Welcome...to the Ultimate 21st Century Movie Tournament!

Mulholland Drive

If you were to create a massive movie tournament of some of the most acclaimed released in the United States through the start of the 21st Century, in order to determine which movie is regarded as this era's greatest, what single movie would come out on top? Starting this week, I've decided to embark on a futile attempt to figure this out!

Yes, folks, it is time for the completely arbitrary Early 21st Century Movie Tournament, covering the most acclaimed movies from the better part of the last two decades. And, folks, a tournament of this caliber deserves to be massive! So, this is not just going to be a tournament of 64 films...or 128 films...or even 256 film. That's right: we're going the nine-round, 512 movie route, in which each year from 2000 to 2017 will have either 28 movies representing it, along with four wild card contenders representing two different halves of the era (2000-2008 and 2009-2017).

We'll be covering the bracket breakdowns and how each film advances to the next round in a moment. But, first, I'd like to begin by announcing the films that are being represented, as well as the reasons for them. First, the explanation as to how they were chosen:

1) Depending the year, a film was chosen based on how many times they were found in the top 30 of various aggregate critics polls from that year (with an exception to the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? lists, which updates every year). Why critics list? Well, in large part, it's because they're the ones who watch most of the movies that come out. Also, while a lot of their choices probably come from certain elitist biases, it is those movies that will likely still be talked about decades after their premiere. The-year-by-year breakdown were as such:

• 2010-2017: My aggregate film critics polls from this period, the Village Voice critics poll, the Indiewire critics poll, the CriticsTop10.com aggregate lists, and the 2018 They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? rankings of the top 1000 films of the 21st Century. 
• 2007-2009: Same as the 2010-2017 selections, but with my list replaced by the Movie City News aggregate critics poll and with the edition of the Film Comment polls (both readers and critics)
• 2006: Same as 2007-2009, but without Movie City News
• 2005: There was no Indiewire poll prior to 2006, so we stopped using that in favor of a brief appearance from that year's Sight & Sound poll.
• 2000-2004: The CriticsTop10, Village Voice, TSPDT, and Film Comment polls wherever we could find them, plus the addition of the results from that year's Skandies and the 2015 year-by-year retrospective top ten from Indiewire

2) If there wasn't a perfect amount of thirty films chosen based on their # of appearances, then a tiebreaker of the films with points that represented the cut line took place. The tiebreaker would be determined by which films had the highest combination of IMDB, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes scores out of the rest to fall within the top thirty. The one film who finished as the runner-up in points would advanced to the "wild card" round for either 2000-2008 or 2009-2017.

Confused by what I just said? Well, here's an example:

-23 movies received as least four appearances on the lists used for their year, so they advance.
-There's seven movies with three appearances. These seven go on to the tiebreaker to determine who get the 24th through 28th slots.
-Five of those seven get the 24th through 28th slots based on having the highest RT/IMDB/MC combo.
-The film in this tiebreaker to finish 6rd in the combo points advances to the Wild Card round for their respective era.

3) The "year" a film was placed in is based on the year in which they had a theatrical release in the United States, and not in the year where they had their world premiere. So, something like The Hurt Locker is counted towards the year 2009, instead of 2008 (when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival). This criteria was fine for everything except the TSPDT list, which was the only ones to consistently put up their world premiere dates. With regards to them, I just decided to count an appearance for a movie on the list anyways, as long as their standing on the Top 21st Century movies list was greater than the 30th eligible film from the year it was being counted towards. Here's an example:

-Movie A was considered to be in the TSPDT top 30 listings for the year 2006.
-Movie B is listed under 2005, their world premiere date, but appears on other lists for 2006
-Movie B placed higher on the top 1000 standings than Movie A
-Movie B has an extra "appearance" counted for 2006, helping them get a greater chance to advance to the tournament

4) A 20th Century movie could technically be included, but only if a) it premiered in the year 1999 and b) if it was released in the U.S. during the year 2000 or later. Some 20th Century movies like Army of Shadows (1969) and Killer of Sheep (1978) appeared in top ten lists in the years 2006 and 2007 because that is when they made their U.S. theatrical debuts, respectively, but they weren't up for consideration because they didn't premiere in 1999. I also didn't include movies that premiered in the year 2016 but didn't have their theatrical releases until the year 2017 or later (such as I Am Not Your Negro).

5) I considered adding a movie to the 2000-2008 wild card rounds if they appeared in any aggregate Best of the 2000s Decades lists (like those from Movie City News and Metacritic), but thankfully all the movies listed in their top 30s were already counted for their years.

And now, in alphabetical order, the movies that will compete in the tournament based on my criteria, as well as the year in which they will represent:

2000
Almost Famous (dir: Cameron Crowe)
Beau Travail (dir: Claire Denis)
Before Night Falls (dir: Julian Schnabel)
Best in Show (dir: Christopher Guest)
Billy Elliot (dir: Stephen Daldry)
Cast Away (dir: Robert Zemeckis)
Chicken Run (dir: Peter Lord, Nick Park)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (dir: Ang Lee)
Dancer in the Dark (dir: Lars von Trier)
Erin Brockovich (dir: Steven Soderbergh)
George Washington (dir: David Gordon Green)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (dir: Jim Jarmusch)
Gladiator (dir: Ridley Scott)
High Fidelity (dir: Stephen Frears)
Jesus' Son (dir: Alison Maclean)
L'Inhumanite (dir: Bruno Dumont)
O Brother, Where Are Thou? (dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
Ratcatcher (dir: Lynne Ramsay)
Requiem for a Dream (dir: Darren Aronofsky)
State and Main (dir: David Mamet)
The Color of Paradise (dir: Majid Majidi)
The House of Mirth (dir: Terence Davies)
The Wind Will Carry Us (dir: Abbas Kiarostami)
Time Regained (dir: Raul Ruiz)
Traffic (dir: Steven Soderbergh)
Wonder Boys (dir: Curit Hanson)
Yi Yi (dir: Edward Yang)
You Can Count on Me (dir: Kenneth Lonergan)

