The 2000s brought us a bevy of new franchises, record-breakers, iconic performances, and ten of the most diverse Academy Award Best Picture winners in the history of the ceremony. Each one of the winning films exhibited fascinating traits that are simultaneously reflective of the year in which they were released, as well as the decade as a whole.
Even the lesser-known films out of the ten are representative of the exponential way the industry’s trends and approaches to prestige studio production evolved year-by-year. From ancient Rome to postmodern urban tragedy, here the ten Best Picture Oscar winners from the 2000s ranked worst to best.
Crash (Won – 2006)
One of the most notoriously derided winners in recent memory, Crash is a gritty, fragmented drama. A compelling collage of a film, technically speaking, the film’s overwrought script and controversial racial commentary are frankly embarrassing in hindsight.
Unfortunately, the film was remembered more for being a major upset when it beat Brokeback Mountain. Jack Nicholson was famously shocked in real-time as he presented the award, a cultural moment that has dogged Crash‘s reputation since it occurred. See it for yourselves and decide; just make sure you watch Brokeback Mountain right after.
A Beautiful Mind (Won – 2002)
Ron Howard helmed this biopic about genius mathematician John Nash and his decades-long struggle with mental illness. The film’s melancholic tone and nuanced treatment of Nash’s schizophrenia. Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly both turn in career performances as Nash and his wife as they struggle to keep Nash’s brilliant mind from slipping.
Though the film was up against heavyweights such as In the Bedroom and The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Howard’s film managed to resonate with Academy voters and stands now as one of the more somber and acclaimed biopics ever produced.
Chicago (Won – 2003)
The only musical of the decade to take home the prize of the evening was this crime comedy musical based on the hit Broadway show. Catherine Zeta-Jones, in a Best Supporting Actress turn, shines in the film as sassy murderess Velma Kelly alongside stars like Richard Gere and Queen Latifah.
Chicago is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is a bold and brash piece of entertainment with a slick jazz-inspired soundtrack and just the right amount of dramatic heaviness that the Academy voters tend to gravitate towards.
Million Dollar Baby (Won – 2005)
Clint Eastwood has consistently managed to crank out at least one home-run every decade since the 60s. His greatest film of the decade was the boxing drama, Million Dollar Baby, which also starred Eastwood alongside Hillary Swank and Morgan Freeman.
The film is one of Eastwood’s most dramatically mature. A relentlessly dark film about a retired boxing coach who agrees to take on his first female client, the film represents Eastwood at his best behind the camera and features one of the all-time great Morgan Freeman supporting turns.
Slumdog Millionaire (Won – 2009)
One of the more unlikely indie-hit-turned-Best-Picture-winners of the decade is this Danny Boyle-directed comedy-drama about an Indian boy’s journey from the slums all the way to the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
Dev Patel’s breakout performance as the adult version of the protagonist, Jamal, deftly combines witty one-liners with a genuine poignancy that matches the screenplay written by Simon Beaufoy. One of the best films in an incredible run Boyle had in the decade, Slumdog Millionaire is a crowd-pleasing winner that deserved the trophy.
American Beauty (Won – 2000)
Sam Mendes turned in one of the most astonishing directorial debuts of all time with this darkly comic cynical probe into suburban life in America. American Beauty is a surreal and bizarre look into the life of a middle-class husband who is going through an existential crisis as the lives of his family members also begin to spiral out of control. A film that features some seriously good acting, top-notch writing, and fresh camerawork, American Beauty is about as good as social satire can get.
Gladiator (Won – 2001)
Ridley Scott managed to resurrect the sword-and-scale epic for this good ol’ fashioned piece of Hollywood filmmaking. Featuring grand battle sequences, political drama, and a whole array of other classic “epic film” tropes, Gladiator might just be the most purely entertaining film of the bunch.
Ridley Scott’s masterful construction of suspense through spectacle shines through the best in this film since Blade Runner, and Russell Crowe’s Oscar-winning lead performance has just the right amount of masculine brute and noble avenger, which is perfectly matched by Joaquin Phoenix’s slimy Imperial antagonist.
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Won – 2004)
Winning an astonishing 11 Academy Awards, Peter Jackson’s concluding chapter to his epic fantasy trilogy was both a technical achievement and the ultimate proof that genre films can transcend their boundaries to be major awards show heavy-hitters.
The film manages to stick the landing against all odds and provides a satisfactory ending to almost every single one of the many dangling plot threads. The beloved ensemble cast is particularly excellent in this outing, and the film’s state-of-the-art special effects create an extremely visually immersive adventure.
The Departed (Won – 2007)
Martin Scorsese’s remake of the Chinese thriller Internal Affairs is best remembered for being the film that finally gave the legend his first Best Director award. Both awards are well earned as Scorsese’s sprawling crime epic is a taut and extremely well-helmed film about two moles in two separate organizations whose fates become intertwined as their true allegiances come to light. Profane, extremely violent, and narratively complex, The Departed is one of the director’s best and grittiest films and without a doubt a modern classic.
No Country for Old Men (Won – 2008)
Out of this list, there might not be many that would pick The Coen Brothers’ neo-noir/western hybrid as their favorite. The film is a heavy watch and uniquely unsettling in a way that tends to alienates audiences unwilling to fully commit to the film’s off-kilter world.
No Country for Old Men is some of the brothers’ best work to date and presents an uncompromising vision of revenge and morality with a hefty dose of philosophical irony. There isn’t another film like it, certainly not one that feels the same.
