The 10 best movies of the 21st century — so far
Jessica Chastain as Maya in Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty.” (Columbia Pictures Industries, Jonathan Olley/Associated Press)
A couple of months ago, the BBC — inspired by a poll that suggested film writers didn’t think much of the movies released after 2000 — reached out to a couple hundred critics to see what we thought were the best movies to come out thus far in the still relatively new century. While I’m not much for rankings, since my work is often less concerned with whether a movie, television show or book is good or bad, and more with what it says and why we’re reacting to it the way we are, I was one of the critics who agreed to participate. If nothing else, I saw participating as a good way to clarify my own critical preferences to myself. And now that the results of the BBC’s poll are public, I thought I’d walk you through my list as an opportunity to explain those preferences to all of you.






