The Interview - From Cannonball: What NYT’s Top 100 Movies Missed

Episode Date: August 2, 2025

We're off this week, but we're excited to bring you an episode of the New York Times's newest podcast, Cannonball, hosted by critic Wesley Morris. In this episode, Wesley and his friend, film curator Eric Hynes, discuss the Times's recently-published list of the 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century — what it gets right, what it's missing, and what they would put on their own best-of lists instead.

Hey, it's Lulu. It's summer. So we're off this week. But I'm excited to share a new Times podcast with you. It's by my colleague Wesley Morris. His new show is called Cannonball and it is amazing. Each week, Wesley talks with writers, artists, and his friends about the culture. A recent episode I really loved was Wesley chatting with fellow critic Eric Hines about the Times' recent, extremely fun to debate list of 100 best movies of the 21st century. I definitely have my opinions on this. I think you'll love their conversation, and you'll probably have several strong opinions of your own. Enjoy, and we'll be back next week with a new interview. I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball. Last month, I spent a week eating two lunches a day. One, the New York Times cafeteria made. that one was actual food and it was good. The New York Times Culture Department made the other one.

That one was a list of the 100 greatest movies of the 21st century voted on by more than 500 actors, writers, producers, directors, costume designers, screenwriters, production people, people who just make the movies. They voted on that list. And every day, for five days, the paper released a batch of 20 ranked movies, starting with Superbad at 100

and ending with parasite, hoisting the championship belt. I devoured both the food and the countdown some days at the same time. And then next week, the paper did this crazy thing and released a second

poll of more than 200,000 readers. 200,000. That is more people than participate in some elections. So, What the people do? They put Avengers Endgame at number 100,

but guess what? The people also crowned Parasite, Miss Movie List Pagent Queen, sachet-saint-Bong-Junho, sashet, sachet, sachet, sachet. Like a lot of people, I love a countdown. It's a shopping list,

it's a suspense novel, it's a reality check, it's a call to arms. This one, well, I'm calling it, lunch, but really, I ate it like I was at a repast. Because every day, I'd get my new helping of movies, and I'd shed a tiny tear thinking about the future.

Like, when it's 2050, what on earth are the great movies of the next quarter century going to look like? That's a great question for today's co-pilot, my friend Eric Hines. Now, he's the director of film curation and programming. at the Jacob Burns Film Center, but he and I have been friends since we worked together at Kim's video 24 years ago. Oh my God.

And we've been talking about how art makes us feel and why these lists matter all this time. Because we're not here to bury the movies contrary to certain Hollywood studios. We want them alive. We're here to praise them. Hi, Eric. Hello, Wesley.

Thanks for, coming to Cannonball. I've never said that to you. No. How does it make you feel? I like it. Okay. You can not like it. No, but I knew this was a name you wanted for it, so I'm glad. I've never said it at you before, though. Cannonball. Hi. Hi.

Hello. Okay, so what? No, I was just going to say, you basically said that we met 24 years ago at Kim's video, and this is a list of the greatest films of the last 25 years. So it basically spans our friendship. Yes. Which is a little something, I don't know. That's, I mean, you and I met a Kim's video, and I, we should say, I just take it as fact that everybody knows what Kim's is, but there's no way in the world. Nobody knows what this place is, especially now.

How will we describe what kind of video store it was? Definitely it was cool. Yeah. It's a New York institution. mini chain. Yeah, there were a few locations and we had

we had oh my God we had the best movies we also sold books but we had the reputation of being the apotheosis of a video store and its DNA was kind of the DNA of anything cool

or punk or New York or downtown in the sense that it basically was a Korean American businessman who owned a laundromat in the East Village and then started when this was a thing in 1978, 1978, 1979, and people started getting VCRs. He started renting out movies from his laundromat.

That exploded. It became a video store. And then he just kind of opened up some others. And they were all very handmade. They were very kind of ramshackle. And the stereotype of the video store clerk being kind of smarter than you and cooler than you, like very much. like the consummate version of that.

It was taken very seriously at Kim's. We had a little bit of this. I was one of these little snarky assholes who when you brought the man from Snowy River up to the counter, I would be like, no. You can do better. Come bring up another Disney movie back. But I also think that what was interesting about that period

was you were getting a sense of what people were into. And you could steer tastes. You could help people figure out how to spend an evening. It was a kind of concierge service. Oh, yeah. If people were interested in having us help, which they every day were. Do you remember one of the first conversations that we had at that store? What movie it was about?

Was it about Mahal and Drive? Yes. So you remember I'm not making this up. No. Mahal and Drive opens, I think, October. of 2001. So it's after September 11th. I had moved to New York that

August. And, you know, I knew it was a thing. It was David Lynch. Of course it was a thing. And I go with some friends to see this movie Mahal and drive. And for an hour,

I'm like, why are we pretending that this guy still has it? This is very bad. Well, it's time to say goodbye, Benny. It's been so nice traveling with you. Thank you, Irene. I was so excited, nervous.

Sure great to have you to talk to. Remember, I'll be watching for you on the big screen. Okay, Irene. Won't that be the day? Good luck, Betty, dear. So, for me, this is a terrible movie until... Mm-hmm. Naomi Watts, who was giving one of the worst performances I've ever seen,

goes to do her screen test for this audition for this bad movie you're still here I came back thought that's what you wanted nobody wants you here really

and you think one of the worst actors you've ever seen it before I don't remember her in tank girl apparently she was in it never seen this woman before and I'm like oh she's gonna

she's gonna get a job acting I can't believe she got this job acting. She goes and does this screen test. And I can remember... You're playing a dangerous game here. If you're trying to blackmail me, it's not going to work. I mean, I remember my mind

just trying to leave my head with how hot the thing she is doing in that screen test is. Get out. And get out before I call my dad. He trusts you. You're his best friend. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute.

