Top 10 Skate Videos of the 2000s — The Ranking That Will Spark Debate

Fully Flared - 2007. Menikmati - 2000. DC Video - 2003. If you grew up with a VHS tape collecting dust in your room and a spot fifteen minutes away by bike, these aren't just video titles — they're an emotional timeline. And this ranking isn't going to please everyone. That's the whole point.

The "best skate videos of the 2000s" is exactly the kind of topic that gets guys who haven't spoken in five years locked into a heated, constructive argument. The kind of conversation where you look up and realise it's 11pm and you haven't eaten since noon. We built the list. We stand by every choice. And if you disagree — perfect.

Top 10 — bottom to top, because suspense needs to be earned

N°10 — Menikmati - 2000 (éS)

Could have been higher. Easily. Arto Saari rolls into this film like physics is optional — his handrails are statements, not tricks. Erik Koston lands a nollie heelflip switch crook on a spot that half the skaters of that era wouldn't have even looked at. All of this in 2000, when digital barely existed in skate cameras.

It lands at N°10 because everything above it is inhuman. Not because it's weak. Watch Heath Kirchart's part and come back to me.

N°9 — The DC Video - 2003

DC Video - 2003 is the budget overflowing and flooding everything in sight. Every part is hyper-produced, the spots are enormous, the tricks match the resources. Rob Dyrdek skates Pulaski Park like it's his backyard. Danny Way jumps off a helicopter onto a ramp. Literally. Off a helicopter.

What keeps it at N°9 instead of the top 5: sometimes too much budget kills the raw energy. Watch a DC Video clip right after an Emerica clip and you feel it — the difference between a video made with money and a video made with urgency. Both have their place. But we rank the second one higher.

Too much budget sometimes kills the raw energy. The best skate videos have an urgency that money can't buy. — What DC Video taught us despite itself

N°8 — Photosynthesis - 2000 (Alien Workshop)

Alien Workshop always had something off-centre about them. Photosynthesis - 2000 confirms it was deliberate, not accidental. The soundtrack is strange, the editing is organic at a time when everyone wanted punch cuts, and the skaters — Daewon Song, Kris Markovich, Lennie Kirk — skate like the camera doesn't exist.

Daewon Song's part is probably the most technically dense footage ever filmed up to that point. One ledge, twenty minutes of footage, and a creativity that would make Rodney Mullen nervous. And Lennie Kirk's part, knowing what we know about him now, carries a weight nobody predicted at the time.

N°7 — Sorry - 2002 (Flip)

British skate didn't exist in the global conversation before Sorry - 2002. Geoff Rowley already had a name — but Arto Saari riding for Flip, Tom Penny reappearing on the radar, and Bastien Salabanzi arriving like a collective slap in the face... this video shifted the geographic balance of skate culture.

Rowley's part remains one of the most intense things ever filmed. Not "intense" as in aggressive — intense as in: this guy is willing to destroy his knees for the shot. That kind of energy can't be manufactured. It can only be captured.

N°6 — Emerica "This is Skateboarding" - 2003

The title is a provocation. "This is Skateboarding" — meaning: not the rest of it. Andrew Reynolds, Heath Kirchart, Brandon Westgate. City ledges, rails that make you nervous, and a production tone that makes clear the budget isn't the point. The point is the terrain and what you do with it.

Heath Kirchart skates with a cold precision that has never been reproduced since. No "feel-good" style, no smile after the landing. He lands the trick and walks away. That might be the most honest definition of pure street skating there is.

N°5 — Mindfield - 2009 (Alien Workshop)

Technically outside the decade, yes. Don't care — Mindfield - 2009 belongs culturally to the 2000s. It's the culmination of everything Alien Workshop had been building since Photosynthesis. Dylan Rieder skates through this film like the ground is optional. Marc Johnson lands a nollie back heel on a spot people had been trying for weeks. And the soundtrack — The Smiths, Bauhaus, Neurosis — proves a skate video can be a work of composition as much as a collection of tricks.

N°4 — Yeah Right! - 2003 (Girl)

Spike Jonze behind the camera, a Girl team at the top of their game — Eric Koston, Mike Carroll, Guy Mariano — and enough budget to try things no skate video had attempted before. The invisible boards sequence. The fake documentary. Editing that actually breathes.

Yeah Right - 2003 is the video that proved the skate video format could be a genuine cinematic object without betraying street skating. And Guy Mariano's part — everyone knew he'd come back from a long way down — is maybe the most emotionally loaded comeback part in skate history.

Yeah Right proved a skate video could be cinema. Without sacrificing a single second of real street skating. — What Spike Jonze understood before everyone else

N°3 — Baker 2G - 2000 (Baker)

Baker 2G - 2000 had no budget. The camera was handheld in positions that made no sense. The spots were whatever the guys found while rolling around. And that — exactly that — is what earns it this spot.

Andrew Reynolds skates with a determination that looks like anger. Elissa Steamer is there, in this list of guys hitting rails, and she belongs entirely, effortlessly, without anyone needing to point it out. Jim Greco is filmed like the camera could barely keep up — because it could barely keep up. This video has no cinematic intro. It starts, it skates, it ends. That's it.

N°2 — Fully Flared - 2007 (Lakai)

Ty Evans behind the camera, Mike Carroll and Eric Koston leading the roster, and a Marc Johnson delivering the performance of his career. Fully Flared - 2007 is probably the most technically ambitious skate video ever made at that point. The explosions intro stuck in people's heads — even people who thought it was too much watched it twice.

Marc Johnson's part is a lesson in pure street skating: switches, nollie lines, ledge work in real conditions. No kicker hidden off-camera, no fake setup. Real spots, real tricks, and a precision that makes you want to put your board down out of respect. Corey Duffel brings the punk energy the rest of the film could have lost in its own technical perfection.

N°1 — Chocolate Tour (Yeah Right! era) / … or Welcome to Hell - 1996?

No. N°1 is Mouse - 1996 (Girl). And we stand by it.

Mouse - 1996 isn't technically a 2000s video. But it's the video without which none of this list exists. Eric Koston, Rick McCrank, Guy Mariano, Gino Iannucci — on real spots, in real cities, with a camera that framed tricks like conversations, not performances. No formatted rap soundtrack, no explosions, no editing that shouts.

Mouse - 1996 is the one people rewound the most. Not because of the craziest tricks — because of the way it felt. And if a 1996 video still holds up as an absolute reference in a 2000s ranking, it's because it set a standard nobody has cleared since.

You'll say it's off-topic. I'd say that's exactly the point.

Which video should have been N°1 — and why are we wrong to put Mouse over Fully Flared? Tell us in the comments ↓