This is the fifth and final part of the IFSCA’s Best Films of the Century (So Far) list, which I administered and compiled for our membership. It was a lot of work to put together, requiring a ton of Excel tomfoolery, and then tracking down users to provide write-ups for the films.
In addition to that, in the top ten, I also contributed a write-up for Mad Max: Fury Road (#8).
And so our list draws to a close. This was a fun exercise for us at the IFSCA, and here are a few interesting tidbits about the list and the process we went through to create it.
In the initial round of voting, in which members submitted an unranked list of ten films each, we ended up with a long list of over 300 films! This means that nearly half of the films on every ballot were unique, a real testament to the varied tastes of our global membership. Needless to say, narrowing it down to 100 was no easy feat!
In the final list, 2016 was the most represented year, with seven films (including two in the top ten), followed by 2000, 2003, 2019, 2022, and 2023, each with six films appearing.
Christopher Nolan has five films on the list, the most of any director. Damien Chazelle, Denis Villeneuve, Steven Spielberg, and Greta Gerwig follow closely with three each. Gerwig may actually be the most impressive of these, as while a cross-section of each of these directors’ work appears in the list, her three films are the total of her solo-directed filmography. Julie Ducournau share a similar distinction, with her two eligible films both appearing.
Perhaps as interesting is that the likes of Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher, The Coen Brothers, Park Chan-wook all have two each, and in some cases exactly the films you expect and in others, not so much!
Before we continue, we’d also like to extend a big thank you to all of our members for voting and also for writing up blurbs for the films. We have a diverse pool of talent and opinions, and we hope you connect with their writing. The balloting was administered by me, Matthew Simpson, and a special thanks to Phoenix Clouden for helping collect and collate the write-ups.
We’d also like to thank you for joining us on this countdown, we hope you’ve enjoyed it!
Link: https://ifscritics.wordpress.com/2025/10/05/100-best-films-of-the-21st-century-10-to-1/