Rolling Stone's 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century, Measured

In 2025 Rolling Stone ranked the hundred best movies of the 21st century so far — a critics'-desk canon of the young century, counted down from There Will Be Blood. Here is the magazine's hundred measured against our composite score across 20+ lists, awards and polls.

99 films from this list are in our library; the top 30 by composite score are shown — the ranking is ours, not the list's own order.

1
Parasite2019 · Bong Joon-ho · South Korea · comedy, drama, thriller
5.72
Palme d'Or winner 2019 · Oscar Best Picture winner 2019 · Film Comment year-end poll 2019 #1
2
In the Mood for Love2000 · Wong Kar-wai · Hong Kong, China / France / Thailand · romance, drama
5.13
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #5 · Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #2 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #9
3
Spirited Away2001 · Hayao Miyazaki · Japan · fantasy, animation, drama
4.98
Berlin Golden Bear winner 2002 · Japan Academy Prize winner 2002 · Kehr's annual top 10 2002 #1
4
Mulholland Drive2001 · David Lynch · United States · mystery, thriller, crime
4.61
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 2001 #1 · Film Comment year-end poll 2001 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #8
5
There Will Be Blood2007 · Paul Thomas Anderson · United States · drama, western, thriller
4.26
Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #1 · Film Comment year-end poll 2007 #2 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2008 #2
6
The Tree of Life2011 · Terrence Malick · United States · sci-fi, fantasy, drama
4.26
Palme d'Or winner 2011 · Film Comment year-end poll 2011 #1 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 2011 #2
7
No Country for Old Men2007 · Ethan Coen, Joel Coen · United States · drama, thriller, western
4.20
Oscar Best Picture winner 2007 · Film Comment year-end poll 2007 #1 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2008 #1
8
Moonlight2016 · Barry Jenkins · United States · drama
4.15
Oscar Best Picture winner 2016 · Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #3 · Film Comment year-end poll 2016 #2
9
The Hurt Locker2008 · Kathryn Bigelow · United States · action, thriller, war
3.95
Oscar Best Picture winner 2009 · BAFTA Best Film winner 2010 · Film Comment year-end poll 2009 #1
10
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives2010 · Apichatpong Weerasethakul · Thailand / France · comedy, drama, fantasy
3.69
Palme d'Or winner 2010 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 2010 #1 · Film Comment year-end poll 2011 #2
11
Boyhood2014 · Richard Linklater · United States · drama
3.66
BAFTA Best Film winner 2015 · Film Comment year-end poll 2014 #1 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2014 #2
12
A Separation2011 · Asghar Farhadi · Iran · drama
3.62
Berlin Golden Bear winner 2011 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2012 #2 · Ebert's annual top 10 2011 #1
13
Yi Yi2000 · Edward Yang · Taiwan, China / Japan · drama
3.56
Film Comment year-end poll 2000 #3 · Sarris's annual top 10 2000 #1 · Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #8
14
Roma2018 · Alfonso Cuarón · United States / Mexico · drama
3.24
BAFTA Best Film winner 2019 · Venice Golden Lion winner 2018 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 2018
15
Oppenheimer2023 · Christopher Nolan · United States / United Kingdom · biography, thriller, drama
3.23
Oscar Best Picture winner 2023 · BAFTA Best Film winner 2024 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2024 #1
16
Drive My Car2021 · Ryusuke Hamaguchi · Japan · drama
3.17
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 2021 #1 · Japan Academy Prize winner 2022 · Film Comment year-end poll 2021 #2
17
12 Years a Slave2013 · Steve McQueen · United Kingdom / United States · drama, biography
3.14
Oscar Best Picture winner 2013 · BAFTA Best Film winner 2014 · TIFF People's Choice winner 2013
18
Mad Max: Fury Road2015 · George Miller · Australia / United States · action, adventure, sci-fi
2.96
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2015 #1 · Film Comment year-end poll 2015 #3 · Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #7
19
Lost in Translation2003 · Sofia Coppola · United States / Japan · comedy, romance, drama
2.95
Film Comment year-end poll 2003 #1 · Sarris's annual top 10 2003 #1 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 2003
20
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days2007 · Cristian Mungiu · Romania / Belgium · drama
2.80
Palme d'Or winner 2007 · Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #6 · Film Comment year-end poll 2007 #9
21
The Zone of Interest2023 · Jonathan Glazer · United Kingdom / Poland / United States · drama, war
2.68
Cannes Grand Prix winner 2023 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2024 #3 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 2023
22
The Social Network2010 · David Fincher · United States · biography, drama
2.68
Film Comment year-end poll 2010 #2 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2011 #2 · Ebert's annual top 10 2010 #1
23
The White Ribbon2009 · Michael Haneke · France / Germany / Austria · drama, mystery
2.58
Palme d'Or winner 2009 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2010 #4 · Film Comment year-end poll 2009 #12
24
Inside Llewyn Davis2013 · Ethan Coen, Joel Coen · United States / France · drama, musical, comedy
2.58
Film Comment year-end poll 2013 #1 · Cannes Grand Prix winner 2013 · Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #18
25
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon2000 · Ang Lee · United States / Taiwan, China / Hong Kong, China · romance, fantasy, action
2.44
TIFF People's Choice winner 2000 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 2000 · Film Comment year-end poll 2000 #6
26
Before Sunset2004 · Richard Linklater · United States · romance, drama
2.36
Film Comment year-end poll 2004 #3 · Sarris's annual top 10 2004 #1 · Rolling Stone 100 Best of the 21st Century #26
27
Inglourious Basterds2009 · Quentin Tarantino · Germany / United States · war, drama, adventure
2.36
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 2009 #3 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 2009 · Film Comment year-end poll 2009 #7
28
The Irishman2019 · Martin Scorsese · United States · crime, drama, biography
2.33
Film Comment year-end poll 2019 #2 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2019 #3 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 2019
29
A Prophet2009 · Jacques Audiard · France / Italy · drama, crime, thriller
2.25
Cannes Grand Prix winner 2009 · César Best Film winner 2010 · Film Comment year-end poll 2010 #5
30
A History of Violence2005 · David Cronenberg · Germany / United States · thriller, crime, drama
2.24
Film Comment year-end poll 2005 #1 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 2005 #2 · Hoberman's annual top 10 2005 #1

