2001 was a completely bonkers year for movies. Here we celebrate some of our favorites--and some others as well.

It's hard to believe that 2001 was two decades ago--and not just because the last year has felt like two decades in and of itself. The early '00s are now officially in nostalgia territory and primed to give you an existential crisis about the passage of time. Thankfully, however, 2001 was a year with some truly incredible movie releases across all genres. From campy comedies like Wet Hot American Summer to the first Lord of The Rings movie, Hollywood was cranking out hits. Of course, there were also more than enough utterly regrettable movies to hit theaters, as well. But sometimes, even those have a special place in our hearts.

Unfortunately, it may be a while before we're all able to file into a theater and experience this sort of magic again here in the present--but after a year of quarantine practice, we're all mostly accustomed to the streaming service experience these days. And lucky for all of us, these 20-year-old movies are going to be easy enough to track down and re-watch, whenever and wherever you want.

So settle in and prepare to relive the feature films of your youth (or your teenage years, or your infancy) with 53 movies released in 2001. Let us know your favorites in the comments below.

1. Hannibal (February 9)

The much-anticipated sequel to 1990s The Silence of the Lambs proved to be a very different movie to its predecessor. When director Jonathan Demme turned down the chance to helm the follow-up, Ridley Scott took over and delivered an over-the-top, shocking, and darkly funny psychological drama. Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lector is broader but very entertaining, while Julianne Moore does a good job as Clarice Starling, replacing Jodie Foster. The film is better remembered for its ghoulish set-pieces--including a disfigured Gary Oldman being eaten alive by wild boars and Ray Liotta munching on his own brains--and it wasn't well-received by critics at the time. But Scott deserves credit for taking the movie in a different direction, and the influence that the movie had on the subsequent TV show of the same title is clear. -- Dan Auty

2. Monkeybone (February 23)

Monkeybone is the 2001 Brendan Fraser film that isn't The Mummy Returns. Honestly, that's all you need to know. The movie is a mix of live-action and stop-motion, as Fraser plays a cartoonist in a coma nearly the entire film, sending him on a sleeping journey through a weird world where he does everything from meeting his own cartoon creation--Monkeybone--to being imprisoned alongside Attila the Hun, Stephen King, and a number others by the god of sleep. Yes, this movie is weird. No, you shouldn't feel bad if you never saw it. It bombed hard at the box office. -- Chris E. Hayner

3. Memento (March 16)

The highly acclaimed Memento helped establish Christopher Nolan as one of cinema's most exciting filmmakers and laid out all the elements that would define his work in the years to come. It's all here--non-chronological structure, narrative ambiguity, and a dark exploration of the main character's struggles with his traumatic past. But unlike in some later movies, Nolan never let the gimmicks overshadow the story. Memento is a gripping, endlessly watchable thriller with tremendous performances from Guy Pierce, Joe Pantoliano, and Carrie-Anne Moss. Plus, you can actually hear the dialogue. -- Dan Auty

4. Pokemon 3 (April 6)

Pokemon 3--which you might know by its full name, Pokemon 3: The Movie - Spell of the Unown: Entei (but probably not)--is not the best-remembered of the Pokemon films. That prize, of course, goes to the original, which featured a nefarious, talking Mewtwo and an island of Poke-clones. How do you top that? You don't, but that didn't stop us from physically vibrating with anticipation for this entry back in hit US theaters in 2001. -- Mike Rougeau

5. Joe Dirt (April 11)

Joe Dirt being a peak era production of Adam Sandler's Happy Madison studio starring David Spade, you should know exactly what you're getting. But this particular product of the time has earned a cult following not only for its poop jokes and immature hijinks, but also for its surprisingly wholesome heart. Unlike many of Sandler's protagonists, Joe Dirt is a guy you actually want to root for. Watching this movie now will remind you to never have "no" in your heart, and good things will happen to you. -- Mike Rougeau

6. Josie and the Pussycats (April 11)

Long before Riverdale, the Archie-verse made it to the big screen with Josie and the Pussycats. While the movie essentially flopped at the box office, this musical comedy starring Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid, and Rachel Leigh Cook has become a cult classic. And why wouldn't it? It's essentially an ahead-of-its-time satire of consumerism and the recording industry. -- Chris E. Hayner

