10 Greatest Movies Turning 25 in 2026, Ranked

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Nicole Kidman as Satine in 'Moulin Rouge!'

Chris Williams is a writer with more than 20 years of experience writing about film.

He began his career working as a reporter for the Advisor and Source Newspapers in Shelby Township, Michigan, where he also served as the resident film critic. He has also written for Patheos and CinemaNerdz. Since 2020, Chris has written the Chrisicisms newsletter, which features reviews of recent film releases and thoughts on a variety of subjects.

Chris holds a B.A. in communications and an emphasis in journalism and an M.A. in communications with an emphasis on media arts and studies, both from Wayne State University in Detroit.

He lives in the Detroit area with his wife and his son and daughter.

The start of the millennium was a great time for movies. Many of the directors who made their debut during the indie boom of the nineties brought their voices to stories with wider scopes, and established directors took some big swings. Some of the biggest movies and most enduring franchises were released in 2001, and films were released by directors who would become dominant voices in cinema in the coming years.

From gritty war epics and sprawling fantasy to animated comedies, groundbreaking musicals, and bold science fiction tales, 2001 kicked off a new era in movies. Here is a list of the ten greatest movies from that year, many of which are still widely beloved by movie fans.

10 ‘Wet Hot American Summer’

Paul Rudd wearing sunglasses in Wet Hot American Summer.

Wet Hot American Summer works because of its fearless commitment to absurdity. What starts as a parody of 1980s summer-camp movies quickly becomes something stranger and sharper, dismantling familiar clichés through relentless, surreal humor. The jokes are often defiantly stupid, but they land thanks to impeccable timing and a total refusal to chase conventional punchlines or sentiment. In a year dominated by polished studio comedies, its anarchic confidence made it stand apart.

The ensemble is just as essential, featuring future stars like Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, and Elizabeth Banks gleefully understanding how to pitch their performances. Their deadpan commitment, paired with David Wain’s loose, chaotic direction, gives the film a scruffy, unpredictable energy that rewards repeat viewing. What began as a cult oddity has since become a comedy classic, its influence visible in later waves of absurdist, ensemble-driven humor, and a reminder that one of 2001’s best films was also its funniest.

9 ‘Shrek’

These days, Shrek is a popular meme and, for many, it’s the go-to example for animated hits that ran their concept into the ground with endless sequels, specials, and amusement park attractions. But when it was released in 2001, Shrek was not only huge, it felt revolutionary.

Disney animation had been in the midst of its renaissance in the 1990s, but the bloom was quickly coming off the rose. Shrek was an anarchic rebuttal to self-serious fairy tales that wasn’t afraid to slip in some double entendres, film references, and modern music. Its fractured fairy tale and a hip cast that included Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy felt fresh when compared to fantasy romances. It was edgy and funny, and it seemed just as focused on delighting adults as it was on entertaining kids. Its subsequent entries might have turned it into the thing it was parodying, but Shrek still works as a subversive antidote to other animated comedies.

8 ‘Ocean’s Eleven’

In 2000, indie darling Steven Soderbergh solidified his status as one of the best working directors when he delivered two Best Picture nominees, Erin Brokovich and Traffic, the latter of which secured him a Best Director Oscar. Following them with a breezy remake of a Rat Pack caper seemed like a way for Soderbergh to do something light and low stakes. Instead, he made one of the most clever and purely fun movies of the decade.

The film features a can’t-miss cast, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, and Julia Roberts. The Vegas-set heist oozes cool, from the characters’ calm one-liners to their flashy outfits and the jazz soundtrack that fuels it all. The heist unfolds with suspense and humor, with Soderbergh delivering a number of twists and turns that keep the audience on its toes. It’s one of the most entertaining heist films ever made, followed by two sequels and a spin-off that are nearly as fun.

7 ‘Black Hawk Down’

Josh Hartnett as Eversmann hiding and looking to the distance in Black Hawk Down (2001).

Director Ridley Scott lost Best Director at the 2001 Oscars to Soderbergh, but had the last laugh of the night when Gladiator took home the top prize. It was the start of a massive comeback for the legendary director, who had two massive hits the following year: The Silence of the Lambs sequel Hannibal, and the war epic Black Hawk Down. The latter earned Scott another Best Director nomination, and its depiction of modern warfare is so blistering and powerful that Quentin Tarantino named Black Hawk Down the best film of the last 25 years.

The film tells the tragic story of a U.S. military mission gone awry in Somalia in 1992. It’s an unflinching, brutal, and harrowing tale, peppered with blistering action and gut-wrenching suspense and violence. Working with a cast that includes Josh Hartnett, Ewan MacGregor, Eric Bana, and even a young Tom Hardy, Scott’s film feels like the opening assault of Saving Private Ryan stretched out over two hours. It captures the terror and chaos of war better than nearly any other film, and it manages to be thrilling without exploiting the real-life story or dishonoring the soldiers’ sacrifice.

6 ‘Monsters Inc.’

Mike and Sulley holding Boo in her monster costume and run down a hallway in Monsters Inc.

As Walt Disney Animation struggled with the box office disappointment of Atlantis: The Lost Empire and DreamWorks’ Shrek seemed poised to eat its lunch, Monsters Inc. suggested that the company’s animated future was not completely bleak. The fourth feature by Pixar, it was just as funny as anything in Shrek, but its computer animation was a breathtaking step forward from Toy Story 2 and its sincerity was a surprising rebuttal to the green ogre’s cynicism.

