Check out Part 1: (#100-91) here…

Around the time I started this site, I did a “Top 100 of the 1990s” with the intention of doing a new decade every year. I had meant to do a new decade every year, but as with life, stuff came up. I got overwhelmed by my primary responsibilities on this site: reviewing new film and television releases. Hence, folks have some guidance when consuming new content.

Recently, I conducted a small poll on my personal Instagram (@fartgetis2) to ask what past decade I should do a “Top 100 Films” on. Overwhelmingly, the answer came back: “the 2000s”. Not the best decade for film, in my approximation; in fact, I was low-key hoping the poll results would be the 1970s or 1980s, but some beautiful gems came out of a post-9/11 mindset. Some of my choices are obvious and well-known, and others you may not have heard of. Please remember that art is subjective, and these choices are personal. 

Please don’t threaten to kill my family cause I like Sideways. 

I decided to release this article in ten parts, covering ten films each, to not overwhelm the viewer and make the movies stand out more. This was an arduous ranking process, especially for selections #73-#100, picking 28 films out of nearly 150 possible contenders.

So, let’s continue with #190-#81:

90. The Host

2006 / dir. Bong Joon-ho / 119 minutes

cast: Song Kang-ho, Park Hae-il, Go Ah Sung, Bae Doona, Byun Hee-bong, Lee Jun-ho

The first of several Bong Joon-ho movies that will eventually feature on this list, The Host is the Korean auteur’s answer to Godzilla and it’s the best Godzilla movie I’ve ever seen (safe for maybe the 1954 original). When a crooked-ass American military pathologist orders his Korean assistant to dump 200 bottles of formaldehyde down a drain leading to the Han river, AGAINST REGULATION I’M SURE, a mutant fish monster is created and six years later it begins terrorizing citizens living near the river. We see this attack from the perspective of a dysfunctional family unit – a dead beat young adult (Parasite‘s Song Kang-ho) who runs a snack bar by the river, his father/business parter (Okja‘s Byung Hee-bong) and his teenage daughter (Snowpiercer‘s Go Ah-Sung). When the daughter gets kidnapped by the fish monster, it prompts the two other siblings, an Olympic archer champion (Sense8‘s Bae Doona) and an unemployed political activist (Decision to Leave‘s Park Hae-il), to come back to town to help their brother and father kill the fish monster and retrieve their niece. Unlike most monster movies, there is a significantly greater emphasis on the character dynamics than the monster mythology, which makes us care way more when some of them inevitably get killed. (Streaming on Hulu, Peacock and Amazon Prime)

89. Lake Mungo

2008 / dir. Joel Anderson / 89 minutes

cast: Talia Zucker, David Pledger, Rosie Traynor, Martin Sharpe, Steve Jodrell, Tania Lentini, Cameron Strachan, Judith Roberts

A controversial choice, I’m sure, but Australian filmmaker Joel Anderson‘s quiet ghost story slow burn creeped me out more than almost any other horror film from the 2000s. It’s a mockumentary, but definitely not a funny one. No, this mockumentary is so carefully observed and features such nuanced performances you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s real. It’s about a mother, father, and son in southwest Victoria, Australia, who are reeling over the death of their daughter/sister, 16-year-old Alice, who tragically drowned during a family event. As time goes on, the family begins to experience creepy shit around the house and suspect Alice is back. There are no jump scares or cheap thrills in Lake Mungo, but there are genuinely unnerving moments. Actually, I lied. There is one single jump scare in this movie at the very end, and it’s the hardest I’ve ever lunged off my couch. It’s not an objectively scary image, I suppose. Still, given the context of what it means within the movie and the fact the whole 89 minutes have been leading up to it – it’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen in my life. (Streaming on FreeVee and Tubi)

88. JSA: Joint Security Area

2000 / dir. Park Chan-wook / 110 minutes

cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Lee Young-ae, Kim Tae-woo, Shin Ha-kyun, Christoph Hofrichter, Herbert Ulrich

