Like Marie, Adam has taken a look back at the decade that was 2010 – 2019 and found that the best films were not initially he thought.
If I tell the truth it’s more like Top Eighteen or so. I look back at the time and find that the films that rattled in my head were features that often time I have only seen once or twice. This was actually rather hard for me culling down a list of 500 to 250 to 101 to these films. I chose each for specific reasons as you’ll see below. Each did share a common thread, which was that each in their own way shed a light on how I saw the Decade of Film.
I’ve kept the 101 films list for reference and to share with you guys below if you are interested.
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls093761629
With all that… let’s get to it. For your reading pleasure, I present to you my Top Fifteen of the 2010s;
15. The Raid/The Raid 2: Berandal – Gareth Evans
Gareth Evans’ one-two punch of amazing choreographed violence is an ode to John Woo, Bruce Lee, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Jackie Chan wrapped up in a package so whupass awesome you won’t realize you’ve spent 4-plus-hours watching both films unfold. These two films are listed together because they are truly one epic tale of a rookie cop thrown into the most dangerous of viper pits and his literally shooting, punching, kicking, kneeing, cutting, slicing, and dicing his way out of the corruption and crime that surrounds him.
14. I Saw the Devil – Jee-woon Kim
The one-sentence logline should hook you; James Bond vs. Hannibal Lecter. But this South Korean Masterpiece of tension is more than standard horror-action fare. Rather writer/director Jee-woon Kim has created a film of one-upmanship that would make Hitchcock proud. Equal parts darkly funny, scary, violent and disgusting I Saw the Devil is an original that should stay as such.
13. Winter’s Bone – Debra Granik
Few films announced a star in the making as Winter’s Bone did with Jennifer Lawrence. At nineteen the actress was already powerhouse who would eventually dominate the conversation for more than a few years as she reigned supreme as Super Star of the World. Winter’s Bone in South Gothic Mystery tradition gives us an unusual hero/detective in Ree (Lawrence) as she desperately searches for her missing father. It is where Winter’s Bone breaks from the Gothic Tradition that sets it apart. The film’s female point of view and its main character’s literal struggle for her family’s survival that makes this so special.
12. Selma – Ava DuVernay
Everything about Selma is so perfectly good. Biopics are so difficult and what Ava DuVernay does here is a bit of a magic trick. She makes everything look so easy. It is not. It is, unfortunately, that much of what is the focus of the film still hasn’t changed. Powerful, bold filmmaking with so much warmth and compassion you won’t know what hit you.
11. We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lynn Ramsey
Another film that as we move farther and farther into this millennia becomes more and more prescient. What makes evil? Who is evil? Are parents to blame? Lynn Ramsey’s film is the bleakest of bleak. It shows the inevitable trajectory of an increasingly disturbing child (Ezra Miller in his finest work) and his parents (Tilda Swinton and John C Riley) apathy. All building to its end that… well, you will have to see it to understand why this film is only going to grow in importance as the years and decades pass.
10. OJ: Made in America – Ezra Edelman
Yes, this isn’t a cheat considering director Ezra Edleman’s 8-hour documentary played in theaters before premiering on ESPN. Like all great documentaries, this isn’t just about its subject. Rather OJ: Made in America is a mirror reflecting back on Race, Celebrity, Power, The Justice System, TV, Journalism, and America as a whole. The picture painted isn’t pretty but it is engrossing and powerful filmmaking.
9. Inception – Christopher Nolan
Nolan at his finest. TRAILER BOOOOOOOOOONGGGGGGG!!!!!
8. The Social Network – David Fincher
This is and is not the autobiography of every lonely sad internet boi in the world. The story is tired and true now. The sad boi was rejected once and their fragile ego could not handle it. Said sad boi attempted to burn down the world via the internet. In the case of Fincher’s film and biopic, Mark Zuckerberg (played with coldly calculated distance by Jesse Eisenberg) actually did.
