The tradition continues. What began in the previous year continues through 2023. And if we’re all still alive and able to comprehend the insanity of global and domestic events next year, it will continue again.

You will notice some changes to this list, as well as the next one. That’s part of the fun of continuity. As time accrues, some films gain their value, and others lose theirs. Art is complex like that.

So without further ado, a list of my favorite films of the 21st century, year by year.

2000 Movie of the Year: “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (Dirs.: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen)

Runner Up: “Battle Royale” (Dir.: Kinji Fukasaku)

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2001 Movie of the Year: “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (Dir.: Peter Jackson)

Runner Up: “Shaolin Soccer” (Dir.: Stephen Chow)

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2002 Movie of the Year: “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (Dir.: Peter Jackson)

Runner Up: “Minority Report” (Dir.: Steven Spielberg)

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2003 Movie of the Year: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (Dir.: Peter Jackson)

Runner Up: “Oldboy” (Dir.: Park Chan-wook)

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2004 Movie of the Year: “Spider-Man 2” (Dir.: Sam Raimi)

Runner Up: “House of Flying Daggers” (Dir.: Zhang Yimou)

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2005 Movie of the Year: “Munich” (Dir.: Steven Spielberg)

Runner Up: “A History of Violence” (Dir.: David Cronenberg)

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2006 Movie of the Year: “300” (Dir.: Zack Snyder)

Runner Up: “The Departed” (Dir.: Martin Scorsese)

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2007 Movie of the Year: “Ratatouille” (Dir.: Brad Bird)

Runner Up: “Lions for Lambs” (Dir.: Robert Redford)

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2008 Movie of the Year: “The Dark Knight” (Dir.: Christopher Nolan)

Runner Up: “Gran Torino” (Dir.: Clint Eastwood)

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2009 Movie of the Year: “Inglourious Basterds” (Dir.: Quentin Tarantino)

Runner Up: “Moon” (Dir. Duncan Jones)

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2010 Movie of the Year: “Inception” (Dir.: Christopher Nolan)

Runner Up: “Incendies” (Dir.: Denis Villeneuve)

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2011 Movie of the Year: “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (Dir.: Brad Bird)

Runner Up: “Haywire” (Dir.: Steven Soderbergh)

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2012 Movie of the Year: “To the Wonder” (Dir.: Terrence Malick)

Runner Up: “Dredd” (Dir.: Pete Travis)

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2013 Movie of the Year: “The Wolf of Wall Street” (Dir.: Martin Scorsese)

Runner Up: “Pacific Rim” (Dir.: Guillermo del Toro)

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2014 Movie of the Year: “Fury” (Dir.: David Ayer)

Runner Up: “John Wick” (Dir.: Chad Stahelski)

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2015 Movie of the Year: “The Martian” (Dir.: Ridley Scott)

Runner Up: “Creed” (Dir.: Ryan Coogler)

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2016 Movie of the Year: “Arrival” (Dir.: Denis Villeneuve)

Runner Up: “The Nice Guys” (Dir.: Shane Black)

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2017 Movie of the Year: “Dunkirk” (Dir.: Christopher Nolan)

Runner Up: “Logan Lucky” (Dir.: Steven Soderbergh)

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2018 Movie of the Year: “Dragged Across Concrete” (Dir.: S. Craig Zahler)

Runner Up: “Searching” (Dir.: Aneesh Chaganty)

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2019 Movie of the Year: “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” (Dir.: Quentin Tarantino)

Runner Up: “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” (Dir.: Chad Stahelski)

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2020 Movie of the Year: “Love and Monsters” (Dir.: Michael Matthews)

Runner Up: “Greyhound” (Dir.: Aaron Schneider)

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2021 Movie of the Year: “Nightmare Alley” (Dir.: Guillermo del Toro)

Runner Up: “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” (Dir.: Zack Snyder)

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2022 Movie of the Year: “Top Gun: Maverick” (Dir.: Joseph Kozinski)

Runner Up: “Ambulance” (Dir.: Michael Bay)

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2023 Movie of the Year: “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” (Dir. William Friedkin)

Runner Up: “John Wick: Chapter 4” (Dir. Chad Stahelski)

Some closing thoughts for the year.

Chad Stahelski’s John Wick series now owns three of the runners up positions on this list. He and Keanu Reeves have made that character one of the most iconic action heroes of the century, with images and stunt work that make for the best of cinema.

Quentin Tarantino has now joined the ranks with two of the three films in his revenge/revisionism trilogy. The other film, Django Unchained is quite good, but proves overtime to be both the most self indulgent of the three, and also the least emotionally relatable as time goes on. Basterds retains and even enhances its power now that the terror of the opening sequence has become reality again, and we have awakened to discover a generation of Nazis among us, standing in line with you in coffee shops, going to school with your kids, and riding with you on the train. Brad Pitt’s comical performance here lends itself to far greater weight when he put the uniform back on for Fury.

The other newcomer (so to speak) is Denis Villeneuve. Denis is known by now as the new go-to guy for hard sci-fi with budgets that have much to apologize for but not enough to make Marvel look less stupid for theirs. But before he made his successful pivot to Arrival, he made a number of films that at any point in time could have been either the MOTY or runner up. Not just Incendies, but also Prisoners and Sicario. At worst, Villeneuve updated dark classics like Chinatown, Touch of Evil, and Zodiac into the present day. By itself, that is a tremendous accomplishment. But Villeneuve’s humanism, which shines through every dark turn in his plot is unrivaled today, and we can only hope he doesn’t lose it.

Finally, the most pleasant surprise was my recent viewing of Michael Matthews’s Love and Monsters, a film that, while not necessarily the best paced or most visually striking, elevates a simple young romantic adventure into something meaningful. In the year 2020, films and filmmaking effectively came to a stop. Now that three years have passed, and nearly every conceivable project in development hell at that time has been either finished or scrapped, we can see with our fresh eyes that no lessons whatsoever were learned. In the time where Hollywood itself could have been re-assessing itself by rediscovering old gems and good art from the past, and where audiences and critics could have refined their tastes by watching from their massive catalog of options, movies got worse. This is the worst decade in the history of cinema as an art form. It is dying before our eyes, and I worry that I will not see another film in the 2020s that can rival the late William Friedkin’s The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. It is a film that should be institutionally and culturally transformative, but it will not be. To the extent that it is remembered at all, it will be merely thought of as a very good courtroom drama that updates Herman Woulk’s conceit, rather than an attack of stupendous proportion upon the status quo and the most conscientious reprimand of a generation we have ever seen. What it shares with Love and Monsters is timeliness and simplicity. After all – complexity by itself does not make the final product better. Look no further than the recurring runner up: John Wick.

Here’s to the next year and the movies to be added in the future.

– Vivek