The best 2000s movies were just built different. They threw caution to the wind. They had clean, engaging plots. Impeccable styling. And studios often cast for charisma and star quality, rather than established mainstream fame (Rachel McAdams wasn’t a household name before her turn as Regina George). Obviously, it’s easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses, and there are plenty of films that’ve come out this year that look set to be future classics ( and among them). But there’s nothing like returning to the canon of great millennial texts when in search of something truly satisfying.
I’m not going to list of the best 2000s movies ever made, but if you’re in need of an easy dopamine fix, here are 11 cult classics and long-time favourites worth rediscovering – or, if you’re lucky, watching for the first time.
– starring an 18-year-old Thora Birch and 15-year-old (!) Scarlett Johansson as two cynical, deadpan teenage misfits, Enid and Rebecca – was initially released in the ’90s as a cult comic book. Terry Zwigoff did an excellent job of bringing it to life. Watching it back now is just as enjoyable as it was the day it came out, particularly with regards to its costuming: lots of ’70s vintage, boxy thrifted coats, graphic tees, chunky platform shoes, leopard print and green lipstick.
Every Studio Ghibli film is worth watching, but there’s something especially enchanting about Hayao Miyazaki’s timeless classic Spirited Away. The film follows 10-year-old Chihiro (Rumi Hiiragi), who finds herself in a bathhouse for supernatural beings thanks to her parents, who transformed into gigantic pigs after gobbling up food that wasn’t theirs (to be fair to them, all the food in this film looks delicious). I like to watch this one whenever I’m in need of some escapism.
If there’s one film that really captures the mood, energy and style of the era, it’s this indie rom-com. A general sense of malaise in the midst of a search for meaning? Check. A Manic Pixie Dream girl in the shape of Natalie Portman? Check. A soundtrack that some of us (me) still like to turn up from time to time, with music from the likes of the Shins, Frou Frou and Zero 7? Check, check, check. (The latter actually won a Grammy.)
For film nerds, choosing a favourite Sofia Coppola movie is like being asked to pick a favourite child – but is definitely the closest the director has to a crowd-pleaser. With its sumptuous, playful costuming, delectable mise-en-scène and groundbreaking mix of period and modern references (scuffed pink Converse trainers on screen, Siouxsie and the Banshees playing in the background of a ball), there’s so much to love about this film today. As British ’s film and culture editor Radhika Seth has said: “The modern period drama wouldn’t exist without .”
You don’t need me to tell you to rewatch . We’re past that now. The film has everything you need from a classic comedy: a stacked cast for the ages (Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Tina Fey), a plot that could have come from the mind of Shakespeare (though, unlike so many rom-coms of the era, this one actually didn’t) and lines that have folded so seamlessly into our everyday lexicon that you might have forgotten they started here (“Get in, loser. We’re going shopping!”) A rewatch should be considered a type of medicine at this point.
Gurinder Chadha’s raucous sports comedy (not a genre I typically gravitate towards, but is different) follows Jess (Parminder Nagra), a football-obsessed Punjabi girl who befriends fellow player Jules (Keira Knightley) and then joins her scrappy Hounslow team. Twenty-five years after its release, we can thank the film for two things. First, Knightley’s hairstyle which people are still requesting today. And second, for inspiring a generation of girls to take up football. The only thing I’m mad about is that isn’t a lesbian film – though it amassed a staunch queer following.
You probably don’t need a reminder to watch , but if you did, then here it is. Starring Kate Hudson as the beguiling and charismatic groupie Penny Lane (who still has fashion girls in a chokehold over that vintage fur-lined coat) and Patrick Fugit as the teenage wannabe journalist William Miller, will make you want to quit your job to follow a rock band around the United States (as if such a thing wouldn’t be a nightmare today – but, hey, things were different in the ’70s).
Danny Boyle’s was such a success upon release – and in the years to follow – that the actual beach it’s filmed on, Maya Bay in Ko Phi Phi Leh, had to be closed off to the public due to the damage caused by millions of tourists. It’s easy to see the appeal, though. In the film, in which a young American backpacker played by Leonardo Dicaprio travels to Thailand and then sets off for a secret beach utopia after being given a map, we get to see what paradise really looks like. Before it all gets dark and sinister, that is. Extra points for the soundtrack, All Saint’s “Pure Shores”, too.
They just don’t make kooky family road trip movies like they used to (read: at all) anymore! Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s 2006 film debut is a lot of fun. Following the dysfunctional Hoover family as they drive from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Redondo Beach, California, so that seven-year-old Olivia can take part in the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant, is about the many setbacks we face in life, and the lessons we learn along the way. It has star turns from Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin, too.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
I’m not kidding when I say that I think about this film at least once a week – indeed, this Michel Gondry classic is my Roman empire. With a generational run of A-list talent – Kate Winslet, Jim Carey, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood – and a poetic, whipsmart script that could have only come from the mind of Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is part indie sci-fi, part devastating rom-com and part nothing that’s been done before or since. Unfortunately, I now can’t listen to “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime” by Beck without crying.
