The Best Movies & Shows Released in The 2000s on The Roku Channel
The 2000s ushered in a new golden age of television as well as the era of streaming. During that decade, we saw some of the most exciting titles get released. Find the best ones to stream now.
Christmas isn’t usually the best time to watch a tense war drama, but there were some Christmases where war was still active, including, of course, the Great War. Joyeux Noel (or Merry Christmas in French) depicts one such time. Of course, as a depiction of a real historical event, it’s possible that you might have […]
War changes the way we view people from the other side. On the most fundamental level, seeing an enemy combatant can mean death, but this eventually bleeds out into anger and hatred towards the enemy, because of the loss, the pain, and the fear war tends to wage. War drama Welcome to Dongmakgol understands this, […]
So far, chemical waste hasn’t mutated amphibious creatures enough to create giant monsters large enough to swallow people whole… yet. This sort of monster film premise is familiar, especially for fans of 1950s sci-fi movies, but in the hands of director Bong Joon-ho, The Host transforms what could have been B-movie schlock into a drama […]
Before the late 2010s push for more Asian American and lesbian cinema, there were movies already making strides toward better representation. One of the first to achieve this was Saving Face. Despite this film being the first feature for writer-director Alice Wu and actress Lynn Chen, and the first lead role for Michelle Krusiec, the […]
Front of the Class tells the true story of Brad Cohen (James Wolk), a teacher with Tourette Syndrome hoping to complete his masters. Brad battles through his disability while also learning to accept it and even inspire his young students, friends, and family along the way. As Hallmark movies goes, Front of the Class follows […]
A life lived for loved ones is a good thing, but there’s always a risk that that sacrifice goes unnoticed, since the opportunity cost was never fully concrete in the first place. That is what happens in Whisky. With his brother Herman visiting from greener pastures, Jacobo has not much to show for his choice […]
The Western had its heyday in the 60s, but the decades have proven that there’s still stories from the deserts that we haven’t heard yet, and gems that twist the genre on its head. The Proposition is a unique Western, being from the East, in Australia where the Brits have started to form colonies. As […]
In The Magic of Ordinary Days, a Hallmark movie set in the heartland during World War II, Keri Russell plays Livvy Dunne-Singleton, a college-educated young woman who is forced to marry a simple farmer after her father finds out she got pregnant out of wedlock. If you watch enough Hallmark movies, you can probably guess […]
The self destructive, substance abusing history teacher Dan (Ryan Gosling) works in a Brooklyn middle-school and is constantly at odds with the curriculum, preferring to teach 13 year old kids Marxist theory in class. Meanwhile, his student Drey (Shareeka Epps) has to go through struggles of her own, her brother being in jail on drug […]
This is a low-scale, intimate, almost minimalist movie that speaks volumes about the misconceptions that westerners have regarding the Middle-East. And the performance of Richard Jenkins is absolutely exceptional (earned him a nomination for the Oscars). He plays a professor who comes back to his New York apartment only to find two immigrants living in it. What […]
While best known for his Western work, including directing the second Mission Impossible, John Woo made his start in China, returning more than a decade later to film this historical war epic. Based on the Battle of the Red Cliffs, the film may not be 100% factual, but Woo is clearly more at home here, […]
Ryan Gosling plays a Jewish Neo-Nazi in this extremely riveting window into the definition of inner conflict. It is a prime example of how character development should be done and it put Gosling on the map for me. He starts out as an exemplary student in Hebrew school until he starts questioning his teachings and […]
Man on Wire is a true technical masterpiece. You can almost feel the director telling the cameraman what angle to choose, or thinking about the questions that will generate the most resounding answers. However, this does not diminish the story this documentary tells one bit. It’s one that is glorious, riveting, and fun. It’s one […]
With plenty of old men having extramarital affairs, taking advantage of younger women and leaving them forlorn in love, it can feel deceptively easy to take sides in the first forty minutes of He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not. Who wouldn’t side with Angélique, especially with the innocent, childlike face of Audrey Tautou? And […]
Monster is a biographical depiction of Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron), a prostitute and serial killer who murdered seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. The film follows the burgeoning relationship between Wuornos and young Selby Wall (Christina Ricci, in a role based on Wuornos’ real-life girlfriend Tyria Moore), as she grows increasingly desperate to […]
The Ron Clark Story tells the true tale of how the titular educator, played by Matthew Perry (Friends), takes on the challenge of teaching troubled sixth graders in Harlem, New York. Far from groundbreaking, it hits all the beats of a typical teacher film: he’s plopped into unfamiliar territory, but thanks to his unconventional methods […]