7. Freddy Got Fingered (April 20)

Imagine a world where Tom Green is so popular that he got to write, direct, and star in his own movie and was given $14 million to make it happen. The end result is a film loaded with gross-out humor and mediocre jokes. You may be surprised to learn it did not do well at the box office. -- Chris E. Hayner

8. The Mummy Returns (May 4)

Let's talk about the mummy in the room: The CGI Scorpion King in this sequel's climactic scene is not good. While 1999's The Mummy featured impressive-for-the-time computer graphics, they clearly overreached in The Mummy Returns. And yes, it's the first thing we think of when this movie comes to mind. But it shouldn't be, because the sequel has all the adventure, character, and heart of the original--plus, Evie is way more of a badass in the second one. -- Mike Rougeau

9. A Knight's Tale (May 11)

If you were a teenager in 2001, depending what floated your boat, you were very into Shannyn Sossamon or Heath Ledger (or both) in A Knight's Tale, a movie about a lowly man posing as a knight. Ledger nowadays may be remembered for his Joker performance in The Dark Knight, but his turn as William Thatcher shouldn't be forgotten. -- Mike Rougeau

10. Shrek (May 18)

This CGI comedy featuring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow absolutely blew up back in 2001. It subverted fairytale tropes, with a surprisingly raunchy sense of humor for a kids' movie, and features some top-level jokes--not to mention, not one, but two Smash Mouth songs. What more could you want? -- Mike Rougeau

11. Pearl Harbor (May 25)

When most people think of Pearl Harbor, they think of a national tragedy in which thousands of Americans lost their lives. Michael Bay, however, had little on his mind back in 2001 besides cheesy romance and big explosions, and that's what we got in this cinematic take on the attack. Notably, it marked the first movie to both win an Oscar (best sound editing) and be nominated for worst picture at that year's Razzies. -- Mike Rougeau

12. Moulin Rouge (June 1)

Though Moulin Rouge was far from his first movie, it was the introduction for many to Baz Luhrmann's signature anachronistic musical style--and it definitely made an impression. With Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman's tragic love story told with earworm mashups and slapstick gags, Moulin Rouge still holds its own twenty years later as an all-time classic. -- Mason Downey

13. Swordfish (June 8)

Hacking is complicated. You have to know how to code and remain calm under pressure, even if said pressure comes in the form of fellatio. That is an actual scene from the movie Swordfish starring John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, and Don Cheadle. Jackman plays a hacker hired by a counter-terrorist unit leader named Gabriel (Travolta) that needs money that's sitting in a DEA dummy corporation account that's gained tons of interest over the decades. And the best way to get money is to hack it. The plot is silly, the hacking is silly, and there's a monologue from Travolta about Hollywood making bad movies--which proves the movie gained self-awareness. -- Mat Elfring

14. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (June 15)

This oft-forgotten Disney animated movie about an early 20th century cartographer who's obsessed with finding the sunken kingdom of Atlantis isn't always remembered as a classic. But it's a ton of fun to watch today, especially if you haven't seen it since you were a kid. -- Mike Rougeau

15. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (June 15)

No, the Angelina Jolie-starring Tomb Raider movies weren't great. Sure, there are many worse video game adaptations--Super Mario Bros: The Movie, Street Fighter: The Movie, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and many more come to mind--and the first film did help launch Jolie's career. Still, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and its sequel remain incredibly forgettable. However, these films were created for one reason and one reason only--for teenage gamers to gawk at Jolie--and in that, at least, it succeeded. -- Chris E. Hayner

16. The Fast and the Furious (June 22)

I love family. I also love being fast and/or furious. However, the Fast and Furious franchise was a completely different genre of film when the series kicked off in 2001. It was a movie about street racing and cars. In fact, there are a lot of motorized vehicle-centric movies from this time era: BikerBoyz, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Italian Job, Driven, Torque, The Transporter, and the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car? The first Furious movie follows an officer who goes undercover into the world of illegal street racing. It was pretty much Point Break, beat-for-beat, but with street racing instead of surfing. -- Mat Elfring

17. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (June 29)

The sci-fi drama A.I. started life as a project for Stanley Kubrick, but after years of stalled development, he passed the movie to his friend Steven Spielberg in 1995. Kubrick's death in 1999 led Spielberg to resume work on it and the result is a fascinating collision of both artists' sensibilities. Kubrick's interests in identity and the development of potentially dangerous technologies are countered by Spielberg's far more humanistic and optimistic worldview. Haley Joel Osment is unforgettable as David, the android boy who sets out on a journey through an often scary dystopian world with Jude Law's pleasure robot Gigolo Joe. A.I. is a strange blend of dark, hard sci-fi and whimsical fantasy, but somehow it works. -- Dan Auty

