25 nos. of best movies of 21th century according to bbc . and top ten bangla movies

25. Memento

Christopher Nolan's Memento, an airtight puzzle of a movie about a man who can't form new memories searching for his wife's killer, set a standard for narrative sophistication that few mainstream films have tried to duplicate. Yet its challenging structure – opening with the final scene and working its way backward – isn't a gimmick; it serves a thematic purpose, too, putting us as deeply in the dark as our protagonist. The film forces us to consider the unreliability of human memory and our tendency toward self-deception, even as it thrills us with a captivating crime-noir story. An existential tragedy masquerading as a twisty bit of pulp fiction? Unforgettable. – Eric D Snider, Freelance, US (Credit: Alamy)

24. The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson’s ambitious, powerful and ultimately elegiac masterpiece centres on the question of whether man is, in fact, an animal. Tormented alcoholic Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) returns from World War Two and struggles, unsuccessfully, to conform to post-war America’s social evolution. Eventually he finds some sort of deliverance in the company and teachings of the leader of an urban cult, Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Much has been made of the analogies between Scientology and Dodd’s cause, but the real point of the film is an exploration of thought and consciousness, and whether submission to belief systems can genuinely tame atavism. It all ends cryptically – and hauntingly. A mysterious phone call, a wistful serenade, an unseen goodbye. Repeat viewings confirm that this singular creation of Dodd was indeed Hoffman’s apotheosis, which would be apt, and even funny, if it weren’t so, so sad. – Ali Arikan, Dipnot TV, Turkey (Credit: Alamy)

23. Caché

All of Michael Haneke’s films are bound to haunt you. With Caché he cuts to the chase and makes the idea of haunting the theme of the story itself. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as a bourgeois Parisian couple that start to receive disturbing video tapes showing their home. Who is watching them? And what is actually revealed on those tapes? As soon as you realise that the true revelation lies in the couple’s reaction to the tapes, things start to dissolve. Interior and exterior conflict, individual and collective guilt become one as Haneke makes you face somebody who is made to face his and his country’s historical crimes. The act of not looking away is the moral imperative at the heart of Caché, which makes it a supreme political and cinematic movie at the same time. – Hannah Pilarczyk, Der Spiegel, Germany (Credit: Alamy)

22. Lost in Translation

Please stop trying to figure out what Bill Murray says to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Sofia Coppola’s beautiful and ineffably bittersweet second film; the words don’t matter, and the moment is only so powerful because you can't hear them. The 21st Century’s reigning empress of cinematic ennui, Coppola has always used celebrity as a shortcut to the loneliness that exists between private lives and public images. But it's this brief encounter on the streets of Shinjuku — this last goodbye between a dislocated young philosophy grad and a disenchanted old movie star — that solidifies Lost in Translation as her most perfect film, the one that best articulates how it can be to find yourself in a world that seldom lets you forget where you are. – David Ehrlich, Indiewire, US (Credit: Alamy)

21. The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel is the 21st Century's farewell salute to the century before. It vaults backwards in time from today to 1985 to 1968 to 1932, where Ralph Fiennes' concierge Monsieur Gustave welcomes us to proper civilisation with a nod. We know Gustave's immaculate world is ticking towards destruction, first by war, then by decades of neglect. Inevitably, the lazy and impersonal present will win, mass-producing not just our hotels, but our cinemas and the blockbusters on their screens. Wes Anderson has spent his career fussing over wallpapers. The Grand Budapest Hotel ennobles his craftsmanship; suddenly, Gustave's decadent lamps represent mankind's hope to outshine the darkness. This oddball tragicomedy enlists us in the fight for beauty. Sir, yes, sir. – Amy Nicholson, MTV, US (Credit: Alamy)

20. Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York was initially conceived when Charlie Kaufman was approached about doing a horror film. Instead of masked killers and extraterrestrial monsters, though, Kaufman set out to make a movie about the stuff that really keeps us up at night. Synecdoche, New York is every deep-seated fear you've ever had, writ large: you've disappointed your spouse and failed your children, you've let your loved ones die lonely, excruciating deaths, and you'll never complete the work you were put here to do because you, too, will reach the end before you know it. And that, paradoxically, is what makes it so affirming. Kaufman's masterpiece isn't joyful, but it's bursting at the seams with wild ambition and brimming with empathy. It's a reminder that even at our lowest and darkest, we are not alone. – Angie Han, Slashfilm, US (Credit: Alamy)

