In 1912, W.G. Faulkner started his weekly movie criticism column in the London Evening News.
In it, he detailed his experiences watching new films and offered his opinion on everything from their subject matter to reflections on the films as a form of art.
Since then, millions of newspapers, online media publications, and blogs have tried their hand in the ever-changing medium.
In the 1990s, the internet was not yet at its’ heights. People were still getting use to the shift from print to digital and newspapers were still very popular.
However, one issue with newspapers were the lack of variety that came with reviews. Specifically in regards to film criticism, each newspaper only had one or two writers providing their reviews of new films.
In 1998, three college students changed all of that when they launched Rotten Tomatoes.
Since its launch in the late '90s, Rotten Tomatoes has provided thousands of reviews for thousands of films from hundreds of different movie critics. The review aggregation website has showcased some extraordinary films and some downright terrible ones.
The 2000s was a fantastic decade for film. Over the course of the 10 years, production companies released everything from harrowing action flicks like Gladiator to game-changing comedies such as The Hangover.
The decade also saw the release of some bad movies (Master of Disguise, anyone?)
Thankfully, Rotten Tomatoes has covered them all.
Here are the 16 Best (And 10 Worst) ’00s Movies According To Rotten Tomatoes, Ranked.
26 Best: Slumdog Millionaire - 91%
This 2008 best picture winner almost did not receive the recognition it clearly deserved.
The movie's director, Danny Boyle reported that after the Distributor, Warner Independent Pictures, was shut down, studio heads considered releasing it as direct-to-DVD.
The films avoided this terrible fate after Fox Seachlight purchased the right to Slumdog Millionaire.
The movie follows a poor young boy, Jamal Malik, from India. He goes on a trivia game show and is able to answer every question correctly.
Through the film, the viewer is brought through Jamal’s difficult and impoverished upbringing that led to his knowledge of all the questions.
The movie was a hit throughout the world, went on to win numerous awards, and made a star out of Dev Patel.
25 Worst: One Missed Call - 0%
One Missed Call is a supernatural Japanese horror movie about a group of students receiving strange phone calls that lead to their passing.
It was a remake of a poorly reviewed Japanese film of the same name.
Like a lot of other horror films, One Missed Call received a relatively large amount of hype. It became a moderate box office success making 45 million dollars.
The viewers who ran to the theaters to watch it may have regretted the decision as the film was universally panned.
Zero of the eighty critics featured as reviewers for this film on Rotten Tomatoes could recommend the movie.
It still holds a 0% to this day on the website.
24 Best: Children of Men - 92%
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón is known for his innovative filmmaking and beautiful cinematography.
He put all his techniques to use when he got behind the camera to direct the 2006 dystopian drama, Children of Men.
The movie follows Clive Owen’s Theo as he tries to help seemingly the last pregnant woman on Earth survive and give birth. They fight with the government and lawless criminals along the way.
The film was universally loved and received praise across countless review websites.
Cuarón’s movie was listed on numerous end of the year top ten lists and received three Academy Award nominations, although it did not win any.
To this day, the film is noted for its’ impressive single-shot action sequences that the director has utilized in most of his films to date.
23 Worst: Superbabies 2: Baby Geniuses - 0%
In 1999, TriStar Pictures release Superbabies, an action-comedy film lacking on any interesting action or funny jokes.
The movie follows several genius babies through ridiculous adventures and battles with evil adults.
It was universally ridiculed and received just a 2% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the film made three times its’ original budget in the box office which could only mean one thing: a sequel was coming.
Five years after the release of the original movie, Superbabies 2: Baby Geniuses came out with more ridiculous adventures and a more specific title.
It also cast veteran actor Jon Voigt as the villainous TV mogul, Bill Biscane. Just like its predecessor, it received extremely poor reviews and went on to hold a 0% on the Tomatometer.
I guess viewers could not get past the digital altered baby mouths.
22 Best: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - 93%
What if you had the opportunity to erase those painful memories from your mind? What about erasing an entire person?
These are the questions raised by writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry in their 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The movie details the lives and relationship of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet), who go through procedures to erase each other from their minds after a break-up.
The film portrays love and relationships truthfully, but with a wonderfully bizarre twist on the storytelling.
Critics loved the unique story and especially enjoyed the performances of Carrey and Winslet.
