Every Best Picture Winner of the 21st Century So Far, Ranked

26. “Crash”

I don’t hate a lot of movies. Sometimes, a film comes along special enough to make the list.

“Crash” is often cited as one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time, for many reasons. One of the most popular is that it beat “Brokeback Mountain,” a truly progressive-for-its-time movie directed, written and performed beautifully. “Brokeback” went on a steamroll that season, winning at the BAFTAs, Critics Choice, Golden Globes, PGAs, DGAs and WGAs — making its eventual loss all the more disappointing. Ang Lee even won Best Director on Oscar night.

But “Crash” need not be judged only by what it beat. The movie does a good job at being bad on its own. Paul Haggis’ childish, sloppy treatise on race and racism in post-9/11 America plays out with all the nuance of an Alex Jones video. It comes across more as an earnest feature-length adaptation of the “Avenue Q” song “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” than anything remotely intelligent or thoughtful.

Haggis once said he wrote “Crash” because he wanted to “bust liberals,” so I suppose he accomplished his mission. This poorly constructed, horribly written, utterly annoying film certainly isn’t a liberal favorite. Instead, it claims the title of being perhaps the single worst Best Picture winner of all time. To this day, I have no idea what kind of mass psychosis allowed this to claim the Academy’s top honor.

25. “Green Book”

It should come as no surprise that the bottom two Best Picture winners this century are the “We solved racism” double feature. “Green Book” is not nearly at the same level of low quality as “Crash,” but it’s still a woefully misguided selection for Best Picture.

The film tells the real-life story of a friendship between Italian-American Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) as he drives African-American pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) for a tour in the 1960s American South. Vallelonga’s son, Nick Vallelonga, wrote the film alongside Brian Hayes Currie and director Peter Farrelly, winning Best Original Screenplay for their efforts.

“Green Book” is not a terrible movie, though it’s entirely unremarkable, a rather hokey and dopey attempt at racial commentary that often steers too heavily into broad stereotypes and white saviorism and that is centered far too heavily on Vallelonga. Ali’s performance is, as usual, genuinely great, and a fine winner for Best Supporting Actor (Ali’s second).

Yet as a Best Picture winner, “Green Book” is an uninspired and regressive selection. To quote Spike Lee (director of that year’s Best Picture nominee “BlacKkKlansman”), “It wasn’t my cup of tea.”

24. “American Beauty”

“American Beauty” is a tough film to watch in 2026 — a movie starring Kevin Spacey as a husband who, amid a suburban midlife crisis, regresses to the attitude of a stoner teenager and tries to sleep with his daughter’s high school cheerleader friend. To say it’s aged poorly in some respects is perhaps an understatement.

But “American Beauty” isn’t placed this low simply because of the ick. In general, I found the film to be rather empty — a movie attempting to say a lot about everything that comes away saying very little about anything. Perhaps this is one I simply arrived at at the wrong time, and in a far different time than when it was released (it’s the oldest entry on this list). Regardless, I found little beauty in this turn-of-the-century Oscar winner.

23. “The Artist”

I don’t hate “The Artist.” I wouldn’t even say I dislike it. It’s a fine film, one that looks nice and is a fun throwback to old Hollywood. There’s really no film from its crop of Best Picture nominees that I think clearly needed to win in its place like some of the other lower entries on this list.

But “The Artist” is perhaps the modern peak of what people often accuse the Academy Awards of being: out of touch, self-celebratory, forgettable. In most cases, I reject these notions. Still, for all its charm, it’s hard to argue that “The Artist” isn’t an insular, unmemorable pick for Best Picture.

22. “A Beautiful Mind”

One year after Russell Crowe starred in Best Picture winner “Gladiator,” he headlined another movie that took the top prize: Ron Howard’s “A Beautiful Mind.” The biopic sees Crowe take on the part of John Nash, a highly influential mathematician who suffered from mental illness and schizophrenia. It’s a meaty part for Crowe, but tonal issues + weak screenplay = forgettable Best Picture winner.

21. “CODA”

“CODA” is a sweet movie that benefits from having an absolutely incredible finale. The third act of this movie has scene after scene that perfectly land the emotional beats established throughout the film.

Still, “CODA” loses some points on this list by not being quite as groundbreaking or formally exciting as many of the century’s other winners. It’s an easy watch, and a good one, but there are a few other films in that year’s lineup (“The Power of the Dog,” “Drive My Car,” “Dune”) that I would have been more excited to see get the gold.

