Okay.

Kyle Buchanan: -but that I'm always very eager to recommend. They are 20th Century Women with Annette Bening, and Birth with Nicole Kidman. Birth was directed by Jonathan Glazer, who had two films on this list, Under the Skin and The Zone of Interest. I would have liked to have seen Birth on there too. It's got an absolutely bravura performance from Nicole.

Alison Stewart: Ones I really liked that weren't on the list. Girls Trip.

Kyle Buchanan: Yes. Amazing.

Alison Stewart: Girls Trip. Rachel Getting Married. I thought about Jonathan Demme and I thought about Anne Hathaway in an early role, and Lars and the Real Girl.

Kyle Buchanan: Oh, that's a good one too.

Alison Stewart: I love that movie, and it really showed what Ryan Gosling, what his superpower is.

Kyle Buchanan: As far as Girls Trip goes, we had one female-driven comedy that made the list, and it placed pretty high, Bridesmaids, but I would have liked to see more, whether it's Girls Trip, whether it's Mean Girls, films that really sort of were lexicon-defining. I don't feel like they get as fair a shake in the cultural consciousness when it comes to importance as some of these films starring men did, but look, we polled a lot of women, and they were voting for films like Superbad and Borat and Anchorman too.

Alison Stewart: All right, we're talking to The New York Times' Kyle Buchanan. We're talking about The Times' project of ranking the 100 best movies of the 21st century. It is time for you to weigh in. What is your pick for the best movie of the 21st century? The number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We'll get to the top 10 after a quick break.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Kyle Buchanan from The New York Times. We're talking about the Times' new project ranking the 100 best movies of the 21st century. Okay, we're going to try to get through all 10. At number 10, The Social Network. What is it about this film that means something to you?

Kyle Buchanan: I think The Social Network in particular is an example of a trend we saw all throughout the list, which is about technology and the scary pace that it's proceeding and how that's sort of encroaching on our humanity. Not too far down under The Social Network is Her by Spike Jonze about-

Alison Stewart: Love that.

Kyle Buchanan: -an AI that becomes awfully personal and real for Joaquin Phoenix. I think we're seeing a lot of films like that because, like I said, what speaks to this current moment, what feels at times unusually prescient about the situation we're in, and certainly The Social Network does.

Alison Stewart: All right. At number 9, Spirited Away from 2001. Okay, about this film, half of our staff was like, "That movie scared me."

Kyle Buchanan: [laughs]

Alison Stewart: The other half said, "It's a beautiful animated masterpiece." First of all, what makes the animation worth noting?

Kyle Buchanan: Well, I'd like to tell your staff both things can be true.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Kyle Buchanan: Yes, this is a hand-drawn animated masterpiece, to my mind, by Hayao Miyazaki. It's gorgeous, uncanny, strange, sometimes a little bit scary. I was heartened to see that this made the top 10. Animation was actually pretty well represented on this list. There could have been more, but we had some Pixars. We had Up and WALL·E and Ratatouille. Very interesting to me. Three of the very few Pixars that did not spawn sequels, so it sort of felt like they were powerful enough to stand alone. I think that registered in a lot of voters' minds.

Alison Stewart: Number 8, Get Out from 2017. Jordan Peele's thriller about the horrors of racism in a post-racial America. The New York Times' description said, "When Chris, the hero of Jordan Peele's freakout, visits his white girlfriend's parents, it's obvious that something is off. Her mother is weirdly watchful, her father is embarrassingly obsequious. Chris soon discovers that the family and their friends are modern-day slavers transplanting white brains into Black bodies." Let's listen to a clip before Chris is invited to go to that special place.

[clip plays]

Chris: Why can't I move?

Missy Armitage: You're paralyzed. Just like that day when you did nothing. You did nothing. Now sink into the floor.

Chris: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Missy Armitage: Sink.

[music]

Alison Stewart: He goes to the Sunken Place. That was such an interesting film because it really did cross genres.

