How the 2000s Movies bracket works
Best 2000s movies ranked without dragging anything into rows. You get one matchup at a time — The Dark Knight or The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King? The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring or Gladiator? — and after 31 picks the bracket has a champion, with everything else placed by how far it got. Nobody can hold 32 films in their head at once, but everybody can answer "this one" — so the order you end up with is one you will actually stand behind.
This bracket runs 5 rounds at the default 32-slot size (Round of 32, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship), with every one of the 32 films in the field. Entrants are drawn at random each time, so an early upset in one run may never happen in the next. You can also play it at 8 or 16 slots for a shorter or longer run.
31 picks, 5 rounds
- Round of 3216 matchups
- Sweet 168 matchups
- Elite 84 matchups
- Final Four2 matchups
- Championship1 matchup
Roughly 2-4 minutes start to finish.
All 32 entrants
All 32 entrants are listed below, including The Dark Knight, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Gladiator.
The Dark Knight
2008
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2001
Gladiator
2000
There Will Be Blood
2007
No Country for Old Men
2007
WALL-E
2008
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2004
The Departed
2006
City of God
2002
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
2003
Finding Nemo
2003
Lost in Translation
2003
The Bourne Ultimatum
2007
Superbad
2007
Pan's Labyrinth
2006
Memento
2000
Inglourious Basterds
2009
Spirited Away
2001
Batman Begins
2005
The Incredibles
2004
Zodiac
2007
Slumdog Millionaire
2008
Catch Me If You Can
2002
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2004
Up
2009
Ratatouille
2007
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2002
300
2006
Iron Man
2008
Shrek
2001
The Hangover
2009
Would rather group them than rank them? Open all 32 in the tier list maker and sort them into S, A, B, C, D and F tiers instead — same entrants, no matchups.
How everyone else ranked them
Aggregated from 8 completed 2000s Movies brackets. Win rate is the share of head-to-head matchups each entrant has won across every play.
- 1
The Dark Knight
27W - 5L · won 3 brackets
84%
win rate
- 2
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
15W - 7L · won 1 bracket
68%
win rate
- 3
The Hangover
13W - 7L · won 1 bracket
65%
win rate
- 4
Superbad
14W - 8L
64%
win rate
- 5
The Incredibles
14W - 8L
64%
win rate
- 6
Ratatouille
11W - 7L · won 1 bracket
61%
win rate
- 7
300
11W - 8L
58%
win rate
- 8
Iron Man
11W - 8L
58%
win rate
- 9
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
10W - 8L
56%
win rate
- 10
Up
10W - 8L
56%
win rate
Getting a ranking you actually agree with
- 1Pick the film you would actually rewatch tonight, not the one with the better reputation.
- 2The default run puts all 32 films in the draw. Short on time? Drop to 16 slots — a quicker run over a random 16 of them.
- 3Watch for the film you keep beating reluctantly. That is usually the sign you should undo and reconsider the pick before it.
2000s Movies bracket FAQ
How many films are in the 2000s Movies bracket?
The pool holds 32 films. A default run puts all of them in the draw and takes 31 picks across 5 rounds: Round of 32, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, Championship. Other field sizes are available too — 8, 16, 32 slots.
Which films are included?
The Dark Knight, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gladiator, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, WALL-E, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Departed, City of God, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Finding Nemo, plus 20 more. Every entrant is listed further down this page with its artwork.
How long does the best 2000s movies ranked take?
About 2-4 minutes — 31 choices at the default size, or 7 if you drop to a 8-slot bracket. No account is needed, and you can abandon a run at any point without losing anything.
Can I turn the result into S/A/B tiers?
Both are here, and the bracket is closer to a tier list than it looks. It ends with a champion, a runner-up and then every other film grouped by the round it went out in — which is exactly a set of tiers, decided by 31 direct comparisons rather than by your first guess at a layout. What it deliberately does not do is claim a precise gap between two films that never met. If you would rather place the films into S through F rows yourself, the tier list maker loads all 32 of them at bracketranker.com/tier-list-maker.
Can I compare my order with other people's?
Every completed bracket feeds the 2000s Movies community results page, which aggregates win rates across all plays and tracks how often each of the 32 entrants takes the title. It updates continuously, so it moves as more people play.
What if a film I wanted is missing?
Use the bracket maker: add your own films, name it, and share the link so other people play the same field. That is the route to take when this pool of 32 is missing something you would have picked, or when you want a version scoped to one era, label or franchise.