20. “The King’s Speech”

After the “Crash” / “Brokeback Mountain” switch-up, “The King’s Speech” beating “The Social Network” for Best Picture is probably the greatest missed opportunity in that race this century. While the latter is one of the finest, most influential films of the century, the former is a solid drama that’s been largely memory-holed.

19. “Slumdog Millionaire”

Listen, I’m glad Danny Boyle has an Oscar. I’m glad Dev Patel starred in a Best Picture winner (for his feature debut, no less). I don’t know what, out of the nominees, I would tap in “Slumdog Millionaire’s” place. I just wish I fell more in love with this film, as it seems many voters did. Instead, the story of “Slumdog Millionaire” never really pulls together for me, leaving me pretty cold by the end. There are some lovely sequences, but it’s a bit too broad and shallow for the emotions it’s trying to sell.

18. “The Hurt Locker”

“The Hurt Locker” is undeniably a technical achievement, a bone-rattlingly intense war drama that brought Kathryn Bigelow the first win for a woman in the Best Director category (with the film being the first Best Picture winner helmed by a woman). The movie largely plays as a collection of set pieces, led by a strong central performance from Jeremy Renner and some remarkably intense sound design, sound editing and film editing (all of which picked up much-deserved wins). I can’t say I connected much to the narrative of this feature, but it’s undeniably well crafted.

17. “Argo”

Ben Affleck famously didn’t get a nomination for directing “Argo,” a controversial snub that arguably helped him win Best Picture through some sympathy down the line (the filmmaker joked that nobody accused him of getting snubbed for Best Actor). It’s not hard to see how this narrative took hold. “Argo” is a thrilling drama directed wonderfully by Affleck. The film may be lacking in historical fidelity, but it’s an intense and engaging Best Picture winner all the same.

16. “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”

It was only a few years ago that I realized “Birdman” had become one of the more controversial Best Picture winners of the 21st century. I’m not saying it’s my favorite movie of that year (“The Grand Budapest Hotel” feels particularly robbed), but it’s not without its charm. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s oner cinematography hold afloat a generally zippy and entertaining film. It’s not my favorite winner of the century, but it’s nowhere near my least favorite.

15. “Chicago”

I’m a big musical theater guy, but I must admit “Chicago” isn’t my favorite show in the world. Still, Rob Marshall’s adaptation is a capital-M Musical, one that places an emphasis on show-stopping numbers and stagecraft. Let more musicals win Best Picture!

14. “Gladiator”

Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” makes an easy Best Picture contender for spectacle alone. It’s hard to top the scope and scale seen on display, with some absolutely astounding production design from Arthur Max and Crispian Sallis, costume design from Janty Yates and John Mathieson. The narrative of “Gladiator” doesn’t grip me the same as some of the other epics on this list, but this is blockbuster cinema, pure and simple.

13. “Nomadland”

“Nomadland” is one of the century’s strangest Best Picture winners — an incredibly intimate, incredibly quiet drama that took the prize in an Oscar lineup ravaged by the COVID pandemic. Chloé Zhao’s exploration of the American West, anchored by Francis McDormand among a sea of largely non-actors, feels unique among most films that got the top prize, at least this century.

But there’s an undeniable beauty in Zhao’s film, following a widow who leads a nomadic life across the West after the death of her husband and the loss of her job. In leaving behind capitalistic society, Fern trades a life of transactions for one of trades, of favors, where her fellow nomads ask not what others owe but what we owe each other.

12. “The Shape of Water”

There are few filmmakers I want to see succeed more than Guillermo del Toro. This feeling permeated the Oscar race of 2018, where del Toro was finally coronated for a movie that slots nicely into his canon: a love story between a mute cleaner and an amphibian man set amidst the Cold War.

The craft of this fantasy romance is as excellent as expected with a del Toro film, while Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones deliver two stellar performances at its center. This isn’t my favorite from del Toro, but it’s a Best Picture win that gives me quite a bit of joy, even if there are a few films in that stacked lineup that I prefer.

11. “Million Dollar Baby”

Landing just outside the top 10, Clint Eastwood’s second Best Picture winner isn’t quite as strong as his first (“Unforgiven”), but it’s still a compelling sports drama worthy of consideration. Eastwood to this day remains one of the more fascinating directors working in American cinema, both for his strengths and his limitations.

