That pixelated, gaudy DVD pile up there can only mean one thing. That’s right. We’re just about ready to unleash the best one hundred films of the 2000’s upon you all. Last year, we announced a goal to try and pick the top one hundred films of every single decade. Monday, April 6th, 2020, will be the start of this mission (after our 2010’s list, of course). So, we decided to make an announcement today to prepare the unveiling of our picks in a few days. Why do we need to reiterate this again? Well, before we had a vague guideline as to how frequently we would release our lists. Our website is still just over a year old, but we believe in getting this kind of stuff out of the way as soon as possible. We want the world to see all of our capabilities at all times. Worst comes to worst, we update our lists later on. Having these pages ready to be discussed is our goal. We want readers to know exactly where we stand on each and every era, genre, and more.

So, our current goal is to release a new decade every two months. We will still keep up with our daily programming, including the current COVID-19 changes (no articles on the weekends, and sadly not many new films to review; we’re working on exciting content to get you through these difficult times). Just know that somewhere in every second month, a new list will pop up. This time, you get a heads up. We may not announce each list until it is actually released for you to read. For instance, expect our one hundred selections for the 1990s in June at any given date (depends on how much catching-up and work we have to do). The idea is to end with the 1960s around December sometime, so we can do our annual Academy Awards and awards seasons write ups for the start of 2021, and then get back to our rankings shortly afterwards. This passion project will take an entire two years to do, but we’re already four months in. We’ve been working hard with the 2000s films, and already making headway on every other decade. That’s twenty months to go. It’s only a bit of progress, but it’s a start.

We didn’t plan on this being something to look forward to during such a difficult time. It just so happened to work out that way. It’s given us something to do on our end as well. We hope that our selections give you joy and films to discuss and discover. We hope your favourites make it. If not, we encourage every discussion under the sun. That’s why we started this website. We wanted to have these discussions. So, expect one hundred films between 2000 and 2009 to show up Monday morning. We’re scrambling to get all of the last details in place before then. We’re almost there. For you, this will be a few days wait. For us, we can’t wait to just move on to the ‘90s now. It’s about damn time.

One final note. The argument that decades should start one year after we celebrate them has kept coming up, and we’re sure this will happen again and again. There is an argument here. The first year under the Anno Domini label was year one, not zero. So, technically, each decade starts on the “one” of every ten years (so, in this case, 2001, and in the last decade, 2011, and then 2021 for the next). However — and we don’t mean to sound condescending in any way — we follow a specific philosophy. We’re not quite sure who came up with this quote (it’s been attributed to many people, ranging from rugby player Brian O’Driscoll to journalist Miles Kington), but we follow it every day.

”Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.”

Basically, we think it’s okay to start each list off at the more rewarding and comfortable ten year marks that everyone else abides by, even though these are not technically the right times to do so. We can acknowledge this fact, and continue on with our day, since we’re well past two thousand years since that first year, and the concept of decades — as in a span of ten years of any sort — can take up any specific range. So, we’re sticking with the ranges we’ve started off using. We hope that puts this discussion to bed, and we hope you understand.

Stay tuned for our 2000’s list. Thank you for your readership. Please stay safe.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Preparing Our Best-Of-The-Decade Lists, Starting With the 2000s