2001
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (dir: Steven Spielberg)
Amelie (dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Amores Perros (dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Black Hawk Down (dir: Ridley Scott)
Donnie Darko (dir: Richard Kelly)
Eureka (dir: Shinji Aoyama)
Fat Girl (dir: Catherine Breillat)
Ghost World (dir: Terry Zwigoff)
Gosford Park (dir: Robert Altman)
Hedwig & the Angry Inch (dir: John Cameron Mitchell)
In the Bedroom (dir: Todd Field)
In the Mood for Love (dir: Wong Kar-wai)
Memento (dir: Christopher Nolan)
Monsters, Inc. (dir: Pete Docter)
Moulin Rouge! (dir: Baz Luhrmann)
Mulholland Drive (dir: David Lynch)
No Man's Land (dir: Danis Tanovic)
Sexy Beast (dir: Jonathan Glazer)
Shrek (dir: Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson)
The Circle (dir: Jafar Panahi)
The Gleaners & I (dir: Agnes Varda)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (dir: Peter Jackson)
The Man Who Wasn't There (dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
The Royal Tenenbaums (dir: Wes Anderson)
Together (dir: Lukas Moodysson)
Under the Sand (dir: Francois Ozon)
Va Savoir (dir: Jacques Rivette)
Waking Life (dir: Richard Linklater)
Werckmeister Harmonies (dir: Bela Tarr)

2002
24 Hour Party People (dir: Michael Winterbottom)
25th Hour (dir: Spike Lee)
About Schmidt (dir: Alexander Payne)
Adaptation (dir: Spike Jonze)
Atarnajuat: The Fast Runner (dir: Zacharias Kunuk)
Bloody Sunday (dir: Paul Greengrass)
Bowling for Columbine (dir: Michael Moore)
Catch Me if You Can (dir: Steven Spielberg)
Far From Heaven (dir: Todd Haynes)
Femme Fatale (dir: Brian De Palma)
Gangs of New York (dir: Martin Scorsese)
I'm Going Home (dir: Manoel de Oliviera)
In Praise of Love (dir: Jean-Luc Godard)
Late Marriage (dir: Dover Kosashvili)
Minority Report (dir: Steven Spielberg)
Morvern Callar (dir: Lynne Ramsay)
Punch Drunk Love (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)
Russian Ark (dir: Alexander Sokurov)
Spider-Man (dir: Sam Raimi)
Spirited Away (dir: Hayao Miyazaki)
Talk to Her (dir: Pedro Almodovar)
The Hours (dir: Stephen Daldry)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (dir: Peter Jackson)
The Pianist (dir: Roman Polanski)
The Piano Teacher (dir: Michael Haneke)
The Quiet American (dir: Phillip Noyce)
Time Out (dir: Laurent Cantet)
What Time Is It There? (dir: Tsai Ming-liang)
Y tu mama tambien (dir: Alfonso Cuaron)

2003
21 Grams (dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
28 Days Later (dir: Danny Boyle)
American Splendor (dir: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini)
Bad Santa (dir: Terry Zwigoff)
Bus 174 (dir: Jose Padilha)
City of God (dir: Kaita Lund, Fernando Meirelles)
Demonlover (dir: Olivier Assayas)
Dirty Pretty Things (dir: Stephen Frears)
Elephant (dir: Gus Van Sant)
Finding Nemo (dir: Andrew Stanton)
Capturing the Friedmans (dir: Andrew Jarecki)
In America (dir: Jim Sheridan)
Irreversible (dir: Gaspar Noe)
Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (dir: Quentin Tarantino)
Lost in Translation (dir: Sofia Coppola)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (dir: Peter Weir)
Mystic River (dir: Clint Eastwood)
School of Rock (dir: Richard Linklater)
Spellbound (dir: Jeffrey Blitz)
Spider (dir: David Cronenberg)
Ten (dir: Abbas Kiarostami)
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamarra (dir: Errol Morris)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (dir: Peter Jackson)
The Man Without a Past (dir: Aki Kaurismaki)
The Son (dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
The Station Agent (dir: Tom McCarthy)
The Triplets of Belleville (dir: Sylvian Chomet)
To Be and To Have (dir: Nicolas Philibert)
Whale Rider (dir: Niki Caro)

2004
Bad Education (dir: Pedro Almodovar)
Before Sunset (dir: Richard Linklater)
Collateral (dir: Michael Mann)
Crimson Gold (dir: Jafar Panahi)
Dogville (dir: Lars von Trier)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir: Michel Gondry)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (dir: Michael Moore)
Hero (dir: Zhang Yimou)
Hotel Rwanda (dir: Terry George)
House of the Flying Daggers (dir: Zhang Yimou)
I Heart Huckabees (dir: David O. Russell)
Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (dir: Quentin Tarantino)
Kinsey (dir: Bill Condon)
Los Angeles Plays Itself (dir: Thom Andersen)
Maria Full of Grace (dir: Joshua Marston)
Million Dollar Baby (dir: Clint Eastwood)
Moolaade (dir: Ousmane Sembene)
Notre Musique (dir: Jean-Luc Godard)
Shaun of the Dead (dir: Edgar Wright)
Sideways (dir: Alexander Payne)
Tarnation (dir: Jonathan Caouette)
The Aviator (dir: Martin Scorsese)
The Five Obstructions (dir: Jorgen Leth, Lars von Trier)
The Incredibles (dir: Brad Bird)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (dir: Wes Anderson)
The Motorcycle Diaries (dir: Walter Salles)
The Return (dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev)
Vera Drake (dir: Mike Leigh)

