https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/movies/best-movies-21st-century.html
96. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018)
There’s so much to love. It’s a superhero spectacle that actually has something important to say, about how identity, history and responsibility intersect. Wakanda, the Afrofuturistic world where the story takes place, is a visual wonder. The women (played by Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o and Letitia Wright — all excellent) aren’t just sidekicks or love interests. Michael B. Jordan, as the tragically villainous Killmonger, has never been more swoon worthy. And, of course, Chadwick Boseman shines in the title role, sadly one of his last before dying of cancer.
No Spider Man 2? This list is a joke.
That’s there take. I think context and audience makes a huge difference, so I’d rank it higher.
I remember the experience. I watched it at the Rave Cinema at the Baldwin-Crenshaw mall, in Leimert Park. And let me tell you: the theater was so fucking amped. This theater was built by Magic Johnson in a part of LA that hadn’t had a nice theater, and it’s held up well. The neighborhood has really come up around it, too, so when Black Panther played, it was filled with folks dressed to the nines. There was LA street fashion, Panafrican garb, kids grown-ups, elders… The movie was good to start with, but it was just hard not to get caught up in the energy in the air. It truly was an event.
that says nothing about the movie, which is what the list is about.
For me, the awful fight at the end tanked it for me. Other than that, it was the typical Marvel formula, nothing really remarkable other than being set in Africa.
Spider-Man: No Way Home was a better movie, so was Into The Spider-Verse for that matter.
Oh, shit, Logan doesn’t rank?
I think it was notable for being the first instance of Afrofuturism to make it to the American mass market. So much of American media has the average salt of the earth type thinking Africa is made entirely of mud huts that just throwing that out as an option even in fiction can be eye opening.
On the other hand… Yeah Logan and Spiderverse are obviously better.
District 9 and Chappie were both before it.
District 9 was so good too. Chappie less so…
We’ve been waiting for the “3 Years Later…” sequel now for 16 years now. :(
Agreed.
Imo, the movie’s popularity among mainstream critics derives primarily from virtue signaling.
I’m not the kind of person who watches superhero movies. They started feeling boring and formulaic around the time I graduated high school. But when Black Panther came out, I heard some chatter, and then later a friend invited me to watch it on the front lawn of New Belgium Brewing as part of an event they were hosting. So we rode our bikes to the brewery to join one or two hundred other middle class, college educated, socially conscious white people to watch a movie. And I proceeded to be bored and somewhat annoyed when it turned out to be a formulaic, slightly worse than average superhero movie.
The way I picture it is that a room full of movie studio execs were brainstorming how to appeal to kids these days, and their wokeness, and said to themselves “what if black people!” So they greenlit “What If Black People: The Movie”, found a superhero from the comics to shove in the spotlight, nabbed a bunch of idealistic people who wanted to make a great movie that would change the world, let them shoot their dream movie, then chopped it up in post to make it appeal to the braindead average moviegoer.
Spider-Man: No Way Home was a better movie
How? A good movie needs to be more than 'member berries.
It breaks out of the typical Marvel formula, Black Panther doesn’t.
Marvel formula:
Main character shares a tragic backstory with the villain who turns into a bigger, badder version of the hero.
Iron Man - Iron Monger
Hulk - Abomination
Iron Man - Whiplash
Thor - Loki
Captain America - Red SkullIron Man - Extremis
Thor - Malekith
Captain America - Winter Soldier
Avengers - Ultron
Ant-Man - YellowjacketAvengers - Avengers (Civil War)
Doctor Strange - Kaecilius
Star Lord - The Living Planet (his dad!)
Spider-Man - Vulture
Thor - Hela
Black Panther - KillmongerI mean, you can’t exactly fault Marvel for running the formula over and over again when every time they run it, it makes a billion dollars.
But by the time Black Panther came out, you could count on one hand the times they didn’t run the formula:
The Avengers
Guardians of the GalaxyHow is T’Challa’s backstory like Erik’s?
Sons of Wakanda, powered by the Heart Shaped Herb.
