So I made another ballot this year – this time picking the 75 best films of the 21st century (according to me). Similar to the Sight & Sound fan list I put together here, I had a rule of only one film per director to make it “easier” to narrow things down (and make some omissions marginally more forgivable), which it barely did. And, yes, all films from the year 2000 onwards up to today were eligible, though not all years ended up represented.
Going year by year almost feels too straightforward an order – so let’s go purely alpha-numerical instead.
20th Century Women – 2016
dir. Mike Mills
35 Shots of Rum – 2008
dir. Claire Denis
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – 2007
dir. Cristian Mungiu
45 Years – 2015
dir. Andrew Haigh
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – 2007
dir. Andrew Dominik
Almayer’s Folly – 2011
dir. Chantal Akerman
Bad Education – 2004
dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Beanpole – 2019
dir. Kantemir Balagov
Blood of My Blood – 2015
dir. Marco Bellocchio
Burning – 2018
dir. Lee Chang-dong
Camille Claudel 1915 – 2013
dir. Bruno Dumont
The Dance of Reality – 2013
dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky
The Diary of a Teenage Girl – 2015
dir. Marielle Heller
Distant – 2002
dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Dogtooth – 2009
dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Elle – 2016
dir. Paul Verhoeven
Evolution – 2015
dir. Lucile Hadzhihalilović
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library – 2017
dir. Frederick Wiseman
Extraordinary Stories – 2008
dir. Mariano Llinás
Fantastic Mr. Fox – 2009
dir. Wes Anderson
A Fantastic Woman – 2017
dir. Sebastián Lelio
Far from Heaven – 2002
dir. Todd Haynes
Fat Girl – 2001
dir. Catherine Breillat
Finding Forrester – 2000
dir. Gus Van Sant
Ghost World – 2001
dir. Terry Zwigoff
The Gleaners and I – 2000
dir. Agnès Varda
Golden Door – 2006
dir. Emanuel Crialese
Goodbye to Language – 2014
dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Happy Hour – 2015
dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Holy Motors – 2012
dir. Leos Carax
The Illusionist – 2010
dir. Sylvain Chomet
In the Cut – 2003
dir. Jane Campion
Inland Empire – 2006
dir. David Lynch
It’s Such a Beautiful Day – 2012
dir. Don Hertzfeldt
July Rhapsody – 2002
dir. Ann Hui
Le Quattro Volte – 2010
dir. Michelangelo Frammartino
The Light Shines Only There – 2014
dir. Mipo O
Lilya 4-Ever – 2002
dir. Lukas Moodysson
Lost and Beautiful – 2015
dir. Pietro Marcello
Love & Basketball – 2000
dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood
Love Exposure – 2008
dir. Sion Sono
Marseille – 2004
dir. Angela Schanelec
The Master – 2012
dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
Me and You and Everyone We Know – 2005
dir. Miranda July
Meek’s Cutoff – 2010
dir. Kelly Reichardt
The Milk of Sorrow – 2008
dir. Claudia Llosa
Mommy – 2014
dir. Xavier Dolan
Monsoon Wedding – 2001
dir. Mira Nair
Moolaadé – 2004
dir. Ousmane Sembene
My Country, My Country – 2006
dir. Laura Poitras
Never Rarely Sometimes Always – 2020
dir. Eliza Hittman
On Body and Soul – 2017
dir. Ildikó Enyedi
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence – 2014
dir. Roy Andersson
Portrait of a Lady on Fire – 2019
dir. Céline Sciamma
The Selfish Giant – 2013
dir. Clio Barnard
A Serious Man – 2009
dir. Joel and Ethan Coen
Shoplifters – 2018
dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring – 2003
dir. Kim Ki-duk
Stranger by the Lake – 2013
dir. Alain Guiraudie
Suburban Birds – 2018
dir. Qiu Sheng
Take This Waltz – 2011
dir. Sarah Polley
This Is England – 2006
dir. Shane Meadows
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection – 2019
dir. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
This Is Not a Film – 2011
dir. Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmaseb
Time and Tide – 2000
dir. Tsui Hark
The Tree of Life – 2011
dir. Terrence Malick
The Tribe – 2014
dir. Myroslav Slaboshpytsky
Tropical Malady – 2004
dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Va Savoir (Who Knows?) – 2001
dir. Jacques Rivette
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – 2005
dir. Steve Box and Nick Park
Waltz with Bashir – 2008
dir. Ari Folman
What Time Is It There? – 2001
dir. Tsai Ming-liang
The Wonders – 2014
dir. Alice Rohrwacher
You Will Be My Son – 2011
dir. Gilles Legrand
Zama – 2017
dir. Lucrecia Martel
flies on the ceiling 