It received and still holds a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.
21 Best: The Dark Knight - 94%
Since the 1940s, Batman has been portrayed in movies fourteen times. The first film to showcase the billionaire playboy/masked superhero was in the 1943 film entitled Batman.
The movies became very popular in the late 1980s and 1990s after a series of films were released in a short period of times.
For the most part, all of the movies smashed the box offices and many were critical successes as well.
Studios took a temporary break from Batman after the 1997 disaster Batman and Robin was released and quickly became one of the worst superhero films of all time.
Christopher Nolan revived the franchise in 2005 with the release of Batman Begins.
He followed it up with the sequel The Dark Knight, a brilliantly exciting and well told story of Bruce Wayne’s battle with the Joker (Heath Ledger).
20 Worst: Homecoming - 0%
The poster for the 2009 Mischa Barton movie has the phrase “He loves me, he loves me… not.” The critics sure did not love the movie, however, as none of the twenty-four writers featured on the Rotten Tomatoes gave it a positive review.
Much of the issues people had with the film was that it was wildly unoriginal.
It hits all of the overused movie tropes, as it follows the popular jock from high school and his new girlfriend trying to survive his crazy, and potentially dangerous, ex-girlfriend.
Along with the 0% on the Tomatometer, it received just a 21/100 score on the popular website, Metacritic.
It was so poorly reviewed that it was distributed straight to DVD in the United Kingdom.
19 Best: Iron Man - 94%
As a genius, billionaire, and superhero, Robert Downey Jr. wears a lot of hats with his portrayal of Tony Stark/Iron Man in the 2008 superhero – and sometimes comedy – Iron Man.
Critics loved the film, noting that it was a fantastic and fun summer movie. It went on to win the Best Summer Movie So Far award at the MTV Movie Awards.
Critics specifically noted Downey Jr’s performance and the special effects as being an integral part of the film’s success. Todd McCarthy of Variety called it an "expansively entertaining special effects extravaganza."
While superhero movies certainly were not new, it could be argued that Iron Man’s success, along with other superhero movies such as The Dark Knight that came out during this time period, led to the boom in superhero movies that is currently going on.
18 Worst: Stolen - 0%
The 2009 movie Stolen is a perfect example of how an interesting plot and good acting cannot save a movie if the story is not told right.
Stolen tells the story of a police officer struggling to move past the disappearance of his son years previously.
In fact, he works tirelessly to uncover why his son went missing while also investigating the demise of a young boy in 1958.
The movie stars Jon Hamm as the police officer and also has Rhona Mitra and Jessica Chastain in supporting roles.
Despite the engrossing plot and veteran actors, especially Hamm, trying their best, the film received universal critical disapproval and 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
17 Best: Casino Royale - 94%
The twenty-first instalment in the Bond franchise follows MI6 agency 007 James Bond as he battles financer Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) in a… game of poker.
While the plot does not sound too exciting on paper, the movie contains plenty of action scenes.
Chief among them is the now-famous chase scene that shows Bond (Daniel Craig) tracking down a bomb maker through the streets (and industrial cranes) of a Ugandan village.
Casino Royale was Daniel Craig’s first portrayal of the iconic character. While his hiring was initially met with controversy, he was soon praised for making the typically suave and smooth James Bond as a more intense and physical protagonist.
16 Worst: Redline - 0%
Director Andy Cheng’s movie Redline probably seemed like a good idea to make at the time.
It came out in 2007 when The Fast and the Furious franchises were still dishing out very popular sequels.
Cheng’s film follows the same format, showcasing a group of millionaires who make bets on supercar races.
Unlike the Fast franchise, this movie was not a box office success and ended up grossing eight million against a budget of twenty-six million. It was also panned by all critics.
The film became notorious for issues related to its production. The most noteworthy being that the movie was funded on a subprime mortgage just before the subprime mortgage crisis.
15 Best: Pan’s Labyrinth - 95%
The Critical Consensus section of Rotten Tomatoes calls Guillermo Del Toro’s spellbinding fantasy movie “Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups," and next to the short write up is the 95% certified fresh tomatometer score.
Only 12 of the 229 reviewers did not consider the movie “fresh.”
The film takes place during the Spanish Civil War and follows a young girl who struggles with issues with her mother and her new step-father at home.