In “Million Dollar Baby,” Eastwood uses his signature gruffness as artifice, peeled away in a story about an old trainer reluctantly taking a woman (Hillary Swank) under his wing on her quest to being a boxing superstar. The film starts relatively cold and ends profoundly emotional.

10. “Anora”

Coming in at No. 10 is the Best Picture winner of 2025, a film that brought Sean Baker to the most Oscar wins in a single night for a single film for a single person (his four wins probably would’ve been five if Best Casting was around). “Anora” is Baker’s most ambitious film yet — long, sprawling, tonally dynamic, finely edited.

A lot of Baker’s best work revolves around deconstructing the myth of the American dream, seen on full display in films like “Anora” and “The Florida Project.” Mikey Madison becomes his perfect muse, delivering a firecracker performance as a forced into a transactional world but still lets herself believe in the perfect Disney Princess wedding. It’s hilarious and crushing in equal measure.

9. “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Never did I think that the guys who made “Swiss Army Man” would follow it up with a Best Picture winner. Never while watching “Everything Everywhere All at Once” did I think it would be a Best Picture winner. But I can’t say I’m mad about it.

The Daniels went much bigger with their second film, a madcap and emotional story about a broken family’s collision with the multiverse. While “Everything Everywhere” came out at a time when multiverse cinema was already becoming old hat, the Daniels zero in on what that narrative device can do at its best, informing a set of central characters by contrasting against with roads not taken.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” historically suffers in part from the steamroll it went on at the Oscars in an absolutely incredible year at the movies. It won three acting Oscars, six above-the-line awards and seven in total, while masterpieces like “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “The Fabelmans” and “Tár” went home empty-handed. Maybe “Everything Everywhere” didn’t need all of those awards, but I love it all the same.

8. “12 Years a Slave”

We’re now moving into the masterpiece section of the Best Picture lineup. Steve McQueen’s historical drama “12 Years a Slave” looks at one of the most evil times in history through a lens of pure humanity, focusing on the horrific true story of Solomon Northup.

Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers a deeply emotional performance as Northup, demonstrating the actor’s unending well of emotion and vulnerability. Lupita Nyong’o, meanwhile, gives a masterful turn in her first feature role — and got an Oscar in the process. With these performances, John Ridley’s incredible screenplay and one of the best working directors behind the camera, it’s not hard to see how this film became a Best Picture winner.

7. “The Departed”

Watching “The Departed” feels like you’re watching the best movie of all time, which is strange considering it’s not even in Martin Scorsese’s top 5. This film just moves like lightning, a tense, intricate and exhilarating drama about two opposing moles set against each other — one in the police department, one in the Irish mob, both in Boston.

“The Departed” features a slew of phenomenal performances — Damon, DiCaprio, Nicholson, Wahlberg, Sheen — as well as incredible direction from Scorsese and editing from longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker. This is one of the most entertaining and rewatchable Best Picture winners of all time, and a long-deserved Oscar for Scorsese.

6. “No Country for Old Men”

One of the most relevant butterfly effects at this year’s Academy Awards began in 1997, when “The English Patient” (definitely not among the most beloved Best Picture winners) took the top prize over the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece “Fargo.”

When the Coen Brothers returned to the Best Picture race in 2008 with “No Country for Old Men” (another masterpiece), they won the prize over Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” (yet another masterpiece). In 2026, PTA returned to the field with “One Battle After Another,” which found itself in an increasingly close race with “Sinners.” Perhaps if PTA already had a Best Picture win, and the Coens already had one prior to 2008, this would feel a lot less close — or perhaps not.

Whether “No Country for Old Men” is a better film than “There Will Be Blood” is a tough question. It’s one of the years that, like 2026, I most wish there were more trophies to go around. At any rate, the Coens’ Cormac McCarthy adaptation is a phenomenal film, and one of the finest Best Picture winners of the century.

5. “Spotlight”

I’m a sucker for a good journalism movie — sue me. Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight” is a thrilling, detailed and emotional look at the Pulitzer-winning investigation by The Boston Globe into the rampant child sexual abuse committed by a litany of priests of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese. The film certainly has its big performances, but it also has a lengthy lists of performers who can kill you with a glance or a mutter.

