2000s Movie Quotes Quiz
The decade that stopped making films and started making instalments. Three of the sets in this deck are not single pictures at all, and that is the whole story of the 2000s.
Loading the quiz…
The decade the franchise won
Look at what dominates this set: The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Shrek. Almost none of these are standalone films. They are entries in ongoing series, and several were commissioned as series before the first instalment was finished.
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings is the clearest case, because it was shot as one continuous production in New Zealand across roughly a year and then released in three parts over three Decembers, from 2001 to 2003. That was an unusual gamble at the time: an enormous sum committed to three films at once on the strength of an unproven director and a fantasy novel that had been considered unfilmable for decades. It worked, and the industry drew the obvious conclusion.
Iron Man in 2008 is the hinge. It was not the biggest film of the decade and it is not the most quoted, but it established that a studio could plan a shared continuity across many films and many years, and that audiences would follow a second-tier character if the universe was the product. Everything in the 2010s set that carries a Marvel name descends from that decision.
What else was happening
| Strand | Films in this set |
|---|---|
| Epic franchises | Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek |
| The superhero turn | X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Watchmen |
| Prestige drama | Gladiator, The Departed, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Cast Away |
| Pixar at its peak | Finding Nemo, Up |
| Genre comedy and horror | Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, Saw, American Psycho, Mean Girls |
2007, the year the prestige films collided
Two films in this set were released within weeks of each other at the end of 2007: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Both are bleak American pictures about money and violence, both were shot partly in west Texas, and the two productions were near enough to each other that an explosion on one reportedly disrupted filming on the other. They went on to split the major awards that season. It is one of the odder coincidences in modern film production and a genuinely useful memory hook, because if you can date one of them you can date the other.
The end of the decade
Avatar closed 2009 by becoming the highest grossing film released to that point, on the back of a 3D presentation that cinemas had spent several years re-equipping for. The commercial lesson taken from it, that spectacle plus a premium format could still pull an entire population into a cinema, shaped the following decade almost as much as Iron Man did. Both films are in this set, released within eighteen months of each other, and between them they explain most of what happened next.
Fifty questions from thirty three films. If you want the surrounding eras, the 1990s set covers the independent boom, and the 2010s set covers what the franchise model turned into.
Frequently asked questions
Was The Lord of the Rings really filmed all at once?
Yes. The three films were shot as a single continuous production in New Zealand and then released one per year from 2001 to 2003, which was a substantial financial gamble at the time.
Which film started the modern shared-universe model?
Iron Man in 2008. It established that a studio could plan continuity across many films and years, and that audiences would follow a lesser-known character if the universe itself was the product.
What is the connection between No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood?
Both were released at the end of 2007, both are bleak American films about money and violence, and both shot partly in west Texas at the same time. They split the major awards that season.
Is this quiz free to play?
Yes, with no account and no limit on rounds. The scored daily challenge with a streak is on the main Guess the Movie page.
More Guess the Movie sets
- Classics, 1937 to 197942 quotes from the studio era through New Hollywood, and the Casablanca line nobody actually says.
- The 1980s53 quotes from Die Hard to Ferris Bueller, and the Star Wars line everyone gets wrong.
- The 1990s60 quotes, the largest set here, from Pulp Fiction and Fight Club to Toy Story and The Lion King.
- 2010 onwards45 quotes from Inception and the Marvel run through to Parasite and Everything Everywhere.
Guess the Movie Trivia guides How we source our answers All games