Parasite Tops the 21st Century's Best Films List—Wait Until You See #6

Gone are the usual suspects — no Nolan, no Tarantino, no Spielberg. Instead, the list kicks off with Parasite at #1 and ends with The Social Network at #10. Somewhere in the middle? Moonlight, of all things, cracking the top five.

This list wasn't just cooked up in a vacuum. It was compiled from input by over 500 actors, filmmakers, and industry insiders, plus reader submissions. NYT describes it as a "snapshot" of the century so far, though it feels more like a group project where half the class didn't read the assignment.

Here's the Top 10:

1. Parasite (2019), dir. Bong Joon Ho
2. Mulholland Drive (2001), dir. David Lynch
3. There Will Be Blood (2007), dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
4. In the Mood for Love (2000), dir. Wong Kar-wai
5. Moonlight (2016), dir. Barry Jenkins
6. No Country for Old Men (2007), dir. Joel & Ethan Coen
7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), dir. Michel Gondry
8. Get Out (2017), dir. Jordan Peele
9. Spirited Away (2001), dir. Hayao Miyazaki
10. The Social Network (2010), dir. David Fincher

Notably absent: Inception, Django Unchained, The Fabelmans, The Dark Knight, Catch Me If You Can, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — basically any film by those three directors who defined mainstream 21st-century cinema.

Meanwhile, Moonlight — yes, Moonlight — gets the #5 slot over all of them. Sure, it won Best Picture (eventually), but calling it one of the five greatest movies of the last 24 years is a bit of a stretch unless you really like ambient silence and slow stares.

To be fair, Parasite is a solid choice. It won the Palme d'Or and the Oscar for Best Picture — the first non-English-language film ever to do that. Bong Joon Ho even had two films on the list (Memories of Murder also made the cut), so clearly he's having a moment.

A few other notes from the full list:

• The most recent entries were from 2023: Past Lives (#86), Oppenheimer (#65), Anatomy of a Fall (#26), and The Zone of Interest (#12).
• 2022 landed three films. 2021 had just one. 2020 had none.
• Mad Max: Fury Road, which topped a similar list from Rotten Tomatoes, only made it to #11 here.

Reader favorites like Almost Famous (#47), Lost in Translation (#30), Boyhood (#23), and Kill Bill Vol. 1 (#61) did show up, but cult picks like In Bruges, Closer, and Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada didn't rank at all.

So is Parasite really the best film of the century? Maybe. But when Get Out outranks The Dark Knight and Moonlight leapfrogs Scorsese, Nolan, and Spielberg, it's hard not to raise an eyebrow — or two.

Then again, it's a New York Times list. Half the fun is getting mad at it.