From Cannonball: What NYT’s Top 100 Movies Missed

Summary

Podcast Summary: From Cannonball: What NYT’s Top 100 Movies Missed

Release Date: August 2, 2025

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Interview
• Host/Author: The New York Times
• Description: Conversations with the world’s most fascinating people. Each week, hosts David Marchese and Lulu Garcia-Navarro engage with influential figures across various fields to illuminate their backgrounds, motivations, and impacts.

Episode Overview: In this episode of Cannonball, hosted by Wesley Morris, he sits down with Eric Hines, the Director of Film Curation and Programming at the Jacob Burns Film Center. Together, they delve deep into the New York Times' recent list of the 100 greatest movies of the 21st century, exploring both the creators' perspectives and the readers' opinions.

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1. Introduction to the New Top 100 Movies List

[04:15] Wesley Morris introduces the New York Times' newly released list of the top 100 movies of the 21st century, which was curated by over 500 industry professionals, including actors, writers, producers, directors, and more. The list was unveiled in batches over five days, culminating with Parasite securing the top spot.

Notable Quote:

“This one. Well, I'm calling it lunch. But really I ate it like I was at a repast. Because every day I'd get my new helping of movies and I'd shed a Tiny tear.”
— Wesley Morris [02:30]

2. Makers’ Poll vs. Readers’ Poll

Wesley discusses the subsequent release of a second poll involving over 200,000 readers, surpassing even some election participations. Interestingly, the readers' list mirrored the makers' list closely, with Parasite also reigning supreme among the general audience.

Notable Quote:

“But that isn't really the case... Still impressive either way.”
— Eric Hines [13:04]

3. Representation and Diversity Concerns

A significant portion of their conversation centers around the lack of diversity in the list. Wesley points out that out of the top 100 movies, only a fraction feature works by women, black men, or Asian American women, highlighting a considerable gap in representation.

Notable Quote:

“33% of this movie is...like six directors.”
— Wesley Morris [15:28]

4. Highlights of the Makers’ Top 10 Movies

Wesley and Eric review the top 10 films from the makers' list, discussing their significance, thematic depth, and impact on cinema.

Makers' Top 10:

1. Parasite by Bong Joon Ho
2. Mulholland Drive by David Lynch
3. In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai
4. There Will Be Blood by Paul Thomas Anderson
5. Moonlight by Barry Jenkins
6. No Country for Old Men by the Coen Brothers
7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman
8. Get Out by Jordan Peele
9. Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki
10. The Social Network by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin

Notable Discussion Points:

• International Cinema: Eric praises the inclusion of three non-English films in the top 10, emphasizing the growing acceptance and appreciation of international storytelling.

  “That says something about the group of people that were polled, but also says something about the significance of international cinema in the 21st century.”
  — Eric Hines [13:33]

• Screenwriting and Visionary Directors: The duo highlights how strong screenwriting allows for more innovative and unconventional filmmaking.

  “I think that the screenwriting for it... are wild and weird as some of these movies get.”
  — Wesley Morris [12:38]

5. Analysis of Notable Films and Directors

The conversation delves into specific films and their directors, assessing their contributions and why certain works made the list while others, like Steven Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence, surprisingly did not feature prominently.

Notable Quote:

“I did not memorize all his movies... but AI is just a movie that I think Spielberg could have taken risks with.”
— Wesley Morris [28:35]

6. Personal Top 10 Lists

Wesley and Eric share their personal top 10 movie lists, providing insight into their individual tastes and the films that have profoundly impacted them over the years.

Eric Hines’ Top 10 Highlights:

1. In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai
2. The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer
3. AI: Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg

Wesley Morris’ Top 10 Highlights:

1. Norte: The End of History by Lav Diaz
2. Mad Max: Fury Road by George Miller
3. Magic Mike XXL

Notable Quote:

“What you're saying is reminding me of the thing that I actually find kind of heartening about the list... a willingness to be taken somewhere new.”
— Wesley Morris [64:36]

7. Impact of the Lists on Cinema and Future Directions

Both hosts express that the lists highlight a hunger for complex, character-driven stories that embrace both darkness and joy. They advocate for the film industry to take risks and move away from formulaic, four-quadrant pictures to foster more innovative and specific storytelling.

Notable Quote:

“Just throw a curveball, stop sending it straight over the plate. Just, I don't know, change your finger position just a little bit.”
— Wesley Morris [67:33]

8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Wesley and Eric reflect on their friendship, rooted in their shared history at Kim's Video Store, and the enduring passion they have for cinema. They emphasize the importance of lists in bringing out diverse opinions and feelings, acting as a call to arms for the industry to embrace more varied and authentic storytelling.

Notable Quote:

“Now, you and I are basically doing our video store work right now.”
— Wesley Morris [68:35]

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• “This one. Well, I'm calling it lunch. But really I ate it like I was at a repast. Because every day I'd get my new helping of movies and I'd shed a Tiny tear.”
  — Wesley Morris [02:30]

• “I like that there's an animated film in the top 10.”
  — Eric Hines [11:23]

• “33% of this movie is...like six directors.”
  — Wesley Morris [15:28]

• “You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?” (Advertisement skipped)

• “I think that the screenwriting for it... are wild and weird as some of these movies get.”
  — Wesley Morris [12:38]

• “This is proof that our popular entertainment can also mean as much as our unpopular entertainment.”
  — Wesley Morris [66:23]

Note: Certain timestamps reference specific parts of the conversation where key insights or emotional reflections occur, enhancing the depth of the discussion.

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Final Thoughts: This episode of Cannonball offers a profound exploration of cinematic excellence in the 21st century through the lens of both industry insiders and general audiences. Wesley Morris and Eric Hines provide thoughtful analysis on the successes and shortcomings of the New York Times' top 100 movies list, emphasizing the need for greater diversity, innovative storytelling, and the enduring power of film as a reflection of societal values and personal experiences.

Transcript

[Wesley Morris]

Today we'll attempt a feat once thought impossible, overcoming high interest credit card debt. It requires merely one thing, a SoFi personal loan. With it you could save big on interest charges by consolidating into one low fixed rate monthly payment. Defy high interest debt with a SOFI personal loan. Visit sofi.com stunt to learn more. Loans originated by Sofi Bank NA member FDIC terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 hey, it's Lulu. It's summer, so we're off this week, but I'm excited to share a new Times podcast with you. It's by my colleague Wesley Morris. His new show is called Cannonball, and it is amazing. Each week Wesley talks with writers, artists and his friends about the culture. A recent episode I really loved was Wesley chatting with fellow critic Eric Hines about the Times's recent extremely fun to debate list of a hundred best movies of the 21st century. I definitely have my opinions on this. I think you'll love their conversation and you'll probably have several strong opinions of your own. Enjoy and we'll be back next week.