She finds an elaborate labyrinth presided over by a tall, lanky monster named Pan. Pan convinces Ofelia that she is a lost princess from legend and sets her on a journey to reclaim her kingdom.
The movie perfectly blends phantasmagorical cinema with realism.
14 Worst: National Lampoon’s Gold Diggers - 0%
National Lampoon’s Gold Diggers also goes by the alternate title of National Lampoon’s Lady Killers. It turns out that regardless of the name, this movie was a stinker.
The film follows two friends, played by Will Friedle and Chris Owen, who marry two older women for their money.
While the movie is an attempt at comedy, it has very few laughs.
Though the film holds a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, it is more notorious for its awful run in the box office.
It had a theatrical run of just a week before being yanked from the theaters.
In total, the movie earned $400 dollars per theater on average.
13 Best: Lost in Translation - 95%
Sofia Coppola won praise as an artist for her directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, but it was her 2003 project that put her on the map.
Lost in Translation was released to immediately universal praise.
Maybe the most noteworthy praise came toward Bill Murray’s portrayal of the lonely actor Bob Harris and his odd relationship with a young woman he meets in Japan who is played by Scartlett Johansson.
It was a rare dramatic turn for Murray, who typically plays goofy characters in slapstick comedies.
Murray was awarded an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, while Sofia Coppola became the third woman to be nominated for best Director.
12 Worst: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever - 0%
What do you get when you have a misleading movie title and a director who goes by the name Kaos? Apparently one of the worst reviewed films on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever stars Antonio Banderas as FBI Agent Jeremiah Ecks and Lucy Liu as ex-DIA agent Sever (no first name given) who are investigating the kidnapping of the Defense Intelligence Agency director’s son.
The two actual team up together to solve this crime bringing the “vs.” in the title into question.
The most common criticism of the movie is its messy and hard-to-follow plot and the overuse of bad special effects.
The film might be so bad that it is actually fun to watch.
11 Best: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - 97%
Taiwanese director Ang Lee is partially known for his ability to direct films that fall under a myriad of different genres.
He has been behind the camera for everything from superhero movies such as Hulk to romantic dramas like Brokeback Mountain.
His greatest achievement in film may have come in 2000 when Sony Pictures Classics released the wuxia martial arts movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
The movie follows Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) and his relationship with Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) along with his desire to avenge his Master’s demise.
Eighteen years after the film’s release, it holds a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and is universally lauded for its action sequences and emotional story.
10 Best: Once (97%)
The 2007 romantic musical drama film Once has a great background story as it was almost not made.
Once spent years in the pre-production days due to issues over budget and questions regarding who would play the parts of the two main characters that only go by “guy” and “girl.”
Cillian Murphy, a former almost rock musician, was asked to play the role of “guy,” but turned it down as he felt he could not meet the vocal expectations that came with the opportunity.
As a result, it seemed at the time as though the movie might be tabled. In the end, though, they were able to get it into production and the film was made on a budget of just over 100 thousand dollars.
The movie went on to be a commercial and critical success and even won an Oscar for Best Original Song.
9 Worst: Derailed - 0%
Who do you call when a top-secret biological weapon is stolen and the whole world is at risk? Jackie Chan? Steven Segal, maybe?
Well, both of those actors would probably have fit in this movie perfectly, but in this case, you call international action star Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Van Damme plays Jacques Kristoff in this action thriller chock-full of crazy fighting sequences. While that all sounds interesting, critics had trouble recommending that anyone see the film.
The movie has a 0% on the Tomatometer, with the critical consensus being that it is “familiar and pulpy” and relies heavily on “preposterous twists.”
Straight-to-video turned out to be the right move for this movie.
8 Best: The Hurt Locker - 97%
“War is a [substance]” claims the 2008 Academy Award Best Picture winner in the opening title sequence of the film.
The movie itself is an addicting, engrossing, and unblinking look at the Iraq War and what it does to the soldiers who fight in it.
Jeremy Renner stars in this Kathryn Bigelow-directed vehicle. Critics, on the way to giving it one of the best scores on Rotten Tomatoes, heralded Renner’s realistic portrayal of a damaged soldier and Bigelow’s deft directing style.
