01 Absurdist comedy that only could have landed in this exact era.
16 Best 2000s Movies for a Nostalgia Trip
By Vlad Zakh · August 23, 2026
United States Comedy nostalgic
Mean Girls and Napoleon Dynamite carry the era’s quotable teen-comedy boom, while Shrek and Spider-Man represent its biggest studio swings. Freaky Friday and 13 Going on 30 show how much of the decade’s charm came from mid-budget comedies. In The Notebook (2004): The romance movie the entire decade measured itself against. Another standout is Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003): A theme-park ride turned into an actual blockbuster classic.
01 
02 The decade's last great comedy before the genre shifted entirely.
03 The indie-comedy voice that defined a specific late-2000s tone.
04 The teen comedy that closed out the decade's run.
05 Absurd in a way that could only have come from this exact decade.
06 Jack Black at his most purely enjoyable.
07 Lindsay Lohan's body-swap comedy at its most rewatchable.
08 A body-swap comedy that's aged into a genuine comfort watch.
09 The start of a franchise nobody expected to still be running.
10 Peak early-2000s energy, cheerleading rivalry and all.
11 A theme-park ride turned into an actual blockbuster classic.
12 The superhero movie that made the genre feel possible again.
13 The pop-culture-reference comedy that launched a genre of imitators.
14 The romance movie the entire decade measured itself against.
15 A weird, deadpan comedy that somehow defined a whole aesthetic.
16 Still the most quoted teen comedy of the decade, for good reason.
You might also like