[Eric Hines]

With a new interview.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm Wesley Morris and this is Cannonball. Last month I spent a week eating two lunches a day. One the New York Times cafeteria made, that one was actual food and it was good. The New York Times culture department made the other one. That one was a list of the 100 greatest movies of the 21st century, voted on by more than 500 actors, writers, producers, directors, costume designers, screenwriters, production people, people who just make the movies. They voted on that list. And every day for five days, the paper released a batch of 20 ranked movies, starting with Superbad at 100 and ending with Parasite hoisting the championship belt. I devoured both the food and the countdown, some days at the same time. And then next week, the paper did this crazy thing and released a second poll of more than 200,000 readers. 200,000. That is more people than participate in some elections. So what the people do, they put endgame at number 100. But guess what? The people also crown Parasite Miss Movie List, Pageant Queen. Sashay Santa Bong Jun Ho. Sashay, sashay, Sashay. Like a lot of people, I love a countdown. It's a shopping list. It's a suspense novel. It's a reality check. It's a call to arms. This one. Well, I'm calling it lunch. But really I ate it like I was at a repast. Because every day I'd get my new helping of movies and I'd shed a Tiny tear. Thinking about the future. Like, when it's 2050. What on earth are the great movies of the next quarter century gonna look like? That's a great question for today's co pilot, my friend Eric Hines. Now, he's the director of film curation and programming at the Jacob Burns Film Center. But he and I have been friends since we worked together at Kim's video 24 years ago. Oh, my God. And we've been talking about how art makes us feel and why these lists matter all this time. Because we're not here to bury the movies contrary to certain Hollywood studios. We want them alive. We're here to praise them. Hi, Eric.

[Eric Hines]

Hello, Wesley.

[Wesley Morris]

Thanks for coming to Cannonball. I've never said that to you.

[Eric Hines]

No.

[Wesley Morris]

How's it make you feel?

[Eric Hines]

I like it.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay. You cannot like it.

[Eric Hines]

No. But I knew this was a name you wanted for it.

[Wesley Morris]

So I'm glad I've never said it at you before.

[Eric Hines]

Cannonball.

[Wesley Morris]

Hi.

[Eric Hines]

Hello.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, so what.

[Eric Hines]

No, I was gonna say you basically said that we met 24 years ago at Kim's Video. And this is a list of the greatest films of the last 25 years. So it basically spans our friendship.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Eric Hines]

Which is a little something. I don't know.

[Wesley Morris]

That's. I mean, you and I met at Kim's Video and I. We should say. I just take it as fact that everybody knows what Kim's is. But there's no way in the world nobody knows what this place is. Especially now. How will we describe what kind of video store it was? Definitely. It was cool.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

It's a New York institution.

[Eric Hines]

Mini chain.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, there were a few locations and we had. We had. Oh, my God. We had the best movies. We also sold books. But we had the reputation of being, you know, the apotheosis of a video store.

[Eric Hines]

And its DNA was kind of the DNA of anything cool or punk or New York or downtown in the sense that it basically was, you know, a. A Korean American businessman who owned a Laundromat in the East Village. And then started when this was a thing in 1978, 1979, and people started getting VCRs. He started renting out movies from his Laundromat that exploded. It became a video store. And then he just kind of opened up some others. And they were all very handmade. They were very kind of ramshackle. And that the stereotype of the video store being kind of smarter than you and cooler than you, like, very much like the consummate version of that at the time.

[Wesley Morris]

It Was taken very seriously. At Kim's, we had a little bit of this. I was one of these little snarky assholes who, when you brought the man from Snowy river up to the counter, I would be like, no, you can do better. Come bring up another Disney movie back. But I also think that what was interesting about that period was you were getting a sense of what people were into, and you could steer tastes. You could help people figure out how to spend an evening. It was a kind of concierge service.

[Eric Hines]

Oh, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

If people were interested in having us help, which they every day were. Do you remember one of the first conversations that we had at that store, what movie it was about?

[Eric Hines]

Was it about Mulholland Drive?

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. So you remember. I'm not making this up.

[Eric Hines]

No.

[Wesley Morris]

Mulholland Drive opens, I think, October of 2001. So it's after September 11th. I had moved to New York that August. And, you know, I knew it was a thing. It was David Lynch. Of course it was a thing. And I go with some friends to see this movie, Mulholland Drive. And for an hour, I'm like, why are we pretending that this guy still has it? This is very bad. Well, it's time to say goodbye, Betty. It's been so nice traveling with you.

[Eric Hines]

Thank you, Irene.

[Wesley Morris]

I was so excited.

[Eric Hines]

Nervous?

[Wesley Morris]

Sure. Great to have you to talk to. Remember, I'll be watching for you on the big screen. Okay, Irene. Happy the day. Good luck, Betty, dear. Take care of yourself for me. This is a terrible movie. Until Naomi Watts, who is giving one of the worst performances I've ever seen, goes to do her screen test for this audition for this bad movie. You're still here. I came back, thought that's what you wanted. Nobody wants you here. Really? And you think one of the worst actors you've ever seen. Cause I'd never seen her before. I don't remember her in Tank Girl. Apparently she was in it.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Never seen this woman before. And I'm like, oh, she's gonna get a job acting. I can't believe she got this job acting. She goes and does this screen test, and I can remember, you're playing a dangerous game here. If you're trying to blackmail me, it's not gonna work. I mean, I remember my mind just trying to leave my head with how hot the thing she is doing in that screen test is, get out. Get out before I call my dad. He trusts you. You're his best friend. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. This shitty performance was on purpose. And all this other weird stuff. I just forgot whose movie I was watching. And I came to you having had this movie blow my mind. And I said, you're Eric Mall and Drive. I can't believe it. When did you see it?

[Eric Hines]

I think after you. It was a little after you.

[Wesley Morris]

Was the first hour not working for you?

[Eric Hines]

I wouldn't say I did not have your reaction of, this is bad. But I definitely had a feeling of that being kind of flat. And I couldn't understand the pacing. And then that scene and then silencio. And then just.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, I just remember having this conversation with you and being like. I think you were the only person at Kim's who had seen it. And I was like, well, in addition to everything else you've got going on, I like the way that you're talking to me about this movie.

[Eric Hines]

And so I was excited by it. I just found it so thrilling. Cause that experience, we didn't have the exact same experience. And I don't even remember all the details of my experience. But that feeling of having something turn over on itself. And then by the end, you're like, this is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my entire life. And an hour and 15 minutes ago, I didn't.

[Wesley Morris]

I was gonna leave.

[Eric Hines]

I didn't understand what the value of this was at all.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, yeah. But okay, this movie.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Cause what we came here to do was talk about this list. It is number two on the New York Times list of the greatest movies of the 21st century. Are you surprised by that?

[Eric Hines]

No, I actually thought it was gonna be one. Okay. And to me, it says something. We could get to a lot of things here about how something that was recog. It was in a lot of sort of best of the year of that moment, but was contentious to some degree. Not everybody got it. A lot of people thought it was too long, Whatever. It was too arty, et cetera. But 24 years later, it is something that you can kind of sit back and recognize as being an extraordinary piece of work. Sometimes it takes that long for a film to go from a little thing that some people who like art cinema like to the thing that kind of everybody knows is one of the greatest films of the century.

[Wesley Morris]

What else stood out to you about the lisp?

