The 8 Best Movies of 2003, Ranked

2003 had hobbits, pirates and Bill Murray doing nothing beautifully. These eight have the top movie.guru scores of the year. Some of you will be upset.

Number one ends more times than this list does. Fight me in the comments.

1. 8
   X2 (2003)8.2

   The best X-Men movie still came out in 2003.

   That Nightcrawler White House opening beats most modern superhero openings. 8.2 on movie.guru, $407.7M worldwide, and audiences beat 86% of movies. The suits were leather. Nobody cared.
2. 7
   Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)8.2

   A theme park ride movie had no business being this fun.

   Johnny Depp played a pirate like a wobbly rock star and the world paid $654.3M for it. CinemaScore A, but critics shrugged with a 63 Metacritic.
3. 6
   Mystic River (2003)8.3

   The heaviest movie here, and Eastwood refuses to blink.

   Critics beat 88% of movies, 84 on Metacritic. Audiences gave it a B+ CinemaScore, which tracks. It's great, it's grim, and you will not rewatch it on a Tuesday.
4. 5
   21 Grams (2003)8.4

   Scrambled timeline, unscrambled gut punch. Sean Penn shows up twice.

   Iñárritu shuffles the story like a deck of cards and it still lands. Reported $20M budget, 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences beat 90% of movies.
5. 4
   Oldboy (2003)9.0

   Should rank higher. A $3M budget built a legend.

   Audiences beat 99% of movies, the best crowd number on this list. It made $17.6M worldwide and every action director has been copying that hallway ever since.
6. 3
   Lost in Translation (2003)9.2

   Two bored people in Tokyo beat every explosion on this list.

   Best critics numbers here: beat 97% of movies, 91 on Metacritic. Made for a reported $4M, grossed $118.7M worldwide. Bill Murray barely moves and wins anyway.
7. 2
   Memories of Murder (2003)9.4

   Bong Joon Ho's real masterpiece, and almost nobody here saw it.

   It made $15,357 domestic. That's not a typo. Then 9.4 on movie.guru, 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Song Kang-ho chasing a case that refuses to cooperate.
8. 1
   The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)9.4

   Ties Memories of Murder at 9.4 and wins on sheer size.

   $1.14B worldwide, 94 Metacritic, A+ CinemaScore, 2.2 million IMDb votes. Yes, it has several endings. You stayed for every single one.

$611.37 says someone comments 'where is Kill Bill' before scrolling past number eight.

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Current mood: ready to fight about it