13 Greatest Movie Epics of the 21st Century, Ranked

For all the hand-wringing about the current state of movies, the 21st century has produced some of the most ambitious, emotionally jarring films the medium has ever seen. These aren’t the pictures built to trend for a weekend and disappear, but the ones that stay with you.

They feel big not because of budgets or runtimes, but because of the worlds they create and the ideas they are willing to sit with. Filmmakers have expanded the language of “epic” to show it can be intimate and enormous at once—stories that stretch across decades, are rooted in history, come from different corners of the globe, shift tones effortlessly, and refuse to water themselves down.

The list gathers thirteen such films, including Lincoln, Boyhood, Interstellar, Killers of the Flower Moon, Mad Max: Fury Road, Gladiator, There Will Be Blood, The Brutalist, and Oppenheimer, among others. Ranking films like this is inevitably subjective, and many worthy contenders didn’t make the cut.

epic films, 21st century, lincoln, boyhood, interstellar, oppenheimer, mad max, gladiator, the brutalist, killers