The Most Nostalgic Movie of Every Year of the 2000s, Ranked

Few decades have expe­ri­enced so much cin­e­mat­ic won­der and cap­ti­vat­ing tales quite as mem­o­rably as the 2000s have. This was the decade to tru­ly expe­ri­ence a wide range of cre­ativ­i­ty and new, excit­ing stuff. It was when the build­ing blocks of the mod­ern super­hero genre were form­ing, mega-block­busters were tak­ing off, and audi­ences were expe­ri­enc­ing a pletho­ra of new and inno­v­a­tive works of art. In short, the 2000s real­ly were a blast, aren’t they?

The fol­low­ing ten are icon­ic 2000s movies that are best to look back on and rem­i­nisce about this glo­ri­ous time. They may not all be the most per­fect or Best Pic­ture-wor­thy, but they pow­er­ful­ly rep­re­sent the joy of going to the moviesback then. They’re fun and mem­o­rable, and some have even defined the child­hoods of many cin­e­ma buffs today. Sit back and enjoy a trip back to a charm­ing cin­e­mat­ic time.

‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (2000)

Ang Lee’s mas­ter­piece Crouch­ing Tiger, Hid­den Drag­on kicked off the 2000s on a soar­ing high note, where it still stands today as a won­der­ful achieve­ment that cat­a­pult­ed for­eign-lan­guage and mar­tial arts films more into the main­stream. It stars Chow Yun-Fat and Acad­e­my Award-win­ner Michelle Yeoh in a sto­ry about two war­riors who must recov­er a sacred sword from a thiev­ing politi­cian’s daugh­ter in 19th-cen­tu­ry Chi­na.

This delight­ful mix of action, dra­ma, and romance took the world by storm, blow­ing audi­ences away with its Oscar-cal­iber cin­e­matog­ra­phy and gor­geous fight chore­og­ra­phy. Crouch­ing Tiger, Hid­den Drag­on is a grip­ping and sim­ply eye-catch­ing expe­ri­ence, mak­ing an unfor­get­table clas­sic that start­ed the decade off strong and excit­ing.

‘Shrek’ (2001)

Dream­Works’ Shrek is one of the most beloved ani­mat­ed films of the 21st cen­tu­ry. It’s an unfor­get­table com­e­dy that defined many young child­hoods in the 2000s with its bril­liant jokes and leg­endary voice per­for­mances. Mike Myers and Eddie Mur­phy lead this now clas­sic sto­ry about a lone­ly ogre and talk­ing don­key as they set out on a quest to deliv­er a beau­ti­ful princess to an evil ruler.

Shrek has become time­less thanks to its quotable lines and lov­able char­ac­ters. Its sto­ry is fas­ci­nat­ing as it hilar­i­ous­ly sub­verts and pokes fun at fairy tales and their clichés. It’s smart and cre­ative, and nev­er fails to enter­tain audi­ences for decades, as it’s so enter­tain­ing and end­less­ly fun­ny. Shrek has an endur­ing lega­cy and will remain one of the most icon­ic films to ever come out of the 2000s.

‘Spider-Man’ (2002)

Super­hero movies at the turn of the 21st cen­tu­ry were slow­ly on the rise again after a dark peri­od in the mid and late 1990s. Pop­u­lar fran­chis­es like the X‑Men were tak­ing off, and Dis­ney’s MCU was jump-start­ing thanks to 2008’s Iron Man. But tru­ly, the super­hero genre in the 2000s was defined by Sam Rai­mi’s Spi­der-Mantril­o­gy. In 2002, this icon­ic series start­ed with the first install­ment, a beloved block­buster that saw every­one’s friend­ly neigh­bor­hood Spi­der-Man (Tobey Maguire) in a thrilling first out­ing as he bat­tles the sin­is­ter Green Gob­lin (Willem Dafoe).

This wild­ly enter­tain­ing super­hero clas­sic has become a mas­sive influ­ence on the genre ever since it became a smash hit in 2002. It estab­lished the excit­ing feel when watch­ing a super­hero film, and this effect has­n’t dwin­dled in the years since. It’s always enjoy­able, end­less­ly mem­o­rable, and is a thrilling banger from start to fin­ish. It’s over­all as fun to watch now as it was back then, mak­ing it one of the most beloved films of the decade and cer­tain­ly a must-watch.

7 ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ (2003)

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The lord of the Ringsbooks were in talks of being turned into full-length fea­ture films for decades, but with the thought of tech­no­log­i­cal and finan­cial lim­i­ta­tions, it seemed like an impos­si­ble fran­chise to con­ceive. Final­ly, with the rise of mod­ern film­mak­ing inno­va­tions, the 2000s were the per­fect time to start, and so New Zealand direc­tor Sir Peter Jack­son was giv­en the task of adapt­ing them to the big screen, in which he great­ly suc­ceed­ed.

In 2003, the epic con­clu­sion to this now leg­endary tril­o­gy, The Return of the King, rolled into the­aters and became a mas­sive crit­i­cal and com­mer­cial suc­cess, even earn­ing the pres­ti­gious Best Pic­ture Oscar at the Acad­e­my Awards. The Return of the King is often regard­ed as the best of The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy, a film­mak­ing and sto­ry­telling mar­vel with incred­i­ble action, flaw­less per­for­mances, and jaw-drop­ping visu­als. It’s an unde­ni­able mas­ter­piece that became the movie-going event of the ear­ly 2000s, and stands today as one of the most rec­og­niz­able and still beloved clas­sics to come out of this time.

‘Mean Girls’ (2004)

‘Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith’ (2005)

‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (2006)

‘No Country for Old Men’ (2007)

‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)

‘Up’ (2009)