Paul Elliott’s review published on Letterboxd:
Origins of the 21st Century beholds Jean-Luc Godard rapidly scanning through the twentieth century in reverse order in his most scholarly and political rabble-rousing mode. Godard was provided with the opportunity of making the short for the 53rd Cannes Film Festival, just as cinema was getting ready to embark on a new millennium, and it received its premiere on the festivals opening-night. It consists of an arrangement of various parts formulated by images, quotations and rhythms of re-edited footage with the century's most representative tendencies becoming presented. They range, unsurprisingly, from war, displaced people, personal misery and forced humiliation. It manages to run a gauntlet of courage and heartbreak in a very tight runtime of seventeen minutes.