18. Scary Movie 2 (July 4)

The first Scary movie parodied a long list of late '90s teen slasher movies. The second film, which saw much of the original cast return, went in a different direction, though. Instead, it was a haunted house movie that spoofed a number of haunted house movies from several decades. Naturally, it also mocked a number of non-horror properties, from Dirty Harry to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Why? Because lazy laughs about non-related genres are much easier to come up with than continuously mining more and more obscure layers of horror humor. -- Chris E. Hayner

19. Kiss of the Dragon (July 6)

As the reputation of Hong Kong action cinema exploded in the '90s, many of the country's biggest stars and directors were lured to the West to make movies there. Martial arts icon Jet Li was hired by Fifth Element director Luc Besson to star in Kiss of the Dragon, which was written and produced by Besson and directed by Chris Nahon. The plot is a fairly routine story of a Chinese cop who tracks a drug lord to Paris and ends up framed for murder. But the movie is stylishly shot and the action is frequent, brutal, and incredibly exciting. Besson and Nahon wisely avoided the wirework that was common at the time in movies such as The Matrix, and instead showcased Li's dazzling fighting skills. -- Dan Auty

20. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (July 11)

As this was arguably the peak era for Final Fantasy games, with FF7 still fresh in gamers' minds and the beloved FFX releasing the same year, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was highly anticipated for a certain crowd. It may have been a disappointment, but it's interesting to revisit it today for its then-cutting-edge computer graphics. -- Mike Rougeau

21. Legally Blonde (July 13)

Elle Wood's journey from stereotype to Harvard educated lawyer has gone from being a funny, early '00s staple to a memetic rallying cry for anyone who has ever wanted to try something that seemed a bit out of their league. And Elle herself has become the patron saint of shirking expectations for a generation of movie-goers. "What, like it's hard?" -- Mason Downey

22. Jurassic Park III (July 18)

Maybe you don't remember the third Jurassic Park movie. For the first trilogy, there was definitely a law of diminishing returns. However, at least this is the movie that brought Sam Neill and Laura Dern back to the franchise. With the good comes the bad; Jeff Goldblum was gone and Steven Spielberg didn't return to direct this final film (at the time) in this series. So, while it doesn't measure up to the original of Lost World, it's at least still a big, dumb dinosaur movie. -- Chris E. Hayner

23. Ghost World (July 20)

One of the best comic book adaptations ever made was released in 2001, but there wasn't a superhero in sight. Daniel Clowes' Ghost World was published in his cult '90s comic Eight Ball, where it was acclaimed for its realistic and sympathetic portrayal of its disaffected teenage characters. Terry Zwigoff 's movie version was a brilliant translation of what made the comic so beloved, with Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson perfectly cast as Enid and Rebecca, two high school friends who have little time for their peers and the rules that society places on them. Enid's friendship with much older record-collecting loner Seymour, beautifully played by Steve Buscemi, is one of the most unusual but strangely affecting you'll see, and Zwigoff and Clowes' script skilfully moves between sardonic humor and heartfelt melancholy. -- Dan Auty

24. Planet of the Apes (July 27)

Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes reboot is often looked down on. After all, it stars Mark Wahlberg and puts beloved character actors like Helena Bonham Carter and Paul Giamatti under a surprising amount of prosthetics to make them appear like apes. It was also met with many negative reviews and, ultimately, didn't reignite the franchise. In retrospect, while Burton's take on the series remains one of his worst movies--and nowhere near the caliber of Matt Reeves' trilogy of Apes films--this Planet of the Apes is a very entertaining watch, even if you'll spend a chunk of it making jokes with whoever else is in the room. Besides, the Danny Elfman score, alone, makes this movie one to remember. -- Chris E. Hayner

25. Wet Hot American Summer (July 27)

You'd be hard-pressed to find a movie crammed full of more pre-big break actor-comedian cameos than cult classic Wet Hot American Summer. From Paul Rudd to Bradley Cooper to Amy Poehler, this surrealist summer camp movie has absolutely everything: young love, thrilling action, and, of course, a meteor strike threatening to destroy Earth. Oh, and it all takes place over the course of a single day. You really can't go wrong. -- Mason Downey