19. Mad Max: Fury Road

With Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller dialed up the modern blockbuster to full blast. A cohesive vision with a structured journey built around themes of survival and endurance, the fourth entry in the dystopian franchise showcased what is otherwise the narrative and thematic drought within the Hollywood blockbuster machine. Cast in silver and gold, the film redefines the place of auteurism within mainstream cinema, as it portrays an idiosyncratic and singular perspective that refutes committee-driven film-making. Without resorting to cheap cynicism and faux-grittiness, Miller zeroes in on the sensuality of the environments, the carefully crafted machines and scorched landscapes. His future may be bleak, but it is filled with wonder and a hope derived from human ingenuity. – Justine A Smith, Freelance, Canada (Credit: Alamy)

18. The White Ribbon

“A group of children act together as silent perpetrators of crimes” is an already disturbing premise. By setting the story in a north German village in the months prior to World War One, Haneke not only challenged the myth of childhood innocence but also delivered a fictional prequel to the upcoming events in Germany. The crisp black-and-white photography adds to the feel of an allegory but parallels are only slightly suggested (as in the purging of the “unwanted” that takes place). With any Haneke film, guilt and malice are in the air and no one in particular is to be blamed. Though it appears to look at the past, The White Ribbon speaks to this century’s audiences: an unsettling view of the danger of righteousness, an ominous threat that always seems to recur. – Fernanda Solórzano, Letras Libres Magazine, Mexico (Credit: Alamy)

17. Pan’s Labyrinth

Was there a more auspicious year for Mexican directors than 2006? Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo Del Toro offered intriguing and substantive examples of their vision in Babel, Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth. The last of these, the solitary Spanish-language title in this triad, is a counterpoint to the other two: it’s Del Toro going back to his roots, to his alchemy of pop and auteur cinema, to give us a look into the horrors of war – in this case the Spanish Civil War. A twin of Del Toro’s other beautiful Civil War picture, The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth gives us tragedy through the filter of fantasy, going deep into a well of suffering and magic. Its power lies in its purity: nothing we can imagine is as terrible as what we can do to each other. – Ana Maria Bahiana, Freelance, Brazil (Credit: Alamy)

16. Holy Motors

Holy Motors is not a movie. It is an act of grief designed as an expression of love, and while enfant terrible Leos Carax has been an essential director for any film fan since his debut, he has never before laid himself bare in the way he does with this movie, in which a man is driven around in a limousine, assumes various disguises and personas, and connects and disconnects with people who flit into his life. Surreal, silly, sexy and sad, Holy Motors is a guided tour through everything about cinema that matters to Carax. He was drowning as a man in his own life – Holy Motors was his first feature in 13 years after struggling to get financing – and he turned his art into a life raft. Movies matter. Here's why. – Drew McWeeny, Hitfix, US (Credit: Alamy)

15. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

One scene, one cut, zero music. Cristian Mungiu's 2007 Palme d'Or winner is a touchstone of the Romanian New Wave, a stark wonder of a film exemplified by visual precision, a bracingly clear-eyed script and glacial detachment. Imbuing a backstreet abortion with the brutal tension of a crime thriller – and abortion was a crime in 1980s Romania – Mungiu evokes the callous and repressive atmosphere of Ceausescu's foundering dictatorship. Yet despite much harrowing imagery, depicted in unblinking detail within a fraught 24-hour timeframe, the film's underlying humanism is glimpsed through the unbeatable spirit of protagonist Otila, a college student who takes unthinkable risks and goes through grueling lengths to help her friend Gabita fix her unwanted pregnancy. – Maggie Lee, Variety, Hong Kong (Credit: Alamy)