[Eric Hines]

Oh, man, so many things. I mean, you know, we're gonna talk about what's not here. That's how we work. That's how we think. So there's plenty there. But of what is there? There's stuff I'm really Happy to see here. You know, I think that the top 10 or so is pretty strong and pretty interesting. I like that there's an animated film in the top 10.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, let's just. I'll go through the top 10 real quick. Number 10's a social network. Aaron Sorkin wrote the Social Network. David Fincher directed. Number nine is Spirited Away. Hayao Miyazaki. Jordan Peele's get out is number eight. Number seven is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, directed by Michel Gondry from a screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. No country for all men is number six. The Coen brothers, adapting Cormac McCarthy. Moonlight, Barry Jenkins writing with Terrell McCraney. In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai. There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson adapting Upton Sinclair. Mulholland Drive, David lynch doing David lynch. And number one, I said it already. But Parasite by Bong Joon Ho, writing with two other people, I believe, whose names have escaped me.

[Eric Hines]

Good for you for bringing in the writers on this.

[Wesley Morris]

I think it's important. I think it's important to say that, like, these are. I mean, because these movies, maybe not so much Mulholland Drive. Right. But I mean, these are written. These are written.

[Eric Hines]

Interesting. Interesting.

[Wesley Morris]

And I think that the screenwriting for it for, I mean, for most of these movies are the thing that allows the filmmaking to be as wild and weird and crazy as some of these movies get. That's our top 10. So you see that and you think, what?

[Eric Hines]

Well, I think there's an animated film in there that's fantastic. There are three non English language films in the top ten. That's fantastic. That says. I think something probably says something about the group of people that were polled, but also says something about the significance of international cinema in the 21st century. Not that it wouldn't have been the case in the 20th century also, but I still feel like in a moment like this where there's a lot of things working against the idea of us going to see foreign films, it's kind of Nice to see three remaining in the top 10.

[Wesley Morris]

But to your point about the thing that has changed about how most of us are experiencing movies in terms of borders and access, the reader's list is almost identical to the makers list, right? Parasite's number one, Mulholland Drive is number two. Interstellar and the Dark Knight are in the top ten here, whereas get out and moonlight are Farther down at 18 and 17 on the reader's list. And Spirit Away, Eternal Sunshine, everything else is the same, except for the two Nolan movies. Plus, Mad Fury Road is in the reader's top 10, where it was number 11 on the makers list.

[Eric Hines]

Still impressive either way.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes, really impressive. So I think that, like a huge shift between what this poll would have been like 25 years ago is people's comfort, like the increasing comfort with experiencing other people's cultures, their storytelling, the internationalization of how movies are funded and shot. I also think that having generations of people experience all screen culture with subtitles really takes the stigma out of movies with subtitles.

[Eric Hines]

It's such a huge change. Huge change, yes. Which I was even late to recognizing as being a phenomena. How much subtitles are just simply part of the regular viewing habits, especially at home for people.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, I don't like it. I don't either, but I think it matters. I think it really does, like, open people's appetite up for anything because they're already reading subtitles in languages they already speak. Is there anything else this list is telling you by what's on it? Is there anything interesting to you being argued here?

[Eric Hines]

I don't think things being argued here. I do. It's interesting. Certain names that pop up more than once.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes, that's a story.

[Eric Hines]

And so you've got like the Coen brothers run here a number of times.

[Wesley Morris]

The Coen brothers have four movies here.

[Eric Hines]

Wes Anderson's on here a number of times.

[Wesley Morris]

He's got two movies. Yes. The Troyl Tenenbaums and Grand Budapest Hotel, right?

[Eric Hines]

Correct.

[Wesley Morris]

Can I read you the top vote getters?

[Eric Hines]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Five Christopher Nolan movies. Four movies each for Alfonso Cuaron, the Coens and P.T. anderson. Paul Thomas Anderson and Tarantino also had four movies, I believe, three for David Fincher, two Scorsese's, two Wes Andersons, two link letters, two Bong Joon Hoes. There might be somebody else with two movies. I'm forgetting 11 movies by women, plus the screenplay for bridesmaids. So that's 12, I would say. And three black men.

[Eric Hines]

Those are pretty low.

[Wesley Morris]

And one Asian American woman. So, you know, that's a story.

[Eric Hines]

Sure is.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm not. I'm going to screw the math up. But like 33% of this movie is.

[Eric Hines]

Is like those people.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, like. Like six directors.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah. That's really interesting.

[Wesley Morris]

This is a quarter century defined by a kind of arcturist sensibility. Plus what I'm going to maybe make you reconsider your lunch by saying, like the sensibility of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right. So you've got. Which is not that apparent on either list, but you know, in terms of what the last 25 years have looked like. Right. Of course, on the one hand, you've got these men with great visions, and then you've got these companies with ip. And I thought there would be more tension between these two things once you opened it up to 200,000 people.

[Eric Hines]

Sure.

[Wesley Morris]

But that isn't really the case.

[Eric Hines]

But do you think that has something to do with Times readers?

[Wesley Morris]

It could be, but I don't know that all the readers who participated are subscribers.

[Eric Hines]

Probably not. However, I don't know that the Avengers Endgame mega fans were the ones who sort of voting on this en masse.

[Wesley Morris]

Sure.

[Eric Hines]

Whereas another publication, they might have shown up.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, possible, Possible, possible. But with this data set.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Like 200,000 people, I feel like that's enough of a cross section to tell you something.

[Eric Hines]

Totally. Absolutely. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

What else?

[Eric Hines]

No Michael Mann.

[Wesley Morris]

No Michael Mann. No Park Chan Wook.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

No Apichapong.

[Eric Hines]

No Apong.

[Wesley Morris]

We're a cethical.

[Eric Hines]

Claire Denis.

[Wesley Morris]

No Claire Denis. I had to think about that. Who else?

[Eric Hines]

Well, I'm gonna take this.

[Wesley Morris]

No. Mike Lee.

[Eric Hines]

Mike Lee.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. No Spike Lee.

[Eric Hines]

No Spike Lee.

[Wesley Morris]

One Ang Lee.

[Eric Hines]

Well, I'm gonna take this moment to say there's only three documentaries on this list.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. Gleaners and I.

[Eric Hines]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Grizzly man and the act of Killing, which I gotta say, I can't believe the act of Killing is on this list.

[Eric Hines]

Well, I mean, it is, actually.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm happily surprised.

[Eric Hines]

I have actually talked to a lot of narrative filmmakers, in particular over the years, and that film comes up a lot. It was seen by a lot of people, and it still gets watched by a lot of people within the industry. So I actually wasn't that surprised because I've heard it come up a lot.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay. I really would love to hear you talk about the act of Killing. Joshua Oppenheimer movie came out in 2012. I think it is a real achievement of humanity despite everything it's about.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah, right.

[Wesley Morris]

Hearing a story of these Indonesian gangsters who essentially wound up in total, along with this, you know, in a military coup killing starting in 1965 and going on for decades, you know, killing millions of Indonesians on the grounds of their being communists, when really they just opposed the militarization of their country. And this filmmaker, Joshua Oppenheimer, essentially asks these people, these men who killed these people, since they're running around town bragging to them about all the people they've killed, what would it mean for you guys to maybe reenact some of those killings for yourselves? Thinking, I think. And you can argue with me here thinking that there was a possibility that this psychodrama that he was witnessing with his camera would somehow result in some sort of changing of mind or traumatic response. Whereas I think the inability to recognize that they are psychopathic murderers is the trauma response. The compartmentalization is the trauma.

