Movie Central's Best Films of the 21st Century

Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite finds Olivia Colman’s Queen Anne at the center of a war fought in whispers, bedchambers, and elaborate wigs. What makes this film so electrifying is its queerness–presented not as subtext, but as the driving force of the narrative. The relationships between Anne, Sarah (Rachel Weisz), and Abigail (Emma Stone) are messy, erotic, and deeply powerful, blurring the line between intimacy and political strategy. Whether or not Queen Anne’s real relationships were romantic (many historians have long hypothesized her queerness), Lanthimos uses this speculation to show how desire has always shaped power. By queering the royal court, The Favourite doesn’t just retell history: it reframes it. The Favourite is a period piece that feels subversively modern, filthy, and utterly hysterical.

This film is ICONIC. The characters, dialogue, costumes, soundtrack, colour palette, and the one of a kind intro credit sequence are all burnt into my memory. I think this meandering style of quirky comedy follows in the footsteps of classics like The Big Lebowski; it’s unconventional, random, and at times just downright strange. Like its central theme, this movie doesn’t pander to all audiences and is unapologetically its true self in style, presentation, and pacing. Truly one of a kind. The dance sequence is an undeniable highlight but I think I’d write out the whole movie if asked which scene is the best.

Vote for Pedro!

What I love most about movies is what they don’t tell me. I love trying to figure out little details and hidden clues in the visual aspects of film and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema allows me to go on a full-on scavenger hunt. The world around Theodore is bland, boring and beige, but the colour red punches through the beige to give him that hope he has lost. His shirt, the operating system, his lamp, the office. The red only pops up when he wants it to. The walls, the shower, his shirt, his office. The beige consumes him when he gives up. It's classic. Despite being depicted in a not-so-distant future of AI advancements and robot connections, Spike Jonze is able to capture the absolute rock bottom of despair and hopelessness in finding love. Divorce, cheating, loneliness, Joaquin’s striking blue-eyed stare, they’re all things that threaten us. We have to learn to accept them and get through them one step at a time.

Rachel Sennott and Emma Seligman nail the absurdity of the queer highschool experience in this comedy. Every detail in Bottoms is just over the top and ridiculous and thats what makes it so fun to watch. Just when you think the movie is about to take itself seriously and get heartfelt, the gays are slaughtering football players during homecoming. This movie truly makes me laugh out loud.

Hidden Figures is the untold story about the bravery, intelligence, and determination of the black women who helped NASA get Man into space.

"Here at NASA, we all pee the same color."

Radiator Springs: the town you never knew you wanted to visit, but after watching Cars, you’d happily trade your left lug nut to drive “low ‘n’ slow” down Route 66. I don’t know what it is about this particular Disney movie, but it’s just so good. It might be the scenery, the soundtrack, the animation, or the lovable and charming characters… no matter what it is, I love it.

Brokeback Mountain was and still is a groundbreaking piece of cinema. It's a film that's beautiful in every respect, as beautiful as it is so deeply sad. One of the first to tackle a LGBT romance with the gravity and tenderness that it rightly deserves. It has overcome the limitations of the "gay cowboy movie" label, as its merits are rightfully being appreciated with each passing year as a well-crafted, emotionally resonant drama. This is essential viewing for film lovers, and especially for film lovers who consider themselves allies of the LGBT+ community.

Only the Coens could so deftly blend Greek mythology and Americana. Loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou? uses the framework of the epic poem to create this wonderful great depression era road movie wherein three jailbirds (George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson) on the lam try to return home in order to find buried treasure. On the way, they encounter blind record producers, Robert Johnson, a cyclops, some ‘sy-reens’ (sic), and the KKK, all while being chased by the devil himself.

The backbone of the film (and its greatest strength) is the soundtrack produced by T-Bone Burnett, which, much like the film, perfectly blends the modern with the historical in its choice of folk, bluegrass, gospel, and country music, leading it to winning the Album of the Year Grammy that year. It may not be a perfect film, but much like the rest of the Coens catalogue, when you and the film are on the same wavelength, there is no other experience like it.

Poor Things is like if you took a jammy soft-boiled duck egg, wrapped it in capicola and seaweed, dredged it in cornstarch and a malt liquor batter, fried it in the liquified fat of an oligarch, and served it on a plate carved from Mary Shelley's pelvis garnished with parsley, paprika, and Benadryl. What more do you want from me?

A peak comfort movie. I watched this over and over growing up and I watch it regularly now. I can literally quote this whole movie. Julie Andrews, iconic. Anne Hathaway and Chris Pine, iconic. It’s just perfect early 2000’s.

“Miracles happen once in a while, if you believe.”

A foot-popping, heartfelt, and all-around pleasant movie that is (mostly) relatable, as “you know, most kids hope for a car on their 16th birthday, not a country!” It makes me want to be friends with Mia and long for a reality where Clarisse Renaldi is my grandmother. “Princess, look out the window... and welcome to Genovia.” I could watch this movie any day, any time, and for any occasion.

I don’t have a super deep or profound reason for loving Moonrise Kingdom — I just do. It was the first Wes Anderson film I ever watched, and that makes it really special to me. I love the aesthetic, the story, and the entire vibe of the film. It’s just really nice.

