2006 felt like a long time ago in the movie world in many ways, as it marked the year of what many felt was the last great heist movie. The Fast & Furious movies were still about street racing, and it was the first of five times Daniel Craig would begrudgingly play James Bond. But it also marked the last gangster movie directed by Martin Scorsese for 13 years.
Considering how organized crime is the director’s bread and butter, 13 years was a lifetime to wait for cinephiles. However, The Departed kept fans going all of those years, as it’s a remarkable movie, but even still, it’s hard to believe that the movie, along with many others, is turning 15 years old in 2021.
The Departed
Of all the classic movies under Martin Scorsese’s belt, the director has only won one Oscar. That might sound blasphemous, as he wasn’t recognized for his work on movies like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, or Goodfellas, but with The Departed, he truly deserved it.
The movie is one of the best 2000s thrillers, as it houses some of the finest actors all giving the best performances of their careers in one of the most adrenaline-fuelled gangster movies ever made.
Inside Man
When it comes to great heist movies, they are few and far between, and Inside Man is arguably the best heist movie and the last great one of recent years. It is one of the most unique too, as the film reveals who the leader of the criminal group is from the beginning, but it never reveals his actual gang, leaving audiences to guess which of the hostages are in on it.
The movie was also used as a platform for director Spike Lee to discuss societal, political, and racial issues, as he always does in the most sophisticated ways.
The Prestige
Being wedged right between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, The Prestige doesn’t get the love it deserves and it is easily the most underrated Nolan movie.
Though audiences may be able to see the twist ending coming from a mile away, it’s all about the journey, as The Prestige follows two competing magicians in the 19th century, and as the oneupmanship gets more intense, it inevitably ends in bloodshed. It’s one of the cleverest Nolan movies and it isn’t drenched in exposition, like his other films.
Borat
Based on a fictional reporter from Kazakhstan who flies to America to learn about the culture, Borat is the most outrageous and controversial mockumentary ever made. It’s incredibly vulgar and makes the U.S. the butt of the joke, but it also raises some important issues too.
Though it could have been argued that the movie doesn’t hold up as much in 2021, that argument has been put to bed with the huge success of the sequel that came in 2020.
Casino Royale
After a string of Pierce Brosnan-led James Bond movies that awkwardly tried to blend the high concepts of the Roger Moore movies with the sophistication of the Sean Connery iterations, many felt that it never really felt like a fresh take on the character, despite the fresh face.
However, with Daniel Craig taking up the mantle of the most famous spy in the world, audiences were treated to a take on the character that was as grounded in reality as possible with Casino Royale. And the expertly shot free-running opening sequence let people know that the shoddy CGI was of a bygone era.
Idiocracy
With Idiocracy being one of the critically acclaimed movies that was a box office bomb, the movie has gone on to have somewhat of a cult success. And in the past couple of years, it has become much more popular, as it accurately predicted the future in the most perverse way possible.
The comedy follows Joe, who was frozen for 500 years, who wakes up in a dystopian future and finds out that civilization is in ruins. It’s one of the most underrated comedies of the 2000s.
Mission: Impossible III
Tom Cruise originally wanted a different filmmaker to direct each Mission: Impossible movie, so that each film felt completely different. With the first one being an in-the-shadows espionage movie by Brian DePalma and the second being a show-offish and stylish action movie by John Woo, the third, directed by J.J. Abrams, is a much darker affair.
The film sees the first truly captivating villain and raises the stakes by having Hunt’s family at risk. It’s free from any jokes and many feel it is a far cry from the Mission: Impossible movies of today.
The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift
With Paul Walker’s tragic death solidifying his absence in the third movie, the franchise went in a different direction, and this time abandoned the undercover cop narrative of the first two movies.
Being almost purely about street racing, the movie is predictably stylish, with its fast cars, Tokyo backdrop, and banging soundtrack. Tokyo Drift is an underrated movie, as it’s almost like a teen drama, but it has some great characters, such as D.K. and Twinkie, but also Neely, who is one of the characters who needs to come back to the series.
Clerks II
The first Clerks movie is a cult hit, as it’s a black and white comedy that had a budget of less than $30,000. The movie is the foundation of Kevin Smith’s filmmaking career, as he built his way up from there and seemingly created his own expanded universe in the process.
All of his movies are linked, and Clerks 2 is almost like his Avengers: Endgame, as everything that came before it had been building up to it. And it’s one of his best, as it’s filled with his most vulgar and disturbing jokes yet.
Jackass Number Two
Nobody ever thought there’d be a Jackass movie, let alone a sequel, but the second movie in what has become a franchise (that even has spin-offs) is the best of them all.
Jackass Number Two sees a group of “professionals” (as the audience is told in a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie) almost kill themselves for the audience’s entertainment and features some of the best stunts of the series. Watching Johnny Knoxville getting rammed by a bull never gets old.
