NYT's 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century (June 2025)
The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century is a list compiled in June 2025 by The New York Times, chosen by a voting poll of over 500 directors, actors and others around the world.[1][2][3]
The list's no-paywall link was publicly shared by the NYT's official Reddit account.[4]
Top 40
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Results
In the list, 45 films belong to the first decade of this century (2000-2009), 33 films between 2010 and 2019 and 22 films between 2019 and 2025. The majority of films in the list come from USA, followed by Europe (mostly United Kingdom and France), Asia (mostly South Korea and Japan[5]) and Latin America (mainly Brazil).
- Bong Joon Ho's Parasite was voted as the top pick on both the original and readers' polls, as was the second top pick, David Lynch's 2001 neo-noir Mulholland Drive.[6]
- Only ten films from the list have won the Academy Award for Best Picture: Parasite (1st), Moonlight (5th), No Country for Old Men (6th), The Departed (31st), 12 Years a Slave (51st), Oppenheimer (65th), Spotlight (66th), The Hurt Locker (68th), Everything Everywhere All at Once (77th), and Gladiator (92nd).[6][7]
- Only four animated films appeared on the list, with Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (9th) is the highest-ranking animated feature to be on each list. Other films included Pixar's WALL-E (34th), Up (50th), and Ratatouille (73rd).[8][9]
- Only three documentary films appeared on the list: The Act of Killing (82nd), The Gleaners and I (88th), and Grizzly Man (98th).[6][7]
- The highest-ranked female-directed film on the list is Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall (26th). Although Kátia Lund appears as co-director of City of God (15th), the work is mainly attributed to Fernando Meirelles; therefore, not being credited as the latter's partner, Triet is in the official list in first position.[10]
Director's count
Only fourteen film directors appear more than once in a list. Christopher Nolan earned the most entries with a total of five films.[11]
Response
The Danish film journal 16:9 responded with the six-part video essay series One Hundred Movies Walk into a Bar organized by fellow video essayists Ariel Avissar and Colleen Laird.[12][13]
See also
References
- ^ "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century". The New York Times. 23 June 2025. Archived from the original on 28 November 2025. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ^ "Be the First to Find Out the 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century". The New York Times. 20 June 2025. Archived from the original on 4 July 2025. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
- ^ The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century: "Parasite and the Ones Below" – 16:9 Journal
- ^ megathread : r/criterion
- ^ The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century: "See Under: Orient" – 16:9 Journal
- ^ a b c What Movies Did the New York Times Readers Rank As the Best of the 21st Century?
- ^ a b No Bad Movie
- ^ Only 1 Anime Made the Cut in New U.S. '100 Best Movies of the 21st Century' Ranking – CBR
- ^ Diving into The New York Times "Best Films of the 21st Century" List
- ^ Ciofani, Lorenzo. "Parasite è il miglior film del XXI secolo". www.cinematografo.it (in Italian). Retrieved 3 September 2025.
- ^ "All 13 Directors With More Than One Film On NYT's Greatest Movies Of The 21st Century List". Screen Rant.
- ^ The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century: “Seen, Heard: Language Use in the ‘Best Movies’” – 16:9 Journal
- ^ The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century: "But What Do They Sound Like?" – 16:9 Journal