2005
2046 (dir: Wong Kar-wai)
A History of Violence (dir: David Cronenberg)
Brokeback Mountain (dir: Ang Lee)
Cache (dir: Michael Haneke)
Cafe Lumiere (dir: Hou Hsaio-Hsien)
Capote (dir: Bennett Miller)
Good Night, and Good Luck (dir: George Clooney)
Grizzly Man (dir: Werner Herzog)
Head-On (dir: Fatih Akin)
Howl's Moving Castle (dir: Hayao Miyazaki)
Keane (dir: Lodge Kerrigan)
Kings & Queen (dir: Arnaud Desplechin)
Kung Fu Hustle (dir: Stephen Chow)
Last Days (dir: Gus Van Sant)
Match Point (dir: Woody Allen)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (dir: Miranda July)
Munich (dir: Steven Spielberg)
Mysterious Skin (dir: Gregg Araki)
Paradise Now (dir: Hany Abu-Assad)
Sarabande (dir: Ingmar Bergman)
Syriana (dir: Stephen Gaghan)
The Holy Girl (dir: Lucrecia Martel)
The Intruder (dir: Claire Denis)
The New World (dir: Terrence Malick)
The Squid and the Whale (dir: Noah Baumbach)
The World (dir: Jia Zhangke)
Tropical Malady (dir: Apitchatpong Weerasethakul)
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit (dir: Steve Box, Nick Park)

2006
A Scanner Darkly (dir: Richard Linklater)
A Prairie Home Companion (dir: Robert Altman)
An Inconvenient Truth (dir: Doug Guggenheim)
Babel (dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (dir: Larry Charles)
Brick (dir: Rian Johnson)
Casino Royale (dir: Martin Campbell)
Children of Men (dir: Alfonso Cuaron)
Flags of Our Fathers (dir: Clint Eastwood)
Half Nelson (dir: Ryan Fleck)
Inland Empire (dir: David Lynch)
Inside Man (dir: Spike Lee)
Iraq in Fragments (dir: James Longley)
L'Enfant (dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
Letters From Iwo Jima (dir: Clint Eastwood)
Little Children (dir: Todd Field)
Little Miss Sunshine (dir: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)
Miami Vice (dir: Michael Mann)
Old Joy (dir: Kelly Reichardt)
Pan's Labrynth (dir: Guillermo del Toro)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (dir: Cristi Puiu)
The Departed (dir: Martin Scorsese)
The Proposition (dir: John Hillcoat)
The Queen (dir: Stephen Frears)
Three Times (dir: Hou Hsaio-Hsien)
Tristam Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (dir: Michael Winterbottom)
United 93 (dir: Paul Greengrass)
Volver (dir: Pedro Almodovar)
When the Levees Broke: A Reqiuem in Four Acts (dir: Spike Lee)

2007 
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (dir: Cristian Mungiu)
Atonement (dir: Joe Wright)
Away From Her (dir: Sarah Polley)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (dir: Sidney Lumet)
Eastern Promises (dir: David Cronenberg)
Gone Baby Gone (dir: Ben Affleck)
Grindhouse (dir: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino)
I'm Not There (dir: Todd Haynes)
Into the Wild (dir: Sean Penn)
Juno (dir: Jason Reitman)
Knocked Up (dir: Judd Apatow)
Michael Clayton (dir: Tony Gilroy)
No Country for Old Men (dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
No End in Sight (dir: Charles Ferguson)
Once (dir: John Carney)
Persepolis (dir: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi)
Ratatouille (dir: Brad Bird)
Superbad (dir: Greg Mottola)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (dir: Tim Burton) 
Syndromes and a Century (dir: Apitchatpong Weerasethakul)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (dir: Andrew Dominik)
The Bourne Ultimatum (dir: Paul Greengrass)
The Diving Bell & the Butterfly (dir: Julian Schnabel)
The Host (dir: Bong Joon-ho)
The Lives of Others (dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
The Savages (dir: Tamara Jenkins)
There Will Be Blood (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)
Zodiac (dir: David Fincher)

2008
A Christmas Tale (dir: Arnaud Desplechin)
Ballast (dir: Lance Hammer)
Che (dir: Steven Soderbergh)
Frozen River (dir: Courtney Hunt)
Gomorrah (dir: Mattero Garrone) 
Gran Torino (dir: Clint Eastwood)
Happy Go-Lucky (dir: Mike Leigh)
Hunger (dir: Steve McQueen)
Iron Man (dir: Jon Favreau)
Let the Right One In (dir: Tomas Alfredson)
Man on Wire (dir: James Marsh)
Milk (dir: Gus Van Sant)
My Winnipeg (dir: Guy Maddin)
Paranoid Park (dir: Gus Van Sant)
Rachel Getting Married (dir: Jonathan Demme)
Slumdog Millionaire (dir: Danny Boyle)
Silent Light (dir: Carlos Reygadas)
Still Life (dir: Jia Zhangke)
Synecdoche, NY (dir: Charlie Kaufman)
The Class (dir: Laurent Cantet)
The Dark Knight (dir: Christopher Nolan)
The Edge of Heaven (dir: Fatih Akin)
The Flight of the Red Balloon (dir: Hou Hsaio-Hsien)
The Wrestler (dir: Darren Aronofsky)
Trouble the Water (dir: Carl Deal, Tia Lessin)
WALL-E (dir: Andrew Stanton)
Waltz with Bashir (dir: Ari Folman)
Wendy & Lucy (dir: Kelly Reichardt)