Kyle Buchanan: It really crossed genres, and honestly, revitalized them. So many movies are still coming out in the wake of Get Out that feel indebted to it. I wasn't shocked that it made the top 10 because it feels like we're still, essentially in the aftermath of that film in so many ways; culturally, pop culturally; and I think it's going to be a significant movie that stays near the tops of people's rankings for the years to come. Heartening also that it's a horror movie. I'm thrilled to see a genre movie make it into the top 10.

Alison Stewart: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind from 2004. Number 7. Will you remind people what this is about?

Kyle Buchanan: Yes, this is with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, and it's about two former lovers who seek to remove the painful memories of each other from their brains. Again, this feels of a piece with films like Her and The Social Network in that it's unusually prescient about the ways that things that felt probably absurd, these plot devices, these notions, when Eternal Sunshine came out feel, honestly, sort of uncanny and more around the corner than ever. We're shaping ourselves or being shaped in such terrifying ways because of technology. I think a movie like that, that investigates why we do these things to each other or let them be done to us, feels all the more resonant.

Alison Stewart: All right, we've got some texts coming in. "Arrival and Portrait of a Lady come to mind. Perfect Days by Wim Wenders." Let's also talk to Gary, who's calling in from the Catskills. Hi, Gary. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Gary: Hey there. Well, I wanted to put in my 2 cents for what I think is an astonishingly great movie with a horrible name. It's Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle. It's intellectual, fun, and as Altair as it gets. It references the entire history of cinema from Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin to the great Warner Brothers cartoons of the '40s through '60s, as well as French New Wave and Kurosawa. I think its only downfall was its low-brow name. I don't know how much attention it actually got when it was released, but if you haven't seen it, you've really missed out.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling in, Gary. We're talking to Kyle Buchanan from The New York Times. We're talking about The Times' new ranking project, the 100 best movies of the 21st Century, based on votes from more than 500 filmmakers, actors, and critics. Number 6, No Country for Old Men. This is a scene from the movie. It's directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. It's this iconic gas station scene where the hitman, Anton, played by Javier Bardem, confronts a gas station attendant. Let's listen.

[clip plays]

Anton: What's the most you ever lost in a coin toss?

Gas Station Attendant: Sir?

Anton: The most you ever lost in a coin toss?

Gas Station Attendant: I don't know. I couldn't say.

Anton: [tosses the coin] Call it. Gas Station Attendant: Call it?

Anton: Yes.

Gas Station Attendant: For what?

Anton: Just call it.

Alison Stewart: Brian Cox said, "It's the Coen brothers at their best." What do you think?

Kyle Buchanan: Just listening to that audio snippet. There you go. That's all you need to hear. It is probably one of the top-tier Coen brothers movies, and they've got a few on this list and have certainly made some all-timers, but that Javier Bardem performance, if you're looking at this list of 100 films and you're picking out the most iconic characters, that might almost be number 1. He is incredible in that movie.

Alison Stewart: I love O Brother, Where Art Thou? Which I think is on the list. Yes?

Kyle Buchanan: It is. It did make the list.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that one scene, I think it's Tim Nelson, says, "Oh, not the livestock, George."

Kyle Buchanan: [laughs] And the music of that movie.

Alison Stewart: It's so funny.

Kyle Buchanan: Yes, it's very interesting, because I think that film sort of rose and rose and rose in acclaim, and for it to make this list is a testament to just how much it's stuck around.

Alison Stewart: At number 5 is Moonlight. Yes, it did win the Academy Award. Despite what they said about La La Land, Moonlight did win the Academy Award. It's hard to put into words, but what was special about Moonlight?

Kyle Buchanan: This is a really interesting one, especially vis-à-vis that Oscar contest when it was down to Moonlight and La La Land , and at times, it seemed like they had both won. I think that part of the reason ultimately that Moonlight won Best Picture is that for all the wonderful strengths of La La Land, Moonlight felt more like what was happening in our country, in our moment, in our humanity. La La Land is a retro-leaning film by design. Moonlight felt extremely urgent.

