I still remember the crash of quality that occurred at the movies in 2000. This was just a year after the legendary 1999 movie year, and expectations were sky-high for cinema’s future—but man, did the following year ever disappoint.
In his year-end recap, Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers lamented that 2000 might have been the worst year for movies ever, or at least since the advent of talkies. That reads like hyperbole today, given the last few years we’ve had, but it captures the mindset many held 25 years ago.
The year 2000 might as well have signaled the start of the IP apocalypse. That’s when “X-Men” was released and kickstarted Hollywood’s obsession with comic book movies. A year later, 9/11 happened, and the industry doubled down on heroic stories via Marvel and DC. Yet, one of the best ones got released, M Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable,” which subtly hid its superhero roots.
With that said, 2000 still had its fair share of great films. One of the few exceptions was Lars von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark,” an inventively depressing musical that won the Palme d’Or and featured a remarkable performance from, of all people, singer-songwriter Björk, who also won Best Actress at the festival.
Von Trier’s polarizing film bested a competition that included Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” Edward Yang’s “Yi Yi,” Michael Haneke’s “Code Unknown,” and the Coen Brothers’ “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” would end up winning Best Picture at the Oscars, and the film has clearly endured in the minds of moviegoing audiences who still rate it highly—critics remain mixed.
The title for most underrated film of 2000 has to go to Curtis Hanson’s “Wonder Boys,” starring a never-better Michael Douglas as a drunkard, stoner college professor wandering in a bathrobe whose life comes crashing down. He wrote one very good novel and has been working on a second for far too long.
Steven Soderbergh was nominated twice for Best Director, helming Best Picture nominees “Erin Brockovich” and “Traffic,” winning for the latter. Ang Lee created visual poetry with “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and Stephen Daldry earned a surprise nomination for the sleeper hit “Billy Elliot.”
The box office was led by “Mission: Impossible 2,” followed by Jim Carrey’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Cast Away,” “Gladiator,” and “What Women Want.” Sequels, franchises, and family films started their dominance, with “X-Men” kicking off the superhero boom and “Dinosaur” rounding out animated hits.
Note: Despite festival premieres in 2000, I’m counting “Amores Perros” and “In the Mood For Love” as 2001 releases since that’s when they came out in the U.S. and appeared in hundreds of critics’ top 10 lists.
The Best Films of 2000
Dancer In The Dark
Wonder Boys
Traffic
Yi Yi
Almost Famous
Requiem For A Dream
Gladiator
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
O Brother Where Art Thou?
You Can Count on Me
Unbreakable
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Before Night Falls, Croupier, High Fidelity, Chicken Run, Bamboozled, Pitch Black, Nurse Betty, Billy Elliot, Cast Away, Erin Brockovich, Meet The Parents, Hamlet, American Psycho, L'Humanité, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, Best in Show, What Lies Beneath