[Eric Hines]

I think that's entirely true. I mean, it is a wild film. It's basically from the point of view of perpetrators telling their own story with a certain degree of awareness of, like, maybe this isn't a great thing to tell. Maybe this is not something you should admit to. But that kind of, like, dissonance between owning it and bragging about it and being somewhat aware of why, you know, this is immoral and why maybe the entire society has fallen apart because you were part of this. But also, I feel like one of the films of the century in terms of kind of defining how we make sense of humanity in. In sort of modern times, in the sense of, like, this being the sense of impunity. You know, that's the word that was. That comes up a lot with that film. If you feel like there's no consequences for your behavior, what happens?

[Wesley Morris]

Right. Movie stars.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Very good list for certain of them. Brad Pitt, DiCaprio, DiCaprio. Those are the stars who appear the most.

[Eric Hines]

Okay, what's the tally? I know you got the stats. 3.

[Wesley Morris]

Brad Pitt's, four DiCaprios. 1. They're in the same movie. Once upon a time in Hollywood, but not a big. I mean, there are stars on the list. But I find it interesting that those would be the two stars of the decade or this part of the decade. They're also the stars of the last decade.

[Eric Hines]

Exactly. Yeah. They're 90s stars that are now the biggest. Now. I mean, I feel like that probably speaks to the Star Machine as different now than it was, or it's not as strong, it's not as relevant. I think Hollywood definitely moved away from depending on the Star Machine. So if the studio becomes the star and if the brand is the star, you don't really have to have a leading man carry the day and get paid $50 million to do the project. And that was how Hollywood sort of reformed things. So it kind of makes sense that the ones who are the biggest stars are the ones who were the biggest stars. Tom Cruise is in there obviously, too.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. Once in Minority Report.

[Eric Hines]

Weird.

[Wesley Morris]

But I think to your point, these two people, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, are two people who never went near a superhero movie. Right. Like, we. They managed to Keep their superhero ness, the mystique of it, intact for themselves without co. Mingling it with, you know, Marvel's superheroes. And I feel like that is telling to me either, because the people who go in there never come out the same. I mean, I can't think of. There are very few people who come out of that superhero movie experience unscathed in terms of the choices they make on the other side or how we receive them. Right. What do you. I mean, does it mean anything to you that it's these two guys, Brad Pitt and DiCaprio?

[Eric Hines]

Well, I think it helps that they're actors who have been associated who've kind of like been barnacles on the side of certain big male ships. Like Tarantino.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Eric Hines]

You know, Scorsese in DiCaprio's case. Yeah, exactly. And Nolan, of course. I think that's the big factor here is, yes, they are 90s stars that have hung around and, you know, through this era, they've kind of withstood the kind of pressure against the studios to sort of build up new stars that are gonna be too expensive for them. But also. Yeah, I think it's the filmmakers themselves that they've associated with. And those alliances are still paying off. They're still collaborating. What about female stars? Any trends on here? Are there any repeat customers?

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, Sandra Bullock is in Gravity, which is at the bottom of the list. Julia Roberts is in Ocean's Twelve. I mean, there are some things. Cate Blanchett in Tar. These are the things that are coming to mind. There are women in these movies, obviously, but these are not. You know, Bridesmaids might be the biggest movie on the list that is entirely about women. That isn't a love story between a woman and a man.

[Eric Hines]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

Mulholland Drive, obviously, is its own beast. Yeah. But, yeah, no, I mean, there's no Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock equivalent of anything Brad Pitt would.

[Eric Hines]

You'd expect. If there would be one, it would be Scarlett Johansson. And I think she's here a few times in supporting him.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, she's here. She's on the list in under the Skin and Lost in Translation, at least. Definitely those two.

[Eric Hines]

Well, also her.

[Wesley Morris]

And her. Yes, her voice is there.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah. So that would be the one I would expect from this entry. But, yeah, I guess even that. Not so much.

[Wesley Morris]

Right. Also, I would include Frances Ha. In our list of our women's list. Right. Which Greta Gerwig stars in and wrote.

[Eric Hines]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

But none of Lady Bird is here. But that's the only Greta Gerwig movie. On the list.

[Eric Hines]

It's unfortunately, though, we have to kind of stretch things to get more women on the list. There's sort of. It's underrepresented, period.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, sure. I mean, the reason to bring it up is that it's not happening on the list. And it's not so much that there were people who were omitted, it's that there isn't enough work being made by women to omit, you know, relative to men.

[Eric Hines]

Especially if you're going to. I mean, we talked about how it's great that there's representation of international cinema, but if there was even more representation of international cinema, there probably would be a few more women here. And if there were more documentary representation here, there would also be a few more women. So it's kind of like triangulation of keeping certain names off this.

[Wesley Morris]

There's a lot of overlap. But I mean, just staying in our little movie star conversation for a second, you know, Tom Cruise is part of one of my favorite little micro alliances between. Between a star and a filmmaker. They only did it twice, but one of their pairings is down at the bottom of the list, Minority Report. And it's the only movie on the list by this filmmaker named Steven Spielberg. Do you know him?

[Eric Hines]

I mean, isn't he sort of. He's more of a 20th century filmmaker, isn't he?

[Wesley Morris]

No. Eric, can I just read you something? Yeah, I just want to do it. I'm going to read you Steven Spielberg's 2001-2000. What? 2022. We'll stop at 22. AI, artificial intelligence, minority Report, Catch me if you can. The Terminal War of the Worlds, Munich, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I know, but still, there's a few people went. The Adventures of Tintin, Warhorse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, the BFG, the Post Ready Player, 1, west side Story, and the Fabelmans. I mean, who did better? I mean, I'm not saying that every one of those movies is a masterpiece.

[Eric Hines]

Sure, but I'm glad you're not that.

[Wesley Morris]

What's your problem?

[Eric Hines]

No, I mean, I love the. I mean, I love Spielberg and I love this list. I think it's been a fantastic century. But there are a few that are far from masterpiece.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, yeah, I bow down. But the. I think the reason to invoke his name in this way is for two reasons. One, I don't think in terms of what the things that we say we go to the movies to experience are, which I still think are true. I don't think anybody got Better at giving it to us than he did versus his previous 25 years, which are the 25 years that made him the Steven Spielberg. Right.

[Eric Hines]

No, I think his risks have gotten greater. I think his swings have gotten bigger. It's extraordinary what he's done for the second half of his career. What are the films that you think that you were surprised were not on here by him? By him? If not all. Well, obviously not all of them. But which are the ones that you're like, how is this not here?

[Wesley Morris]

I should say before I answer this question, you will hear my list later and there will be no Spielbergs on it. So I'm as guilty as everybody else.

[Eric Hines]

Fair.

[Wesley Morris]

But I thought AI would have been there.

[Eric Hines]

I propose that we build a robot who can love, love.

[Wesley Morris]

Love, like the.

[Eric Hines]

Love of a child for its parents. I propose that we build a robot child who can love a robot child who will genuinely love the parent or parents it imprints on with a love that will never end.