14. The Act of Killing

Harrowing, confrontational and surreal, The Act of Killing ends with Anwar Congo, the gangster who murdered nearly 1,000 people in 1965-66 following the military coup in Indonesia, coming to terms with his heinous crimes. Possibly. He sobs, vomits and laments the lives he had willfully taken away, and yet we're never sure if he's genuinely repentant or if it's all a high-wire act on his part. But we want to believe that he is; we want to believe that justice is possible; that the killers may one day live through the agony they inflicted on the one million people they butchered. That's the hidden drive behind Joshua Oppenheimer's formally innovative debut feature. Few films have dared to capture the full spectrum of human evil so candidly, so perceptively, as Oppenheimer does in his unclassifiable non-fiction epic in which the Texas-born Danish film-maker convinces members of the death squads to reenact their murders in the style of their favourite Hollywood films. The Act of Killing is a piercing, multilayered study about national amnesia, about the power of self-deceit and the questionable morality of truth-seeking. Its status as the 21st Century's most celebrated documentary will likely be preserved for a long time to come. – Joseph Fahim, Freelance, Egypt (Credit: Alamy)

13. Children of Men

Here’s a bold statement about a bold movie: Children of Men, like no other film this century, and perhaps no other movie ever, solves the meaning of life. (The answer? More life, of course.) Alfonso Cuarón’s staggering 2006 adaptation of PD James’ novel is that rare picture that astounds with technical marvels – long, exquisite unbroken shots; a beguiling, but subtle, development in camera technology that allows for one of the most stunning scenes ever shot inside a car. But it is also rich and vital in its emotional and philosophical depth: its sadness, its anger, its reverence and worry for humanity. Cruelly overlooked in its initial release, Children of Men has endured to become a cult favourite that should be required viewing for anyone grappling with feelings of dread about modern civilisation. Which is to say, probably everyone. In the end there is transcendent hope, found amongst Cuarón’s beautiful, bracing rubble. – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair, US (Credit: Alamy)

12. Zodiac

David Fincher, famed for doing dozens of takes, might know something about obsession. Zodiac, his meticulous, gorgeous and haunting true crime movie, is a deep dive into obsession, following a newspaper cartoonist who becomes consumed by the 1970s Zodiac murders. Featuring astonishing performances from a pre-resurgence Robert Downey Jr and a pre-Nightcrawler Jake Gyllenhaal, Zodiac pulses with jittery energy while luxuriating in its own peculiar slow burn to nowhere. Gloriously detail-driven, Zodiac drags viewers into a compulsive world where the smallest hint can be the biggest clue, and it presents the obsessive’s worst nightmare: that, in the end, answers are utterly unattainable. – Devin Faraci, BirthMoviesDeath, US (Credit: Alamy)

11. Inside Llewyn Davis

He's a messy haired loner strumming an acoustic guitar, struggling to show the world he's got talent. No one cares, and no one wants to listen. Set in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, the Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis is an achingly melodic tribute to an unloved underdog. Davis (Oscar Isaac) is striking out on his own after his musical partner goes solo. Along his dour journey, he'll find others vying for similar success and others just trying to survive, in a very Coen-esque manner. Inside Llewyn Davis is a solemn song for anybody trying to become somebody. – Monica Castillo, The New York Times’ Watching, US (Credit: Alamy)

10. No Country for Old Men

Readers of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men put down the novel possessing a distinct image of its villain. The Anton Chigurh on the page became vividly seared into our consciousness. That image, though, is not Javier Bardem in the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-winner for best picture. Yet Bardem’s film characterisation is so powerful, so splendidly overwhelming in his random application of violence, that he manages to extinguish whatever preceded it in the mind of the audience. Set in West Texas in 1980, No Country for Old Men’s sense of time and place are unparalleled – a testament to cinematographer Roger Deakins. There’s a hypnotic quality to the movie’s pace, watching characters you can’t help but like – played by Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson and Kelly Macdonald – make a series of catastrophic decisions that bring each into Chigurh’s universe, a world soaked in blood with a predetermined outcome. – Ben Mankiewicz, Turner Classic Movies, US (Credit: Alamy)