2009
24 City (dir: Jia Zhangke)
35 Shots of Rum (dir: Claire Denis)
(500) Days of Summer (dir: Marc Webb)
A Serious Man (dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
A Single Man (dir: Tom Ford)
An Education (dir: Lone Scherfig)
Antichrist (dir: Lars von Trier)
Avatar (dir: James Cameron)
Bright Star (dir: Jane Campion)
Coraline (dir: Henry Selick)
District 9 (dir: Neill Blomkamp)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (dir: Wes Anderson)
In the Loop (dir: Armando Iannucci)
Inglorious Basterds (dir: Quentin Tarantino)
Police, Adjective (dir: Corneliu Porumboiu)
Precious (dir: Lee Daniels)
Star Trek (dir: J.J. Abrams)
Still Walking (dir: Hirokazu Koreeda)
Summer Hours (dir: Olivier Assayas)
The Beaches of Agnes (dir: Agnes Varda)
The Headless Woman (dir: Lucrecia Martel)
The Hurt Locker (dir: Kathryn Bigelow)
The White Ribbon (dir: Michael Haneke)
Two Lovers (dir: James Gray)
Up (dir: Pete Docter)
Up in the Air (dir: Jason Reitman)
Where the Wild Things Are (dir: Spike Jonze)
You, the Living (dir: Roy Andersson)

2010
127 Hours (dir: Danny Boyle)
A Prophet (dir: Jacques Audiard)
Another Year (dir: Mike Leigh)
Black Swan (dir: Darren Aronofsky)
Blue Valentine (dir: Derek Cianfrance)
Carlos (dir: Olivier Assayas)
Dogtooth (dir: Yorgos Lanthimos)
Everyone Else (dir: Maren Ade)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (dir: Banksy)
Greenberg (dir: Noah Baumbach)
I Am Love (dir: Luca Guadagnino)
Inception (dir: Christopher Nolan)
Inside Job (dir: Charles Ferguson)
Let Me In (dir: Matt Reeves)
Mother (dir: Bong Joon-ho)
Secret Sunshine (dir: Lee Chang-dong)
Shutter Island (dir: Martin Scorsese)
Sweetgrass (dir: Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
The Fighter (dir: David O. Russell)
The Ghost Writer (dir: Roman Polanski)
The Kids Are All Right (dir: Lisa Cholodenko)
The King's Speech (dir: Tom Hooper)
The Social Network (dir: David Fincher)
True Grit (dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
Toy Story 3 (dir: Lee Unkrich)
Vincere (dir: Marco Bellocchio)
White Material (dir: Claire Denis)
Winter's Bone (dir: Debra Granik)

2011
A Dangerous Method (dir: David Cronenberg)
A Separation (dir: Asghar Farhadi)
Beginners (dir: Mike Mills)
Bridesmaids (dir: Paul Feig)
Certified Copy (dir: Abbas Kiarostami)
Drive (dir: Nicolas Winding Refn)
Hugo (dir: Martin Scorsese)
Margaret (dir: Kenneth Lonergan)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (dir: Sean Durkin)
Meek's Cutoff (dir: Kelly Reichardt)
Melancholia (dir: Lars von Trier)
Midnight in Paris (dir: Woody Allen)
Moneyball (dir: Bennett Miller)
Mysteries of Lisbon (dir: Raul Ruiz)
Nostalgia for the Light (dir: Patricio Guzman)
Poetry (dir: Lee Chang-dong)
Shame (dir: Steve McQueen)
Take Shelter (dir: Jeff Nichols)
The Artist (dir: Michel Hazanavicius)
The Descendants (dir: Alexander Payne)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (dir: David Fincher)
The Interrupters (dir: Steve James)
The Skin I Live in (dir: Pedro Almodovar)
The Tree of Life (dir: Terrence Malick)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (dir: Tomas Alfredson)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (dir: Apitchatpong Weerasethakul)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (dir: Lynne Ramsay)
Weekend (dir: Andrew Haigh)

2012
Amour (dir: Michael Haneke)
Argo (dir: Ben Affleck)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (dir: Behn Zeitlin)
Bernie (dir: Richard Linklater)
Cosmpolis (dir: David Cronenberg)
Django Unchained (dir: Quentin Tarantino)
Holy Motors (dir: Leos Carax)
How to Survive a Plague (dir: David France)
Life of Pi (dir: Ang Lee)
Lincoln (dir: Steven Spielberg)
Looper (dir: Rian Johnson)
Magic Mike (dir: Steven Soderbergh)
Moonrise Kingdom (dir: Wes Anderson)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Oslo, August 31st (dir: Joachim Trier)
Rust and Bone (dir: Jacques Audiard)
Silver Linings Playbook (dir: David O. Russell)
Skyfall (dir: Sam Mendes)
Tabu (dir: Miguel Gomes)
The Avengers (dir: Joss Whedon)
The Dark Knight Rises (dir: Christopher Nolan)
The Deep Blue Sea (dir: Terence Davies)
The Kid with the Bike (dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
The Loneliest Planet (dir: Julia Loktev)
The Master (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Turin Horse (dir: Agnes Hranitzky, Bela Tarr)
This Is Not a Film (dir: Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Jafar Panahi)
Zero Dark Thirty (dir: Kathryn Bigelow)

2013
12 Years a Slave (dir: Steve McQueen)
A Touch of Sin (dir: Jia Zhangke)
All is Lost (dir: J.C. Chandor)
American Hustle (dir: David O. Russell)
At Berkely (dir: Frederick Wiseman)
Before Midnight (dir: Richard Linklater)
Beyond the Hills (dir: Cristian Mungiu)
Blue is the Warmest Color (dir: Abdellatif Kechiche)
Blue Jasmine (dir: Woody Allen)
Captain Phillips (dir: Paul Greengrass)
Computer Chess (dir: Andrew Bujalski)
Drug War (dir: Johnnie To)
Frances Ha (dir: Noah Baumbach)
Fruitvale Station (dir: Ryan Coogler)
Gravity (dir: Alfonso Cuaron)
Her (dir: Spike Jonze)
Inside Llewyn Davis (dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
Leviathan (dir: Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel)
Museum Hours (dir: Jem Cohen)
Nebraska (dir: Alexander Payne)
Short Term 12 (dir: Destin Daniel Cretton)
Spring Breakers (dir: Harmony Korine)
Stories We Tell (dir: Sarah Polley)
The Act of Killing (dir: Joshua Oppenheimer)
The Great Beauty (dir: Paolo Sorrentino)
The Wind Rises (dir: Hayao Miyazaki)
The Wolf of Wall Street (dir: Martin Scorsese)
The World's End (dir: Edgar Wright)
Upstream Color (dir: Shane Carruth)