7. Gravity – Alfonso Cuarón
A purely cinematic experience is what director Alfonso Cuarón has given us with Gravity. It is almost a disservice to everything Cuarón has built to recommend seeing it in anything less than IMAX. Maybe put your nose against your 65” TV. Maybe it may work.
6. Under the Skin/Cloud Atlas – Jonathon Glazer/Lana, Lilly Wachowski & Tom Tykwer
The reason the Jonathon Glazer and Lana & Lilly Wachowski films were tied together was that they shared a similar theme of Identity. So much of the 2010s was about identity be it of a sexual, gender, political, social, or financial nature. Each of these films shows us those identities in such different and austere ways but when viewed together feel like one half of a whole conversation. Glazer’s shows us an alien (Scarlett Johansson) who preys upon men and their sexual lusting of her form. Tykwer & the Wachowski’s tell multiple stories of the same souls but in different locations both geographically and chronologically. Each ends with a very different hypothesis but fascinating and human all the same.
5. Upstream Color – Shane Carruth
A puzzle wrapped in an enigma is how best to describe Upstream Color. Part Romance, Part Science Fiction, Part Mystery all Shane Carruth. Carruth wrote, directed, produced, edited and stars in this film which is essentially a dance of the psychological and metaphysical between two broken souls (played by Carruth and a heartbreakingly good Amy Seimetz). Five years after its release the film still rattles the mind, heart, and soul.
4. The Act of Killing – Joshua Oppenheimer
Few films are as terrifying as The Act of Killing. Having only seen the film once, I still recall whole sections with frightening clarity. Seeing this documentary about the Indonesian Mass Killings of 1965 – 1966 is to see the face of evil. That evil that sits there and as it breaks down and vomits in the face of what it has done and refusing to accept responsibility. Joshua Oppenheimer’s film isn’t just vital cinema it should be required viewing.
3. Dogtooth/The Lobster/The Killing of a Sacred Deer/The Favorite – Yorgos Lanthimos
Okay, yeah. I cheated on this one. I basically selected the filmography of Yorgos Lanthimos in the 2010s. I also cheated because Dogtooth was released in 2009 in Europe but in 2010 in the US. So, ha to you and yes. But there is a reason. Lanthimos’ work feels like a whole piece. Each directed with the sort of distance but humanity that feels Kubrickian in execution but Wilder-esque in presentation. Beginning with his debut the dark comedy Dogtooth about a family closed off to the world to The Lobster’s take on modern-day romance to The Killing of a Sacred Deer’s amazing devil’s choice narrative to The Favourite’s tale of empowerment and its cost. Lanthimos’ films are both highly entertaining and subversively pointed and very much the best of 2010s.
2. Parasite – Bong Joon-ho
Marie says it may be too early. I don’t think so. Parasite is a masterwork by a filmmaker at the apex of his powers and prowess as a filmmaker. Bong Joon-ho’s ode to family, capitalism, and South Korea is wholly original. What begins as one thing and transmorphs into something entirely different by its end is not only able to be bold intelligent filmmaking but is one of the most entertaining films of the last twenty years. It’s still in theaters now. Go see it. You don’t need a ton of Oscar Nominations to know this one is the real deal.
1. Mad Max: Fury Road – George Miller
Two decades in the making. From the opening moments till its final credit, George Miller is in complete control of every piece of filmmaking, even if it doesn’t look like (and in reality on-set was at times pure chaos). The film has owned the 2010s since its release in May of 2015. No one has come close to its purely cinematic visual style. A film that is an entire action set-piece and narratively told through visuals and the barest of pieces of dialog. The result is a tale of Women fighting the Patriarchy that holds them down, sexualized them, forces them to be their den mothers and whores (sound familiar people). Miller is also smart enough to know that Charlize Theron’s Furiosa is the real lead of this film and not Max (Tom Hardy at his hungover gravelly best… well maybe not that maybe The Drop). Watching these two figuring out each other and how to work together is one of the best dances of the 2010s. Ultimately it is Miller’s out-of-this-world and politically-charged visual storytelling that makes this the best film of the decade. Watch it three times; Black & White, 4K UHD Color, and finally 3D.