What’s the Greatest Best Picture of the 21st Century?

Two decades of Oscar winners contain a lot of varying opinions about what movies deserve to win awards. Particularly when it comes to Best Picture, each year’s race seems to be filled with endless debates.

I previously wrote that we should hold off 10 years on awarding Oscar winners for any given year to make decisions that hold up better from a historical perspective. Too many of the movies that win Best Picture end up just falling away with time, rather than standing the test of it like you’d hope they would.

But maybe that doesn’t really matter. Best Picture is what it is—a label that’s as much about the present moment and narrative as it is about actual movies. While Best Picture winners don’t always line up with what we consider our “greatest movies”, being labeled Best Picture is still something meaningful. It gives a movie a place in history even if it’s not in the conversation as the GOAT.

So assuming all Best Picture winners have some value on some level, what happens when we compare them to one another? How do they stack up against each other? Since there are a lot of Best Picture winners, we decided to whittle it down a little and focus on just the current century of Best Pictures…

Best of the Best: Vote for Your Best Picture of the 2000s

Here are the 20 movies that have won Best Picture this century—along with a meme to quickly refresh your memory of each movie. Peruse the list and then vote for your favorite Best Picture winner below.

2000 – American Beauty

2001 – Gladiator

2002 – A Beautiful Mind

2003 – Chicago

2004 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

2005 – Million Dollar Baby

2006 – Crash

2007 – The Departed

2008 – No Country for Old Men

2009 – Slumdog Millionaire

2010 – The Hurt Locker

2011 – The King’s Speech

2012 – The Artist

2013 – Argo

2014 – 12 Years a Slave

2015 – Birdman

2016 – Spotlight

2017 – Moonlight

2018 – The Shape of Water

2019 – Green Book

And the Oscar Goes to… Now It’s Time to Cast Your Vote

Vote for the movie that has your heart, that made the biggest impact on you, that serves as a personal reminder of why movies are great. All others be damned!