9. A Separation

If there is a film that makes you take a deep look at yourself in the mirror again and again, this is it. Asghar Farhadi’s searing relationship drama does not make a judgement about its characters. Rather, it pitches the situations so realistically that the viewer ends up sympathising with both protagonists even though they are pitted against each other. It isn’t surprising if most viewers find some reflection of their own lives in the events that occur during the course of the film. The gripping pace, the perfectly-pitched acting, the way the situations unfold – all made to look as if one is watching one’s neighbours, or maybe someone in one’s own home – create an unparalleled cinematic morality play. – Utpal Borpujari, Freelance, India (Credit: Alamy)

8. Yi Yi

Audiences in 2000 were astonished by how fluently Edward Yang’s Yi Yi portrays contemporary life through the intermingling stories of members of a Taipei family separated by the dilemmas specific to their stations in life. That’s quite ironic, because in today’s world of personal alienation through the allure of social media, the film now feels like a period piece, yet somehow, it resonates with an even greater urgency. Yi Yi is a reverently meticulous film, with its painstakingly detailed moods, and rituals that are seemingly endemic to the characters and their customs. Yet, it is also grandly universal. Its quiet reflections on life, love, family and death are all gracefully affecting, no matter the gap in generation and culture. – Oggs Cruz, Rappler, Philippines (Credit: Alamy)

7. The Tree of Life

Like a great poem, The Tree of Life opens itself to a thousand interpretations, as director Terrence Malick takes a spiritual and lyrical journey through time, from a dusty 1950s childhood in Texas back to the beginnings of the cosmos itself. This strange new pillar in the cathedral of US cinema stars Brad Pitt as an authoritarian father and Jessica Chastain as a tender and deeply religious mother of three sons. Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is sun-dappled, or oozes images of boiling lava, dinosaurs and exploding planets, all to a soundtrack of Preisner’s Requiem — in this case a requiem to a dead son. The joys and aching losses of parenting become transcendent, even Biblical, in Malick’s hands. – Kate Muir, The Times, UK (Credit: Alamy)

6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The story of a breakup gone wrong, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind could easily have gone wrong itself. But this wasn't your average whimsical tale of romantic yearning. After delivering some of the best music videos and commercials of the ‘90s, director Michel Gondry finally found his groove with Charlie Kaufman's layered, head-spinning screenplay, injecting its jagged structure with warmth. Jim Carrey, meanwhile, boldly pushed against type to portray a perennially sad man literally trapped by his grievances and eager to let them unravel. But the movie belongs just as much to Kate Winslet, whose character's decision to erase her own memories of the ex-couple's time together sets the drama in motion. Eerie and surreal, charming and tragic, the movie wrestles with the fundamental instability of all human relationships, achieving a wise and powerful vision that is — ironically for a tale about fading memories — unforgettable. – Eric Kohn, Indiewire, US (Credit: Alamy)

5. Boyhood

This 21st Century masterpiece took most of the 21st Century to make. For more than a decade, Richard Linklater spent a few weeks each year chronicling the life of Mason (Ellar Coltrane). He begins the movie in first grade; about three hours later, he graduates from high school. In between, Linklater crams in an astonishing survey of modern life. His bold logistical gamble – What if an actor had died? Or lost interest? – was way more than simple technical gimmick. Letting the story and characters evolve organically over the years gave them an authenticity that a young Linklater could never have faked, and watching the cast, which also includes Ethan Hawke and a remarkable Patricia Arquette, age before our eyes, adds an extra layer of poignancy to every single scene. In an era when every aspect of society was accelerating, Linklater slowed down to tell the one of the definitive stories of our time. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush, US (Credit: Alamy)

4. Spirited Away

It’s hard to place any one of Studio Ghibli’s sweet, passionate animated films above the others, but Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away does particularly stand out for its visual sophistication and elaborate themes of determination, courage and good cheer. Miyazaki’s story of a young girl trapped in the spirit world, trying to rescue her parents, feels like a throwback to an earlier age of hand-drawn animation. Made at a point where CGI was taking over animated features in the US, Spirited Away has a lovingly handmade feel. But it also has an ambitious sweep to its elaborate visuals of Japanese spirit-monsters and a sense of soaring adventure. It’s a traditional fairy tale turned into an exciting narrative of transformation and discovery. – Tasha Robinson, The Verge, US (Credit: Alamy)