4. “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”

“The Return of the King” genuinely might be the hardest movie to place on this list. How much should it be considered with the whole of its unimpeachable film trilogy, and how much must it stand on its own? No matter which way you slice it, this film surely belongs near the top.

“The Return of the King” is, like the other two “Lord of the Rings” movies, a masterpiece. It’s moviemaking at the biggest, most intricate scale without sacrificing a bit of quality. In “The Return of the King,” Peter Jackson delivers an emotional, thrilling conclusion to one of the greatest epics in all of fiction, in all of cinema — a fully deserving Best Picture winner.

3. “Oppenheimer”

“Oppenheimer” should not work half as well as it does. Christopher Nolan takes $100 million and a non-linear structure to tell a three-hour story about the invention of the atomic bomb, set against … a Senate confirmation hearing for a potential Commerce Secretary.

In one of the film’s first scenes, J. Robert Oppenheimer is told that algebra is like sheet music: “The important thing isn’t can you read music, it’s can you hear it?” In every single moment of “Oppenheimer,” Nolan shows that he can hear the music — and the audience hears it with him.

Cillian Murphy’s performance is sublime, Nolan’s screenplay is intricate, Jennifer Lame’s editing is among the best of the century, Ludwig Göransson’s score is sweeping, Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography is breathtaking. This movie deserves to be the juggernaut it became. The Best Picture race practically ended in July the moment this hit IMAX screens.

2. “Parasite”

I’ll never forget watching “Parasite” with my dad.

“Parasite” was never available to me in theaters, but I’d heard the buzz for months. I begged my boss at Family Video (R.I.P.) to let me borrow our store’s only copy for a few days before we put it on the shelves.

My dad, a teacher, came home from some school function to find me about 30 minutes into the movie. He sat in his living room chair for a moment, scrolling on his phone and surely preparing to turn in after a few minutes.

I wish I could say what exact part of Bong Joon Ho’s masterpiece caught my dad’s eye, but I remember that he started asking questions, attempting to catch up on what he’d missed. Soon, the phone went away. It didn’t come back until credits rolled.

My dad’s a pretty cultured guy, and he probably watches a few more movies than your average Joe, but I would imagine he could count the amount of non-English language films he’d seen before that day on one hand. In real time, I saw that “one-inch-tall barrier” of subtitles Bong Joon Ho spoke about melt away. On Oscar night, we both cheered when the deserving Best Picture winner was anointed and history was made.

“Parasite” is funny, surprising and moving, a brilliant piece of commentary that remains evergreen and unforgettable. It’s a travesty that actors like Song Kang-ho didn’t get recognized alongside their film.

Since that coronation, the one-inch-tall barrier has only been broken more and more, and it’s thrilling to see more international features nominated for Best Picture every year. “Parasite” will always have a special place in my heart as one of my favorite Oscar winners of all time.

1. “Moonlight”

I hadn’t seen “Moonlight” when it won Best Picture. I was 15 at the time, a young movie fanatic living in Kansas and just starting to passively get into the Oscars. I, like many 15-year-olds, was a bit more myopic then than I am now — I didn’t need to watch every other nominee to know that “La La Land,” my favorite, was the best.

Even if my then-fave lost, I knew I was watching history unfold when Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” surprisingly beat “La La Land” at the Oscars — though “La La Land” was infamously called to the stage first. It was one of those magical TV moments that instantly felt like a part of something bigger.

When I finally got to “Moonlight” a year or two down the road, I found it … impenetrable isn’t the right word. It certainly moved me, but I was perhaps still too young to grasp it in full.

Then I watched “Moonlight” again. And again. And again. Each time, new layers, new feelings were opened to me. I don’t even remember how many times I’ve watched it in full at this point, but Jenkins’ Best Picture winner is a gift that keeps on giving.

This is Roger Ebert’s idea of movies as empathy machines made manifest — a profoundly moving, deeply probing, utterly human piece of art made by one of the greatest working filmmakers. Every performance (whether Mahershala Ali’s Oscar-winning work or a trio of spectacular leading turns from Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders and Alex Hibbert), every image, is a thing of beauty.

“Moonlight” is one of the finest pieces of art of the century. It’s one of the best films of the century. It’s among the best films ever made.

And there’s no doubt in my mind that “Moonlight” is the greatest Best Picture winner of the century.