Going by the Book is quite absurd. Of course, most people would understand not to take an assignment like this too literally, so when this deadpan, fastidious cop does so, it brings this mere simulation into an unpredictable, fascinating situation. It’s so funny. The film leans into the humor by depicting the horrifying possibility before […]
The death of a loved one is always a tragedy, but it’s always different when things have been left unresolved, and so that love lingers, not moving on, perpetually haunting the lover left alive. Undertow takes this ghost story with a gentle, magic realism that doesn’t just bring the tears, but also frees Miguel to […]
In About Lily Chou-Chou, two school teens, Yūichi (Hayato Ichihara) and Shūsuke (Shugo Oshinari), start out as friends who are obsessed with the music of Lily Chou-Chou. But when tragedy strikes, Shūsuke unexpectedly joins a gang and harasses his classmates, including Yūichi and their female friends. It’s a dark and challenging film, one that isn’t […]
Before Park Chan-wook adapted her novel Fingersmith in The Handmaiden, author Sarah Waters wrote Tipping the Velvet, her debut novel that painted the life of lesbian women in Victorian London. Surprisingly, this controversial novel was produced and broadcast by the BBC in 2002, sticking faithfully to the plot, with all the racy sex scenes and […]
More than a decade before she made Toni Erdmann, German filmmaker Maren Ade turned her eye on a small-town school, a socially awkward teacher, and the inarticulate in between. Even with her debut, Ade showcased a talent for spotting the hidden comic potential of situations that can be wounding, turning vulnerabilities into power through comedy. […]
A sincere portrayal of the gritty British working class life through the coming-of-age story of a girl who loves rap music and dancing to it. It features a stunning and powerful performance from newcomer Katie Jarvis who had no acting experience whatsoever, and who was cast in the street after she was spotted fighting. She plays Mia, a 15 […]
Electric Shadows is often deemed something like a Chinese Cinema Paradiso. It has the friendship with an older film projectionist, the small town gathering around outdoor screenings of foreign film, a childhood friendship between a boy and girl that meet again unexpectedly, and of course, it wears its heart for the movies right on its […]
The Reader is a German-American drama from 2008, based on the best-selling novel by author Bernhard Schlink. The storyline begins with adult Michael (Ralph Fiennes) reminiscing about his adolescence in post-World War II Berlin and his fateful relationship with an older woman named Hannah (Kate Winslet). 15-year old Michael is beset by Scarlet Fever and […]
Somehow an art house film, horror, and romance all in one, Let the Right One In explores the boundaries of its genres with unprecedented finesse, and offers a stunning alternative for those disappointed with recent vampire love stories. From its haunting minimalist imagery to its incredible score, it is persistently beautiful. The film follows twelve-year-old […]
A woman joins some acquaintances on a sailing trip only to get caught in a storm. They are rescued by a seemingly empty cruise ship and struggle to make sense of the mysteries that unfold. Definitely one of those “The less you know the better” type of films. If you like well-written creepy thrillers with […]
An award-winning American independent Fantasy, Ink has become a sleeper hit worldwide. The film portrays a struggle between the forces of good and evil over the soul of a man and a little girl caught in between. The film’s deliriously realized dream sequences make clear that no matter what life throws at you, in the […]
Shattered Glass tells the unbelievably true story of Stephen Glass, a popular and promising young journalist at The New Republic. Stephen’s storytelling skills are sought out not just by his admiring colleagues but by other publications as well, so when a rival journalist from Forbes finds holes in one of Stephen’s stories, no one takes […]
Based on the comic book by Daniel Clowes, Ghost World is a dark comedy that follows the exploits of teenage outcasts Enid and Rebecca (Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson) as they navigate the many complexities of burgeoning adulthood. Central to the story is the unlikely friendship that Enid strikes up with a lonesome older man […]
C.R.A.Z.Y. is crazy good, so to speak. A portrait of a French-Canadian family in 70’s Quebec that will knock your socks right off, it’s the story of a boy struggling with his identity and his relationship with his father. Featuring a killer soundtrack (including but not limited to Bowie, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones), it received Best Canadian Film […]
A movie about a 16 year old girl who gets involved with an older more sophisticated man and how the relationship changes her life. Carey Mulligan’s performance is nothing short of perfect, inevitably making herself the center of the movie. The coming-of-age story is also quite exceptional, and conveys impressive load and variety of emotions. An Education is […]
The Wave is a movie about manipulation, National Socialism and the authoritarian development at a German school. The well-liked teacher Rainer Wenger presents a social experiment to his students which quickly expands to a much larger scale. His experiment, named “Die Welle” (the wave), is part of a project week at the school about different […]
I didn’t know anything about the movie before watching it (this was my husband’s pick for ‘one of us picks something that the other knows nothing about’ night). It is Korean, sweet, funny, touching, unique, odd, poignant. I think the fact I knew nothing about the movie when I watched made it even more enjoyable […]