Spoilers? Maybe? This movie is so incredibly beautiful in its visuals and soundtrack and yet so profoundly heartbreaking. This is the most I’ve wept due to a film in years. To find myself identifying with someone who refuses to see themselves and to move forward is terrifying and jarring. I am queer and the lengths it took me to own that identity with the mentality I carried from being raised in the church was so incredibly difficult but I’m so glad for where and who I am. To watch someone so scared and lonely and stuck and yearning for love and acceptance and belonging is such a vivid mirror to anyone who has felt Othered in search for community. To feel so distressed and stuck is so horrifying but don’t worry…

There is still time

Spielberg’s direction of this true story is beyond entertaining and features two of this century’s best actors: Leo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The film tells the story of Frank Abagnale Jr., who is arguably the modern world’s most popular con artist. It’s an FBI agent vs. con artist criminal chase portrayed as a Tom and Jerry cat and mouse game with a very interesting ending that leaves you wanting to learn more about the current dealings of the main character. The movie is funny, sad, thrilling, and thought-provoking and I always enjoy watching it (I’ve probably seen it over ten times!).

Baby Driver is a chewy, sugary, loveletter to fast cars, bank heists, and old iPods. The movie itself dances to the groovy soundtrack while the cinematography has that eye-popping, almost animated quality you can always count on Edgar Wright to deliver. The story isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's self aware enough to wear its tropes on its rolled up white tee sleeves; this allows the audience to lean into the corniness of the quips and the quiffs without rolling one's eyes (too often). It's like Grease meets GTA. With a devilish rogue's gallery, a charming little romance, and enough diner scenes to make David Lynch blush, Baby Driver truly deserves to be taken for a spin around the block. A few times. At least.

It's incredible how BIG this movie looked and felt with 2003 animation. Pixar was really cooking! Unbelievably iconic.

This movie is sharp, hilarious, and unexpectedly moving, all while doubling as the best tourism ad Bruges never asked for. I love traveling to Bruges, and every time I rewatch this film, I feel like I am already back there, wandering the cobblestone streets and ducking into every museum Colin Farrell would have hated. It is great when a movie can place you back in a place you love, all from the confines of your couch. I can taste the fries and waffles. The writing is flawless. “You are in a dream. You are in a dream in a place like this.” Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are magic together, and Ralph Fiennes is chaos in a tie. The ending sticks, the pacing is perfect, and the whole thing leaves me wanting one more bite and one more night in Belgium.

This is actually what The Beatles did when they went to India.

We had a movie poster in our rec room that Will had brought home from the theatre of this one – I hadn’t seen it in the theatre but when it came up on streaming, decided to check it out – and watched it multiple times. If you’ve read my review of Frequency, you’ll know I’m a sucker for crossing the line from the living to the lost. The fantasy of opportunity to connect with those taken from us too soon is hard to resist. To say what you always wanted to say… Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy as the Son/Father combo give just the right mix of tragic awkwardness and crude complacency. Add in the beauty and grace of Rachel McAdams and the mix is complete. A classic for me.

Chat GPT pls write a coming-of-age movie but pls for the love of God make it original. Combine The Fault in Our Stars with The Kings of Summer with Submarine. Have it be a love story but also like not really at all. Maybe Brian Eno does the soundtrack IDK. Write that the protagonist loves filmmaking and then have the movie itself look like it was made by him. And finally, make sure when someone watches they feel transported back to their high school grad year, but this time they understand what it means to be a true friend, follow their dreams, and choose what’s right over what’s easy.

1917 is among the most honest of war movies. It shows the scale and impact of WW1 through an ongoing series of moments between characters. The film is a character study more than it is an action movie. It unpacks themes centered around brotherhood, comradery, grief, and longing. Throughout the film, the camera acts as a silent protagonist traveling with our characters from start to finish. This allows us to participate in the struggles, but through the looking glass. 1917 is shot with the illusion that it is one continuous take. We are there the whole time from the opening in Northern France sitting under a tree to the conclusion elsewhere in France. The camera gives space to show the scale and depth of the war-torn landscape and punches in during the emotional beats letting us see how the characters are processing the trauma of war. As viewers, we are in the trenches and are meant to feel all the same things the soldiers on screen do. I empathize with the struggles, get excited with the moments of success, and grieve during the tragedy. All because I have been on the journey the whole time and saw how we got there and what was lost along the way. 1917 is a tour through WW1 and does not hide away from the emotional, mental, and physical toils the war took all the while showing the humanity of the characters trying to find their way home.

The Handmaiden really took me for a ride the first time I watched it. What you first think is a typical period piece lesbian romance turns out to be so much more. The twists and turns and multi-perspective story telling really keeps you on your toes, while providing an insightful commentary on the fetishization of young “innocent” women. It’s a disturbing but loveable pyschological thriller that you can’t take your eyes off once you start watching.

Smart, sexy, sweaty – Challengers is not just about tennis, it is tennis. With a techno club soundtrack that sets your heart racing and cinematography that draws you in from your seat, it’s a full sensory experience that takes you straight into the game of tennis – and the game of love.