[Wesley Morris]

A child substitute Mecca. So this movie is about this couple whose only son dies, right? And they replace him with this robot named David. And he's played by Haley Joel Osment. At the peak of Haley Joel Osment's Haley Joel Osment Ness.

[Eric Hines]

I mean, one of the great child performances. I mean, it's incredible. Yes, Haley.

[Wesley Morris]

And he plays this AI robot who never ages. Like classic Steven Spielberg, the guy who made the Peter Pan movie Hook, and basically is programmed to love this couple unconditionally for the rest of their lives and for the rest of his eternal life. And it is shockingly. It is. I mean, his movies are always shockingly deep to me, but I actually. I felt like that would have been the one that would have had the most profound shift in how we appreciate and receive it. Because it's just. There's so much premonition in it. I don't know. I think the problem with AI's afterlife is that it'll forever be received as Spielberg daring, having the effrontery to touch a Stanley Kubrick property. Right. This was a movie that Stanley Kubrick was originally going to make.

[Eric Hines]

It was one of those projects that he was working on for decades, but in the end, he actually brought it to Spielberg and said, you would be the right person to make this. I don't think I'm the right person to direct this movie.

[Wesley Morris]

And people didn't believe that. Yeah, I mean, people didn't believe it. It was like, oh, whatever you say, Steve. I mean, yes, Kubrick brought you a movie. Okay, that's cute.

[Eric Hines]

I mean, this is a film. My journey with this film is similar, I think, to what we're talking about in terms of this. I was one of those people who saw it through the lens of Kubrick, who I revered at that moment, thought it was treacle, you know, dismissed it. Oh, really was angry. And then maybe three years later, pretty quickly afterwards, after people that I trusted insisting that I revisit it, then I watched it as if I had never seen a frame of it. And I was a wreck. And I've since watched it about, I don't know, 12 times. Each time, I am a wreck. I think it's the saddest story ever told, which is ludicrous to say. And it has to be Spielberg telling the story.

[Wesley Morris]

It has to be.

[Eric Hines]

Yes, it is a fairy tale. It is told in the form of a fairy tale. And so you have to actually plausibly pull off the tone of a fairy tale. You cannot critique the fairy tale. You cannot. It's not a satire. It cannot be cutting against it. It has to be fully embodying a fairy tale. But then also the content of it and where it actually goes and what it means is so profoundly sad.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. This is so much a movie about being the child of a mother.

[Eric Hines]

And he's famously tends to tell stories about fatherhood and sons. So to make a film about motherhood and relationship with the mother is. It stands out.

[Wesley Morris]

Take this, all right? Take this. Don't let anyone see how much it is, all right? Now, look, don't go that way, all right? Look, don't look at me. Look. Don't go that way, all right? Go anywhere but that way, or they'll catch you.

[Eric Hines]

Not ever let them catch you.

[Wesley Morris]

Listen, stay away from flesh fairs, away from. There are lots of people. Stay away from all people. Only others like you, only Mecca are safe. Okay? Why do you want to leave me? Why do you want to leave me? I'm sorry I'm not real. If you let me, I'll be so real for you. Go. Go.

[Eric Hines]

David.

[Wesley Morris]

Let.

[Eric Hines]

Me.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the world.

[Eric Hines]

I. I don't think I can. I risk crying talking to you right now if I go on to this more. He's a robot.

[Wesley Morris]

AI child, this is the place where you can do it, because I'm going to be crying a lot on this show. So other people's tears are welcome.

[Eric Hines]

An AI child who is built to love. That is his program. He's supposed to love as a child loves. And the world crashes. His Mother is deceased, but he has not stopped loving. And he will never stop loving.

[Wesley Morris]

Can I just say something?

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

You are the person who made me reconsider my feelings about that movie. A movie that I watched, when you watched it, when it came out, didn't think much of it. We went to dinner one night. I don't know if you remember this. And I was, I think I was kind of like mixed on the Fablemans.

[Eric Hines]

Uh huh.

[Wesley Morris]

And I did not love that movie. I didn't love it the way you loved it. And I remember exactly where we were actually. We were at a bar. It wasn't dinner, it was after dinner. And plausible. You tore me up, you gave me a Fabelman's beating. And you know, a lot of people thought Fabelman's was the movie where Spielberg was actually finally dealing with his mother. But. And that that was the key to everything. But what you, what you helped me understand that night was that AI had been already doing that work. Right. It's AI Is the morning of your mother movie in this very specific Spielbergian kind of way. I went back and I watched it. I took a lot of notes. It set me on a Steven Spielberg. I'll show it to you where you could see it with your own two eyes. This is my AI I was 22 years of Steven Spielberg. I went back and watched all of those movies that I just read. And AI is just. I mean, for one thing, there is the passage when Haley Joel Osment winds up going to this carnival where he meets the Jew law character. Who's the name? The character's name escapes me. You will know what this guy's name is.

[Eric Hines]

Oh, geez, no. Now you're embarrassing me. It's the Flesh Fair, which is the.

[Wesley Morris]

Carnival, where basically AI These AI creatures are essentially tortured, abused for fun, for sport, for entertainment. It's kind of like a Mad Max movie, but with non human people. But in Spielberg's world, obviously they're the most human people.

[Eric Hines]

These discarded robots being slaughtered. And all you're thinking is, you know, you're feeling for the robot.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, now I'm gonna cry because one of the robots has Chris Rock's voice. Can you kind of shoot me over the propeller thing? Yeah, I don't need to go through it. I was considering it, but I changed my mind. And at some point they take this Chris Rock character and they put him in a cannon, right? They're about to like, I think they're about to basically blow him up. Basically. They're going to lynch this black Character, this black sounding character. And you understand that Spielberg is capable of taking all the things he couldn't really bring himself to do in Amistad, all the stuff he couldn't quite bring himself to do on the Color Purple, the ways in which he was afraid to. I think he finds cruelty fascinating. I think the act of Killing might be a movie that is as fascinating to him as any of the other movies that we know fascinate him. I think he does not understand evil and meanness. And there's a way that he can't explore that in something like Schindler's List.

[Eric Hines]

No. Cause I think he's somebody who works in metaphor and displacement. There's gotta be the thing. There's gotta be the other thing that allows you to talk about that thing. Like, I just feel like that there's a certain emotional, psychological thing with him. If it's a metaphor, if there's something in between. Reality. For him, yes, he can actually go. He can go. He can really go there.

[Wesley Morris]

This is a celebration of life, and this is commitment to a truly human. I think it is such a plausible deniability zone for him. Like, he's like. But it's a metaphor. Don't come at me. Don't come at me.

[Eric Hines]

That's why ET Is like, as good as it gets. And Amistad, which is very similar to ET As a narrative, is a problem.

[Wesley Morris]

Not on the list. But I feel like he is present on this list, even though he's only on the list one time. Because those movies are made by his children who are all over this list. Right. I mean, Bong Joon Ho, Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve. I'm talking about both lists now. Cuaron. I mean, Jordan Peele. I feel like he has reared a generation of filmmakers, and these are the people who are just coming to mind right now. Yeah, but can we think through what the properties are that do make the people who are ostensibly his progeny? I'm saying this. You don't even have to agree, but I feel like he is present on this list, even though he's only on the list one time on both these lists.

