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Classics of the 21st Century?

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Interesting list of films from the BBC culture team. 100 movies apparently destined to become long-term classics.

Let’s play a game.

Let’s have 2 lists. A top 10 list built from the 100 here and a top 5 list of your favourite movies of the 21st Century that are not on this list.

I’ll post 2 comments, one with the BBC’s top 100 and one with my lists.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160819-the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films?ocid=twcul

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Comments

  1. The BBC’s List of 100 long-term classics of the 21st Century

    100. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)
    100. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
    100. Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
    99. The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000)
    98. Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002)
    97. White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)
    96. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003)
    95. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)
    94. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
    93. Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)
    92. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)
    91. The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan José Campanella, 2009)
    90. The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
    89. The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, 2008)
    88. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy, 2015)
    87. Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
    86. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
    85. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)
    84. Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
    83. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
    82. A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009)
    81. Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)
    80. The Return (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2003)
    79. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000)
    78. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
    77. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
    76. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)
    75. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
    74. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012)
    73. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
    72. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
    71. Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)
    70. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012)
    69. Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
    68. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
    67. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)
    66. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (Kim Ki-duk, 2003)
    65. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
    64. The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
    63. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, 2011)
    62. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
    61. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
    60. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006)
    59. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
    58. Moolaadé (Ousmane Sembène, 2004)
    57. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)
    56. Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, director; Ágnes Hranitzky, co-director, 2000)
    55. Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)
    54. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011)
    53. Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
    52. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
    51. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)
    50. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)
    49. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
    48. Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015)
    47. Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)
    46. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
    45. Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
    44. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
    43. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)
    42. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
    41. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
    40. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
    39. The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)
    38. City of God (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2002)
    37. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)
    36. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)
    35. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
    34. Son of Saul (László Nemes, 2015)
    33. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
    32. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
    31. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)
    30. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
    29. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
    28. Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
    27. The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
    26. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
    25. ​Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
    24. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
    23. Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)
    22. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
    21. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
    20. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
    19. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
    18. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)
    17. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
    16. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
    15. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
    14. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
    13. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
    12. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
    11. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)
    10. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
    9. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
    8. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)
    7. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
    6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
    5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
    4. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
    3. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
    2. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
    1. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

  2. My top 10 from the list
    1. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
    2. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
    3. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
    4. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
    5. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
    6. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
    7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
    8. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
    9. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
    10. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)

    My missing top 5 is mainly blockbusters that I adore with a big box of popcorn
    1. Dark knight Rises
    2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    3. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
    4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    5. Skyfall

    Special mention for all the Harry Potter movies especially Prisoner of Azkaban and the two Deathly Hallows episodes.

  3. From their list (loads of which I wasn’t that impressed with or haven’t seen)…

    1 – The Dark Knight
    2 – The Grand Budapest Hotel
    3 – Mad Max: Fury Road
    4 – Inception
    5 – Blue Is The Warmest Colour
    6 – A Prophet
    7 – City Of God
    8 – Let The Right One In
    9 – Ratatouille
    10 – There Will Be Blood

    And my top missing 5 (whereas I would like to replace at least 80 of them!)…

    1 – Shaun Of The Dead
    2 – Juno
    3 – Casino Royale
    4 – 30 Days Of Night
    5 (tied) – What We Do In The Shadows/Kick-Ass/Sinister/Batman Begins/Marvellous/The Raid/The Others/Skyfall…the list could go on, but suffice to say that not many of their films would make my top 100!

  4. 1. Conversely, I think it’s a pretty good list of suggestions, reminding me of a number of films I’ve been meaning to see. Because I’ve not seen many I don’t feel qualified to do a top 10, but of those I have seen I think Pan’s Labyrinth and City Of God are outstanding.
    2. Given the voters’ leaning towards the pretentious I’d like to have seen Upstream Color somewhere in the 100.
    3. Three Nolans, and they still didn’t get the right one (The Prestige).
    4. What is it with you Brits and James Bond? It’s like that Wet Hot American Summer -everyone outside the U.S. thinks it’s a crock but Americans love it.
    5. Notwithstanding WHAS, in the 21st century television kicked cinema’s ass…