This shitty performance was on purpose? And all this other weird stuff? I just forgot whose movie I was watching. And I came to you having had this movie blow my mind. And I said, Eric, mall and drive. I can't believe it. When did you see it? I think after you.

It was a little after you. Was the first hour not working for you? I did not have your reaction of this is bad, but I definitely had a feeling of that being kind of flat, and I couldn't understand the pacing. And then that scene, and then Silencio, and then just my... Well, I just remember having this conversation. with you and being like, I think you were the only person at Kim's who had seen it.

And I was like, well, in addition to everything else you've got going on, I like the way that you're talking to me about this movie. And so... I was excited by it. I just found it so thrilling because that experience, like, I didn't get the exact same experience. And I don't even remember all the details of my experience, but that feeling of having something turnover on itself.

Yes. And then by the end, you're like, this is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my entire her life, and an hour and 15 minutes ago, I didn't... I was going to leave. I didn't understand what the value of this was at all. Yeah, yeah. But, okay, this movie, because what we came here to do is talk about this list, it is number two on the New York Times list of the greatest movies of the 21st century.

Are you surprised by that? No, I actually thought it was going to be one. Okay. And to me, it says something, we could get to a lot of things here, about how something, that was recognized as being great. It wasn't a lot of sort of best of the year of that moment, but was contentious to some degree. Not everybody got it.

A lot of people thought it was too long, whatever, it was too arty, et cetera. But 24 years later, it is something that you can kind of sit back and recognize as being an extraordinary piece of work. Sometimes it takes that long for a film to go from a little thing that some people who like art cinema like to the thing that kind of everybody knows

is one of the greatest films of the century. What else sit out to you about the list? Oh, man, so many things. I mean, you know, we're going to talk about what's not here. Sure. That's how we work. That's how we think. So there's plenty there.

But of what is there, there's stuff I'm really happy to see here. You know, I think that the top 10 or so is pretty strong and pretty interesting. I like that there's an animated film in the top 10. Yeah, let's just, I'll go through the top 10 real quick. Number 10 is a social network. Aaron Sorkin wrote the social network, David Fincher, director. Number nine is spirited away. Heyo Miyazaki.

Jordan Peel's Get Out is number eight. Number seven is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Minds, directed by Michelle Gondry from a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. No Country for Old Men is number six, the Coen Brothers, adapting Cormac McCarthy. Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, writing with Terrell McCraney. In the Mood for Love by Wonkar-Wi. There will be blood, Paul Thomas Anderson,

and adapting upton Sinclair. Mahal and Drive. David Lynch, doing David Lynch. And number one, I said it already, but Parasite by Bong Joon Ho, writing with two other people, I believe, whose names have escaped me. Good for you for bringing in the writers on this. I think it's important. I think it's important to say that, like, these are, I mean, because these movies,

maybe not so much Mahal and Drive, right? But I mean, these are written, these are written movies. Interesting, interesting. And I think that the screenwriting for it, for, I mean, for most of these movies are the thing that allows the filmmaking to be as wild and weird and crazy as it, and some of these movies get. That's our top 10. So you see that and you think what? Well, I think there's an animated film in there. That's fantastic.

There are three non-English language films in the top 10. That's fantastic. That says, I think, something probably says something about the group of people that were polled, but also says something about the significance of international cinema in the 21st century. I thought that it wouldn't have been the case in the 20th century also, but I still feel like in a moment like this where there's a lot of things working against the idea of us going to see foreign films, it's kind of nice to see three remaining in the top 10th.

But to your point about the thing that has changed about how most of us are experiencing movies in terms of borders and access, the reader's list is almost identical to the maker's list. Right? Parasites number one. Mahaland Drive is number two. Interstellar and the Dark Knighter in the top 10 here, whereas Get Out and Moonlight are farther down at 18 and 17 on the reader's list. And Spirit Away, Eternal Sunshine, everything else is the same except for the two Nolan movies. Plus, Mad Max Fury Road is in the Reader's Top 10, whereas it was number 11 on the makers list.

Still impressive either way. Yes, really impressive. So, I think that, like, a huge shift between what this poll would have been like 25 years ago is people's comfort, like, the increasing comfort with experiencing other people's cultures, their storytelling, the internationalization of how movies are funded and shot. I also think that having generations of people experience all screen culture with subtitles really takes the stigma out of movies with subtitles. It's such a huge change. Huge change. Yes.

Which I was even late to recognizing as being a phenomenon how much subtitles are just as simply part of the regular viewing habits, especially at home for people. Yeah, I don't like it. I don't either. But I think it matters. think it really does, like, open people's appetite up for anything because they're already reading subtitles and languages they already speak. Is there anything else this list is telling you by what's on it? Is there anything interesting to you being argued here? I don't think the things being argued here. I do, it's interesting certain names that

pop up more than once. Yes, that's a story. And so you've got like the The Coen Brothers run here a number of times. The Coen brothers have four movies here. Wes Anderson's on here a number of times. He's got two movies, yes. That's Royal Tenembalms and Grand Budapest Hotel, right? Correct. Can I read you the top vote getters?

Yes. Five Christopher Nolan movies. Four movies each for Alfonso Quaron, the Coens, and P.T. Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson. And Tarantino also had four movies, I believe. Okay. Three for David Fincher, two Scorsese's, two West Anderson's, two link letters, two Bong Joon Hose. There might be somebody else with two movies, I'm forgetting. 11 movies by women, plus the screenplay for bridesmaid, so that's 12, I would say.