2014
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Boyhood (dir: Richard Linklater)
Calvary (dir: John Michael McDonagh)
Citizenfour (dir: Lauren Poitras)
Force Majeure (dir: Ruben Ostlund)
Foxcatcher (dir: Bennett Miller)
Gone Girl (dir: David Fincher)
Goodbye to Language (dir: Jean-Luc Godard)
Ida (dir: Pawel Pawlikowski)
Inherent Vice (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)
Interstellar (dir: Christopher Nolan)
Manakamana (dir: Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez)
Mr. Turner (dir: Mike Leigh)
Nightcrawler (dir: Dan Gilroy)
Only Lovers Left Alive (dir: Jim Jarmusch)
Selma (dir: Ava DuVernay)
Snowpiercer (dir: Bong Joon-ho)
Stranger by the Lake (dir: Alain Guiraudie)
Stray Dogs (dir: Tsai Ming-liang)
The Babadook (dir: Jennifer Kent)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir: Wes Anderson)
The Immigrant (dir: James Gray)
The LEGO Movie (dir: Phil Lord, Chris Miller)
Two Days, One Night (dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
Under the Skin (dir: Jonathan Glazer)
We Are the Best! (dir: Lukas Moodysson)
Whiplash (dir: Damien Chazelle)
Winter Sleep (dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

2015
45 Years (dir: Andrew Haigh)
Amy (dir: Asif Kapadia)
Anomalisa (dir: Charlie Kaufman)
Bridge of Spies (dir: Steven Spielberg)
Brooklyn (dir: John Crowley)
Carol (dir: Todd Haynes)
Clouds of Sils Maria (dir: Olivier Assayas)
Creed (dir: Ryan Coogler)
Ex-Machina (dir: Alex Garland)
Hard to Be a God (dir: Aleksei Yuryevich German)
Inside Out (dir: Pete Docter)
It Follows (dir: David Robert Mitchell)
Mad Max: Fury Road (dir: George Miller)
Phoenix (dir: Christian Petzold)
Room (dir: Lenny Abrahamson)
Sicario (dir: Denis Villeneuve)
Son of Saul (dir: Laszlo Nemes)
Spotlight (dir: Tom McCarthy)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (dir: J.J. Abrams)
Tangerine (dir: Sean Baker)
The Assassin (dir: Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
The Big Short (dir: Adam McKay)
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (dir: Marielle Heller)
The Duke of Burgundy (dir: Peter Strickland)
The Forbidden Room (dir: Guy Maddin)
The Martian (dir: Ridley Scott)
The Look of Silence (dir: Joshua Oppenheimer)
The Revenant (dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Timbuktu (dir: Abderrahmane Sissako)

2016
13th (dir: Ava DuVernay)
20th Century Women (dir: Mike Mills)
American Honey (dir: Andrea Arnold)
Arrival (dir: Denis Villeneuve)
Cameraperson (dir: Kirsten Johnson)
Cemetery of Splendour (dir: Apitchatpong Weerasethakul)
Certain Women (dir: Kelly Reichardt)
Elle (dir: Paul Verhoeven)
Everybody Wants Some!! (dir: Richard Linklater)
Green Room (dir: Jeremy Saulnier)
Hell or High Water (dir: David McKenzie)
Jackie (dir: Pablo Larrain)
La La Land (dir: Damien Chazelle)
Love & Friendship (dir: Whit Stillman)
Manchester by the Sea (dir: Kenneth Lonergan)
Moonlight (dir: Barry Jenkins)
No Home Movie (dir: Chantal Akerman)
O.J.: Made in America (dir: Ezra Edelman)
Paterson (dir: Jim Jarmusch)
Right Now, Wrong Then (dir: Hong Sang-soo)
Silence (dir: Martin Scorsese)
Sing Street (dir: John Carney)
The Fits (dir: Anna Rose Holmer)
The Handmaiden (dir: Park Chan-wook)
The Lobster (dir: Yorgos Lanthimos)
The VVitch: A New England Folktale (dir: Robert Eggers)
Things to Come (dir: Mia-Hansen Love)
Toni Erdmann (dir: Maren Ade)

2017
A Ghost Story (dir: David Lowery)
A Quiet Passion (dir: Terence Davies)
Baby Driver (dir: Edgar Wright)
Blade Runner 2049 (dir: Denis Villeneuve)
BPM (Beats Per Minute) (dir: Robin Campillo)
Call Me By Your Name (dir: Luca Guadagnino)
Columbus (dir: kogonada)
Dawson City: Frozen Time (dir: Bill Morrison)
Dunkirk (dir: Christopher Nolan)
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (dir: Frederick Wiseman)
Faces Places (dir: JR, Agnes Varda)
Get Out (dir: Jordan Peele)
Good Time (dir: Ben Safdie, Josh Safdie)
I, Tonya (dir: Craig Gillespie)
Lady Bird (dir: Greta Gerwig)
Logan (dir: James Mangold)
mother! (dir: Darren Aronofsky)
Mudbound (dir: Dee Rees)
Nocturama (dir: Bertrand Bonello)
Personal Shopper (dir: Olivier Assayas)
Phantom Thread (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (dir: Rian Johnson)
The Big Sick (dir: Michael Showalter)
The Florida Project (dir: Sean Baker)
The Lost City of Z (dir: James Gray)
The Post (dir: Steven Spielberg)
The Shape of Water (dir: Guillermo Del Toro)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (dir: Martin McDonagh)
Wonder Woman (dir: Patty Jenkins)


Overall, not an objectively perfect set of films, but still a decent list nonetheless. For starters, you have a wide arrange of movies represented, from the obscure arthouse to the well-known animations, from the awards bait to the blockbuster. Second, almost every director worth discussing from this early century is represented with at least one film, from the 20th Century carryover legends like Ingmar Bergman to the young up-and-comers like Mia Hansen-Love. At the very least, it sure is going to be fun to see these films face each other in the tournament.