  5. This is going to be a tricky one for me as I’ve only five and a half of the films listed.

    Over the last decade or so I’ve come to realise that I rarely have the patience to watch a whole film. If it’s at the cinema I’m usually there on sufferance, bridling in silence as to the cost of tickets plus popcorn plus drinks. It it’s at home I can generally find something else I’d rather be doing – reading a book, loading the dishwasher, flea-treating the cats…

  6. Favourites from the list (only seen 35, though)

    Grand Budapest Hotel,
    Before Sunset
    Spirited Away
    Spring Summer Autumn Winter…Spring,
    City Of God,
    Pans Labyrinth,
    Fury Road,
    Lost In Translation,
    25th Hour
    Zero Dark Thirty

    Not on the list but should be:

    No Koreeda films? Appalling. I’ll say Still Walking. He is one of the greatest depictors of family relationships in cinema.

    Infernal Affairs is one of the best crime movies I’ve ever seen, and a thousand times better than the lousy remake The Departed.

    Goodbye Lenin is a sweet comedy about the misery of East Germany

    For a blockbuster fix I’ll go for Pacific Rim. Giant robots hitting giant monsters, sometimes with container ships. What’s not to like?

    Last place has to go to a good B movie. Not sure Dog Soldiers was after 2000, so I’ll have Neil Marshall’s next film, the claustrophobic cave horror of The Descent.

  8. When I saw this last night, my fist thought was “Easy. There’s …”
    Took me a while to remember truly “classic” 21st Century films.

    Toy Story
    In Bruges
    Hot Fuzz (just edging out Shaun Of The Dead)
    24 Hour Party People
    Layer Cake

    Special Mentions (can I have some more?):
    Control
    Men In Black Trilogy
    The Bank Job
    Sexy Beast
    Clubbed

  10. Seen about 40, give or take. What struck me, before I got bored with the exercise of trolling through 15 years of movies to see what had been missed, was just how many movies that came and went without creating so much as a ripple. Anybody remember National Treasure: Book of Secrets from 2007, starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger? Or The Upside of Anger with Kevin Costner and Joan Allen from 2005?

    Good to see the Coens getting a lot of love, also Holy Motors. I’d be inclined to put Saving Private Ryan in there somewhere.

  11. I prefer the “straightforward” Ghibli films such as The Wind Rises, From Up on Poppy Hill and Whisper of the Heart to the fantasy ones like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. I think this may make me a bad person.

    I reckon they’ve got the right Wes Anderson films in there, though maybe The Life Aquatic or Fantastic Mr Fox has a claim over Moonrise Kingdom, which is a bit drawn out at the end.

    It’s good to see Once Upon a time in Anatolia there. Great film, it’s like the best Montalbano episode ever.

  12. Lots I haven’t seen.

    Here’s my list from those I have.

    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
    Spirited Away
    Inside Out
    The Grand Budapest Hotel
    Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
    Wolf of Wall Street
    The Dark Knight
    Pans Labyrinth
    Memento
    Zodiac

    Missing from 2000’s

    Donnie Darko
    Solaris (2002 remake).
    Fantastic Mr Fox
    The Departed.
    Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Downfall
    Mystic River
    Michael Clayton
    Toy Story 3
    High Fidelity

  13. I’ve only seen 15 and of those I thought 4 were completely wonderful

    Spotlight
    Amelie
    The Great Beauty
    The Lives Of Others

    I can’t remember what else I’ve seen although last week I saw Weiner which was hilarious.

    The film that’s had the most effect on me recently was a doco in the Sydney Film Festival last year about a family who lived on a rubbish dump in Russia. Can’t remember the name of it but it haunts me to this day.

  15. I think it’s a wildly erratic list, with some genuine modern masterpieces cheek-by-jowl with some absolute shite.

    I’ve seen 31 of the top 100 films.

    Of those 31, my ten favourites are as follows. Four films in English, 2 in Russian, 2 in French, 1 in German and 1 in Polish.

    1. The Return (my favourite film of all time)
    2. Ida
    3. Before Sunset
    4. Fish Tank
    5. The Lives of Others
    6. Blue Is the Warmest Color
    7. There Will Be Blood
    8. A Prophet
    9. Almost Famous
    10. Leviathan

    • Would be interested to know which films here you thought were “absolute shite”, ducks (or anyone else, who would go that far). I reckon I’ve seen about 35, of which the worst was The Wolf Of Wall Street. But the unkindest thing I would say about that was that it was an overlong and sub par rehashing of themes dealt with better by the same director in previous efforts..