[Eric Hines]

And I think. Not to sort of lump them in, since just because of the same generation, but I think Scorsese also. Like, you can't. There's so many of these that, you know, Tarantino is. I mean, this all comes from script.

[Wesley Morris]

But I feel like Scorsese has been sufficiently accoladed, saluted during this. This part of his career, the 21st century part of his career. I feel Like Spielberg. Less so. Do you buy the idea of someone like Bong Joon Ho being one of these descendants?

[Eric Hines]

Sure, absolutely. I think he would. I think he would say the same thing.

[Wesley Morris]

But that, by extension means that the number one movie on this list is operating within some sort of Spielbergian schema. Right. I mean, we're talking about Parasite, and it's basically a family movie. There's a poor South Korean family that connives, schemes brilliantly, connives and schemes its way into jobs, working as servants and helpers for this richer family with a very nice house. It's just a much darker movie than Spielberg would make. Like, in terms of explicitness, in terms of the explicitness of the darkness. This is an allegory. There are no metaphors. Right. There's nothing. Bong Joon Ho is not hiding behind anything here. Are you surprised that it's first?

[Eric Hines]

I'm not super surprised. I thought it would be towards the top. I'm glad that it's here. I mean, it's not my choice. It's none of my top 10. But at the same time, like the fact that the number one film of the century for a poll is a non English language class war, you know, uncategorizable thriller, like, that's fantastic. That's great. Nothing wrong with this.

[Wesley Morris]

I agree.

[Eric Hines]

Nothing not great about it. Nothing not great about it. Winning all those Academy Awards either. So no complaints here. I do think that it's a film that a lot of people see themselves in and maybe they're surprised that they do.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Eric Hines]

You know, you don't expect to see this Korean film as being like a lens unto your own family or lens into your own sense of self in the world, your own sense of possession and domestic life, et cetera. Like, it's a film that I think that really takes people by surprise about how much it ultimately is about them.

[Wesley Morris]

It is. I mean, the toxicity of American values that kind of affects the rich family. Like the American mythos that is helping oppress South Korean people. I think people in every other country of the world, including ours, can recognize even in these, like, just having, you know, stereotypical Native American headdresses. Right. During the climactic bloodbath. Right. I mean, we love a bloodbath. We're very familiar with bloodbaths. But this is a bloodbath with stakes. It's a bloodbath about something. And it's also a farce that turns into a tragedy, which is very hard to do totally. But the farce and the tragedy are about people and their lives as being lived at this very second. There's a universality in this movie's completely idiosyncratic craziness.

[Eric Hines]

I had one question. We should move on. But I had one question, one thing we didn't do, and is there anything on the list that you can't believe is on the list? Is there anything that totally surprised you either because, like, how did this make it? Or how you know. Yeah, how did this make it one way or the other?

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, man. I'm gonna hold the list in my hands. We printed it out and there's nothing here. None of my. No movies I hate. There are a lot of directors I don't enjoy, but I don't think the movies don't make sense to me or I wish they weren't here. There are a lot of things, obviously, I wish were. Yeah. I don't know. This just all makes sense to me. What about you?

[Eric Hines]

I did not expect among makers that there would still be love for Amelie.

[Wesley Morris]

Ooh. Oh. Oh, my God. Yes. Why is it but yes. Yes.

[Eric Hines]

I thought within a year or two, we had sort of moved on from Ameldi. The fact that it's here shocks me.

[Wesley Morris]

People still have the haircut, Eric. People still want to be her. And every three years, there's some generation of person that's like, nobody told me. How come nobody. It's never how come nobody told me about, like, Bamboozled. It's never, how come nobody told me about the entire career of Agnes Varda? It's like, how come they told me about. About Amelie?

[Eric Hines]

There's a whole.

[Wesley Morris]

There's a whole lookbook. Nobody told me. Yeah. Get out of here, Amelie. Sorry, buddy. All right, we're gonna take a break and when we come back, not that anybody asked for this, we both brought our own top 10 lists. You brought one, I made one. So we'll take a break and when we come back, we'll talk about those and see how they compare to the other two lists. Have you ever gotten sick on a very expensive, very non refundable family trip? AmazonOne Medical has 247 virtual care, so you can get help no matter where you are. And with Amazon Pharmacy, your meds can get delivered right to your hotel fast. It's kind of like the room service of medical care. Thanks to Amazon, Healthcare just got less painful. High interest debt is one of the.

[Eric Hines]

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[Wesley Morris]

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[Eric Hines]

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[Wesley Morris]

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[Eric Hines]

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[Eric Hines]

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[Wesley Morris]

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[Eric Hines]

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[Wesley Morris]

Okay, we're back. We are talking about the New York Times poll of the hundred greatest movies of the 21st century as voted on by people who make our movies in all the ways they get made. And then 200,000 plus readers who went through their own New York Times poll and the Times published those results. And this is the period where we're gonna go through our lists. So, Eric, you've got 10 movies that encapsulate this 21st century of ours, this portion, this quadrant of this 21st century of ours that we have already lived. Hit me. Go from 10 to 1.

[Eric Hines]

So I have adjusted this a little bit before between a couple days ago and now because I think it's worth taking a moment and saying these are what we think are the greatest films of the 21st century. Not my favorite.

[Wesley Morris]

Interesting.

[Eric Hines]

So there are some favorites on this thing, you know.

[Wesley Morris]

All right, so this matters. Well, now we got it. What is the difference?

[Eric Hines]

Well, I think there's.

[Wesley Morris]

Because I know what you mean. But I think we gotta say, I.

[Eric Hines]

Think certain films I just love and re watch. And I think I could speak about them and speak for them till the day is done. And yet, if we're talking about the greatest films the last 25 years, I'm kind of thinking about something other than entirely my taste. Which doesn't mean that I'm gonna grab things that I don't have any passion for or that I don't absolutely adore in some way.

[Wesley Morris]

It just means it's a different list when you do it.

[Eric Hines]

Basically, it just means Miami Vice is not on my list. But Miami Vice, by Michael Mann.

[Wesley Morris]

Listen, Eric, I gotta. I might have to leave the room. Just. Truly the hottest movie. I'm sorry. In the Mood for Love. But it's Miami Vice. I'm sorry.

[Eric Hines]

We should go out for mojitos after this.

[Wesley Morris]

Michael Mann's Miami Vice.

[Eric Hines]

Hot shit.

[Wesley Morris]

Woo. Yeah, but I. But what I'll say before you go is that my list is probably a mix and you're gonna kill me, but I have a Miami Vice on my list.

[Eric Hines]

Great, thank you.

[Wesley Morris]

The thing that Miami Vice does for you, you know, the movie that does it for me. As like. Miami vice is number two to this movie. Go.

[Eric Hines]

Okay, so number 10, Zidane, a 21st century portrait by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Perenno.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay. This great documentary about the soccer player.

[Eric Hines]

Yes. I mean, documentary isn't even quite the thing, but yes. Number nine. I'm cheating. A tie of two things. I think of a diptych.

[Wesley Morris]

Especially if they go together.

[Eric Hines]

Inside. Llewyn Davis and a serious man.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, I love that for you.

[Eric Hines]

I think those are two sides of a coin.

[Wesley Morris]

They definitely are. Go.

