50 best movies of the century (so far)
Here's a look at the movies, released from 2000 to today, that have been judged tops by critics. Our rankings are based on scores as determined by the review-aggregate site Metacritic: 0 represents the worst (and, no, you won't find any of those here); 100 is best.
You'll notice that our ranking starts at 41, not 50; that's because there are a lot of ties on this list. Genius loves company and all that.
First up in our countdown: Toy Story 3. The Oscar-winning tearjerker from 2010 concluded Pixar's pioneering CGI-told tale -- or so it seemed. (Toy Story 4 is due out in 2019.)
41. (TIE) "Leviathan" (Metascore: 92)
Released theatrically in the United States in 2014, this Russian drama, about a man pushed to the brink in his hometown, was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
41. (TIE) "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (Metascore: 92)
The first installment in Peter Jackson's epic J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy is the second-highest rated Lord of the Rings movie on Metacritic. The 2001 film won four Oscars.
41. (TIE) "Timbuktu" (Metascore: 92)
This Oscar-nominated 2015 film from the West African nation of Mali, about a family torn apart by religious extremists, was called an "extraordinary accomplishment" by Salon.
41. (TIE) "The Florida Project" (Metascore: 92)
From 2017, this indie movie about life at a budget motel earned star Willem Dafoe a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
41. (TIE) "The Rider" (Metascore: 92)
Rising filmmaker Chloé Zhao based this drama, released in 2018, on the real-life story of her star, Brady Jandreau, a South Dakota rodeo star whose career was cut short by a head injury.
41. (TIE) "35 Shots of Rum" (Metascore: 92)
The life of a widowed subway conductor is derailed in this 2009 French film hailed as "beautiful" by the Chicago Reader.
41. (TIE) "The Class" (Metascore: 92)
This Oscar-nominated 2008 French drama focuses on a year in a high school, tracking the students and their underpaid, under-pressure teacher.
41. (TIE) "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Metascore: 92)
Based on a real-life story, this 2007 drama, about a paralyzed magazine editor who dictated a book by blinking his left eyelid, was nominated for four Oscars.
41. (TIE) "One More Time With Feeling" (Metascore: 92)
This 2016 film documents the making of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' album, Skeleton Tree, in the wake of the death of Cave's son.
30. (TIE) "Minding the Gap" (Metascore: 93)
Another recent release, this 2018 documentary tracks the coming-of-age stories of three skateboarding friends, one of whom is the director, Bing Liu.
30. (TIE) "Sita Sings the Blues" (Metascore: 93)
This 2009 animated fantasy uses 1920s jazz records to help present its take on the epic Indian poem, "Ramayana."
30. (TIE) "There Will Be Blood" (Metascore: 93)
Daniel Day-Lewis won the second of his three career Best Actor Oscars for his portrayal of an unhinged oil magnate in Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 drama.
30. (TIE) "Sherpa" (Metascore: 93)
Director Jennifer Peedom's 2015 documentary follows the guides, or sherpas, who helped tourists scale Mount Everest during a time of conflict and tragedy.
30. (TIE) "Inside Llewyn Davis" (Metascore: 93)
The highest-ranking film by Ethan and Joel Coen, this 2013 slice-of-life story, about a 1960s Greenwich Village troubadour, proved a breakthrough vehicle for Oscar Isaac.
30. (TIE) "La La Land" (Metascore: 93)
This 2016 musical famously did not win the Best Picture Oscar. It did, however, win six other Oscars, including Best Director (for Damien Chazelle) and Best Actress (for Emma Stone).
30. (TIE) "Yi Yi" (Metascore: 93)
This 2000 Taiwanese family epic was praised as "wonderfully humanistic" by the Los Angeles Times.
30. (TIE) "Call Me By Your Name" (Metascore: 93)
In this Oscar-winning 2017 drama, a 17-year-old Italian (Timothée Chalamet) develops feelings for a young American doctoral student (Armie Hammer).
30. (TIE) "Spotlight" (Metascore: 93)
This 2015 fact-based drama, about a newspaper investigation into the Catholic Church's child-abuse scandal, won the Best Picture Oscar.
30. (TIE) "Toni Erdmann" (Metascore: 93)
This Oscar-nominated 2016 German film, about a professional and her unconventional father, has inspired an upcoming U.S. remake.
30. (TIE) "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Metascore: 93)
This high-flying Ang Lee adventure from 2000 won four Oscars, and made U.S. audiences take notice (at long last) of Michelle Yeoh.
17. (TIE) "Amour" (Metascore: 94)
At age 85, Emmanuelle Riva became the Oscars' oldest Best Actress nominee for her performance in this 2012 French drama about an elderly couple. Riva died in 2017.
17. (TIE) "Carlos" (Metascore: 94)
Variety called this 2010 French biopic about the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal "a spectacular achievement."
17. (TIE) "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (Metascore: 94)
The final installment of Peter Jackson's Rings trilogy was the saga's crowning achievement: The 2003 epic topped both the box office and the Oscars, where it won Best Picture and 12 other categories.