And three black men. Those are pretty low. And one Asian American woman. So, you know, that's a story. Sure is. Um, I'm not, I'm going to screw the math up, but like, 33% of this movie is, is, is like, those people. Yeah, like, like six directors. Yeah, that's really interesting.

This is a quarter century defined by a kind of octurist sensibility, plus what I'm going to maybe make you reconsider your lunch by saying, like, the, the, the, the, the, the sensibility of, the, the, the, the sensibility of. of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right? So you've got, you know, which is not that apparent on either list, but, you know, in terms of what the last 25 years have looked like, right? Of course. On the one hand, you've got these men with great visions, and then you've got these companies with IP. And I thought there would be more tension between these two things

once you opened it up the 200,000 people. Sure. But that isn't really the case. But do you think that has something to do with, like, Times readers? It could be, but I don't know that all the readers who participated are subscribers. Probably not. However, I don't know that the Avengers Endgame megafans were the ones who were sort of voting on this en masse.

Sure. Whereas another publication, they might have shown up. Yeah, possible, possible. But with this data set, like 200,000 people, I feel like that's enough of a cross-examination. section to tell you something. Yeah, totally, absolutely, yeah. What else? No Michael Mann?

No Michael Mann. No Park Chan-Wook. Yeah. No Peachapong. No Peach-a-Pong-Woriceethical. Claire Deney. No Claire Deney. I had to think about that.

Who else? Well, I'm going to take this... No Mike Lee. Mike Lee. No Spike Lee. No Spike Lee. No Spike Lee. One Ang Lee.

Well, I'm going to take this moment to say there's only three documentaries on this list. Yes. Cleaners and I. Yes. Grizzly Man. Mm-hmm. And the act of killing, which I got to say,

I can't believe the act of killing is on this list. Well, I mean, it is actually... I am surprised. I have actually talked to a lot of narrative filmmakers in particular over the years, and that film comes up a lot. It was seen by a lot of people, and it still gets watched by a lot of people within the industry. So I actually wasn't that surprised because I've heard it come up a lot. Okay, I really would love to hear you talk about the act of killing.

Joshua Oppenheimer movie came out in 2012. I think it is a real achievement of humanity despite everything it's about. Yeah. Right? Hearing a story of these Indonesian gangsters who essentially wound up in total, along with this, you know, in a military coup killing, starting in 19, and going on for decades, you know, killing millions of Indonesians on the grounds of they're being communists when really they just opposed the militarization of their country. And this filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer essentially asks these people, these men who killed

these people, since they're running around town, bragging to them about all the people they've killed, what would it mean for you guys to maybe reenact some of those killings for yourselves? Um, thinking, I think, and you can argue with me here, thinking that there was a possibility that this psycho drama that he was witnessing with his camera would somehow result in some sort of changing of mind or traumatic response, whereas I think the inability to recognize that they are psychopathing murderers is the trauma response. The compartmentalization is the trauma. I think that's entirely true. I mean, it is a wild film. It's basically from the point of view of perpetrators telling their own story with a certain degree of awareness of, like, maybe this isn't a great thing to tell. Maybe this is not something you should admit to.

But that kind of like dissonance between owning it and bragging about it and being somewhat aware of why, you know, this is immoral and why maybe the entire society has fallen apart because you were part of this. But also I feel like one of the films of the century in terms of kind of defining how we make sense of humanity in sort of modern times, in the sense of like this being the sense of impunity. You know, that's the word that comes up a lot with that film. If you feel like there's no consequences for your behavior, what happens? Right.

Movie stars. Yeah. Very good list for, certain of them. Yeah. Brad Pitt. Decaprio. Those are the stars

who appear the most. Okay. What's the tally? I know you've got the stats. Three Brad Pitt's four Decaprio's. One, they're in the same movie, once upon a time in Hollywood. But not a big,

I mean, there are stars on the list, but I find it interesting that those would be the two stars of the decade, or this part of the decade. They're also the stars of the last day. Exactly, yeah. They're 90s stars that are now the biggest now.

I mean, I feel like that probably speaks to the star machine is different now than it was, or it's not as strong. It's not as relevant. I think Hollywood definitely moved away from depending on the star machine. Like, right? So if the studio becomes the star and if the brand is the star, you don't really have to have, you know, a leading man carry the day and get paid 50 months. million dollars to do the project. And that was how Hollywood sort of reformed things. So it kind of makes sense that the ones who are the biggest stars are the ones who were the biggest stars. Tom Cruise is in there, obviously, too.

Yeah. Once in Minority Report. Weird. But I think to your point, these two people, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are two people who never went near a superhero movie, right? Like, we understand, they managed to keep their superheroness the mistake. of it intact for themselves, without co-mingling it with, you know, Marvel's superheroes. And I feel like that is telling to me either because the people who go in there never come out the same. I mean, I can't think of, there are very few people who come out of that superhero movie experience unscathed in terms of the choices they make on the other side.

Or how we receive them, right? What do you, I mean, does it mean anything to you that it's these two guys, Brad Pitt and DiCaprio? Well, I think it's, it helps that they're actors who have been associated, who've kind of like been barnacles on the side of certain big male ships like Tarantino. Yes. You know. Scorsese and Scorsese. In DeCabrio's case. Yeah, exactly.

And Nolan, of course. I think that's the big factor here is, yes, they are 90 stars that have hung around and, you know, through this era, they've kind of, um, withstood the kind of pressure against the studios to sort of build up new stars. They're going to be too expensive for them. But also, yeah, I think it's the filmmakers themselves that they've associated with. Um, and those alliances are still paying off. Those, those, they're, they're still collaborating. What about female stars? Any trends on here?