It's a Best Picture winner that actually takes place in contemporary times, that feels like it couldn't have been made before now. I was very excited to see that make the top 5. It's extremely deserving, and I think it's a real testament to the Academy picking wisely that year. In fact, if you went back and reordered this list by year and you picked the highest-placing movie per year, you'd only get two Best Picture winners. If you're deciding to pick as a default Best Picture winner, the highest-ranking movie from that year, only Moonlight and our number one movie would be the Best Picture winners to prevail. I think that's a sign of both movies' strength.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Megan calling in from East New York. Hey, Megan.

Megan: Get out of here. I got all excited. I love you, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Aw, thanks.

Megan: Thank you. Shrek 2. Shrek 2. Shrek 2. Shrek 2 is my number one favorite movie of all time.

Alison Stewart: I think she likes Shrek 2. I'm not sure.

Kyle Buchanan: "I love this specific Shrek 2. Not 1, not 3. 2."

Alison Stewart: Shrek 2. Let's talk to Josh from Brooklyn. Hey, Josh.

Josh: Hi. Can you hear me?

Alison Stewart: Yes, go for it.

Josh: Yes, hi. Okay, first of all, I think it's been a great century for movies. Okay, here are my top four. Number one is Eternal Sunshine, then Tree of Life, Boyhood, and Lives of Others. That's it.

Alison Stewart: That's a good--

Kyle Buchanan: All four of which made the list.

Alison Stewart: There you go. At number 4, you had In the Mood for Love, which I believe is playing now in New York City, so take a look for that. Number 3, There Will Be Blood from 2007. Do we have the classic line?

Kyle Buchanan: [laughs]

[clip plays]

Daniel: I drink your milkshake. [makes slurping sound] I drink it up.

Eli: Don't bully me, Daniel.

Daniel: [shouts]

Alison Stewart: It's such a classic. Daniel Day-Lewis portraying Daniel Plainview, a ruthless oil prospector determined to make a profit at any cost. Why do you think this is one of the big movies?

Kyle Buchanan: Just listening to that, I could really go for a milkshake right now myself.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles]

Kyle Buchanan: Not your milkshake, Alison. I won't drink your milkshake.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Kyle Buchanan: I will find my own. "Why is this one of the great movies?" Again, iconic characters, scenes, especially ending scenes, that really stick in the mind.

Alison Stewart: Ah, yes.

Kyle Buchanan: When you're thinking about the story of the last 25 years, it's accelerating trends from the 20th century. This movie, There Will Be Blood, is about utterly rapacious, unchecked, moral-free capitalism, and how it trammels everything it comes across, including the participant souls. I think that at a time when the wealth disparity is greater than it's ever been, it feels even more germane.

Alison Stewart: At number 2, Mulholland Drive, directed by David Lynch. Rest in peace. At number 1, came out in 2019, Parasite, and it's on both lists, the readers' and the experts'.

Kyle Buchanan: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Were you expecting that to top the list?

Kyle Buchanan: I thought Mulholland Drive might top the Hollywood list, especially because, as we were polling people, it's when David Lynch passed away, but honestly, Parasite was the runaway victor, not only in the Hollywood list but in the readers' list. There was no touching it, and I think that's pretty astonishing. It really is. I mean, there's so much that you can say about Parasite topping this list. It's the first film not in the English language to win Best Picture and representative of the rest of our list, the experts' list, because about 25 of this 100, so a quarter of the list, is a film not in the English language.

Everything I was saying about There Will Be Blood, Parasite is the modern-day version of that. It is about that wealth disparity and how it only feels like it's getting worse and it's driving people to utter desperation. It's a film that came out just before the pandemic, but if it came out now, you'd still find it to be a movie of the moment. In addition to that, ruthlessly entertaining.

Alison Stewart: Kyle Buchanan from The New York Times, he has walked us through The Times' new project ranking the 100 best movies of the 21st century. Kyle, it is always a pleasure to have you on the show.

Kyle Buchanan: Thank you, Alison. I'm going to go see if Uber Eats can give me a milkshake.