By Melissa Kirsch
What did you rank as your top movies of the 21st century? Did you include 鈥淟a La Land,鈥 which landed at No. 16 on our list of readers鈥 picks, despite not appearing at all on the list by actors and directors? I struggled to determine how I would rank a movie as one of 鈥渢he best.鈥 Was it one that left me astonished when I saw it? One that stayed with me long after watching? Or should I choose films that somehow felt important in the history of cinema? And what does 鈥渋mportant鈥 mean anyway? In 2000, I loved 鈥淗igh Fidelity鈥 and 鈥淏est in Show鈥 鈥 but of course I hadn鈥檛 seen 鈥淢oonlight鈥 or 鈥淭he Royal Tenenbaums鈥 or 鈥淭谩r鈥 yet. What did it mean if my list diverged wildly from The Times鈥檚 lists? From those of my friends? I found myself inanely worrying that my picks weren鈥檛 serious enough, that they didn鈥檛 adequately convey my tastes or aesthetic.
What is the purpose of a list ranking 鈥渢he best鈥 of something, anyway? Is it to establish a canon, a definitive record, etched in stone? Is it to inspire questions and conversations and arguments about what makes something good? The very fact that we are stopping to consider the movies we love and debating their relative merits, interrogating what our picks say about us and the culture, is glorious. If we bemoan how the majesty of moviegoing has been diminished and replaced by slack-jawed streaming of algorithm-designed 鈥渃ontent,鈥 then a project that lifts us out of the endless scroll and helps us remember why we love movies in the first place is a welcome tonic.
I love the way a big list forces me to question and define my tastes, to consider what I like and don鈥檛 and why, to sharpen my critical takes against those of others. But the best part of engaging with the films of the 21st century is how the list prompted a cascade of memories of the past 25 years. I remember the exact theater in which I saw 鈥淵 Tu Mam谩 Tambi茅n鈥 in 2002, the friends I was with, where we ate afterward. That restaurant is definitely not there anymore. I remember seeing 鈥淢elancholia鈥 in 2011, talking about it over drinks in a weird bar in Midtown. What was my drink order in those days?
The objective quality of a film is fun to debate, but it鈥檚 a lovely sort of ecstasy to think back over one鈥檚 quarter-century of movie-watching experiences, to use those movies to populate a memory palace. The film is just the catalyst for a million other reminiscences.