Are there any, like, repeat customers? I mean, Sandra Bullock is in gravity, which is at the bottom of the list. Jolia Roberts is in Oceans 12. I mean, there are some things, you know, Kate Blanchett and Tar. These are the things that are coming to mind. There are women in these movies, obviously. But these are not, you know, bridesmaids. Yeah.

Might be the biggest movie on the list that is entirely a book. about women that isn't a love story between a woman and a man. Right. Mahal and Drive, obviously, is its own beast. Yeah. But, yeah, no. I mean, there's no, there's no Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock equivalent of anything, Brad Pitt.

Well, you'd expect if there would be one, it would be Scarlett Johansson. And I think she's here a few times in supporting. Yeah, she's here. She's on the list in Under the Skin and Lost in Translation. At least. It definitely knows to. Also her? And her.

Yes. Her voice is there. Yeah. So that would be the one I would expect from the century. But, yeah, I guess even that, not so much. Right. Also, I would include Francis Ha on our list of our women's list, right? Which Greta Gerwig stars in and wrote.

Right. But none of Lady Bird is here, but that's the only Greta Gerwig movie on the list. It's unfortunately, though, we have to kind of stretch things to get more women on the list. There's sort of, it's underrepresented, period. Oh, sure. I mean, the reason to bring it up. is that it's not happening on the list. And it's not so much that there were people who were omitted

is that there isn't enough work being made by women to omit, you know, relative to men. Especially if you're going to, I mean, we talked about how it's great that there's representation of international cinema, but if there was even more representation of international cinema, there probably would be a few more women here. And if there were more documentary representation here, there would also be a few more women.

So it's kind of like triangulation. of keeping certain names off this. There's a lot of overlap. But, I mean, just staying in our little movie star conversation for a second. You know, Tom Cruise is part of one of my favorite little micro alliances between a star and a filmmaker. They only did it twice. But one of their pairings is down at the bottom of the list, Minority Report.

And, you know, a family movie on the list by this filmmaker named, Steven Spielberg. Do you know him? I mean, isn't he sort of, he's more of a 20th century filmmaker, isn't he? No! Eric! Can I just read you something? Yeah. I just want to do it.

I'm going to read you Stephen Spielberg's 2001 to 2000, what, 20, 22. We'll stop at 22. AI artificial intelligence. minority report Catch me if you can The Terminal War of the Worlds

Munich Indiana Jones in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I know but still People went The Adventures of Tintin Warhorse Lincoln

Bridge of Spies The BFG The Post Ready Player 1 West Side Story And the Fablemans I mean Who did better

I mean, I'm not saying that every one of those movies is a masterpiece. Sure. But. I'm glad you're not. What's your problem? No, I mean, I love Spielberg, and I love this list. I think it's been a fantastic century. But there are a few that far from master.

Okay. Yeah. I bow down. But the, I think the reason to invoke his name in this way is for two. two reasons. One, I don't think in terms of what the things that we say we go to the movies to experience are, which I still think are true, I don't think anybody got better at giving it to us than he did versus his previous 25 years, which are the 25 years that made him the Steven Spielberg, right? I think his risks have gotten greater. I think his swings have gotten

bigger, like, it's extraordinary what he's done for the second half of his career. What are the films that you think that you were surprised were not on here? By him? By him. If not all. Obviously, not all of them. But which are the ones you're like, how is this not here? I should say,

before I answer this question, you will hear my list later. Yeah. And there will be no Spielbergs on it. So I'm as guilty as everybody else. Fair. But I thought AI would have been there. I propose that we build a robot who can love, love like the love of a child for its parents. I propose that we build a robot child who can love, a robot child who will genuinely love the parent or parents it imprints on with a love that will never end.

A child substitute, Mecca. So this movie is about this couple whose only son dies, right? And they replace him with this robot named David, and he's played by Haley Joel Osmint at the peak of Haley Joel Osmintness. I mean, one of the great child performances. I mean, it's incredible. Yes, Haley. And he plays this AI robot who never ages.

Like classic Steven Spielberg, the guy who made the Peter Pan. movie hook and basically is programmed to love this couple unconditionally for the rest of their lives and for the rest of his eternal life and it is shockingly it is i mean his movies are always shockingly deep to me but i actually i felt like that would have been the one that would have had the most profound shift in how we appreciate and receive it because it's just like there's so much premonition in it. I don't know. I think the problem with with AI's afterlife is it'll it'll forever be received as Spielberg daring having the affrontary to touch a Stanley Kubrick property, right?

This was a movie that Stanley Kubrick was originally going to make. It was one of those projects that he was working on for decades. But in the end, he actually brought it to Spielberg and said, you would be the right person to make this. I don't think I'm the right person to direct this movie. And people didn't believe that? Yeah. I mean, people didn't believe it.

It was like, oh, whatever you say, Steve. I mean, yeah, Kubrick brought you a movie. Okay, that's cute. I mean, this is a film. My journey with this film is similar, I think, to what we're talking about in terms of this. I was one of those people who saw it through the lens of Kubrick, who I revered at that moment, thought it was treacle, you know, dismissed it, was angry. And then maybe three years later, pretty quickly afterwards, after people that I trusted, insisting that I revisit it, then I watched it as if I had never seen a frame of it. and I was a wreck.

And I've since watched it about, I don't know, 12 times. Each time I am a wreck. I think it's the saddest story ever told, which is ludicrous to say. And it has to be Spielberg telling the story. It has to be him. It is a fairy tale. It is told in the form of a fairy tale.

And so you have to actually plausibly pull off the tone of a fairy tale. You cannot critique the fairy tale. You cannot, it's not a satire. It cannot be cutting against it. It has to be fully embodying a fairy tale. but then also if the content of it and where it actually goes and what it means is so profoundly sad. Yes. This is so much a movie about being the child of a mother.

