The CS! AFI Top 100 Movies of the 21st Century - So Far

60. Brokeback Mountain

CS! Voice: There is no disputing that Brokeback Mountain succeeded beyond anyone’s dreams at selling a gay themed film to mainstream audiences. The film was a pathfinder, the film which pushed the envelope in its domain, the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner of our times. Ang Lee does not resort to gimmickry and he isn’t in any hurry to move the story at an unnatural pace. He simply lets us meet these guys, sympathize with their situation, and then allows their lives to play out. Had he given in to sensationalistic urges the whole thing would have fallen apart like a house of cards, but there are no missteps.The refrain of those who disliked the film usually tends to be: “it’s just a romance.” Ummm… yeah, and I guess Star Wars is “just” a science fiction film. - Dracula

59. A Prophet

CS! Voice: The film I was reminded of the most during A Prophet was City of God, despite being completely different in tone, style, and pacing. Both are crime films where one can clearly so the inspiration from previous films of the genre, but both also work as completely original, bold, and exciting works. The performances from Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup are fantastic with both of them having great arcs and great interaction with each other. Jacques Audiard directs with a great degree of confidence and always knows when to employ a lot of style and when to pull back. I don't know if I'm on board with every decision he made, but they were interesting all the same. At any rate, the film is a revelation of his talents and I look forward to seeing more of his films. Perhaps most importantly, A Prophet works as a genre film, a character study, and as a commentary on the prison system. Great film. - PG Cooper

58. 12 Years a Slave


CS! Voice: Every once in a while I’ll hear people say something like “there are too many movies about slavery,” which always baffles me because from where I sit there are hardly any films about slavery at all. In the twenty five years leading up to 12 Years a Slave American chattle slavery had only really been depicted in a select few Hollywood films in any kind of detail like Glory, Amistad, Beloved, and Django Unchained which would seem like a rather scant output given the institution’s extreme cruelty and incredible importance to American History. With 12 Years a Slave we were finally given a sort of Schindler’s List of slavery and we got it from Steve McQueen, the incredible emerging director who previously gave us Shame and Hunger. Like those movies this featured a notable performance from Michael Fassbender as a cruel slave owner but this was the first time that McQueen (a black British man) sought to tackle issues of race directly in a film. McQueeen was in full command of the medium from a technical perspective when he made the film and made a style of contrasting the harsh brutality of slavery with the pastoral beauty of the various delta plantations. He also managed to assemble a pretty impressive cast and while a couple of the celebrities he put into bit parts were a tad distracting he more than made up for it by more or less discovering Lupita Nyong’o and having her come out the gate with a ferocious Academy Award winning performance like this is very impressive. Beyond that there’s a pretty clear wisdom in the way McQueen presents slavery in the film; he shows different strains of slave ownership (be it “enlightened,” overtly cruel, male, female, transactional, personal) and shows why they’re equally culpable in the greatest crime in American, if not world, history. - Dracula

57. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Making a foreign action film for the world market probably would have been a box office disaster, luckily the movie came out a year after The Matrix, and everyone was looking for their next fix of wire-fu action. It’s a good thing too, because it allowed a large audience to see a really lyrical film filled with great fight choreography and beautiful images. It was a movie that could be appreciated both by arthouse crowds and those just looking for some cool sword fights. The result was a wave of pretty cool action epic imports from the east over the course of the next decade. - Dracula

56. La La Land


CS! Voice: La La Land is neither the game changing musical or the introspective examination of the genre that it could have been, but it excels in being a highly entertaining film that is bolstered by strong performances from Gosling and Stone as well as superb production value. This is a more daring and complexly choreographed film than Whiplash, but I don't think La La Land is the better film. Musicals can be full of fun, but in doing so they often forgo real narrative depth and tension. La La Land thankfully pays needed attention to its drama, and is less concerned with hitting the viewer with catchy show tunes than telling the story of two dreamers in love with each other and their crafts. The end sequence is superb, and Chazelle continues to impress with his handling of his actors and his storytelling. Though La La Land isn't quite the groundbreaking musical I hoped for it to be, it's undoubtedly one of the best films of the year and will be walking away with multiple Oscars in February. - SnoBorderZero

