Not only is 2025 coming to an end soon, but with it the first 25 years of the 21st century!
While the last 25 years have seen the rise of Marvel Studios and the fall of big screen comedies, it has also seen advances in filmmaking technology, seminal movies from groundbreaking directors and new and returning movie stars alike.
As we leave behind the first quester of this century, Moviefone is counting down the 25 best movies of the first 25 years of the 21st century!
Let's begin!
Related Article: Moviefone’s 25 Best Movies of 2025: The Definitive Ranking
25. 'A Complete Unknown' (2024)
Set in the influential New York music scene of the early 60s, 'A Complete Unknown' follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan's (Timothée Chalamet) meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts – his songs and mystique becoming a worldwide sensation – culminating in his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
24. 'The Big Short' (2015)
The men who made millions from a global economic meltdown.
23. 'American Hustle' (2013)
A conman (Christian Bale) and his seductive partner (Amy Adams) are forced to work for a wild FBI agent (Bradley Cooper), who pushes them into a world of Jersey power-brokers and the Mafia.
22. 'The Departed' (2006)
To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop (DiCaprio) curries favor with the mob kingpin (Jack Nicholson), a career criminal (Matt Damon) rises through the police ranks. But both sides soon discover there's a mole among them.
21. 'Inside Llewyn Davis' (2013)
In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, gifted but volatile folk musician Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) struggles with money, relationships, and his uncertain future.
20. 'The Martian' (2015)
During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.
19. 'Hell or High Water' (2016)
A divorced dad (Chris Pine) and his ex-con brother (Ben Foster) resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's farm in West Texas.
18. 'Sicario' (2015)
An idealistic FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.
17. 'Beirut' (2018)
In 1980s Beirut, Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm) is a former US diplomat who is called back into service to save a colleague from the group that is possibly responsible for his own family's death. Meanwhile a CIA field agent (Rosamund Pike) who is working under cover at the American embassy is tasked with keeping Mason alive and ensuring that the mission is a success.
16. 'The Gentlemen' (2020)
American expat Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) has built a highly profitable marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he’s looking to cash out of the business forever it triggers plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him.
15. 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' (2011)
Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.
14. 'Inherent Vice' (2014)
In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterson).
13. 'John Wick' (2014)
Ex-hitman John Wick (Keanu Reeves) comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.
12. 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' (2005)
A petty thief posing as an actor (Robert Downey Jr.) is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl (Michelle Monaghan) and a detective (Val Kilmer) who's been training him for his upcoming role.
11. 'The Constant Gardener' (2005)
Justin Quayle (Ralph Finnes) is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.
10. 'Layer Cake' (2005)
When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX (Daniel Craig) has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin.
9. 'The Battered Bastards of Baseball' (2014)
Hollywood veteran Bing Russell creates the only independent baseball team in the country—alarming the baseball establishment and sparking the meteoric rise of the 1970s Portland Mavericks.
8. 'Inglourious Basterds' (2009)
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl (Mélanie Laurent), who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.
7. 'Moneyball' (2011)
The story of Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane's (Brad Pitt) successful attempt to put together a baseball team on a budget, by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.
6. 'Man on Fire' (2004)
Jaded ex-CIA operative John Creasy (Denzel Washington) reluctantly accepts a job as the bodyguard for a 10-year-old girl (Dakota Fanning) in Mexico City. They clash at first, but eventually bond, and when she's kidnapped he's consumed by fury and will stop at nothing to save her life.
5. 'There Will Be Blood' (2008)
Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis), moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) suspects Plainview's motives and intentions, starting a slow-burning feud that threatens both their lives.
4. 'The Royal Tenenbaums' (2002)
Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Most of this was generally considered to be their father's fault. "The Royal Tenenbaums" is the story of the family's sudden, unexpected reunion one recent winter.
3. 'The Dark Knight' (2008)
Batman (Christian Bale) raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker (Heath Ledger).
2. 'Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood' (2019)
Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha).
1. 'Drive' (2011)
Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. Though he projects an icy exterior, lately he's been warming up to a pretty neighbor named Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). When Irene's husband (Oscar Isaac) gets out of jail, he enlists Driver's help in a million-dollar heist. The job goes horribly wrong, and Driver must risk his life to protect Irene and Benicio from the vengeful masterminds behind the robbery.