And now, some fun factoids:

• Among the seventeen Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards during this period, all but three of them got a slot. The exceptions were: A Beautiful Mind (2001), Chicago (2002), and Crash (2005).
• Among the eighteen Palme d'Or winners at Cannes Film Festival, all but five of them got a slot. The exceptions were: The Son's Room (2001), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Dheepan (2015), I, Daniel Blake (2016), and The Square (2017). So, if anything, I suppose this shows that film critics tend to not favor Ken Loach as much as the artists who are part of jury panels do.
• Richard Linklater was the filmmaker to receive the most appearances on this list, with eight (8) of his movies making it onto The Fabulous 512 (which is the name I'm calling these movies from here-on-out). Among the other directors to make at least five (5) appearances on this list include: Martin Scorsese (7), Steven Spielberg (7), The Coen Brothers (6), Christopher Nolan (6), Wes Anderson (5), Clint Eastwood (5), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (5), Quentin Tarantino (5), Lars von Trier (5), Paul Thomas Anderson (5), Olivier Assayas (5), and David Cronenberg (5). The female director with the most appearances is Kelly Reichardt, who has four (4). 
• Some notable directors who has made at least three (3) feature-length films this century and has every single one of those movies on the Fabulous 512 include: Paul Thomas Anderson (5), Pete Docter, Spike Jonze, Kenneth Lonergan, Steve McQueen, Bennett Miller, and Lynne Ramsay.
• The Fabulous 512 also featured some films that most will know as a TV series, including Saraband (2005), which premiered on Swedish television, and O.J.: Made in America (2016), which aired as a documentary series on ESPN.
• How my top 30 aggregates from 2010-2017 match up with the 30 chosen in each of those years from this list:

1. 2010: 26 (not included: Animal Kingdom, Please Give, the Red Riding trilogy, and Rabbit Hole)
2. 2011: 28 (not included: Margin Call and War Horse)
3. 2012: 27 (not included: Searching for Sugarman, The Grey, and The Sessions)
4. 2013: 26 (not included: Dallas Buyers Club, Enough Said, Mud, and The Spectacular Now)
5. 2014: 26 (not included: Guardians of the Galaxy, Locke, The Imitation Game, and Wild)
6. 2015: 28 (not included: Magic Mike XXL and The Hateful Eight)
7. 2016: 28 (not included: Hunt for the Wilderpeople and I Am Not Your Negro)
8. 2017: 28 (not included: The Square and The Disaster Artist)

•  Some other notable movies that, for whatever reason, didn't end up with enough critics list appearances of tiebreaker points to make it onto this list: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Frost/Nixon (2008), Hot Fuzz (2007), Deadpool (2016), Colossal Youth (2007), The Prestige (2006), Blissfully Yours (2004), Primer (2004), Tie xi Que: West of the Tracks (2003), Oldboy (2005), The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), Songs from the Second Floor (2002), La Cienaga (2001), Le Havre (2011), American Psycho (2000), Infernal Affairs (2004), La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000), Memories of Murder (2005), Downfall (2005), The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), and V for Vendetta (2006)

I'll begin the bracket seedings and decide how each head-to-head matchup is decided in a few days. Until then, start setting your bets as to which movie comes out on top!

The Best Movies of 2017, According to Critics: Part 2 (#30-#1)

                                                        Oh, yeah, she's featured on this list for sure.


Click here if you want to view part 1 of the countdown, which revealed #85-31. And now, time for the even better stuff: the year's top 30...

30. THE DISASTER ARTIST (dir: James Franco)
180.5 points
An adaptation of the Greg Sestero book on the making of the 2003 so-bad-its-good classic The Room. Besides directing the picture, James Franco plays the movie's director, Tommy Wiseau, in a role that led him to win a Golden Globe before allegations of sexual misconduct emerged, leading to his reputation taking a hit and, subsequently, his chances of an Oscar nomination getting destroyed. 

29. THE SQUARE (dir: Ruben Östlund) 
182 points
Three years after making a name for himself with Force Majeure (#18 in the 2014 countdown), the Swedish Östlund returned with a drama about a director for an art museum (Claes Bang) who has to deal with many challenges, including performance-art stunts that end up being total disasters. IThe film ended up winning the prestigious Palme d'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival.

28. DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME (dir: Bill Morrison)
183 points
A documentary about the town of Dawson City, Canada, located deep in the Yukon territory, as told by old silent film footages from the early 20th Century that were found during a 1978 bulldozing project.

27. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (dir: Rian Johnson)
192.5 points
Mired by controversy amongst certain members of its fanbase for various reasons (some legitimate, some that were nonsensical and mostly guided by bigotry), the eight episode of the franchise still managed to produce. Not only did it become just the third movie ever to gross $2 billion, it also was a hit among many film critics for its performances (including Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker) and deconstruction of various old tropes.

26. BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) (dir: Robin Campillo)
210.5 points
An inspiring and tear-jerking drama about a French branch of the AIDS victim advocacy group ACT UP. The film received the honor of Grand Prix at that year's Cannes Film Festival. 