And he famously tends to tell stories about fatherhood and sons. So to make a film about motherhood and relation with the mother is it stands out. Look. Look! Take this. All right. Take this. Don't let anyone see how much it is. Now look, don't go that way. Look! Look at me! Look! Don't go that way, all right? Go anywhere but that way, or they'll catch you. Not ever let them catch you. Listen, stay away from flesh fairs, away from there are lots of people. Stay away from all people. Only others like you. Only Mecca are safe.

Now going to go. Why do you want to leave me? Why do you want to leave me? I'm sorry, I'm not real. If you let me, I'll be so real for you. Don't let go! Let go! I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the world. I don't think I can, I risk crying talking to you right now if I go on to this more. Is it a robot AI? This is the place where you can do it because I'm going to be crying a lot on this show. So other people's tears are welcome.

An AI child who is built to love. That is his program. He's supposed to love as a child loves. And the world. The world crashes. His mother is deceased, but he has not stopped loving, and he will never stop loving. Can I just say something? Yeah.

You are the person who made me reconsider my feelings about that movie. A movie that I watched when you watched it, when it came out, didn't think much of it. We went to dinner one night. I don't know if you remember this. and I was I think I was kind of like mixed on the fablement and I did not love that movie

I didn't love it the way you loved it and I remember exactly where we were actually we were at a bar it wasn't dinner, it was after dinner and plausible you tore me up

you gave me a fableman's beating and you know a lot of people People thought Fabelman's was the movie where Spielberg was actually finally dealing with his mother, but, and that that was the key to everything. But what you, what you helped me understand that night was that AI had been already doing that work, right? It's a, AI is the morning of your mother movie in this very specific Spielberg-y and kind of way. I went back and I watched it. I took a lot of notes.

it sent me on a Steven Spielberg I'll show it to you where you can see it with your own two eyes these are my this is my AI I was 22 years of Stephen Spielberg I went back and watched all of those movies that I just read and AI is just

I mean for one thing there is that the passage when Haley Joel Osmond winds up going to this carnival, where he meets the Jew law character, who's the name, the character's name escapes me. You will know what this guy's name is.

Oh, geez. No, now you're embarrassing me. It's the flesh fair, which is the carnival. Where basically AI, these AI creatures are essentially tortured, abused, for fun, for sport, for entertainment. Right. It's kind of like a Mad Max movie, but with non-human people. But in Spielberg's world, obviously, they're the most human people. These discarded robots being slaughtered, and all you're thinking is, you know, you're feeling for the robot. Okay, now I'm going to cry.

Because one of the robots has Chris Rock's voice. Can you kind of shoot me over the propeller thing? Yeah, I don't need to go through it. I was considering it, but I changed my mind. And at some point, they take this Chris Rock character and they put them in a canon, right? They're about to, like, I think they're about, to basically

blow him up basically they're going to lynch this this black character this black sounding character and you understand that

Spielberg is capable of taking all the things he couldn't really bring himself to do an amistad, all the stuff he couldn't quite bring himself to do on the color purple.

The ways in which he was afraid to, I think he finds cruelty fascinating. I think the act of killing might be a movie that is fascinating to him as any of the other movies

that we know fascinate him. I think he does not understand evil and meanness and there's a way that he can't explore that in something like Schindler's list. No, because I think he's somebody who works in metaphor and displacement. There's got to be the thing,

there's got to be the other thing that allows you to talk about that thing. Like, I just feel like that there's a certain emotional, psychological thing with him. If it's a metaphor, if there's something in between reality for him, he can actually go, he can really go there. And this is a celebration

of love. And this is commitment to a truly human future. I think it is such a plausible deniability zone for him. Yeah. Like he's like, but it's a metaphor. Don't come at me. Don't come at me. It's why E.T. is like as good as it gets.

And Amistad, which is very similar to E.T. as a narrative. is a problem. Not on the list. But I feel like he is present on this list even though he's only on the list one time. Because those movies are made by his children who are all over this list, right? Yeah.

I mean, Bong Joon Ho, Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve. I'm talking about both lists now. Quaron, I mean, Jordan Peel. I feel like he has reared a generation of filmmakers. And these are the people who are just coming to mind right now. But can we think through what the properties are that do make the people who are ostensibly his progeny? I'm saying this. You don't even have to agree. But I feel like he is present on this list even though he's only on the list one time.

On both these lists. And I think not to sort of lump them in just because of the same generation, but I think Scorsese also. Like you can't. There's so many of these that, you know, Tarantino is all. I mean, it's all comes from Scorsese. But I feel like Scorsese has been sufficiently accolated, saluted during this part of his career, the 21st century part of his career. I feel like Spielberg, less so, do you buy the idea of someone like Bong Joon Ho being one of these descendants? Sure.

Absolutely. I think he would say the same thing. But that, by extension, means that the number one movie on this list, is operating within some sort of Spielbergian schema, right? I mean, we're talking about parasite, and it's basically a family movie. There's a poor South Korean family that connives, schemes, brilliantly connives and schemes

its way into jobs working as servants and helpers for this richer family with a very nice house. It's just a much darker movie than Spilberg would make like in terms of explicitness, in terms of the explicitness of the darkness. This is an allegory, there are no metaphors, right?

There's nothing, Bong Jo is not hiding behind anything here. Are you surprised that it's first? I'm not super surprised. I thought it would be towards the top. I'm glad that it's here. I mean, it's not my choice. It's none of my top ten. But at the same time,

like the fact that the number one film of the century for a poll is a non-English language, class war, you know, uncategorizable thriller. Like, that's fantastic. That's great. Nothing wrong with this. I agree. Nothing not great about it. Nothing not great about it winning all those Academy Awards either.

