10 Near-Perfect 2000s Movies That Audiences Have Forgotten

Published Oct 4, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more. Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor. He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre. To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net. The 2000s saw several critically acclaimed movies released that flopped at the box office and ended up disappearing from the public consciousness. However, while these movies aren't talked about much today at all, they are all some of the finest movies of the 21st century, and it is time that they are rediscovered and earn the acclaim they still deserve in the streaming era. These movies run the gamut from slow-burn dramas and overlooked gangster movies to art-house films and one of the most interesting modern-day neo-noirs of the 2000s. These movies received praise when released, but it wasn't enough to bring in audiences. There are also films where the audience reaction was negative when the movies were in theaters, but the reappraisals have reversed in recent years. The best thing about the current era of streaming is that many older movies have a chance to get a second life from an entirely new generation of viewers. Services like Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, and more offer these near-perfect 2000s movies a chance to get rediscovered, and it is time that these 10 films get a lot more attention. 10 The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007) Directed by Andrew Dominik and based on Ron Hansen's novel, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a slow-burn Western that approaches the themes of hero worship and how dangerous that can be. Brad Pitt stars as Jesse James, while Casey Affleck is Robert Ford, a man who worships the old-school outlaw but changes his tune when he joins the gang. This is a movie that shows how the starstruck Ford killing James helped elevate him to mythic status. While it only has a 77% Rotten Tomatoes score, it has been praised for Roger Deakins' cinematography. The main complaints are about the slow-burn story, but that is part of the charm thanks to the visuals. It was a box office flop, but it deserves much more praise than it received. 9 Sexy Beast (2000) Jonathan Glazer made his feature film directorial debut with Sexy Beast in 2000. The movie stars Ray Winstone as retired safecracker Gary "Gal" Dove, a man who lives in Spanish exile. He is then called out of retirement when a violent gangster named Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) demands he return to London to pull off one more heist. Without much choice, he is pulled back into a life of crime. Sexy Beast has an 87% Rotten Tomatoes score, and it is Kingsley who received the most critical praise for his performance against type. Kingsley earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but the movie remains mostly forgotten today. It was a British independent film that has been overshadowed in the gangster genre, but it remains a near-perfect black comedy with great performances. 8 The Proposition (2005) Directed by John Hillcoat and written and scored by Nick Cave, The Proposition is an Australian Western released in 2005. An original story, this near-perfect 2000s movie stars Guy Pearce as the outlaw, Charlie Burns, who receives a proposition he can't refuse. He and his younger brother are captured, and he is told to kill his older brother or his younger one will be hanged. The Proposition is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an 85% rating. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis won Best Original Music Score at the 2005 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, and the soundtrack remains one of the best in the modern Western genre. Because it is an Australian movie, it remains underseen but is a grim, poetic outback Western. 7 Sunshine (2007) The team behind 28 Days Later reunited for the sci-fi movie Sunshine in 2007, with Danny Boyle directing based on an Alex Garland script. Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh, and Benedict Wong lead the cast in this movie, which is about saving the Earth by reigniting the sun in 2057. The high-concept sci-fi themes didn't help it at the box office. The film did receive positive reviews, with a 76% Rotten Tomatoes score, and it has continued to receive critical reappraisals, calling it a visually dazzling, yet underrated, intelligent sci-fi movie. Even with the reappraisals, it is one of Boyle's lesser-seen movies by mainstream audiences, but it deserves more praise for its highly intelligent storyline. 6 Layer Cake (2004) Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman) made his directorial debut with the 2004 movie Layer Cake. The movie stars Daniel Craig in an early-career leading-man role as an unnamed London cocaine dealer who operates in a business manner. He is planning to retire, but ends up being pulled into a kidnapping plot and a massive ecstasy deal, which leads to double-crosses and murder. Layer Cake has an 81% Rotten Tomatoes score, and it has often been noted as the movie that helped Craig land the James Bond role two years later. For anyone who loves the old-school Guy Ritchie gangster movies, they will find a lot to love in this British gangster thriller. 5 In Bruges (2008) Written and directed by Martin McDonagh in his feature film debut, In Bruges is a darkly comic gangster movie that stars Colin Farrell as a hitman sent into exile after a job goes wrong. When a planned assassination of a priest results in the death of a child, the hitman is sent to Bruges to lie low with his mentor (played by Brendan Gleeson). When the mentor is ordered to kill his protege, everything goes wrong. In Bruges has an 84% Rotten Tomatoes score, and the screenplay has been listed among the best of the 21st century by the Writers Guild of America. McDonagh received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay, while Farrell won the Golden Globe for his performance. The movie has become a cult classic, but it deserves more praise for its near-perfect script. 4 The Fall (2006) The Fall is a movie that never had a chance for mainstream success, but it deserves all the praise it receives. The movie was co-written and directed by Tarsem Singh and is very similar to the classic fantasy movie The Princess Bride. Instead of a grandfather telling his grandson a story, this movie has an injured stuntman telling a young girl in a hospital a story, manipulating her to get himself more morphine. That isn't what's important. Instead, the story he tells her plays out in a colorful, vibrant, fantastical tale of five heroes who set out to seek revenge for being wronged. The Fall has barely been seen by most audiences, and it has remained hard to find on streaming in modern times as well. It is a jaw-dropping movie using practical locations and visuals with almost no CGI, an amazing accomplishment. 3 Brick (2005) Directed by Rian Johnson, Brick is a 2005 neo-noir that is unlike any other movie in that genre. Instead of a hard-boiled detective setting out to solve a murder case, this movie takes place in a high school where all the teens speak in slang similar to old-school detective novels. While it is a high school movie, it also plays into the same themes, with a student investigating the death of his ex-girlfriend. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is incredible in his lead role as Brendan Frye, a student who plunges into the high school's criminal underworld to solve her murder, meeting a femme fatale and clashing with the high school's drug kingpin. The movie debuted at Sundance, where it won the Special Jury Prize, and while underseen, it was early proof of Johnson's talent as a screenwriter and director. 2 Zodiac (2007) Zodiac is one of the best true-crime movies ever made, but it is still not seen as the near-perfect masterpiece that it really is. Directed by David Fincher, Zodiac follows the Zodiac Killer murders, which remain unsolved to this day. It is based on Robert Graysmith's books about the case, with Jake Gyllenhaal playing Graysmith in the movie, a newspaper cartoonist who becomes obsessed with the case. The surrounding cast is also great, with Mark Ruffalo playing a police inspector who has grown tired of chasing leads and Robert Downey Jr. as a newspaper reporter who works with Graysmith at the start. Zodiac has a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score and remains listed among the best movies of the 21st century, despite the fact that few people talk about it today. 1 Children Of Men (2006) Children of Men is one of the best dystopian movies ever made, yet it is never mentioned among lesser movies released in the genre. Co-written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón and based on P.D. James' novel, the movie takes place in 2027 in a society where humanity has been infertile for 18 years, and society has realized that extinction is near. When the first pregnant woman in decades arrives, different factions want her for their own purposes. The movie has a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score, and the cinematography is magnificent, with unbroken long takes placing viewers in the story with an almost documentary feel. The film received three Oscar nominations, but thanks to its low box office totals, it remains underseen by mainstream audiences.