A film about the friendship between a North Korean DMZ guard and a South Korean DMZ guard sounds like it could get sentimental very fast, but through the lens of Oldboy filmmaker Park Chan-wook, it never feels anything less than completely honest and organic. Joint Security Area is a movie that opens after the events of the movie takes place and then tells the story back. This time from the perspective of a hospitalized South Korean Sergeant (I Saw the Devil‘s Lee Byung-hun), who survived a massive gunfight on the Bridge of No Return, where two North Korean soldiers were killed, and one (Parasite’s Song Kang-ho) was left injured. Fearing a huge incident between the North and the South, the South brings in a neutral Swiss Army Major (Lady Vengeance‘s Lee Young-ae) to investigate what really happened on that bridge. JSA is filled with powerful performances, most of all legendary Korean actor Song Kang-ho as the North Korean Sergeant. It proves movies can be touching without being saccharine, you just need an expert storyteller. (Streaming on Tubi and Kocowa+)

87. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

2006 / dir. Larry Charles / 84 minutes

I remember the first time I saw Borat. The movie. I was already a fan of Da Ali G Show cause the loser my mom was dating at the time introduced me to it. My favorite character he did on the show was Borat because oddly enough, beyond all the anti-semitism and ignorance, he was a much warmer soul than Brüno or Ali G. He just wanted to belong and be accepted, and he wanted to be everyone’s friend. Anyway, going back the first time I saw the movie – it was shortly after I saw an ad for a special preview screening of it at a theater near my house. I was a junior in high school at the time. I asked my main movie buddy at the time, my dad, and he said it didn’t look very funny. Still, I assured him that Sacha Baron Cohen was incredibly funny and the character was as well. He took my word for it and we went to the only screening where we both laughed so hard we ejected ourselves from our seats multiple times. Sure, Borat doesn’t quite hold up the way it did back in 2006, but this was the biggest milestone for comedy this decade had, inspiring an endless barrage of bad Borat impersonations and people referring to their wives as “my wiiiife-ah!” This was really cutting edge for its time, and slyly political in the way Borat disarmed bigots and bigot politicians into speaking very freely. The movie wasn’t anti-semitic or misogynistic or homophobic, but used Borat’s ignorance and prejudices as a key to exploring how these things still taint America’s consciousness. For as filthy and foul as Borat is, it’s really a remarkable piece of journalism. (Available for $4 rental on Amazon Prime, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube, and AppleTV+)

86. Cast Away

2000 / dir. Robert Zemeckis / 143 minutes

Arguably Tom Hanks‘ greatest performance in a sea (no pun intended) of gret performances, Cast Away is another film that could have come across as overly sentimental or dramatically over-the-top if not for the grounded-ness of Hanks‘ work, most of this is basically one-man show, not to mention the brilliance of its tough, bittersweet ending. Whenever I have a tooth ache I always think of Hanks bashing out his molar with a roller skate, and whenever I drink coconut water I’m hyper aware of what it will do to my bowels. What more is there to say? WIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOONNNNNNN. You know, the volleyball? (Streaming on Hulu)

85. The Incredibles

2004 / dir. Brad Bird / 105 minutes

voice cast: Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Brad Bird, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Vowell, Jason Lee, Eli Fucile, Spencer Fox, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Kimberly Adair Clark

One of the best and most thoroughly entertaining Pixar movies about a family of superheroes led by Coach and Holly Hunter. It’s really not a message movie unless that message is to be loyal to your family while standing up against immoral bullshit, but this is a non-stop, consistently funny animated thrill ride with abnormally complex characters for these types of movies. My favorite is Edna, voiced by Brad Bird, the movie’s director (Streaming on Disney+)

84. Meet the Parents

2000 / dir. Jay Roach / 108 minutes

cast: Robert DeNiro, Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, Nicole DeHuff, Owen Wilson, James Rebhorn, Tom McCarthy, Jon Abrahams