So no complaints here. I do think that it's a film that a lot of people see themselves in. And maybe they're surprised that they do. Yeah. You know, you don't expect to see this Korean film as being like a lens unto your own family or lends into your own sense of self in the world, your own sense of possession and domestic life, et cetera. Like, it's a film that I think

that really takes people by surprise about how much it ultimately is about them. It is, I mean, the toxicity of American values that kind of affects the rich family, like the American mythos that is helping oppress South Korean people I think people

in every other country of the world including including the hours can recognize even in these like just having

you know stereotypical Native American headdresses right during the climactic blood bath right

I mean we love a blood bath we're very familiar with blood baths but this is a blood bath with state

it's a bloodbath about something and it's also a farce that turns into a tragedy which is very hard to do Tomlin. But the farce

and the tragedy are about people and their lives as being lived at this very second. There's a universality

in this movie's completely idiosyncratic craziness I had one question we should move on but I had one question to one thing we didn't do and is there anything on the list that you can't believe is on the list?

Is there anything that totally surprised you? Either because like how did this make it or how, you know, yeah, how did this make it one way or the other? Oh, man. I'm going to hold the list in my hands. It's why we printed it out. And there's nothing here.

None of my, no movies I hate. There are a lot of directors I don't enjoy. But I don't think the movies don't make sense to me or I wish they weren't here. There are a lot of things obviously I wish were. Yeah, I don't know. This just all makes sense to me. What about you?

I did not expect among makers that there would still be love for Amelie. Oh. Oh, oh my God. Yes. Why is it? But yes. I thought within a year or two, we had sort of moved on from Amelie.

The fact that it's here shocks me. People still have the haircut, Eric. People still want to be her. And every three years, there's some generation of person that's like, nobody told me. How come nobody told me about like bamboozled? It's never how come nobody told me about the entire career of, Yes, Varda. It's like, how come they told me about Amelie?

There's a whole, there's a whole lookbook. Nobody told me. Yeah, get out of here, Amelie. Sorry, buddy. All right. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, not that anybody asked for this, we both brought our own top ten lists. You brought one.

I made one. So, we'll take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about those and see how they compare to the other two lists. Okay, we're back. We are talking about the New York Times poll of the 100 greatest movies of the 21st century, as voted on by people who make our movies in all the ways they get made. And then 200,000 plus readers who went through their own New York Times poll and the Times published those results. And this is the period where we're going to go through

our lists. So, Eric, you've got 10 movies that encapsulate this 21st century of ours. This portion, this quadrant of this 21st century of ours that we have already lived, hit me, go from 10 to 1. So I have adjusted this a little bit between a couple days ago and now because I think it's worth taking a moment and saying these are what we think are the greatest films of the 21st century, not my favorite. Interesting. So there are some favorites on leaving off this list. You know. All right. This matters.

Well, now we got it. What is the difference? Well, I think there are certain. Because I know what you mean, but I think we got to say. I think certain films I just love and reward. watch, and I think I could speak about them and speak for them until the day is done. And yet, if we're talking about the greatest films the last 25 years, I'm kind of thinking about something other than entirely my taste, which doesn't mean that I'm going to grab

things that I don't have any passion for or that I don't absolutely adore in some way. It just means basically, it's a different list when you do that. Basically, it just means Miami Vice is not on my list, but Miami Vice by Michael Mann. Listen, Eric, I got a, I might have to leave the room. Just truly the hottest movie, I'm sorry in the move for love, but it's Miami Vice. I'm sorry. We should go out for mojitos, I, for Michael, Michael, Mann's Miami Vice. Hot shit.

Yeah. But I, but what I'll say before you go is that I, my list is probably a mix. And you're going to kill me, but I, I have a Miami Vice on my list. The thing that Miami Vice does for you, you know the movie that does it for me. Yeah. As like, Miami Vice is number two to this movie. Go. Okay.

So, number 10, Zidon, a 21st Century Portrait by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Perrae. Okay, this great documentary about the soccer player. Yes. I mean, documentary isn't even quite the thing, but yes. Number nine, I'm cheating. A tie of two things, I think, of a diptic. I don't think that's cheating. Especially if they go together. Inside Lewin Davis and a serious man.

Oh, I love that for you. I think those are two sides of a coin. They definitely are, go. Eight, 35 shots of rum, Claire Deney. Seven, camera person, Kirsten Johnson. Oh, Eric. That is the Eric Hindus number seven of all time. Number six, Synecichy, New York.

Charlie Kaufman, writer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, an adaptation, two films on the list. Number six. Number five. Number five, sorry. Hale County this morning this evening, Ramelle Ross. Wow, this is a real U-List. I love it.

You had me on the show. You can invite somebody else on the show. I don't want anybody else. I want this. Number four, the New World, Terence Malick. Yeah. These are all, but the reason I'm saying that it's such a U-List is these are all movies that you have, like,

just done the 4th of July at me with how much you love them. Number three. AI, artificial intelligence, Stephen Spielberg. Number two, another tie. The act of killing and the look of silence by Joshua Oppenheimer. Okay, great.

And number one, in the mood for love, Wonkar-Wai. What? What? You? I live within this film, and I've lived within it for 25 years. I didn't realize that it would be first.

This is fascinating to me. Yeah. But like, can you just, let's just talk about a little bit what the movie even is. Because it was somewhere on the reader's list and number four on the makers list. So what is in the mood for love? In the mood for love is Wong-Car Wise. You could call it nostalgic. You could call it heart-sick.

