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100 best
Here's a list of the New York Times's idea of the 100 best movies so far of the century of years beginning with a "20", to be precise about it. It's a little behind; there are no movies on the list from 2025, and none from 2024, either. But it's an interesting list that balances between acclaimed popular movies and more abstruse critical darlings with a lot in between also.
I've seen 37 of the 100 films, of which I'd name 10 as real favorites, which I identify as movies I've re-watched for pleasure, sometimes skipping over parts but usually in full. Those ten, from the top on the list of 100, are:
Mulholland Drive (2)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (7)
Zodiac (19)
Moneyball (45)
Inception (55)
Memento (62)
Spotlight (66)
Ocean's Eleven (71)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (76)
Inside Llewyn Davis (83)
Two Christopher Nolan movies, two Coen brothers movies. That doesn't mean I like all their movies.
Of the 37, there are also 8 which I found disappointing or annoying in at least some respects. Interestingly, while one of my top ten, Mulholland Drive, is near the top of the list at #2, it is immediately followed at #3 by the movie I saw in full that I disliked more than any other, There Will Be Blood (yes, worse than The Fellowship of the Ring, #87).
The other 19 that I saw I enjoyed watching well enough.
Besides the 37, there are 4 that bored or irritated me so much that I gave up on them early on. I'd rather explain why I hated a movie than why I loved it, so they are:
Roma (46) - Even the opening credits bored me to tears, and nothing that happened in the next five minutes changed my mind, so I turned it off.
Whiplash (60) - The teacher is such a human cretin that, were I the student, I would probably have punched him in the face before walking out and never returning.
The Hurt Locker (68) - I explained my problem with this one in a post titled action movies in which the only reason the hero doesn't die is that heroes don't die
The Florida Project (74) - Begins with three six-year-olds gleefully spitting onto their neighbor's new car for no reason other than that they can. Do I want to spend a whole movie with such obnoxious kids? Off.
I've seen 37 of the 100 films, of which I'd name 10 as real favorites, which I identify as movies I've re-watched for pleasure, sometimes skipping over parts but usually in full. Those ten, from the top on the list of 100, are:
Mulholland Drive (2)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (7)
Zodiac (19)
Moneyball (45)
Inception (55)
Memento (62)
Spotlight (66)
Ocean's Eleven (71)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (76)
Inside Llewyn Davis (83)
Two Christopher Nolan movies, two Coen brothers movies. That doesn't mean I like all their movies.
Of the 37, there are also 8 which I found disappointing or annoying in at least some respects. Interestingly, while one of my top ten, Mulholland Drive, is near the top of the list at #2, it is immediately followed at #3 by the movie I saw in full that I disliked more than any other, There Will Be Blood (yes, worse than The Fellowship of the Ring, #87).
The other 19 that I saw I enjoyed watching well enough.
Besides the 37, there are 4 that bored or irritated me so much that I gave up on them early on. I'd rather explain why I hated a movie than why I loved it, so they are:
Roma (46) - Even the opening credits bored me to tears, and nothing that happened in the next five minutes changed my mind, so I turned it off.
Whiplash (60) - The teacher is such a human cretin that, were I the student, I would probably have punched him in the face before walking out and never returning.
The Hurt Locker (68) - I explained my problem with this one in a post titled action movies in which the only reason the hero doesn't die is that heroes don't die
The Florida Project (74) - Begins with three six-year-olds gleefully spitting onto their neighbor's new car for no reason other than that they can. Do I want to spend a whole movie with such obnoxious kids? Off.