The fall of the Twin Towers. Al-Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism on the rise. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Intifada. Chechnya. The Janjaweed. The tsunami. SARS. Benazir Bhutto assassinated. The Great Recession. The Patriot Act. Reality TV. Mel Gibson. There was plenty to be scared of in the first decade of the 21st Century. We were so frightened, we even started a war against terror itself. We started out with Clinton and ended with Obama, but mostly we got the misunderestimations of George Bush. There were other, less terrifying developments: The Eurozone. GPS. Hybrid cars. Atheism bestsellers. Martha Stewart went to jail. Peter Jackson did LOTR fans proud (except for Tom Bombadil fanatics). Kids got their news from The Daily Show. Hunter Thompson’s ashes were shot from a cannon. Vets coming home with PTSD were refused treatment by the government they bravely served. It was that kind of decade.
Here they are: some of my favorite books, films and music from the 2000s.
Favorite 00s Films
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007)
Fat Girl (Breillat, 2001)
American Splendor (Berman, 2003)
Capturing the Friedmans (Jarecki, 2003)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson, 2001)
Dogville (von Trier, 2003)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Moore, 2004)
Grizzly Man (Herzog, 2005)
Talk to Her (Almodovar, 2002)
Juno (Reitman, 2007)
The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck, 2006)
Moulin Rouge! (Luhrmann, 2001)
Mulholland Dr. (Lynch, 2001)
No Country for Old Men (Coen, 2007)
Once (Carney, 2006)
Requiem for a Dream (Aronofsky, 2000)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001)
Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle, 2008)
Tarnation (Caouette, 2004)
Traffic (Soderbergh, 2000)
Downfall (Hirschbiegel, 2004)
Waking Life (Linklater, 2001)
The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009)
Yi Yi (Yang, 2000)
Favorite 00s Music
PJ Harvey Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000)
Shelby Lynne I Am Shelby Lynne (2000)
U2 All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)
Mariza Fado em Mim (2000)
Greg Osby Invisible Hand (2000)
Pérotin Perotin (Hilliard Ensemble) (2000)
Johann Sebastian Bach Mass in B Minor (Gächinger Kantorei & Bach-Collegium Stuttgart/Rilling) (2000)
Macy Gray The Id (2001)
Buddy Guy Sweet Tea (2001)
Jason Moran Black Stars (2001)
Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
Beck Sea Change (2002)
Sleater-Kinney One Beat (2002)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever to Tell (2003)
The New Pornographers Electric Version (2003)
Arcade Fire Funeral (2004)
Sufjan Stevens Illinois (2005)
My Morning Jacket Z (2005)
Petra Haden Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out (2005)
John Adams The Dharma at Big Sur (BBC Symphony Orch./Adams) (2006)
The Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America (2006)
Camera Obscura Let’s Get Out of This Country (2006)
Arcade Fire Neon Bible (2007)
The New Pornographers Challengers (2007)
The Swell Season Once: Music From the Motion Picture (2007)
PJ Harvey White Chalk (2007)
Los Campesinos! Hold On Now, Youngster… (2008)
Tune-Yards Bird-Brains (2009)
Leonard Bernstein Mass (Baltimore Symphony Orch./Alsop; Sykes) (2009)
Favorite 00s Books
Dave Eggers A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000)
Ian McEwan Atonement (2001)
David McCullough John Adams (2001)
Leif Enger Peace Like a River (2001)
Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex (2002)
Janet E. Browne Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2002)
Edward P. Jones The Known World (2003)
Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)
David Maraniss They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 (2003)
Steve Coll Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)
David Crystal The Stories of English (2004)
Tim Riley Fever: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Transformed Gender in America (2004)
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go (2005)
Charles C. Mann 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2005)
Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
Duncan Clark The Rough Guide To Classical Music (2005)
Michael Pollan The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006)
Julie Phillips James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon (2006)
Philip Lopate (ed.) American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now (2006)
Alex Ross The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007)
Annette Gordon-Reed The Hemingses of Monticello (2008)
Mark Harris Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood (2008)