Heart sick is good. Story of two folks who each of their partners is in an affair with each other, and so they become aware of this. They live next door in a Hong Kong apartment complex, and they kind of go somewhere between pantomiming what it would be like to be in an affair since they're living in the shadow of their partners being in an affair and actually falling in love. And so you're basically seeing two people like in this kind of like proximity of love and never really getting a chance to kind of cross the chasm. That's one way of talking about it. It's another way of talking about it

is an incredible elaborate portrait of Hong Kong and Hong Kong in transition. That doesn't even get at like what people really love about this film. Which is that it's just hot and beautiful. It's hot and beautiful. Yeah. And the most like texture. You want to touch everything, you want to lick everything,

you want everything to touch you, you want to wear everything. It is politically pungent and like one of the more tactile movies I've ever watched. And it's a film where like there are these gestures which just make me think. I mean, it's one thing to sort of live in and film and love it and want to watch scenes. It's another thing that there are certain gestures and movements of body that I think, about on a daily basis. I think about the way that the sort of Adam's apple moves in somebody's throat when they talks because of a shot of that in that film. Tony Love.

There's ways that sort of people turn their necks in certain clothing. Like, this is just, it's made its way so far deep into my awareness of the world that it's kind of hard to even compare. Yes, Wong-Carwe, absolute galactic sensualist. Okay. It's my turn. Give me. Number 10, Magic Mike XXL. I know how you feel about that film.

I love the way that you've spoken and written about that film. But for those who are not aware, why is that the 10th best film of the 21st century? It's basically the Odyssey with... G-strings Women are controlling the story without men even realizing it, right? Hello, beautiful.

You down for a little fun tonight. These men exist for women's pleasure, but in this movie, unlike the first one, they are talking about what it means to be in control of that pleasure. And the men are like,

yeah. We are here for your pleasure. And they get pleasure from it. And we love this. I would say more, but I should go to number nine. Love and Diane. Oh, wow. One of my very favorite movies by Jennifer Dworkin,

the story of a mother and her daughter, trying to just stay alive in this country. number eight Inherit and Vice Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers I cannot make a list without him on it Number seven The Holy Girl by La Cretia Martel

Number six is Moonlight Number five Wally is so full of In The Moot for Love Adams Apples to me Things I just think about all the time Things that are both A movie is insanely romantic but incredibly realist in its pessimism

about us being trusted to be stewards of ourselves. And it's wild how in such a short span of time certain things that it was prescient about, there's already happening. It's already happened. It seemed to mean in 2008, but now it's just, it's beyond the truth.

It isn't mean enough. Number four, OJ made in America. made by a person who I know very well but it doesn't matter because it's just one of the great movies, period. A movie's so good, it changed the Academy Awards qualifications for what a documentary is when it can be entered into the...

for consideration for the award. It broke the machine. Yes. I will note that's on the reader's poll and not on Maker's poll. Thank you, 200,000 readers for knowing what's up. Number three, the piano teacher

piano teacher one of the most profound viewing experience I've ever had the I actually had to leave the theater to go to sit on the bathroom floor because I thought I was going to faint and then returned and watched the movie because it was

so good I don't remember you're telling me this but yeah this is a Michael Hanukkah movie about a woman who's obsessed with a man who proceeds to just break her soul and then she basically fights to get it back. I don't know.

That seems like a very loose encapsulation what this movie is. Number two, Mad Max Fury Road. One of the great movie-going experiences of my life. If I talk about it, I will cry. Wait, so make you cry. Yeah. Why?

I think this might be the one of the greatest movies about... living under a patriarchy ever made. And I don't use a term like patriarchy loosely at all. Mad Max Fury Road, it was one of the greatest movie-going experiences of my life, in part because I didn't know what I was watching. The visual chaos, the mayhem,

everything that's famous about it. But there was something about, oh my God, it's happening right now. There's something about the moment where they get to the desert. They're finished. It's over. They're done. Furiosa.

Lady, you did it. You won. You have found these women. They're going to protect you and take care of you if memory is serving. But she decides, fuck the shit. We're going back. Back? Yeah.

I thought you weren't insane anymore. What are they saying? He wants to go back from when? they came. Citadel. What's there to find at the Citadel? Green.

And the whole movie where they almost died trying to get where they got. They have to reverse and George Miller plays the movie backwards. They have to make the same movie to go back.

It is just, oh my God, it's fucking happening. I can't, I can't explain it. Like, it is just such, I don't know what in my soul that movie has access to. I don't know what happened to me that makes that, I think I'm the child of a single mother. I am the child of a person who would have done anything to protect me. And this movie is all about women protecting women. Yeah.

And women protecting women at all costs, even if some of them die along the way. like, to put a stake in the heart of this evil, it is worth it. It is worth it. Oh, man, that movie is just... And also, it is just... It's a movie. It's just a word...

You could turn the sound off on that movie. You should not, because that is some real sound mixing and editing right there. But you could turn the sound off on this movie and still be and still have it magnetize you but oh my god that movie

holy fucking shit so yeah tears thank you I love that incredible so great did you cry I didn't but I totally 100% knowing you

actually you're like wondering why what in you like I told makes complete sense and it's gorgeous and wonderful and makes me want to revisit the film with that. Honestly, like, the way I am as a viewer, the next time I watch it, I'll be thinking about that. And I'll start crying before the halfway point because I'll be anticipating the significance of coming back.

How did nobody die making that movie? It's insane. And number one, Norte, the end of history. Incredible. Talk to us about Norte. Man, it's four hours and ten minutes. I'll start there because I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. Um, it is basically a crime and punishment story.