3. There Will Be Blood

From its near-wordless opening scene, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood feels like something forged, not filmed. Daniel Day-Lewis, as turn-of-the-century prospector Daniel Plainview, grunts, spits and scrapes his way into a hole under baked Western earth; he strikes silver, drags his half-broken body to certify his claim, winds up discovering oil. The rest of the movie – a sprawling, half-mad testament to greed, industry, moral hypocrisy and ballyhoo at their most elementally American – could be watched with no sound at all and still be perfectly understood. But that would mean missing Jonny Greenwood’s musical score – one of the finest, most disquieting ever written – not to mention Plainview’s immortal words in the film’s confounding final act, a drunken distillation of capitalistic will as disarmingly childish as it is perverse: “I drink your milkshake.�� Cheers. – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, US (Credit: Alamy)

2. In the Mood for Love

Wong Kar-wai is one of world cinema’s most notorious perfectionists, but he earned every moment of editing-room indecision with In the Mood for Love, the rare movie that draws much of its melancholy power from what it leaves off-screen. We never see the faces of the spouses whose affair pulls two lonely neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, both impossibly gorgeous) into their delirious romantic spiral. We never see the sex scene that Wong shot but omitted, all the better to heighten the erotic charge of every swaying hip and every voluptuous swirl of the camera. And we never hear the lost, whispered words at the climax, which would be superfluous in any case: never before has a film spoken so fluently in the universal language of loss and desire. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, US (Credit: Alamy)

1. Mulholland Drive

WH Auden called Los Angeles “the great wrong place”. James Ellroy called it “the great right place”. The idea that two, or more, seemingly conflicting ideas can simultaneously be true is so often forgotten in the zero-sum culture of today, but it’s at the heart of David Lynch’s empathetic masterpiece. Mulholland Drive came to us haunted. It was a rejected TV pilot, reportedly turned down because of its confusing narrative, actresses ludicrously deemed too old, disturbing images and Old Hollywood star Ann Miller sucking on a cigarette. By design, Lynch was already echoing the Hollywood dream machine and the idea that movies reflect our own dreams – perhaps knowing all along this fever dream could only flower on the big screen. Mulholland Drive is a reverie of sex, suicide and “silencio”. It’s also America, the beautiful and the bizarre, its romanticism, dysfunction, cruelty and absurdity. We love movies. The world loves movies. But America’s often freakish, surreal desperation towards ‘glamour’ when upturned can be as ugly and as horrifying as a nightmare – and the nightmare set at Winkie’s Diner in Mulholland Drive is one of the most terrifying moments put on film. Lynch’s film is so gorgeous and so painful, so mysterious and, in many ways, so recognisable – drive on the actual road, Mulholland, at night, and then walk from Western to Vermont, and you’ll see – that, whatever theory you ascribe to it, the picture does indeed reflect a reality that moves beyond southern California and parks itself in our brains, tapping into our dreams, deepest fears, inscrutable natures, erotic desires, and pool boys. – Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun, US (Credit: Alamy)

More on BBC Culture’s 100 greatest films of the 21st Century:
Why Mulholland Drive is number one
The list in full: The 100 greatest films since 2000
Surprising facts from the 100 greatest films of the 21st Century list
The full list of critics who participated – and how they voted
Are we living in a golden age of film?

3 Answers

Soham Sinha, Movies are the second alternate to oxygen.

Updated 18 Sep 2016

I am assuming that you have not seen any Bengali movies, and have grown an interest to watch Bengali movies. Here are my 10 recommendations with which you can start:

Disclaimer: This is in no way the top 10 Bengali movies that I love or I think to be the best. However, these would be my initial recommendation to someone who is interested in Bengali films.

1.7k Views · View Upvotes · Answer requested by Kedar Mukherjee

my free thinkings (blogs of Abdur Rouf)

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25 nos. of best movies of 21th century according to bbc . and top ten bangla movies

What are the top 10 Bangla (Bengali) movies of all time?

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