As of 2020, These Iconic Movies Are Officially 20 Years Old

Sandra Bullock proved she’s the queen of the screen as a tough-as-nails FBI agent who infiltrates a beauty pageant. Twenty years later, it’s still funny and constantly quotable!

After the ’80s and ’90s saturated the market with horror film after horror film, it makes sense that we’d eventually get a parody. Scary Movie launched a whole series of slasher movie parodies, staring with the 2000 original that skewered Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Forget about the diminishing sequels over the years. The original Bring It On, complete with that early-2000s sense of high school parody, is a true classic. Spirit fingers for everyone!

Cast Away isn’t just a classic for being a Tom Hanks movie; it’s practically a meme factory at this point. Plus, you know, it’s a pretty great movie. Lost who?

This romance about childhood sweethearts turned basketball stars always gets a place on best-of lists for romance films, and for good reason. It might not have been as massive a hit as other similar films, but it still holds up as a heartwarming classic.

This Chinese action film is the highest-grossing foreign film in American history. It tells an epic story of forbidden love and adventure and stars crossover stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh.

Water pollution and corporate cover-ups – is this a film from 2000 or from the 2010s? Julia Roberts‘s Oscar-winning drama told the true story of an activist who took on a major energy company when she learned that they were knowingly contaminating the groundwater.

Are you not entertained? We definitely were entertained by this story of a betrayed general seeking revenge, which inspired a whole wave of ancient-history-and-swordfights movies and produced some quotes that permanently entered the pop lexicon.

The quiet classic about a young boy secretly taking ballet lessons still resonates today (anyone remember the Prince George ballet kerfuffle?). Plus, it’s just a really good movie, and launched the career of the ever-talented Jamie Bell.

Based on a true story, the memorable sports drama follows a 1970s high school football team as its coach attempts to racially integrate it. Despite some deviation from true events, it’s definitely an inspirational and now-iconic sports movie.

Hey, did you remember that there’s a thriller movie out there that starred young Jude Law, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Cate Blanchett? No? While the movie itself, about a manipulative con man’s exploits, is a little dusty, it helped elevate the profiles of its young stars, who all went on to top-notch careers.

Who knew back in 2000 that superheroes would become such big business? At the time, it was a huge risk to make this movie about a group of mutant heroes combating one of their own who’s gone evil. But its allegories are as sharp as ever, and 20 years later, there are several X-Men movies (and timelines).

Ah, the golden age of the stoner comedy. The movie is exactly what it sounds like: two friends getting into trouble while they try to remember where they parked their car. It’s an early-career project from Ashton Kutcher that foreshadows the “goofy idiot” archetype he would play a lot of in the future.

Before she was one of Hollywood’s biggest A-listers, Angelina Jolie was costarring with Nicolas Cage in this heist film, in which a car thief must carry off a massive heist in 24 hours or face violent consequences from a British gangster.

It’s been 20 years since the Angels were last rebooted. In this iteration, the action heroines, played by Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore, are private investigators who take on a dangerous case revolving around identification software.

The 2000s were definitely the heyday of the sex comedy, and while Road Trip – about four college guys who travel cross-country to stop an explicit tape that got mistakenly mailed – doesn’t exactly hold up to today’s standards, it’s worth remembering as a prime example of a genre from the decade.

A teenager gets to go on tour with his favorite band as a “reporter” for Rolling Stone in this coming-of-age comedy. And if you’re a big fan of the movie, you’re in luck: a stage musical adaptation is currently in the works!

It’s the quintessential creep-fest starring Christian Bale as a polished, pristine businessman who hides his violent, empathy-starved personality beneath the exterior of a classic yuppie.

There’s no doubt that the 2000s were the golden age (and, eventually, the temporary end) of the gentle rom-com. High Fidelity was one of those: no high concept, just some ordinary people – here, a record store owner and his ex – trying to figure out how to navigate love and commitment and what that really means.

Remember what we said about wanting to watch these movies over and over? We didn’t mean it about Requiem For a Dream. Once is enough for Darren Aronofsky’s manic cautionary tale starring Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Ellen Burstyn.