It's the story. I mean, I'm going to give this movie a plot, and people are going to watch it and be like, yo, it's a lot of clothes on this skinny little body. But the plot of this movie is a guy is essentially accused of murder. He did not commit it. But it is ultimately about what it is like. This is a movie from the Philippines. Lav Diaz is the director. It came out in 2013, I want to say.

And it's just an extraordinary experience in the passage of time, both for the suffering people, the main character who is basically locked up, and for us, watching this time pass. You don't feel it for one moment. I watched this movie, Eric, I have stood up and clapped one time,

in a movie theater. It was for this. No, it's two times. The other time was deathproof at the end. It's got a great ending. Tarantino did it. That's my Tarantino. That's my Tarantino.

That's my Tarantino. Can I tell you, like, what I'm thinking as I go in making these lists? I feel like what I do when I'm coming up with the ten movies knowing full well what a joke it is because there's

you know I can do 100 movies I kind of want them to all have different textures I kind of want them to be about different things and I want them to be singular unto themselves

but also kind of somehow workable with each other right like Magic Mike has nothing to do with O.J. Made in America. And Norte, the end of history has nothing to do with like inherent vice. And yet

they feel right as a little movie family. I like that. And I just want them to all be doing a different thing. It's like a little movie album to me. I can't help it. I love that. I love the idea of a movie album. And in some ways, like you're

kind of curating a set. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what it says about you is that you are committed to a kind of ethics of of filmmaking I think that like these are movies by people who understand

the power of what it means to tell stories about other people's stories and lives. I'm also less of a genre person and more of a formalist in the idea of how I'm always going to

respond to and things are going to stay with me when the form is being kind of reinvented in front of my eyes because this is what this artist and this is what this storyteller needs to do to get to this properly, to get the story properly, to get to the subject properly. That's always going to work for me. So, like, kind of hitting the mark is great. I love it.

It's pleasurable. But if you're going to actually create a mark that I didn't even know existed and then do something to get to that mark that I didn't foresee, I'm going with you. It's just not easy business. You know, I think the business has suffered in the last 10 years, and it's much, much harder for these films to kind of make their way. I think that the artists are still out there,

the audiences are actually still out there, but there's no business to support it at this moment. I mean, what you're saying is reminding me of the thing that I actually find kind of heartening about the list, right? You've got 200,000-plus people taking the time to think through the movies that mean the most of them the truly absolute

greatest movies of the last 25 years saying we want complexity we want character we're here for the darkness we're here for the joy we are here for three hours we're here for two hours

we're here for weirdness We're here for incoherence. We're here for vibes. We're here for vision. What does an executive do? Are there executives looking at this list and thinking, we, uh, whoa, um, the same executives were seeing sinners do what it did this season and go.

Being mad at Ryan Coogler for doing it. Oh, shit. Man, why are you doing that? You're making us look. look bad. That's what they do. You know, it's a, it's a riskier thing to do because you're going to strike out, you know? And, you know, the 60s and 70s were filthy with films with, like, lots of strikeouts by really prominent people, really talented people, but they had the opportunity to strike out. That's not really the case anymore. Listen, I am holding this list of 100 movies. somebody greenlit these MFs. I mean, they're not all studio movies, thank God.

Yeah. But it is proof that our popular entertainment can also mean as much as our unpopular entertainment. Yeah. Studio executives. You've got to do better. This list is really, I called it a call to arms. didn't really know what I meant when I wrote that and said it talking to you Eric I know now

like I'm not saying we got to storm anything but this list these lists both these lists to me are proof of a need a hunger a willingness to be taken somewhere new like that's all The success of sinners, that's the only lesson anybody should learn from this movie. Just throw a curveball. Stop sending it straight over the plate. Just, I don't know. Change your finger position just a little bit. You can also be specific and have mass audience come with you.

Yeah. You can actually make it from a perspective that is not obviously universal, and a universal audience will actually. go with it. This is what the magic of cinema is. The magic of storytelling is that you can do that. You don't have to make a four quadrant picture that takes in what your perception of

the every person out there is. You can make something specific that everyone will respond to it. Okay, we got to go, but I love lists. Look what they do. They just bring all this crazy stuff out. They bring out a lot of feelings. I mean, this is what you and I have been doing. This right here,

you and I met in a video store. I don't know how we would be friends today, but it also occurs to be that we're basically doing our video store work right now. And in the store, this was the employee picks. This was the shelf where it would be Wesley's employee picks and there'd be 10 titles on there that you'd be recommended. I mean, this is as close as you're going to get to employee picks now,

at least about movies. All right, Eric. Thanks for coming. Thank you, Wesley. I really appreciate it. It was a blast. I love you. Love you, too.

This episode. This episode of. This episode of Cannonball was produced by John White, Janelle Anderson, Eliza Dudley, and Austin Mitchell. It was edited by Lisa Tobin. The show was engineered by Daniel Ramirez. and recorded by Maddie Massiello, Kyle Granddillo, and Nick Pittman. We've got original music by Dan Powell and Diane Wong.

Our theme music's by Justin Ellington. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Kiarapa and Zach Caldwell. It was edited by Eddie Costas, Jamie Heffitz, and Pat Gunther. We're on YouTube, y'all. Watch and subscribe. Special thanks to Sam Dahlnick, Wendy Dore, Paula Schumann, and all of the people who worked to bring that list together,

all the New York Times people, people at the Upshot, the people in the culture department, any department I did not just name. Everybody, so many people worked so hard to make this happen, and congratulations, y'all. You did it. It was a pleasure. And you, dear listener, viewer, reader of a transcription, Thanks for hanging with us. Have a great week.

Have a great weekend. Be good or be a little bit bad, but not too bad. Thank you.