Doing housework while listening to old Siskel & Ebert/Ebert & Roeper episodes has become one of my favorite pastimes. My favorite movie critic, Roger Ebert, absolutely loved this classic comedy about a well-meaning male nurse (Ben Stiller) who uses epic misjudgment in an attempt to impress his future father-in-law (Robert DeNiro). Shit goes from bad to worse with fires, volleyball injuries, and cats pissing in Grandma’s ashes, making Stiller seem like the absolute worst suitor for DeNiro‘s daughter (Teri Polo). However, it’s really not all Stiller‘s fault. DeNiro is an ex-CIA operative who is overly protective of his daughter and aggressively untrusting of anyone new. Anyway, back to Richard Roeper, who unfairly slammed this movie as predictable and unfunny while just the next year, proclaiming the hack-y and deeply fat phobic Shallow Hal to be some sort of comedic masterpiece. If you take anything away from Meet the Parents it should be that Richard Roeper is a gigantic monkey turd with no taste. (Streaming on Starz)

83. The Departed

2006 / dir. Martin Scorsese / 151 minutes

cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin, Ray Winstone, Martin Sheen, James Badge Dale, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Corrigan, David O’Hara, Mark Rolston

This film is so fucking overrated it’s often easy to forget how fucking good it is. It fucking takes place in Boston and is a fucking perfectly paced thriller with some fucking exceptional performances and some real fucking unpredictable twists and turns. However, it’s without a doubt second or third tier Scorsese, which speaks to what a fucking gifted fucking artist fucking Martin Scorsese really fucking is. The Departed wouldn’t have this stigma attached to it if it didn’t win Best Fucking Picture at the fucking Oscars, which was a fucking move more about fucking rewarding Scorsese for his entire body of fucking work than it was for this one fucking movie. It’s a shame this is his only Oscar, cause it’s only his 16th best fucking movie. What I’m trying to say is I really like it. (Available for $4 rental on Amazon Prime, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube, and AppleTV+)

82. Whale Rider

2002 / dir. Niki Caro / 105 minutes

cast: Keisha Castle-Hughes, Cliff Curtis, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton, Grant Roa, Mana Taumaunu, Rachel House, Taungaora Emile

An extremely touching but mostly forgotten New Zealand indie about a twelve year old Māori girl who wants to become the chief or “The Whale Rider” of her tribe. That girl is played by the remarkably talented Keisha Castle-Hughes, nominated for an Oscar back in 2003 for her performance. She didn’t really go onto to do much other than be one of the forgettable sand snakes in Game of Thrones, one of the shittier seasons, but here she just about breaks your heart. This is a moving but never sentimental family movie that Roger Ebert really loved. He also chided the MPAA for slapping it with a ‘PG-13’ claiming it was acceptable for most any family to watch together. I agree with him, nothing in this movie warrants a ‘PG-13’, it should have been ‘PG’. But that argument is over twenty years old and no one gives a shit about ratings anymore. Stream it for your kiddos. (Streaming on Starz)

81. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

2007 / dir. Jake Kasdan / 96 minutes

cast: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Tim Meadows, Raymond J. Barry, Margo Martindale, Kristen Wiig, Chris Parnell, Matt Besser, Jonah Hill, David Krumholtz, Craig Robinson, Harold Ramis, Simon Helberg, Martin Starr, John Michael Higgins, Ed Helms, Jane Lynch, John Ennis

Laugh for laugh one of the funniest comedies of the 2000s and featuring a brilliant, Oscar-worthy comedic performance by the great John C. Reilly at its center. At a time when spoof comedy was surely dead and buried (Scary Movie 3 was released just four years prior), filmmaker Jake Kasdan and Reilly hit us with the best one since Top Secret! Instead of targeting horror movies, Walk Hard targets the tropes of music biopics like Ray, Walk the Line, and Coal Miner’s Daughter, and it actually feels fresh. There’s a conveyer belt of great cameo performances in this from great comedic actors portraying real life musicians and one of the best penis appearances I’ve ever seen in a movie. (Available for $4 rental on Amazon Prime, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube, and AppleTV+)