This time 20 years ago, the box office was torpedoed by two bland war movies: Rules of Engagement (a Vietnam War drama starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones) and U-571 (a World War II submarine thriller with Matthew McConaughey). Both were accused of peddling inflated , borderline-xenophobic ideas about Americas military achievements. Today, their cultural footprints are negligible.

You know what should have been No. 1 in April 2000? Any of the four movies directed by women that went on to become modern classics by comparison. On April 14, we got American Psycho and 28 Days. April 21 brought Love & Basketball and The Virgin Suicides.

This was, to say the least, an anomaly. Two consecutive weekends featuring two preeminent releases not helmed by men? Its practically unheard of, even by 2020s standards. A couple 28 Days and Love & Basketball came close to besting those war squadrons, but as is often the case, the movies that ruled the day would soon be dethroned in our collective memory. Good riddance.

The quartet in question can tell us a lot about where Hollywood was at the time and where it has gone since. These movies comprise a veritable buffet of genres, diverse in subject, tone, style and personnel. You could have visited a multiplex that April and marathoned movies with wildly differing sensibilities, few of which would get made by a major studio now. (Erin Brockovich , Keeping the Faith, Final Destination, recent Oscar champ American Beauty and the Bonnie Hunt-directed Return to Me were all kicking around the Top 20 , too.)

The Virgin Suicides and American Psycho are literary adaptations that present stark-naked portraits of a country haunted by its own culture. The former directed by first-timer Sofia Coppola is about five suburban teenage sisters cloistered by their stern Catholic parents in the post-Watergate 70s, and the latter directed by Mary Harron, an indie darling thanks to 1996s I Shot Andy Warhol revolves around a wealth-obsessed Manhattan serial killer hacking his way through the excess of the Reagan 80s. Neither could be called comfort food.