Rolling Stone published this ranking in 2025, and unlike the wider canons on this site it draws a hard temporal line: nothing before 2000. The hundred titles were chosen not by a poll of hundreds of filmmakers but by a handful of the magazine's own contributors — a critics'-desk cut, opinionated and self-described as a living document, weighted toward international cinema rather than the Anglophone default. Every film below was therefore released inside a single quarter-century, which makes the page a rare thing here: a canon with no old masters to lean on, only the young century arguing with itself.

A frame with no deep past

Most lists on this site let accumulated decades do the ranking — the silent landmark, the mid-century monument, the film that has had eighty years to gather citations. Strip all of that away and you are left measuring pictures that are still settling. The earliest entries here, In the Mood for Love (2000), Yi Yi (2000) and Spirited Away (2001), carry barely a quarter-century of afterlife; the latest, Oppenheimer (2023) and The Zone of Interest (2023), have had only a few years to prove they last. Rolling Stone's own choice for the summit was There Will Be Blood (2007). That the magazine crowned a single American drama says as much about a critics' desk as it does about the century.

What our score does to the order

Our composite, drawn across twenty-plus lists, awards and polls, reshuffles the magazine's hundred hard. Parasite (2019) tops our reading of the page at a score of 5.72 — #12 in our whole library, not merely this slice's leader — because more of the lists, awards and polls we weigh converge on it than on anything else here. Rolling Stone's number one, There Will Be Blood, sits far lower by our count, at score 4.26: revered, but carried by fewer of the sources we weigh. Around them cluster the films where magazine taste and cross-list consensus mostly agree — Spirited Away at 4.98, Mulholland Drive (2001) at 4.61, No Country for Old Men (2007) at 4.20, Moonlight (2016) at 4.15, Drive My Car (2021) at 3.17. Ninety-nine of the magazine's hundred sit in our library; the order you see is ours, not theirs, and the distance between the two rankings is the whole point of measuring one against the other.