55. Her


CS! Voice: From its stunning production design to its gorgeous cinematography and especially its story ripe with surprising emotional resonance, Spike Jonze has crafted another spectacular film with wondrous life and energy, much like Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Jonze sells this story, which could’ve gone wildly off the tracks with a less-skilled director, effortlessly and makes the central relationship here far more real and delicate than we could’ve imagined. He uses the story of a man falling in love with his operating system to show just how overly dependent we as a society have become on our technology. But also, and this is from my own perspective, I think Jonze is using it to meditate a bit on long-distance relationships, and the inherent strain that comes with them, especially in not being able to share a physical component of such a relationship. Joaquin Phoenix does extraordinary work, as does Scarlett Johannson, and Amy Adams and Rooney Mara are splendid in supporting roles. But really, Phoenix is extraordinary here and it disappoints me that he didn’t receive a Best Actor nomination. Through Joaquin Phoenix’s splendid acting and the themes of the plot, I found myself surprisingly, and sometimes uncomfortably connected to Her, more so than any other film from 2013. I could relate to Theodore’s often times forced isolation and his simultaneous desire to find someone who understands him. By the time it was over, it felt like I had gone on the same journey as Theodore, and the sense of renewed joy and hope present in the ending coursed through me the same way it did him. Her is the one 2013 film that I wanted to see again immediately after it was over, and if it were up to me, I’d award it Best Picture and give Best Director to Spike Jonze. - PhantomKnight

54. Casino Royale


CS! Voice: This movie has perfect pacing, imaginative and exciting action sequences, and some surprisingly great dialogue thanks to the script polishing of Paul Haggis. Most of this dialogue in the form of wonderful banter between Bond and Vesper. I think it took me a long time to get over the idea of a Bond origin, but it's handled very well, and also, it is the adaptation of the actual Bond origin as written by Ian Fleming, so I think it gets a pass. Fleming gave us a short book about winning money in a game of baccarat (much more boring than poker; another pass) and the birth of Bond through the death of a woman he fell for. The final words of the book are "The bitch is dead" and that sentiment and character development are adapted well into the movie. - Jibbs

53. Blade Runner 2049


CS! Voice: Making a sequel to Blade Runner was a bad idea. Making a sequel to Blade Runner thirty five years after the original was a bad idea. And making a sequel to Blade Runner during an even dumber and less patient era for studio filmmaking than the 1980s was also a bad idea… so how did things go so right? Somehow director Denis Villeneuve managed to make a Blade Runner movie without turning it into something more action oriented than the original which was just as slow and meditative while also capturing its visual style beautifully and even preserving a lot of the ambiguities about the original film’s mysteries. That’s a lot of things going right and it also adds some interesting ideas of its own like the new protagonist it creates who manages to mirror Dekkard without feeling like a copy of him and other little elements like his hologram assistant/girlfriend also help to make the movie its own thing rather than just a nostalgia trip for a certain kind of film buff. Where the movie is less successful is less to do with how it handles the original material and more to do with the original story it comes up with. I don’t want to get into it here but the villain is weak and investigation that the protagonist goes through never quite fits together in a satisfying way and certain questions are brought up but not satisfactorily explored. Still Villeneuve pulled off something of a miracle here by making a Blade Runner sequel that’s as legit as it is and I would be curious to see if someone tries to make a third film in another thirty five years with a 110 year old Harrison Ford. - Dracula

CS! Voice: I have to admit that as Burning was starting out, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, because it's a movie more than willing to take its time and not show its hand too early. But that's mainly where the strength of this movie lies. This is a film I found myself more and more engrossed in the longer it went on. There's a certain mystique to the way events play out here that just pulls you in. Honestly, nothing that sensational happens in the first 2/3rds -- it's just about these characters and how they interact with each other and develop -- but there's still a quiet, subtle intensity to everything that you can feel continue to mount as the film progresses. So that by the time we reach the Third Act and the story takes a certain turn, it's all the more fascinating to watch unfold. Without getting too much into spoiler territory, this Third Act feels like such a natural culmination and release of tension that I could feel steadily bubbling under the surface of most scenes in the middle portion especially. But what really makes this section of the film so gripping is that it's wisely framed and structured in such a way where we're not quite sure if there's really anything to be nervous about in the first place. Yet, director Lee Chang-dong has done such an expert job of crafting an undeniable tension before this point, that there's always this constant dread hanging over the rest of the film. To say that the filmmaking on display in Burning is strong would be an understatement. This is one of the best kinds of movies, the kind that catches you off-guard and reels you in with such effortless skill. - PhantomKnight

51. Adaptation

Perhaps the most endearing character of the film is Kaufman’s fictional twin brother Donald, and both of the Kaufman’s are played by Nicholas Cage. Anytime people decry the state of Nicholas Cage’s career, they always find themselves having to admit that he was actually good in Adaptation. His performance really is great in the movie, he plays both of the roles uniquely and never uses makeup to differentiate the two of them. Add to that a pair of really good performances by Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper, who won an Oscar for his work here, and you have one wild and trippy ride from the master of weird meta-films. - Dracula