25. WONDER WOMAN (dir: Patty Jenkins)
230.5 points
Gal Gadot plays the famous Amazonian superhero in the days of World War I, where she sets out to help an American soldier (Chris Pine) stop the German army from unleashing a series of chemical gas attacks. While this isn't the first superhero movie to star a female character, this movie (and, in particular, its success) did manage to shake Hollywood up and demonstrate that it would be beneficial to make more female-led movies like it in the future. Its also without a doubt the most acclaimed DC Comics movie adaptation since Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (#16 in the 2012 list), which isn't nothing.

24. mother! (dir: Darren Aronofsky)
236 points
While the controversy over The Last Jedi was arguably more louder in the discourse, mother! managed to do something which hadn't been done by an acclaimed film in a while: become so polarizing that you managed to have people booing it and people calling it a masterpiece in equal measure. I mean, how often have you seen movies place this high while not even breaking 70% on Rotten Tomatoes? Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, this trippy horror film will likely be both angering and thrilling cinephiles for years to come. 

23. THE LOST CITY OF Z (dir: James Gray)
247.5 points
Charlie Hunman plays British explorer Col. Percival Fawcett as he goes through an obsessive quest while searching through the Amazon river in the 1920s. Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller also star. Its the second straight appearance in the top 25 for director James Gray, whose last film, The Immigrant, managed to make a theatrical release in 2014 despite being in post-production hell courtesy of Harvey Weinstein (oh, how times have changed) and received the #21 spot in the 2014 countdown.  

22. NOCTURAMA (dir: Bertrand Bonello)
267.5 points
A group of diverse French youths successfully pull off a series of terrorist attacks in Paris and spend the subsequent evening in a mall while in hiding. The film is especially praised for its mesmerizing mise-en-scene and fascinating examination into the psyche of these murderous young people.

21. LOGAN (dir: James Mangold)
271 points
The year's highest-ranking superhero movie, so good that it actually managed to be one of the few in its genre to earn a serious Oscar nomination (for the category of Best Adapted Screenplay). It also marks what's expected to be the last appearance of Hugh Jackman in the role of the famous X-Men character Wolverine. 

20. TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (dir: David Lynch)
294.5 points
Is the 18-part miniseries created by Mark Frost and David Lynch (a continuation of the famous early '90s cult series) a movie or a TV show? While yours truly believes the answer was that it was obviously a TV show (due it being basically the third season of Twin Peaks as well as a weekly serial airing on the network Showtime), turns out the issue was not so simple. Back in December, for instance, famous European film publications Sight & Sound and Cahiers du cinema had it near the top of their year-end film rankings, with a bunch of other film critics following suit (overall, this series set a first-place percentage record in this countdown's history with, 76% of its 33 top ten placements being at #1). Meanwhile, Lynch himself claimed he treated it as one long movie, while the first two installments managed to even land a premiere at the coveted Cannes Film Festival. Either way, I'm sure that Twin Peaks fans would be happy to know that the series was loved by critics of all stripes (it also placed high on aggregate TV critics polls). 

18(tie). MUDBOUND (dir: Dee Rees)
300 points
A moving drama about a family of black and white sharecroppers working in the Jim Crow South. This film, which premiered to raves at Sundance, was nominated for multiple Oscars (include Best Cinematography for Rachel Morrison, the first woman ever nominated in the category) and helped propel Netflix's prestige (along with The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) and Okja ). 

18(tie). I, TONYA (dir: Craig Gillespie)
300 points
Margot Robbie stars in this biopic about Tonya Harding, the controversial American figure skater who is most famous with attempting to sabotage competitor Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Olympic Winter Games.

17. A QUIET PASSION (dir: Terence Davies)
313.5 points 
The underrated director of such recent-classics as The Deep Blue Sea (#19 in the 2012 countdown) tells the story of famous American poet Emily Dickinson. Cynthia Nixon plays the starring role.

16. BABY DRIVER (dir: Edgar Wright)
316.5 points
A well-edited action romp with a great soundtrack that stars Ansel Elgort as a talented getaway driver that enjoys listening to music on his iPod. Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Lily James and Kevin Spacey (in his last-famous role before being outed as a pedophile creep) also star. This marks Wright's first film since The World's End (#26 on the 2013 list) as well as his first since being outed from shooting Ant-Man, which shows that he appears to be doing just fine.

15. THE POST (dir: Steven Spielberg)
331 points
A free press film with feminist and anti-Trump undertones, Steven Spielberg delivers the story of The Washington Post attempts to publish The Pentagon Papers after it was stolen by former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. Meryl Streep stars as Katharine Graham, the trailblazing publisher of the Post, as well as Tom Hanks, playing the role of editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee. In general, the whole cast is top-of-the-line, with roles played by such people as Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Carrie Coon, Matthew Rhys, and more. The film won the National Board of Review award for Best Film.

14. FACES PLACES (dir: JR, Agnes Varda)
342 points
The year's highest-ranking documentary, as the unlikely duo of Agnes Varda and JR travel across the country of France to take photos of various residents and put them onto murals. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards.

13. THE BIG SICK (dir: Michael Showalter)
351.5 points
One of the darlings of 2017's Sundance Film Festival, the romantic comedy is based on the love story of co-writers and spouses Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani. Nanjiani plays a version of himself in the movie, with Zoe Kazan playing the role of Emily. Ray Romano and Holly Hunter also star.

12. PERSONAL SHOPPER (dir: Olivier Assayas)
354.5 points
A woman (played by Kristen Stewart) received paranormal messages from her dead brother in the latest collaboration between Stewart and Olivier Assayas.

