This isn’t a treatise on whether the 2000s was a decade of movies that represents the best cinema has to offer, but this is a declaration that the 2000s shaped how movies were made, enjoyed, and talked about forever after. The 1990s was a banner decade for movies. Thrillers like Silence of the Lambs, crime dramas like Goodfellas, and beloved classics like Shawshank Redemption filled the racks of video stores back in those days. Now in the 2020s, the 2000s are starting to feel further and further away.

That may be a little distressing for some, melancholic for others. Time comes for us all. However, it provides us with some perspective as well, and while the 2000s aren’t ancient history, enough time has pᴀssed that we can get a sense of how the decade of film influenced the years afterward. And boy, did it influence the way we consume movies. Even the movies of the 2000s that you’ve forgotten about have shaped the rest of the century in film. Animation techniques, the explosion of genre films, and even memes have this decade of movies to thank.

The Memeability Of The 2000s

Movies In The 2000s Went Viral Before Going Viral Was A Thing

“Stop trying to make fetch happen!“, “That escalated quickly“, “For Frodo“, take your pick of a classic meme, and chances are that they come from a 2000s movie. The internet was quickly becoming a ubiquitous part of culture in the 2000s, so movies from that decade were in the perfect position to take advantage. Films like Mean Girls, Anchorman, Casino Royale, and Napoleon Dynamite have a parallel fandom to the one that simply enjoys them for the films they are. These, and many more 2000s movies, birthed literal subreddits of memes years after they premiered.

Some movies, like Race to Witch Mountain, have been outshone by the very memes they spawned. “Going viral” was not a thing in the 2000s in the way we think of it now. But if the phrase had been a part of pop culture then, we would have been using it to describe films such as The Departed, H๏τ Fuzz, Up, The Dark Knight, and more. This is still when people had movies on DVDs, and maybe Blu-rays, if they were lucky, meaning people would watch them over and over. That repeтιтion creates familiarity, which inevitably leads to memes.

The Superhero Era Began In The 2000s

Iron Man Introduced The MCU And Changed Everything

For better or for worse, the 2000s introduced us to the superhero era of movies. While the 2010s were the heyday and the 2020s appear to be the crash, it was the 2000s that proved to audiences, critics, and most importantly, studios, that superhero movies were viable. Take a look at any list of the best superhero movies, and the cream of the crop are primarily from the 2000s. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, X2, all these films are not just excellent superhero movies, they’re just excellent movies, period.

These films showed how you didn’t need to have read every single comic to understand a character. Superheroes were no longer just for young men. They were dramatic, well-crafted, thrilling, and surprising, everything you could want out of a movie. The Dark Knight earned over $1 billion at the box office (via BoxOfficeMojo) and even forced the Academy Awards to change how many Best Picture nominees there would be going forward, jumping from five nominees in 2009 to ten in 2010. Don’t forget that a stinger at the end of Iron Man shaped the modern blockbuster industry for good.

Fantasy Began To Be Taken Seriously As A Genre

The Lord Of The Rings Opened The Door For Fantasy

Before the 2000s, fantasy was not taken seriously as a genre. In literature, it was certainly a critical piece of any country’s canon, but on the screen, filmmakers could not get it to translate to wide audiences and critics. Movies like The Dark Crystal, Willow, Labyrinth, Highlander, and Dragonheart all have their defenders, and some were even successful, but they were never considered to be movies with mᴀss market appeal or awards aspirations. That all changed thanks to a tireless New Zealand director by the name of Peter Jackson.

His Lord of the Rings trilogy ended in 2003 with The Return of the King, shattering box office records and, more notably, Academy Award win records. So came a new age, an age of fantasy. Though The Lord of the Rings ended early in the decade, more fantastic fantasy came along to pick up the slack. Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pan’s Labyrinth, the Chronicles of Narnia, and even the Twilight series showed that talking animals, magic, and knights in shining armor could move the box office and critical needles. There is no Game of Thrones without this decade.

Found Footage Opened A New Door For Horror

Paranormal Activity Picked Up The Baton From The Blair Witch Project

While few found footage horror movies have managed to match the terror of The Blair Witch Project, the traditional start of the subgenre, it was the next decade that decided they would become a major piece of horror going forward. The 1990s were not a great time for horror. Successful horror had to have its tongue in its cheek and tease what was previously popular, like with Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer. Horror needed a jolt of energy, and The Blair Witch brought it. Found footage was suddenly viable, and the 2000s ran with it.

These ultra-cheap horror films brought horror back to its roots. Paranormal Activity, REC, Lake Mungo, and Cloverfield all proved that anyone with a camera could make something absolutely terrifying, and it could be successful at the box office. Other genres got in on the game, like District 9. Far from being a flash-in-the-pan, found footage horror is here to stay. The V/H/S franchise, The Bay, Creep, Hell House LLC, and Late Night with the Devil continue to show that found footage horror is a great way to make something worthwhile and scary on the cheap.

Computer Animation Overtook Traditional Animation

Few Movies Are Hand Drawn Or Animated In Two Dimensions Anymore

The Disney Renaissance ended in 1999 with Tarzan, and what replaced it forced Disney to completely change how it animated its movies afterward. Shrek premiered in 2001 and was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. This computer-animated movie was a mᴀssive box office and critical success and signaled that computer animation would be the coin of the realm going forward. Robots, Monster House, Ice Age, and all the Pixar movies ensured that even Disney would turn to computer animation for its next stage of animated movies.

Less Popular Movie Categories Rose To Prominence

Non-English Language Films And Feature-Length Documentaries Rose In Popularity

There’s barely any reason to have a Best International Feature Film award at the Oscars anymore, but in the 2000s, these movies were just beginning to get popular. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Apocalypto were all subтιтled movies that were met with critical acclaim and box office success. Now, a year rarely goes by without at least one foreign-language film in the Best Picture category.

Long-form documentaries with populist appeal also began to premiere in this decade. March of the Penguins, Fahrenheit 9/11, Grizzly Man, The Cove, and Man On Wire all come from the 2000s. Blackfish, Icarus, and Free Solo all have 2000s movies to thank for paving the way for them to succeed.