17. (TIE) "Lady Bird" (Metascore: 94)
Greta Gerwig's 2017 coming-of-age tale was a Best Picture contender at the Oscars; her stars, Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, were nominated in the acting categories.
17. (TIE) "We Were Here" (Metascore: 94)
This 2011 documentary tells the story of the early years of the AIDS outbreak in the United States.
17. (TIE) "Sideways" (Metascore: 94)
This 2004 Oscar winner takes a pair of friends (played by Thomas Haden Church and Paul Giamatti) on a funny-sad, wine-soaked road trip.
17. (TIE) "Inside Out" (Metascore: 94)
The A.V. Club called this emotional 2015 Oscar-winning Pixar film "maybe the most conceptually daring movie" ever produced by the animation house.
17. (TIE) "The Hurt Locker" (Metascore: 94)
This 2009 Iraq War drama about a bomb tech (played by Jeremy Renner) defeated "Avatar" for the Best Picture Oscar, and led Kathryn Bigelow to a historic Best Director win.
17. (TIE) "Mr. Turner" (Metascore: 94)
This 2014 historical drama from Mike Leigh earned four Oscar nominations for its take on British painter J.M.W. Turner.
17. (TIE) "Killer of Sheep" (Metascore: 94)
Made in the 1970s, but unreleased in theaters until 2007, this family drama championed by Steven Soderbergh impressed the Boston Globe as a "milestone of eloquent understatement."
17. (TIE) "45 Years" (Metascore: 94)
Charlotte Rampling scored a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her work in this quiet 2015 drama about a marriage that's hit by a figurative grenade.
17. (TIE) "Dunkirk" (Metascore: 94)
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan wowed critics and audiences with his Oscar-winning 2017 World War II epic.
17. (TIE) "Before Midnight" (Metascore: 94)
This 2013 Oscar-nominated drama, the first of two Richard Linklater movies in this gallery, reunites stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.
10. (TIE) "WALL-E" (Metascore: 95)
Yet another entry from Pixar, this 2008 Oscar-winner about a robot married "Chaplinesque delicacy with the architectural grandeur of a Stanley Kubrick film," according to Toronto's The Globe and Mail.
10. (TIE) "Faces Places" (Metascore: 95)
An Oscar-nominated documentary, this 2017 film recounts the travels of a French New Wave veteran and a young muralist, both of whom co-directed.
10. (TIE) "A Separation" (Metascore: 95)
Slate's Dana Stevens wrote that this 2011 Oscar winner from Iran about a family in crisis was "a quiet reminder of how good it's possible for movies to be."
10. (TIE) "Zero Dark Thirty" (Metascore: 95)
Jessica Chastain is CIA agent on the trail of Osama bin Laden in this 2012 thriller, director Kathryn Bigelow's big-screen follow-up to "The Hurt Locker."
10. (TIE) "I Am Not Your Negro" (Metascore: 95)
In this Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary, an unfinished cultural history of the United States by writer/activist James Baldwin is brought to life via the voice of Samuel L. Jackson and archival footage.
10. "The Social Network" (TIE) (Metascore: 95)
Jesse Eisenberg stars in director David Fincher's preternaturally dark view of the social-media empire founded by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. The 2010 film won three Oscars.
10. "Carol" (TIE) (Metascore: 95)
Filmmaker Todd Haynes' 2015 period drama about a scandalous love affair earned six Oscar nominations, including one each for its leads, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett.
5. "Spirited Away" (TIE) (Metascore: 96)
Released in 2002, this traditionally animated fantasy from Japan's Hayao Miyazaki won the Best Animated Feature Oscar.
5. "Gravity" (TIE) (Metascore: 96)
Alfonso Cuarón won the Best Director Oscar for this 2013 box-office hit, a survival story that tested a grieving astronaut, played by Sandra Bullock.
5. (TIE) "Ratatouille" (Metascore: 96)
The third, final and top-scoring Pixar film here, this 2007 comedy about a rat with culinary aspirations cooked up the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
5. (TIE) "Manchester by the Sea" (Metascore: 96)
While the #MeToo movement prompted Casey Affleck to retreat from the spotlight following his Best Actor Oscar win for this 2016 film, the critical regard for this gloomy drama remains strong.
5. (TIE) "12 Years a Slave" (Metascore: 96)
This 2013 film, an unvarnished depiction of slavery in the United States, won three Oscars, including a Best Picture win shared by, in part, director Steve McQueen and producer Brad Pitt.
4. "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" (Metascore: 97)
This 2008 Romanian film, about a woman trying to help her friend obtain an abortion, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
3. "Pan's Labyrinth" (Metascore: 98)
The Village Voice hailed Guillermo del Toro's Spanish-language, World War II-era fantasy as "literally and figuratively marvelous." The 2006 film won three Oscars.
2. "Moonlight" (Metascore: 99)
An envelope flub at the Oscars couldn't stop this 2016 coming-of-age indie drama, called a "cultural watershed" by the Boston Globe, from winning the Best Picture Academy Award.
1. "Boyhood" (Metascore: 100)
One of only eight movies of any era with a perfect Metacritic score, Richard Linklater's 2014 labor of love, shot over the course of 12 years, earned Patricia Arquette the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.