Favorite 36 Films of the First Quarter of the 21^st Century

 

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003)
Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2003)
I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell, 2004)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
Still Life (Jia Zhangke, 2006)
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong, 2007)
Hot Rod (Akiva Schaffer, 2007)
Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009)
Sweetgrass (Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 2009)
Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, 2010)
The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2011)
House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello, 2011)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)

Kaili Blues (Bi Gan, 2015)
Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)
Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)
Sing Street (John Carney, 2016)
A Ghost Story (David Lowery, 2017)
First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2017)
The Rider (Chloé Zhao, 2017)
Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)
Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019)
Small Axe (Steve McQueen, 2020)
No Bears (Jafar Panahi, 2022)
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet, 2023)
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023)

Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, 2024)