I dare anyone not to think of Elle Woods as a feminist role model. She's intelligent but empathetic. Approachable but not easily pushed over. Hard-working but stops to appreciate the little victories in life. She's full of integrity. She gives voice to those who can't speak up for themselves. She knows her own worth. She finds personal and professional success in the balance between her stodgy, serious profession and her vibrant personality.

Elle, and Legally Blonde, has been there for every major milestone of my career as a litigator so far. I think this film should be essential viewing for every new lawyer.

Unfortunately shaped my view on love during very formative years but how I feel about this movie after each rewatch (25+ and counting) has been an effective assessment of how I'm feeling at any point in time and how much I've grown. Oh, and one of the best movie soundtracks ever.

This movie came out when I was 10 years old and it was the funniest shit I’d ever seen. I’m now 27 years old and it’s still probably the funniest shit I’ve ever seen.

Famously bookended by a wedding and a funeral, Edward Yang's final masterpiece is a sweeping and novelistic meditation on the cycle of life and the pathos of things, amalgamating the recurrent themes and motifs of the auteur's filmography into a vibrant tapestry of the sorrows and joys of a middle-class Taiwanese family navigating the complexities of a society at the intersection of modernity and tradition. Across three generations of this family we witness their shared dreams, struggles, and heartaches, and observe the ways in which a child is doomed to repeat their parents' mistakes, but also the ways in which they are inextricably and beautifully interlinked — the intergenerational experience is treated here not as a succession of events and experiences toppling into one another, but a handshake across time and space, a wistful recollection of a past that simultaneously reinvents itself in the present.

Still, there is an aching loneliness at the center of Yi Yi's patient narrative — characters are frequently framed in isolation, or separated by the mise en scène within a single shot; they have difficulty confronting their emotions before they reach a breaking point; they all have their own place in the world, yet that place seems to be nowhere at all. Yang artfully dangles these characters before his audience like loose threads yearning for a greater cohesion and reveals how they can be woven together, bonded not just by a familial fabric or a cultural DNA, but the shared condition known as humanity.

The original Transformers wasn't just a movie. It was a full blown adolescent fantasy brought to life. Forget Oscars. Forget plot. This film delivered everything a mid-pubescent boy could ever want: alien-robots, overly exaggerated slow motion explosions, cars turning into cannon wielding death machines... and Megan freaking Fox, glistening in the California sun, bent over a yellow Camaro like she was sent from the heavens. That scene alone was a spiritual experience.

Yes, Optimus Prime gave speeches with Linkin Park playing epic music in the background. And yes, there was technically a plot. But let's not lie to ourselves. We were there for the chaos, the explosions, the CGI transforming sequences, and the Goddess Megan Fox in cutoff jeans and a tank top tighter than my jeans after she leaned over that engine. Transformers didn't just stimulate. It awakened.

“It seems the whole country is eager to get rid of the old and make way for the new, but some of us aren’t so ready to let go of the past and sometimes the past isn’t ready to let go of us either.”

This film explores the way the past shapes our future whether we accept it or not. A super cute story of falling in love and preserving the legacy of people who came before you. Classic beautiful Ghibli visuals, plus a wonderful, boppy soundtrack.

Juno is a perfect little movie. The relationship between Juno and Paulie tugs at my heartstrings just as much as when it came out. Plus, an underrated killer soundtrack.

(SPOILER IN HERE) This movie sent me into an existential crisis, and honestly made me contemplate about becoming a misandrist. I HATED its dreadfully perfect ending and I HATED how Anora was treated. Mikey Madison played the part of Ani so beautifully and so authentically that I think she should receive an Oscar every year for the rest of her life. The movie’s demonstration of class disparity was something that I feel like isn’t really talked about enough, but was something so real and so important that the story represented. This movie is literally so good. I watched it for the first time in the movie theatre and I heard a man near me laughing in the scene where she was screaming and being tied up by Vanya’s staff and it both enraged and devastated me. I actually really hate this story, but it is genuinely the best movie I have ever watched.

I adore Coraline, so much so that I have had the movie’s entire script memorized since I was around 12 years old. It is one of the only movies that I can actually enjoy re-watching, though none of my friends will watch it with me due to my inability to withhold from saying all the lines. The movie’s gibberish soundtrack is mesmerizing, and its stop-motion animations are incredible. There is so much detail put into every single aspect of this film, whether that be the hidden easter eggs, the subtle but effective colour-grading differences between the two worlds, or the abundance of eerie symbolism. I LOVE this movie. Every couple months I end up falling down the rabbit-hole of Coraline conspiracies, and they make you re-think the movie and look at it in so many different ways. I want there so badly to be a sequel, though this is really unlikely due to both the original author and the production company.

Dan in Real Life is an ultimate comfort movie. With a solo indie artist soundtrack that carries themes all the way through, a close and cozy cinematography style, and a laid-back attitude to the actors – it truly feels like you are a part of this family reunion. Full of second-hand embarrassment, raucous comedy, and heart-wrenching moments of real life, it’s the perfect movie for the nostalgia seeker.