26. The Princess Diaries (August 3)

Before she was Catwoman or an Oscar winner for her role in Les Miserables, Anne Hathway found fame as Mia, a California teen-turned princess of a European nation in The Princess Diaries. It's a simple movie but managed to launch not only Hathaway's acting career but pop singer Mandy Moore's, as well--she played Mia's bully. -- Chris E. Hayner

27. Rush Hour 2 (August 3)

Rush Hour was a good idea that should have worked once. Instead, it went on to somehow be a trilogy of films. In the second chapter, the cops played by Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan team up once again, this time on Chan's home turf in China, though. Remember all of the fish out of water jokes made about Chan's character in the first movie? Just reverse those to make them about Tucker and you have Rush Hour 2. -- Chris E. Hayner

28. American Pie 2 (August 10)

It's the summer after their freshman year of college and the American Pie gang have returned for, well, honestly, a lot more of the same. Much like the first American Pie--and the long list of Pie-adjacent movies that followed--American Pie 2 is loaded with the exact kind of lewd humor you'd expect. -- Chris E. Hayner

29. Osmosis Jones (August 10)

Osmosis Jones starred Bill Murray as an extremely gross dude named Frank who eats an egg off the ground at the zoo and gets infected with a deadly virus. The inside of his body is animated, and a white blood cell played by Chris Rock gets tasked with taking the virus down. This was the type of movie your substitute science teacher would put on when they didn't feel like actually teaching. I'm pretty sure it was in no way educational, but it was entertaining. -- Mike Rougeau

30. Rat Race (August 17)

Rat Race certainly has an impressive cast, with John Cleese, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, Cuba Gooding Jr., and so many more starring. It even had Jerry Zucker, director of the movie Ghost, at the helm. And yet, it's not good. The film follows a group of strangers as they race 500 miles to win a chunk of money and is loaded with the kind of gags fans of Zucker's other movies--Top Secret, Airplane, and any number of other parody films--might enjoy. Unfortunately, the humor doesn't work nearly as well in this film as his other projects and Rat Race is simply not as well-remembered. -- Chris E. Hayner

31. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (August 24)

If you like movies that I saw five times in the theater because I was the exact target audience, then you're me. Writer/director Kevin Smith took his stoner characters Jay and Silent Bob on a road trip from New Jersey to Hollywood to stop a superhero movie being made using their likenesses. It featured all your favorite View Askewniverse characters and lots of jokes about sex and drugs. It is everything a person between the ages of 16-20 at the time loved--so much so that in 2019, Kevin Smith did a reboot of this exact same plot for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot--which I also saw a bunch of times, because I'm still the target demographic. -- Mat Elfring

32. Jeepers Creepers (August 31)

There's a specific style that accompanies early '00s horror--and while it may not always stand the test of time (seriously, some of the early CGI is really rough) there's definitely a nostalgia factor there. Jeepers Creepers is about as run-of-the-mill as you can get in that style--the story of a pair of siblings on their way home from college waylaid by a monster who's out to harvest their organs--but it's still a fun watch. -- Mason Downey

33. Hardball (September 14)

Hardball came out during the phase in the years following The Matrix in which I'd watch literally anything with Keanu Reeves in it, before the spell was broken by the very bad Matrix sequels (fingers crossed for Matrix 4). That's honestly all I remember about it, but Wikipedia tells me it was about Keanu teaching a bunch of inner-city kids how to do baseball good and maybe learning a lesson or two along the way. -- Mike Rougeau

34. Zoolander (September 28)

If you were in middle or high school when Zoolander came out, odds are it took over you and

your friends' vocabulary and entire sense of humor the way that only a few comedies each generation do. If you're in this group, and you can say the word "Hansel" without adding "(He's so hot right now)" or hear the song Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go without thinking of orange mocha frappuccinos and deadly gasoline fires, you may have been in a coma that year, and I'm very sorry for you. -- Mike Rougeau

35. Training Day (October 5)

There comes a time in many movie star's careers when they want to tackle a more villainous role--take Tom Cruise in Collateral or Robin Williams in Insomnia. For Denzel Washington, it was Training Day, in which he played corrupt LA cop Alonzo Harris, who takes younger officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) for an increasingly dangerous 12-hour ride through the gang-infested neighborhoods of South Central LA. Washington rightly won the Best Actor Oscar for his charismatic, complex, and scary performance, but he was matched by Hawke (who was nominated), while director Antoine Fuqua kept things gripping and unpredictable. -- Dan Auty

