Quality Films From the 2000's and On...Do We Have Any?

To the left and right are our winners. They are our top two movies from the 2000's and Gladiator comes in at number three.When we do manage to produce great movies, we knock it out of the ball park. The Lord of the Rings film to the left won 11 Oscars, won 4 BAFTA Awards and was nominated for 10, and won 4 Golden Globes. The Pianist on the right won 3 Oscars and was nominated for 7, won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for 5, and was nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Most else sucks...at least what I see from mainstream, mast-produced films (of course, there are exceptions as with anything). Some of the best films I see from this era are low-budget, indie films or Sundance films (my personal favorite). It seems to me that emphasis is put more on visual effects, extremely general, boring stories, or both and pushing them out as fast as possible. Good storytelling is put on the back burner. I was looking on www.imdb.com and they confirm that every other decade has produced more high-quality films than the 2000's. On their "Top 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (The Ultimate List)" (created December 20,2012 and last updated November 2015), the 70's had 20 movies on their list, the 50's had 19, the 90's and 60's tie with 14, the 40's had 12, the 30's had 10. and the 80's had 8. Every decade since movies were becoming really popular have produced greater quality movies than the 2000's. This era only has the three movies previously mentioned. In their picks for the top 10 movies of all time, IMDb only lists one from this era. The list is...

The Shawshank Redemption

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 9.3 stars
2. The Godfather (1972) 9.2 stars
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974) 9.0 stars
4. 12 Angry Men (1957) 8.9 stars
5. Schindler's List (1993) 8.9 stars
6. Pulp Fiction (1994) 8.9 stars
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 8.9 stars
8. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) 8.9 stars
9. Forrest Gump (1994) 8.8 stars
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 8.7 stars

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

If you look at any one of these movies, you will see that the story was put first which is how it should be. Everything else should come after. Yet, if you walk into any American movie theater, you will see a good number of the movies have tons of visual effects and/or terrible story lines. I think Hollywood has forgotten that flashy effects does equal a good movie. Just look at the movies from the 30's and 40's. They had laughable effects at the time, but they knew how to tell magnificent stories. Let's hope that big producers in the land of film come to their senses and hire more writers than special effects teams.

I do not own any of the pictures or videos. My research is from http://www.imdb.com/list/ls055592025/?start=1&view=detail&sort=user_rating:desc&defaults=1&scb=0.33146274069757653