What to Watch
Underrated Movies from the 2000s: Twelve to Catch Up On
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
The 2000s were the last decade where a film could disappear. DVD was still the main afterlife, distribution was regional, and a small film that opened badly in New York and Los Angeles simply never reached most people. A lot of very good work from those ten years is only now easy to find.
Twelve films below, every one released between 2000 and 2009, with the director and year checked against the record. If you have read a 2000s list before and wondered why half the entries were from other decades, that is the thing this one is trying not to do.
First films by directors you now know
Primer (2004) is Shane Carruth's debut, made for a reported seven thousand dollars, about two engineers who build a time machine in a garage and then cannot keep track of themselves. It does not explain anything and it does not need to. Watch it if you like being made to work. Skip it if you want to follow the plot the first time.
Brick (2005) is Rian Johnson's first film, a hardboiled detective story transplanted onto a Southern Californian high school, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt speaking 1930s crime dialogue without a wink. It sounds unbearable and it is not. Watch it if you like a formal conceit committed to completely.
Layer Cake (2004) is Matthew Vaughn's directorial debut, adapted from J. J. Connolly's novel, with Daniel Craig as a London cocaine dealer trying to retire. It is the film that got Craig cast as Bond. Watch it if you want a crime film that is genuinely tense rather than just stylish.
The ones that hurt
Hard Candy (2005), directed by David Slade, is a fourteen-year-old and a photographer she meets online, and then a single apartment for most of its running time. Elliot Page and Patrick Wilson do the whole thing as a two-hander. Watch it if you can take it. This is the least comfortable film on the page and it is deliberate.
A Prophet (2009) is Jacques Audiard's French prison film, with Tahar Rahim as an illiterate teenager who arrives with nothing and leaves as something else entirely. Two and a half hours and not a slack minute. Watch it if The Wire is your reference point for institutions.
The Proposition (2005) is an Australian western directed by John Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave, with Guy Pearce given a choice between his two brothers. It is brutal, sunburnt and beautiful. Skip it if screen violence is a problem for you.
Films that were sold wrong
Sunshine (2007) is Danny Boyle directing an Alex Garland script about a crew carrying a bomb to restart the sun. The first two thirds are the best hard science fiction of the decade and the last act turns into something else, which is why it never found its audience. Watch it anyway.
The Fall (2006) is Tarsem Singh's fantasy about an injured stuntman in a 1920s hospital telling a story to a small girl, shot in more than twenty countries with no digital scenery. It was barely released. Watch it for the images. Choose something else if you need a tight plot.
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) is a road movie set in an afterlife reserved for people who took their own lives, where everything is slightly worse than the world and nobody can smile. It is a comedy. Watch it if the premise makes you curious rather than uneasy.
Outside the American release calendar
Time and Tide (2000) is a Hong Kong action film directed by Tsui Hark, following a young bodyguard who falls in with a mercenary. The staging in the second half is as inventive as anything in the genre. Worth flagging: this is a Tsui Hark film, and it gets misattributed constantly.
After the Wedding (2006) is a Danish drama directed by Susanne Bier, about an aid worker in India called back to Copenhagen by a donor with conditions. Mads Mikkelsen is in it. The 2019 American remake is a different film and not the one you want.
Millennium Actress (2001) is Satoshi Kon's animated film about two documentary makers interviewing a retired actress, where her memories and her films stop being separable. Watch it if you have only seen Perfect Blue. It is the warmest thing Kon made.
A note on the lists that get this wrong
Two errors show up constantly in 2000s roundups and both are worth watching for when you read someone else's. The first is decade drift, where a film from 2017 or 1985 gets pulled in because it feels like it belongs. The second is director misattribution, which happens most often with Hong Kong and Scandinavian cinema, because a handful of names get used as shorthand for entire national industries.
Time and Tide is the classic victim of the second problem and After the Wedding of both. If you are checking a list yourself, the year and the director are the two fields worth checking before you trust a list, and they are the two that are wrong most often.
Where these stream
Older independent and international films rotate constantly, and several of these are only available to rent for long stretches. Where a film streams changes, and the title page on BingeNext shows current US options.
Start with one of these
If you want the best film here, watch A Prophet. If you want to be astonished by how it looks, The Fall. If you want a tight ninety minutes, Brick. If you want something you will make other people watch, Millennium Actress.
If you want the shortlist built around your own taste instead, put a few films you love into BingeNext's movie recommendations and you get picks, a reason for each, and where they stream. It takes about a minute.
Topics covered: underrated, 2000s, movies, hidden-gems, archive
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.