That’s it?
All it takes, Killmonger is a dark mirror of T’Challa, same as any of the others listed, from Obidiah Stane onward.
spoiler
The choice Peter makes to sacrifice his relationships is unique and works better due to the previous movies. Same with Aunt May dying, it works better when you’ve gotten to know her.
The member berries help though.
I soured on it when a guy shows up to this hyper advanced, futuristic, utopian society and goes, “I challenge the king to combat, and you have to let me do it, and then when I win, you have to make me king.” And everyone just shrugs like “Welp, thems the rules. Nothing we can do about it.”
That was the thing that bothered me most as well. It’s supposed to be the most advanced society on Earth, and they use a kind of trial by combat to decide their leader.
Not to mention how clichéd it was in The Avengers for them to be running around with spears (or weapons that looked like spears), as if they had a particular fondness for a stone age motif.
Have you been paying attention to real world politics lately
It’s weird, Black Panther doesn’t scratch my top 5 MCU movies. It wasn’t even the black lead superhero movie of the same year. Into the Spider-Verse is probably in my top 10 movies.
But BP was undoubtedly one of the more culturally impactful movies in the MCU.
But then again, Deadpool 1 and 2 are great movies that have been culturally impactful. But critics don’t want to admit that.
Into the Spider-verse absolutely deserves a spot on this list.
The only animated films on this list are Spirited Away, Wall-e, Up & Ratatouille.
Ratatouille definitely doesn’t deserve a spot, it’s good but it’s so far below many other films. Wall-e I’m onboard with but Up, while having an excellent intro, both immediately and setup, is just ok in the second half.
Inside out? Incredibles? That’s what I would have expected for Pixar films.
Plus, I know it’s memed to death but Shrek should absolutely be on the list.
But, going back, if I get one animated films, Spider-verse is where I go. Hell I’d probably put both Spider-verse films on this list.
there’s not a whole lot truly different between most of the superhero movies though. I guess hot warrior ladies and the man in the skinsuit is cat themed?
This just isn’t true. Each film has a different story to tell beyond just the action.
Uh huh. The same story. In the same ways. With the same lines, beats, set pieces, and token nods to source or prior films. It’s formulaic as fuck, intentionally so by the mass surveying audience tested averaging out of studios. This is a machine that repackages your childhood into consumable, repeatable, manufacturable content, not art.
I’m not saying don’t enjoy it, but saying any superhero film from the last 20 years hasn’t had studio’s by-the-book vogler story in a can approach is consuming with blinkers on.
For most people under 30, they didn’t read the original comics, so I would hardly call it “repackaging their childhood”. And no, it’s not the same story. I’ll use the Guardians of the Galaxy films as an example:
- GotG 1 is a pretty standard story about the unlikely group of heroes learning to work together, mixed with Peter learning to confront his problems rather than run away from them
- GotG 2 deals with the disillusionment of meeting your heroes and Peter must make a choice to give up literal godhood for moral reasons, choosing his adopted father over his birth one
- GotG 3 is about Rocket confronting his past and accepting who he is, which he had struggled with for both previous films
These stories aren’t unique from every other story ever told. But they are different from each other. And art is very subjective; you don’t have the authority to declare something not art without a good argument.
It’s not even the best Coogler film of the 21st century….
The Dark Knight at 55 is the other one I think
Honestly hasn’t been much to write home about since the dark night tbh.
Woah, that’s gonna piss off Americans.
‘More like DEI Panther, amirite?’ (/s)
I honestly don’t see why that’s better than some other Marvel properties, but I don’t mind it’s inclusion in the list. Maybe that it touches on actual world problems instead of just fake ones made up for the movie. And yeah, I’m American but a dissenting one.
I object to its inclusion because it cashes in on the lack of good black representation in modern media while perpetuating the very stereotypes it is billed as combating. If this list wants to platform representation, it can do way better.
Which stereotypes does it purportedly challenge?
Maybe it’s the complete world stuff and that gives. And the music