It’s very hard to go wrong with a buddy comedy fronted by Billy Crystal and John Goodman, who are at their best as Mike and Sully, two working-class monsters trying to hide a kid in their sprawling city. Pixar’s world-building has rarely been better, with sight gags around every corner of Monstropolis. The film’s a visual delight, with its door chase climax still a highlight in the Pixar pantheon. But it’s the final shot, as tender and beautiful a button as any movie has ever had, that turns the film from just another kids flick into a bona fide classic.

5 ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’

Wes Anderson’s third feature is his definitive film. Marrying his storybook aesthetic to the themes of arrested development, familial dysfunction, and adult angst that he’s returned to throughout his career, it’s a hilarious and surprisingly touching story, one of the warmest for a director who is (perhaps unfairly) accused of being cold.

From the sprawling mansion where the family lives to the matching tracksuits worn by Ben Stiller’s character and his kids, The Royal Tenenbaums is just as much a visual feast as any other Anderson film, but in a way that suggests he hasn’t yet become boxed in by his style. It features fantastic work from an ensemble that includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, and Danny Glover. But its best performance might come from Gene Hackman, whose own discomfort with Anderson’s style lends his crotchety patriarch an authenticity so essential to making this eccentric family feel real.

4 ‘Moulin Rouge!’

Ewan McGregor as Christian and Nicole Kidman as Satine in a loving embrace in a still from 'Moulin Rouge!'

Baz Luhrmann doesn’t do subtle, and Moulin Rouge is the most successful example of his go-for-broke style, which tosses in everything but the kitchen sink – and then goes ahead and throws that in, too – to become something thrilling, immersive, and new. It’s a big, messy, sappy celebration of music, beauty, art, and love, and one of the best musicals of the 21st century.

The story of Ewan MacGregor’s penniless writer, who falls in love with a beautiful showgirl in 1800s Paris, played by Nicole Kidman in one of her best performances, Moulin Rouge bursts with creativity and imagination. It moves so fast that it’s hard to take in all the visual splendor in every scene, and its extravagant musical numbers toss in modern hits from Nirvana, Elton John, Dolly Parton, and more without the anachronism ever feeling wrong. It’s a screwball comedy mixed with tragic romance, told with just the right amount of camp; it’s a movie where two men doing a duet of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” feels perfectly at home. It’s big and messy and silly and clumsy, but those things also sum up what it feels like to be in love. Moulin Rouge is Valentine’s Day in movie form.

3 ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’

Haley Joel Osment as David holding his teddy bear in A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Audiences were initially confused when they walked into Steven Spielberg’s science fiction fantasy, expecting a family adventure on par with E.T. and instead finding something more challenging. Spielberg anticipates our future attachments to technology in this fascinating and heartbreaking story of an android programmed to love, played masterfully by Haley Joel Osment, and the journey he undertakes when his parents don’t hold up their end of the bargain.

Spielberg famously picked up the project from an idea by Stanley Kubrick, based on the Brian Aldiss story Super Toys Last All Summer Long. The marriage of Kubrick and Spielberg is a difficult one; the former’s coldness always seems in conflict with Spielberg’s warmth and humanity. But that’s the point; A.I. is about the clash between humanity and technology, and humans’ responsibility to free-thinking products. It’s a brilliant and troubling story, with some of the most imaginative worlds and images Spielberg has ever conjured up. It’s gone from a box office disappointment to a cult hit, with many suggesting it's among Spielberg’s very best. It feels more resonant now than ever.

2 ‘Mulholland Drive’

Betty and Rita laughing and pressing their forheads together in Mulholland Drive

It’s been 25 years, and most viewers still probably haven’t made complete sense of Mulholland Drive. David Lynch’s film feels like a waking dream that transforms Hollywood into a psychic landscape where desire, ambition, and disappointment blur together. The fractured structure isn’t a riddle to be solved so much as an emotional experience to be felt, with scenes unfolding according to dream logic and the promise of stardom slowly turning sinister.

Naomi Watts’ extraordinary performance grounds the film’s abstraction in raw human emotion. What begins as a seductive Hollywood fantasy turns into a devastating meditation on failure and self-deception. Lynch’s brilliance lies in how form and theme are inseparable; the film’s disorientation mirrors the inner collapse of its characters. Moments like the Club Silencio sequence remain among the most haunting in modern cinema, ensuring Mulholland Drive endures not only as a standout of 2001, but as a defining achievement of the century and one of the best films from a master auteur.

1 ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’

The first chapter in Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy is one of the greatest success stories in Hollywood. Jackson was beloved for his low-budget splatter films and the haunting drama Heavenly Creatures, but he stumbled with the financial disappointment of The Frighteners. But New Line Cinema saw enough promise in his vision to give him the greenlight to bring JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to life and set him free in New Zealand to film the entire trilogy over one long, multiyear shoot.

The Fellowship of the Ring premiered just a month after another big fantasy adaptation, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. But where that series took a few films to find its way, The Lord of the Rings came out of the gate fully formed. It’s a sweeping epic with dozens of characters and several subplots weaving together over the course of the trilogy. The first film introduces all of this with confidence and energy, with a cast that brings Tolkien’s beloved characters to life and a combination of digital and practical effects that allows Middle Earth to feel real and tactile. From the gentle introduction of the Shire to the mad dash through the Mines of Moria to its cliffhanger ending, it’s a film that feels vital, sweeping, and enchanting. It set the stage for future multi-film epics and storytelling, without which we wouldn’t have The Hunger Games or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But nothing has rivaled Jackson’s trilogy, and its first film is among the best fantasies ever made.