11. BLADE RUNNER 2049 (dir: Denis Villeneuve)
469.5 points
Set 30 years after the events of the 1982 Ridley Scott classic Blade Runner, we see a replicant cop (played by Ryan Gosling) attempt to discover the whereabouts of another replicant that was found to sexually reproduce. Harrison Ford reprises his role as Rick Deckard in this one, and the movie also features performances by Jared Leto and Robin Wright. The film marks yet another film in Denis Villeneuve's recently remarkable run (Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival). As demonstrated by the high positioning of this movie and Twin Peaks: The Return proves, 2017 was quite the boon year for sequels to property previously released decades prior.

10. A GHOST STORY (dir: David Lowery)
503.5 points
Inspired by the movies of Terrence Mallick, we see the ghost of a deceased man (played by Casey Affleck) carry out his being while living in the same house that he resided in before passing away.

9. GOOD TIME (dir: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie)
556 points
Robert Pattison plays a guy who hustles and cons his way into finding bail money for his brother. The film marks yet another acclaimed contribution by the Safdie brothers into the more grimy parts of New York City, following the success of Heaven Knows What (#38 on the 2015 countdown).

8. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (dir: Martin McDonagh)
701 points
Frances McDormand earned her second Oscar playing Mildred, an angry mother who was so pissed off by the lack of closure into the investigation over her daughter's death, she ends up calling out the town sheriff (played by Woody Harrelson) in a series of three billboards. Sam Rockwell also earned an Oscar for his performance as one of the town's deputies. This movie won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture- Drama. 

7. PHANTOM THREAD (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)
785.5 points
Three years after writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson came out with Inherent Vice, arguably his least loved movie of this century (only a #10 finish in the 2014?!? PTA, you're slipping!), he managed to dazzle audiences with another trip back to the mid-20th Century (following 2012's The Master, which appeared as #2 in that year's countdown). This time, in involved Daniel Day-Lewis in his final on-screen role as Reynolds Woodcock, a famous fashion designer, and the antagonistic yet loving relationship he had with his wife, Alma (Vicky Krieps). Despite just barely premiering in time to be considered on year-end lists (mid-December, which is why some of the earlier year-end top-ten lists didn't feature it), the movie still wowed audiences enough to earn six Oscars, including Best Picture.

6. THE SHAPE OF WATER (dir: Guillermo Del Toro)
796 points
The 2017 Best Picture winner (a choice that was both pretty predictable and also completing shocking given its plot), a tale of a deaf woman (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with a captured sea creature. Guillermo Del Toro brought his usual production design craft, leading him to also receive a Best Director victory after a successful 20+ year career.  

5. DUNKIRK (dir: Christopher Nolan)
1094 points
The highest-rated summer blockbuster movie on this list, not to mention the highest-rated movie involving the battle of Dunkirk (see: part 1 of the countdown). Despite Christopher Nolan's films being known for a lot of exposition and plot chicanery, this film was rather subdued in those elements with the main chicanery being that of three different storylines being told in a non-linear fashion. Tom Hardy, Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles and Kenneth Branagh lead the way in a movie that was far less focused on their backstories and more on their selfless pursuit of fulfilling their duty to their country. 

4. THE FLORIDA PROJECT (dir: Sean Baker)
1177 points
Two years after coming out with Tangerine (#11 on the 2015 countdown), Sean Baker followed-up with another look into the world of a marginalized community, this time a motel of poor families living by Disney World in Orlando (with a manager played by Willem Dafoe). 

3. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (dir: Luca Guadagnino)
1190.5 points
A romance story based on the novel of the same name, about a young man (Timothy Chalamet, in his breakout role) and an older visitor to his parent's Italian estate (Armie Hammer). This marks the second straight year a Guadagnino movie has appeared on the list (following last year's #38 placing for A Bigger Splash) as well as the return in prominence for legendary filmmaker James Ivory, whose script earned him the category as oldest Oscar winner ever at age 89. 

2. LADY BIRD (dir: Greta Gerwig)
1396 points
Above all else, it was a pair of longtime actors and freshman directors who led the way in 2017. One of them featured Greta Gerwig directing a drama loosely based on her time as a teenager from Sacramento, California in the early 2000s. Saoirse Ronan plays the titular Lady Bird, a rambunctious senior at a Catholic high school who wishes to leave her home in order to go to college in the East Coast. The movie was nominated for five Oscars, including writing and directing noms for Gerwig as well as recognition for the supporting performance of Laurie Metcalf as Lady Bird's mom. At one point, Rotten Tomatoes had it as it highest rated movie ever.

1. GET OUT (dir: Jordan Peele)
1639.5 points
But while Gerwig's directorial debut earned excellent praise, it was still no match in 2017 for Jordan Peele's directorial debut, a horror film about a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) who visits the suburban family of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams). Thanks to an Oscar-winning script, a great horror atmosphere and some stellar performances, Get Out was able to capture audiences with its interesting take on race relations, getting a massive box-office payoff in the process. Terms like "the sunken place" have entered the pop-culture lexicon, while Peele managed to flaunt his talent in a new direction after being known for years through his excellent comedy work (such as the Emmy Award-winning Key & Peele). 

Get Out's positioning at #1 is probably the least dominant finish in a while. Its 40 number ones were pretty minimal compared to Moonlight's 92 in 2016, or even Mad Max: Fury Road's 68 in 2015, but it was still more than anyone elses (Call Me By Your Name finished second with 34). It also appeared on only 61% of the top ten lists, while #1 films in years past got at least 65% , which reflected a year of critics lists with more parity (Lady Bird, The Florida Project, Call Me By Your Name and Dunkirk also broke the 40% barrier, in that order). That being said, a #1 spot is what it received, and given how much attention had been paid to it all throughout 2017 from the moment of its February release, it most certainly feels deserved.



Coming tomorrow: a list of some other movies mentioned by critics lists we counted