      • I’ve seen about twenty of these, and although I know it is much admired around here I have rarely seen a worse film than Before Sunset (see below for a worse film that I have seen). Ethan Hawke’s long, ahhhh. pauses to show you how spontaneous and naturalistic he is being, whats-her-name’s overacting eyebrows and her desperate need to make everything about her, her, her. Just awful. I deserve some kind of medal for watching the whole thing. The Light lasted about half an hour before insisting that I switch it off and make the horrible people go away.

        Then again I also think that The Shawshank redemption is one of the worst films I have ever seen, and apparently that’s the highest rated film of all time on IMDB. I can’t be held responsible for other people’s awful taste.

  16. In Bruges was ace but what about another two films by the McDonagh brothers and with the incomparable Brendan Gleeson in them:

    The Guard
    Calvary

    Others of mine are:
    Snowpiercer
    Before Midnight (the best and most incisive of those films)
    Locke
    Eastern Promises
    Nine Queens
    Wonder Boys

    and dare I say it… Interstellar.

  17. I have seen 36 of those films, but at least ten of those I have seen were in my opinion very ordinary to say the least. Classics? Nope. Inside Llewyn Davis? Best film with a cat in maybe, but it is very slight. The Tree Of Life? Spare me please. Laughable if it wasn’t devoid of laughs (and meaning, not to mention entertainment value, quality dialogue or pace). Moulin Rouge? Oh come on.

    The list favours art house cinema with a few populist titles seemingly thrown in more or less at random. Where is the Lord Of The Rings trilogy (2001 – 2003) for goodness sake? You can’t tell me that those films won’t still be around in 30 or 40 years?

    The only ones here that might conceivably become classics are Amelie, City Of God, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Lives Of Others and The Secret In Their Eyes. I follow films and if I haven’t even heard of a film it seems unlikely to ever become a classic.

    Where’s Hellboy when you need him?

  18. I’ve only seen 26 of those (to my shame I must admit that I own a few more on DVD without ever having been in the mood to actually watch them…)
    Out of those 26 I’d choose these to keep:
    The Gleamers and I
    City of God
    The Return
    Almost Famous
    Fish Tank
    Lost In Translation
    Spirited Away
    Before Sunset
    Let the Right One In
    Moonrise Kingdom

    And I’d add these to the list:
    Dogtooth
    Donnie Darko
    Together
    Napoleon Dynamite
    Look At Me
    Little Miss Sunshine
    Songs From the Second Floor
    You, the Living
    Ghost World
    A Mighty Wind
    Best In Show
    TransAmerica
    The Descent

  20. Okay, here’s my top ten from the list itself:

    – Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
    – Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
    – The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)
    – Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
    – Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
    – Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)
    – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
    – There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
    – In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
    – Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

    And my top ten not on the list:
    – Frank (2015)
    – The Life Aquatic (2003)
    – Signs (2002)
    – Casino Royale (2006)
    – O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)
    – Sideways (2004)
    – The Hateful Eight (2016)
    – Whiplash (2015)
    – The Departed (2006)
    – The Illusionist (2010)

    • I wouldn’t normally take issue with someone’s choices but my son and I were talking about Frank the other day and both agreed it was terrible. We only stuck it out to the end out of morbid curiosity. IMDB describes it as a comedy but that’s not a description I would use. Sorry….(we are talking about the Frank Sidebottom film aren’t we?)

  21. Films on the list what I reckon deserve to be on the list, in order of how good they are:
    Memento
    Boyhood
    City Of God
    Almost Famous
    The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
    Amelie
    Spring Summer Autumn Winter

    and maybe, in the face of not much competition, Wolf Of Wall Street.

    Films what are not on the list but should be on the list:
    O Brother Where Art Thou
    Shaun Of The Dead
    In Bruges
    Donnie Darko
    Ex Machina
    Mystic River
    Wild Bill

    So, nothing that hasn’t already been mentioned except Wild Bill.

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