Links to the Hollywood movie collections for the periods covered in this section:
2000s 2010s 2000s & 2010s (All) 2000s & 2010s GEMs
Commentary:
The first two decades of the 21st century involved many significant developments in the film industry, both in the technology used and in the means of distribution.
Building on developments in the 1990s, computers were used to create effects that would have previously been more expensive using traditional methods, and computer-generated imagery (CGI) became much more common. This created some breathtaking special effects in many movies such as Avatar, and it also led to an explosion of super-hero movies which began to dominate the box office. The super-hero genre had started with DC characters like Superman and Batman a couple of decades earlier, but the release of Iron-Man launched a long string of blockbusters for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which continues to this day with movie franchises like X-Men and Avengers.
This period also saw the resurgence of several other genres. Fantasy film franchises started to gain favor with the movie-going public with Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In the area of animated films, Pixar and Disney started using computer animation instead of traditional animation techniques, which significantly elevated the technical quality of their movies. Although Hollywood still produces some animated films for the family audience, the vast majority of animated films today are principally designed for older audiences, and in many respects their subject matter is not much different from that of non-animated films.
Some prominent directors who made their mark during this period were Bryan Singer, Christopher Nolan, Danny Boyle, Peter Jackson, Sam Mendes, Steven Soderbergh and Zack Snyder. The movies they made (in the order of the directors listed) included X-Men (plus several sequels), the Dark Knight trilogy, Slumdog Millionaire, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Skyfall, Ocean’s Eleven and 300. During this period, a lot of great women directors also emerged and joined this hitherto male-dominated field: Ava DuVernay (Selma), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) and Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman).
The early 2000s ushered in a new distribution model for newly released movies which was pioneered by Netflix: renting DVDs by mail as a monthly service. Eventually, this transitioned to a streaming service by Netflix and others (Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc.). Streaming has now become an established alternative channel for movies versus the traditional way of watching them in theaters. This paradigm shift has blurred the boundaries between films, television and other forms of media, and nowadays many movies (especially indie films) completely bypass theatrical release and go directly to streaming.
A list of some of the actors and actresses who established themselves in the 2000s and 2010s follows.
- Bradley Cooper, Chris Evans, Christian Bale, Colin Farrell, Daniel Craig, Dev Patel, Forest Whitaker, George Clooney, Hugh Jackman, Robert Downey Jr., Ryan Gosling
- Amy Adams, Angelina Jolie, Emma Stone, Halle Berry, Helen Mirren, Hilary Swank, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Viola Davis.