What’s the point of “100 best movies of the decade” lists?

What such lists, like Indiewire’s new one for the 2000s, do and do not accomplish

If you’re a football fan, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that every summer, usually in the dead of the offseason, ESPN and NFL.com and whoever else will put out something called the offseason quarterback power rankings. 

It’s a pretty cynical exercise, motivated by nothing but a desire for clicks and a piece of content at a time of year when there isn’t much to talk about, football-wise. And it flows downstream from that- discussion of these rankings tends to dominate sports talk radio, especially since they tend to underrate the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts.  Also, often pointed out? The guy who makes these rankings for ESPN, Dan Orlovsky, wasn’t exactly a great quarterback himself. 

I thought of that last week when Indiewire, as part of its “2000s Week,” put out its list of The 100 Best Movies of the 2000s. FYI, because we don’t correctly name decades anymore, the “2000s” for this purpose is the aughts, meaning 2000-2009. The “2000s” could also plausibly refer to the entire era since 2000, but not this time.