[Eric Hines]

8:35 shots of rum. Claire Denis. Seven. Cameraperson, Kirsten Johnson.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, Eric, that is the Erik Hynesis number seven of all time.

[Eric Hines]

Number six, Synecdoche, New York. Charlie Kaufman.

[Wesley Morris]

Charlie Kaufman, writer of Eternal Sunshine, of the Spotless Mind. An adaptation. Two films on the list. Number six.

[Eric Hines]

Number five.

[Wesley Morris]

Number five.

[Eric Hines]

Sorry. Hale County. This morning. This Evening, Rommel Ross.

[Wesley Morris]

Wow, this is a real you list. I love it.

[Eric Hines]

You had me on the show. You can invite somebody else on the show.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't want anybody else. I want this.

[Eric Hines]

Number four, the New World. Terrence Malick.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, these are all. But the reason I'm saying that it's such a you list is these are all movies that you have, like just done the 4th of July at me with how much you love them.

[Eric Hines]

Number three, AI Artificial Intelligence. Steven Spielberg. Number two, another tie, the act of Killing and the look of Silence by Joshua Oppenheimer.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, great.

[Eric Hines]

And number one, in the Mood for Love. Wong Kar Wai.

[Wesley Morris]

What? What? You.

[Eric Hines]

I live within this film and I've lived within it for 25 years.

[Wesley Morris]

I didn't realize that it would be first. This is fascinating to me.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

But like, can you just. Let's just talk about a little bit what the movie even is. Because it was somewhere on the reader's list and number four on the makers list.

[Eric Hines]

So what is in the Mood for Love? In the Mood for Love is Wong Kar Wai's. You could call it nostalgic. You could call it Heartsick.

[Wesley Morris]

Heartsick is good.

[Eric Hines]

Story of two folks who each of their partners is in an affair with each other. And so they become aware of this. They live next door in a Hong Kong apartment complex and they kind of go somewhere between pantomiming what it would be like to be in an affair since they're living in the shadow of their partners being in an affair and actually, actually falling in love. And so you're basically seeing two people, like, in this kind of, like, proximity of love and never really getting a chance to kind of cross the chasm. That's one way of talking about it. It's another way of talking about it is an incredible, elaborate portrait of Hong Kong and Hong Kong in transition that doesn't even get at what people really love about this film, which is that.

[Wesley Morris]

It'S just hot and beautiful.

[Eric Hines]

It's hot and beautiful and the most like, textural sort of.

[Wesley Morris]

You want to touch everything. You want to lick everything. You want everything to touch you. You want to wear everything. It is politically pungent and like one of the more tactile movies I've ever watched.

[Eric Hines]

And it's a film where there are these gestures which just make me think. I mean, it's one thing to sort of live in a film and love it and want to watch scenes. It's another thing that there are certain gestures and movements of body that I think about on basis. I think about the way that the sort of Adam's apple moves in somebody's throat when they talk because, oh, Tony Lang of a shot of that in that film. There's ways that sort of people turn their necks in certain clothing. Like, this is just. It's made its way so far deep into my awareness of the world that it's kind of hard to even compare.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. Wong Kar Wai, absolute galactic sensualist. Okay, it's my turn.

[Eric Hines]

Give me.

[Wesley Morris]

Number 10. Magic Mike XXL.

[Eric Hines]

I know how you feel about that film. I love the way that you've spoken and written about that film. But for those who are not aware, why is that the 10th best film of the 21st century?

[Wesley Morris]

It's basically the Odyssey with G strings. Women are controlling the story without men even realizing it. Right. Hello, beautiful. You down for a little fun tonight? These men exist for women's pleasure. But in this movie, unlike the first one, they are talking about what it means to be in control of that pleasure. And the men are like, yeah, we are here for your pleasure.

[Eric Hines]

And they get pleasure from it.

[Wesley Morris]

And we love it.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I would say more But I should go to number nine, Love and Diane.

[Eric Hines]

Oh, wow.

[Wesley Morris]

One of my very favorite movies by Jennifer Dworkin. The story of a mother and her daughter trying to just stay alive in this country. Number eight, Inherent Vice. Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers. I cannot make a list without him on it. Number seven, the Holy Girl by Lucretia Martel. Number six is Moonlight. Number five, Wally is so full of in the Mood for Love, Adam's Apples. To me. Things I just think about all the time. Things that are both. The movie is insanely romantic, but incredibly realist in its pessimism about us being trusted to be stewards of ourselves.

[Eric Hines]

And it's wild how in such a short span of time, certain things that it was prescient about. This is already happening. It's already happening.

[Wesley Morris]

It seemed mean in 2008, but now it's just. It's beyond the truth. It isn't mean enough. Number four, O.J. made in America. Made by a person who I know very well. But it doesn't matter because it's just one of the great movies, period. A movie so good it changed the Academy Awards qualifications for what a documentary is when it can be entered into the for consideration for the award.

[Eric Hines]

It broke the machine. Yes, I will note that's on the reader's poll and not on Maker's poll.

[Wesley Morris]

Thank you 200,000 readers for knowing what's up. Number three, the piano teacher.

[Eric Hines]

Piano Teacher. One of the most profound viewing experience I've ever had. I actually had to leave the theater to go to sit on the bathroom floor. Cause I thought I was going to faint. And then returned and watched the movie because it was so good.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't remember you telling me this, but yeah. This is a Michael Hanekah movie about a woman who's obsessed with a man who proceeds to just break her soul. And then she basically fights to get it back. I don't know. That seems like a very loose encapsulation of what this movie is. Number two, Mad Fury Road. One of the great moviegoing experiences of my life. If I talk about it, I will cry.

[Eric Hines]

Wait, so make you cry?

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Eric Hines]

Why?

[Wesley Morris]

I think this might be one of the greatest movies about living under a patriarchy ever made. And I don't use a term like patriarchy loosely at all. Mad Max, Fury Road. It was one of the greatest moviegoing experiences of my life. In part because I didn't know what I was watching. The visual chaos, the mayhem, everything that's famous about it. But there was something about. Oh, My God, it's happening right now. There's something about the moment where they get to the desert. They're finished. It's over. They're done. Furiosa, lady, you did it. You won. You have found these women. They're gonna protect you and take care of you if memory is serving. But she decides, fuck this shit. We go back. We're going back. Back? Yeah.

[Eric Hines]

I thought you weren't insane anymore.

[Wesley Morris]

What are they saying? He wants to go back from where they came.

[Eric Hines]

Citadel. What's there to find at the Citadel?

[Wesley Morris]

Green. And the whole movie where they almost died trying to get where they got. They have to reverse and George Miller plays the movie backwards. They have to make the same movie to go back. It is just. Oh, my God, it's fucking happening. I can't. I can't explain it. Like, it is just such. I don't know what in my soul that movie has access to. I don't know what happened to me that makes that. I think. I'm the child of a single mother. I am the child of a person who would have done anything to protect me. And this movie is all about women protecting women.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And women protecting women at all costs. Even if some of them die along the way. Like to put a stake in the heart of this evil. It is worth it. It is worth it. Oh, man, that movie is just. And also, it is just. It's a movie. It just work. You could turn the sound off on that movie. You should not, because that is some real sound mixing and editing right there. But you could turn the sound off on this movie and still be. And still have it magnetize you. But oh, my God, that movie. Holy fucking shit. So, yeah. Tears.