The critics rewarded Bigelow by making her the first female to win an Academy Award for Best Director.
This movie had people wanting to come back for another watch.
7 Best: Let the Right One In - 98%
Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) has the distinction of both having a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes and one of the most unique genres of all time.
Tomas Alfredson’s second directorial effort is a Swedish vampire romantic horror drama movie.
It follows a bullied young boy who befriends a vampire that soon becomes his protector. It was so well received that a near shot-for-shot American remake was made in 2010.
To this day, Let the Right One In still holds an extremely high Tomatometer score and is critically lauded.
Roger Ebert in a separate review called it the ”best modern vampire movie.” Sorry, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
6 Worst: Killing Me Softly - 0%
The 2002 British-American thriller is based on the novel of the same name. While the novel has been applauded, the movie adaptation has been universally criticized.
Along with the 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie's release was met with some other very embarrassing failures.
The most prominent being that the movie's U.S. release was canceled due to its poor reception after the release in the U.K. The movie went direct-to-DVD in the U.S.
To this day, Killing Me Softly is listed on numerous lists of worst movies to be made in the last two decades, or even all time. This one should have just stayed as a novel.
5 Best: The Wrestler - 98%
Darren Aronofsky’s sports drama movie also served as a redemption for the main actor, Mickey Rourke.
Rourke, who plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, had struggled in the previous years leading up to his casting to find good roles in serious films.
Aronofsky gave him the chance with the 2008 movie The Wrestler and he ran with it.
The Wrestler is considered one of the best films of 2008, as it landed on numerous top ten lists of the year from critics, and still holds a whopping 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Mickey Rourke went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor among many other awards and restarted his career.
4 Best: Up - 98%
Pixar’s first stop on this list is the family-friended animated hit, Up.
When Up was first released, all everyone could talk about was the opening scene that left everyone in the theater with tears in the eyes.
After the tears dried, people were introduced to a beautiful and very well made movie from the always-excellent artists at Disney Pixar Studios.
The movie follows a young boy scout and his adventures with an old curmudgeon who sets off in his flying house.
A ridiculous plot that only Pixar could perfect, audiences and critics alike loved the film. Today, it remains one of the best-rated Disney Pixar films that has ever been released.
3 Worst: Pinocchio - 0%
The 1940 animated movie Pinocchio met critical praise when it was released. The 2002 remake, however, was met with the exact opposite response.
Holding onto a 0% rating for 16 years now, Roberto Benigni’s live-action retelling of the classic character is widely considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.
Critics have noted many things wrong with the movie.
Benigni has been criticized for his decision to direct, his decision to star, and his actual acting in the movie.
More than all of that, though, both movie critics and viewers note that the English-dubbed version of the originally Italian movie is unintentionally funny and makes it nearly unwatchable.
Adding all of that together gets the film a goose egg on the Tomatometer.
2 Best: Finding Nemo - 99%
Finding Nemo is a very basic story at its core. It’s about a parent’s love for his child and the lengths he or she will go to protect him.
Add in the fact that this takes place under the sea, has talking sea turtles, and a blue fish with a terrible memory, and you have a unique story and an excellent film.
Before the critics could even type up their soaring reviews, audiences were enthusiastically flocking to see it in theaters.
As a result, the movie made 10 times the original budget of 94 million, making a ridiculous 940 million dollars.
The movie critics were just as enthusiastic. In the 260 reviews collected on Rotten Tomatoes, only 2 critics deemed it rotten giving Finding Nemo a final score of 99%.
1 Best: The Taste of Others - 100%
In the U.S. alone, hundreds of movie are released in theaters every year. Internationally, it is well over a thousand.
For the most part, Rotten Tomatoes does a very good job tracking a lot of these films.
In the years between 2000 and 2009, only a few recieved the perfect score 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
One of these movies was the 2000 French film The Taste of Others.
The foreign comedy is ultimately a witty look at how opposites attract. Among many other things, the film is lauded as being well written and acted perfectly. Rotten Tomatoes calls out that the characters are “well-drawn.”
Impressively, The Taste of Others has kept its 100% rating for almost 20 years.
Today, it is currently ranked as the 14th highest ranked movie on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Can you think of any other movies from the '00s that received high or low scores on Rotten Tomatoes? Sound off in the comments!
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