36. Joy Ride (October 5)

Joyride is a tense updating of classic scary road movies such as Duel and The Hitcher, and focuses on a group of kids who are relentlessly pursued by a truck-driving psychopath known as Rusty Nail. He's a lonely long-distance driver who is the victim of a cruel prank, so decides that hunting down the trio in his massive vehicle is an appropriate response. An unseen and uncredited Ted Levine (Silence of the Lambs' Buffalo Bill) makes Rusty Nail a terrifying presence over the crackly radio, and director John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) again showed why he was one of the best thriller directors of the era. -- Dan Auty

37. Mulholland Drive (October 12)

David Lynch's filmography is legendary--and legendarily strange--but 2001 saw the release of what may actually be his scariest movie ever. Mulholland Drive is a surrealistic meditation on Hollywood and celebrity in Lynch's signature style, and while it's not strictly speaking a horror movie, it's crammed so full of moments that will make your skin crawl it may as well be. If you haven't already had a chance to be traumatized by the thing behind Winkie's Diner, this is a sign to get right on that. -- Mason Downey

38. From Hell (October 19)

From Hell is, at best, a decent horror movie about Jack the Ripper based on a graphic novel by Watchmen author Alan Moore. Its murders are gory and Johnny Depp's portrayal of an inspector trying to solve the case is interesting. There's not much to it beyond that, though. And, not surprisingly, Moore wasn't a fan of the adaptation. -- Chris E. Hayner

39. Shallow Hal (November 9)

This movie sucks. The premise is "How do you make Jack Black fall in love with an overweight woman?" and the answer is he sees her as Gwyneth Paltrow. There are plenty of unfunny jokes about her weight layered throughout. -- Chris E. Hayner

40. Donnie Darko (October 26)

Before Jake Gyllenhaal was a cowboy, a supervillain, or a conspiracy theory obsessed journalist trying to solve the Zodiac murders, he was a troubled teen named Donnie being stalked by a man in the world's scariest bunny costume. Donnie Darko is a genre-bending sci-fi drama that will keep you thinking--or, at the very least, get Gary Jules' Mad World cover stuck in your head for a little while. -- Mason Downey

41. Thirteen Ghosts (October 26)

This 2001 remake of a 1960s horror movie may be pretty campy by today's standards, but that doesn't make it any less amazing. Thirteen Ghosts follows a family trapped inside a spooky mansion made out of glass, filled with--you guessed it--thirteen ghosts all out to kill them. The ghosts themselves are what make the movie, done with early '00s practical effects and given names and backstories to correspond to a fictional evil version of the zodiac system--that, and performances by actors like Matthew Lillard and Tony Shalhoub. -- Mason Downey

42. Amelie (November 2)

French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet had shown his offbeat, dark, but hilarious style of filmmaking with his '90s collaborations with Marc Caro, Delicatessen and City of Lost Children, plus, to a lesser degree, Alien Resurrection. But it was Amélie that remains his most beloved movie. Audrey Totaou delivered a star-making performance as Amélie Poulain, a shy Parisian waitress who decides to start changing the lives of the people in her life--mostly for the better, but occasionally with darker intentions. Jeunet retains the eccentric characters and stylized camerawork from his earlier films, but adds a layer of whimsical romantic comedy. The film was a big international success, grossing $174 million worldwide. -- Dan Auty

43. Monsters, Inc. (November 2)

When it comes to Pixar, Monsters Inc. might be the most underrated film the studio has ever released. Obviously, there's a lot of love for each installment of Toy Story, while movies like Wall-E and Up are touted for their ability to make audiences cry on command. Monsters Inc., though, is not only one of the studio's most inventive ideas but also served as one of Pixar's first examples of how to play on the emotions of a viewer. It's about a monster getting in touch with his humanity thanks to the child he was supposed to be scaring and is, ultimately, a touching yet hilarious look into a fully realized world filled with creative creatures, interesting locations, and a friendship sparked between a little girl and a big, furry, blue monster she calls Kitty. -- Chris E. Hayner

44. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (November 16)

It's the movie that started it all. The first Harry Potter film is by no means the franchise's best, but it introduced those that weren't familiar with the goods to the magical wizarding world that Harry Potter lives in--and instantly turned its young cast into superstars. -- Chris E. Hayner