[Eric Hines]

Thank you.

[Wesley Morris]

I love you.

[Eric Hines]

It's incredible. So great.

[Wesley Morris]

Did you cry?

[Eric Hines]

I didn't, But I totally. 100%, knowing you, actually, you're like wondering why. What in you. It totally makes complete sense. And it's gorgeous and wonderful and makes me want to revisit the film with that. Honestly, the way I am as a viewer, the next time I watch it, I'll be thinking about that. And I'll start crying before the halfway point. Because I'll be anticipating the significance of coming back.

[Wesley Morris]

How did nobody die making that movie?

[Eric Hines]

It's insane.

[Wesley Morris]

And number one, Norte. The end of history.

[Eric Hines]

Incredible. Talk to us about norte, man.

[Wesley Morris]

It's 4 hours and 10 minutes. I'll start there because I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. It is basically a Crime and Punishment story. It's the story. I mean, I'm gonna give this movie a plot, and people are gonna watch it and be like, yo, it's a lot of clothes on this skinny little body. But the plot of this movie is a guy is essentially accused of murder. He did not commit it. But it is ultimately about what it is. Like, this is a Philippine. This is a movie from the Philippines. Lav Diaz is the director. It came out in 2013, I wanna say. And it's just an extraordinary experience in the passage of time, both for the suffering people, you know, the main character who is basically locked up, and for us watching this time pass. You don't feel it for one moment. I watched this movie, Eric. I have stood up and clapped one time in a movie theater. It was for this. No, it's two times. The other time was Death Proof at the end. It's got a great ending. Tarantino did it. That's my Tarantino. But that's my Tarantino. That's my Tarantino. Can I tell you, like, what I'm thinking as I go in making these lists?

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I feel like what I do when I'm coming up with the 10 movies, knowing full well what a joke it is. Cause there's, you know, I can do 100 movies. I kind of want them to all have different textures. I kind of want them to be about different things. And I want them to be singular unto themselves, but also kind of somehow workable with each other. Right. Like, Magic Mike has nothing to do with OJ Made in America and Norte the End of History has nothing to do with, like, Inherent Vice. And yet they feel right as a little movie family.

[Eric Hines]

I like that.

[Wesley Morris]

And I just want them to all be doing a different thing. It's like a little movie album to me.

[Eric Hines]

I can't help it. I love that. I love the idea of a movie album. And in some ways, like, you're kind of curating a set.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think what it says about you is that you are committed to a kind of ethics of filmmaking. I think that, like, these are movies by people who understand the power of what it means to tell stories about other people's stories and lives.

[Eric Hines]

I'm also, like, less of a genre person and more of a formalist in the idea of how, like, I'm always gonna respond to and things are gonna stay with me when the form is being kind of reinvented in front of my eyes. Because this is what this artist and this is what this storyteller needs to do to get to this properly, to get the story properly. To get to the subject properly. That's always gonna work for me. So, like, kind of hitting the mark is great. I love it. It's pleasurable. But if you're gonna actually create a mark that I didn't even know existed and then do something to get to that mark that I didn't foresee, I'm going with you. It's just not. It's not easy business. You know, I think the business has suffered in the last 10 years, and it's much, much harder for these films to kind of make their way. I think that the artists are still out there, the audiences are actually still out there, but there's no business to support it at this moment.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, what you're saying is reminding me of the thing that I actually find kind of heartening about the list. Right. You got 200,000 plus people taking the time to think through the movies that mean the most to them, the truly absolute greatest movies of the last 25 years, saying, we want complexity, we want character. We're here for the darkness, we're here for the joy. We are here for three hours, we're here for two hours. We're here for weirdness, we're here for incoherence, we're here for vibes, we're here for vision. What does an executive do? Are there executives looking at this list and thinking, whoa. Well.

[Eric Hines]

The same executives were seeing Sinners do what it did this season and.

[Wesley Morris]

Go being mad at Ryan Coogler for doing it.

[Eric Hines]

Shit, why are you doing that? You're making us look bad. That's what they do. You know, it's a riskier thing to do because you're gonna strike out, you know, and, you know, the 60s and 70s were filthy with films with lots of strikeouts by really prominent people, really talented people. But they had the opportunity to strike out. But that's not really the case anymore.

[Wesley Morris]

Listen, I am holding this list of hundred movies. Somebody greenlit these MF's.

[Eric Hines]

Yep.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, they're not all studio movies, thank God.

[Eric Hines]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

But it is proof that our popular entertainment can also mean as much as our unpopular entertainment. Studio executives. You gotta do better. This list is really. I called it a call to arms. I didn't really know what I meant when I wrote that and said it. Talking to you, Eric. I know now, like, I'm not saying we gotta storm anything, but both these lists, to me are proof of a need, a hunger, a willingness to be taken somewhere new. Like, that's all the success of Sinners. That's the only lesson Anybody should learn from this movie. Just throw a curveball, stop sending it straight over the plate. Just, I don't know, change your finger position just a little bit.

[Eric Hines]

You can also be specific and have mass audience come with you.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Eric Hines]

You can actually make it from a perspective that is not obviously universal. And a universal audience will actually go with it. This is what the magic of cinema is, is the magic of storytelling is that you can do that. You don't have to make a four quadrant picture that takes in what your perception of the every person out there is. You can make something specific that everyone will respond to.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, we gotta go. But I love lists. Look what they do. They just bring all this crazy stuff out. They bring out a lot of feelings. I mean, this is what you and I have been. This right here. You and I met in a video store. I don't know how we would be friends today, but it also occurs to be that we're basically doing our video store work right now.

[Eric Hines]

And in the store, this was the employee pics. This was the shelf where it would be Wesley's employee pics. And there'd be 10 titles on there that you'd be recommending.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, this is as close as you're gonna get to employee picks now, at least about movies. All right, Eric, thanks for coming.

[Eric Hines]

Thank you, Wesley.

[Wesley Morris]

I really appreciate it.

[Eric Hines]

It was a blast.

[Wesley Morris]

I love you.

[Eric Hines]

Love you too.

[Wesley Morris]

This episode of Cannonball was produced by John White, Janelle Anderson, Elissa Dudley, and Austin Mitchell. It was edited by Lisa Tobin, the show engineered by Daniel Ramirez, and recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo, and Nick Pittman. We've got original music by Dan Powell and Diane Wong. Our theme music's by Justin Ellington. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa and Zach Caldwell. It was edited by Eddie Costas, Jamie Heffitz, and Pat Gunther. We're on YouTube, y'. All. Watch and subscribe. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Wendy Doerr, Paula Schumann, and all of the people who worked to bring that list together. All the New York Times people, people at the upshot, the people in the culture department, any department. I did not just name everybody. So many people worked so hard to make this happen, happen. And congratulations, y'. All. You did it. It was a pleasure. And you, dear listener, viewer, reader of a transcription. Thanks for hanging with us. Have a great week. Have a great weekend. Be good or be a little bit bad, but not too bad.

[Eric Hines]

Sam.

[Wesley Morris]

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