Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins published “The 25 best movies of the century” on their podcast The Big Picture. It prompted me to make my own.
Since I’m an obsessive Letterboxd user, this was pretty easy to extract. I’ve also recreated it there.
This list is personal and imperfect. I’ll probably change my mind on half of these. But here’s where I stand today:
- Memories of Murder (2003)
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
- Love Exposure (2008)
- There Will Be Blood (2007)
- Zodiac (2007)
- 25th Hour (2002)
- Parasite (2019)
- The Dawn Wall (2017) - documentary
- Gone Girl (2014)
- Mother (2009)
- Spirited Away (2001)
- Apollo 11 (2019) - documentary
- Lady Bird (2017)
- The Social Network (2010)
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
- Get Out (2017)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
- The Florida Project (2017)
- Her (2013)
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
- Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
- Speak No Evil (2022)
- Free Solo (2018) - documentary
- Mystic River (2003)
- The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Some patterns that emerged:
It’s a moment in which I’m into Eastern cinema. Korean and Japanese films feel unpredictable. Their different culture makes their movies unexpected and I can’t guess where they’re going.
I’m obsessed with some directors. David Fincher and Bong Joon-ho appear multiple times
And of course two climbing documentaries made the cut 🤦♂️.