45. Behind Enemy Lines (November 30)

When you think of Owen Wilson, goofball comedies and quirky Wes Anderson movies probably come to mind. That is, unless you've seen Behind Enemy Lines, in which Wilson, alongside Gene Hackman, stars as an American pilot who gets shot down in enemy territory during the Bosnian War. The same year, Hackman also co-starred with Owen Wilson in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, which was co-written by Wilson and also starred his brother Luke Wilson. See? It's all coming together. -- Mike Rougeau

46. Ocean's 11 (December 7)

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better heist movie than Ocean's 11, a remake of a '60s film by the same name starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as two of the world's most charming burglars wrangling a team of highly specialized criminals to pull one over on a Vegas casino. It's snappy and fast-paced, hilarious, and deeply satisfying--the sort of Robin Hood story of the little guys banding together to take on the rich and give to, uh, themselves, but that's beside the point. -- Mason Downey

47. Not Another Teen Movie (December 14)

The '00s were stuffed with parody films, from the Scary Movie franchise to one-offs like Team America: World Police and Shaun of the Dead. It would be easy to dismiss Not Another Teen Movie as as much of a waste of time as similar entries like Epic Movie, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth, and Meet the Spartans. It's a cut above the lesser parody films of the '00s, though, both in terms of humor and cast. It's a legitimately funny movie that spoofs the tropes of classic teen films and includes hilarious performances from the likes of Chyler Leigh (Supergirl), Mia Kirshner (Star Trek: Discovery), and a young Chris Evans (Avengers: Endgame). -- Chris E. Hayner

48. The Royal Tenenbaums (December 14)

The Royal Tenenbaums wasn't Wes Anderson's first movie, and it's arguably not even his best. But it's the one that rocketed him into mainstream (albeit extremely twee) culture, and deservedly so: It's a hilarious, heartfelt, idiosyncratic look into a fictional family's screwed up dynamics with a star-studded cast and Anderson's signature, inimitable style on full display. -- Mike Rougeau

49. Vanilla Sky (December 14)

Vanilla Sky remains one of the most interesting Tom Cruise movies of the last 20 years, during a time in which the actor leaned further and further into the role of action hero. This sci-fi thriller made viewers look at their own fear of death and the life they might sacrifice just to make sure they never have to face it down. While by no means a perfect film, it's intriguing to look back on the types of films Cruise was making when there were still only two Mission: Impossible movies. -- Chris E. Hayner

50. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (December 19)

The first part of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings adaptation was unquestionably one of the most anticipated movies of the year, and many fans were nervous about whether the director could pull off such a massive undertaking. Thankfully the results went beyond expectations, and the movie now stands as one of the greatest fantasy movies ever made. From the spot-on casting and amazing visual effects to the breathtaking locations and set design, Jackson delivered an incredible vision of Middle-Earth that dazzles in its scope but never forgets to keep the emphasis on the human (and hobbit, dwarf, and elf) characters and their struggle. -- Dan Auty

51. The Majestic (December 21)

If there's one thing you remember about The Majestic, it's that the movieintroduced a new side of Jim Carrey. After years of his slapstick comedy films, this was one of the first times he showed a serious side, coming not long after Man on the Moon and three years before Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's also an interesting film of its time. Releasing just two months after the September 11 attacks, a time when the United States was wrapped up in an overdose of flag-waving patriotism, The Majestic told a different kind of American story, set in the '50s when many in Hollywood feared being labeled Communist sympathizers and being blacklisted from the entertainment industry. The movie ultimately bombed at the box office and it can be overly-hokey in how it tells its story. That said, it might be worth giving a shot if you've never seen it. -- Chris E. Hayner

52. A Beautiful Mind (December 21)

Inspired by a true story, A Beautiful Mind stars Russell Crowe as mathematician John Nash, a brilliant man who also suffered from delusions brought on by paranoid schizophrenia. It went on to inspire really good It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia memes. -- Mike Rougeau

53. Black Hawk Down (December 28)

Directed by Ridley Scott and written by Ken Nolan--who is not related to Jonathan and Christopher Nolan--Black Hawk Down is a war movie that was based on a 1999 non-fiction book of the same name by journalist Mark Bowden. It featured a star-studded cast, including the big-screen debut of one Tom Hardy--which means if not for this movie, we likely never would have gotten Mad Max: Fury Road or Venom. Turns out we owe it a lot. -- Mike Rougeau