Top 10 Films of the 2010s

The 2010s were a good decade for film, and in thinking them over, I am reminded that I have specific likes and dislikes just like anyone. Despite this, I’m struck by how diverse my picks wound up. In the 2010s, there wasn’t really much danger for repeating myself, despite a penchant toward specific filmmakers.

When I review my yearly best of lists, I see a clear affinity for directors like Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049), Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike, Side Effects), David O. Russell (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) Martin Scorcese (Shutter Island, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman), Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel) Richard Linklater (Before Midnight, Boyhood) and The Coen Brothers (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Inside Llewyn Davis).

But this list? This list has none of those guys. And that’s kind of cool.

My next 10 would likely include some combination of Coco, Wind River, Stories We Tell, Calvary, Creed, Moana, Life of Pi, Skyfall, Before Midnight, and the three Mission Impossible films. But here’s my top 10.

10. Blindspotting

It’s been almost exactly two years since I wrote a fresh review on here, but I have been keeping tabs offline when I can. I recently posted a few reviews I had banked from a 2018 excel sheet, including one for this ambitious film, which tackles most of the major social issues of our time, including police brutality, gentrification, white privilege, cultural bias, our broken probation system, institutional racism, the gig economy, and appropriation. 

9. Moonlight

The first thing many people think of when they think of Moonlight is the whole controversy that played out when Warren Beatty said the wrong name on Oscar night. And that’s a shame, because this gorgeously shot and poetically realized film is the most deserving Best Picture winner of the decade. Writer/director Barry Jenkins and co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney expertly adapt McCraney's play in this evocative look at three stages in the life of a black gay man struggling with his identity.

8. Ex Machina

My review says it all, but the film plays even better in the wake of #MeToo and #TimesUp. 

7. Moneyball

I get that some people take issue with the fact that Moneyball takes significant liberties with the truth, entirely ignoring that the 2002 Oakland A's had three aces and the best left side of the infield in baseball in favor of slamming home the underdog made good aspect of their story. But as with The Social Network and many other great films, adherence to facts isn’t as important as emotional truth that gets at the heart of a particular issue.  

Although at times this film seems to erroneously imply Moneyball is just some mindless adherence to OBP, the overall takeaway is about going against the grain to get an edge. The idea of exploiting market inefficiencies wherever you can find them, has come to define not just baseball, but sports (and many outside businesses) entirely. And the fact that this film finds a way to dive into all of that in a way that is both revealing and entertaining is a miracle. It’s over simplistic at parts, but there’s no better intro to convincing an agnostic about the value of advanced statistics than the simple explainer above this post. 

I’ll say it one more time: the fact that this movie mainstreamed sabermetrics in an entertaining way is just bananas, but even more interesting is how the film’s version of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) still can’t help romanticizing the game at times, despite his beliefs.

Ultimately this film is tailor-made for me. It’s about behind-the-scenes baseball maneuvering and a strong focus on the father-daughter bond at its heart. This is a great character movie, like something from the 70’s or, more recently, Michael Clayton. Pitt has never been better, and he was just flat out robbed of an Oscar. Jonah Hill is a great sparring partner for him, but so is the rest of the cast, which is highlighted by a murderer’s row of acting talent (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, Robin Wright Penn) for Pitt to bounce off of. There are just so many scenes in this film I constantly go back to – the “adapt or die” sequence, the ending with the daughter’s song on the car’s cd player, etc. etc. It’s a perfect film.

6. Get Out

I'm not the biggest fan of horror, but Jordan Peele's clever and chilling account of a black man dealing with a nightmare “guess who’s coming to diner” scenario is everything you could want from the genre, including pulse-pounding scares, livewire performances, searing wit, and keen allegory (in this case, an exploration of the claustrophobia of liberal racism and cultural appropriation in post-racial America).  

5. Edge of Tomorrow

For the longest time, I loved how often Tom Cruise would take challenging material with ace level filmmakers and willingly play a schmuck. He’s doing less and less of that now in favor of making big action films, and that’s regrettable, but it’s also hard to complain. In a decade that featured a slew of great marvel films, a great Planet of the Apes trilogy, and probably the best Bond film of all time, Cruise managed to log 4 of the 5 best action films. None of this decade’s Mission Impossible movies made this top 10, but my love for them has been documented on this blog previously. And then there is Edge of Tomorrow. More detailed thoughts can be found in my review, but (excluding kids movies) I don’t think I’ve watched any film from the 2010s as much as this movie. I just love it.  

4. Toy Story 3

This is pinnacle Pixar for me even if it's not at the cutting edge as just another entry in long franchise. It somehow improves upon the first two films, deepening the emotional power of the franchise, while simultaneously trading in the kind of perfect caper plotting that makes stuff like Ocean's 11 so fun.

This series (including 2019’s fourth entry) is just great, energetic fun, and it’s also always seriously engaging with some existential issue around weighty issues like abandonment, grief, and most poignantly, the psychology of parenthood. Woody the cowboy is an all-time great protagonist, and it’s amazing how they keep finding new ways to peel back layers on the character. It’s hard to imagine three won’t be the zenith of the series, and four ends things pretty definitively for Woody, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t sign up for a 5^th entry in another 8-10 years. No film franchise has anywhere near as high a batting average as Toy Story, and this is very best of the series. 

3. The Social Network

The Social Network was well received when it came out, and has only become more resonant with time. This is simultaneously a thrilling procedural about the growth of Facebook, a human tragedy and, most notably, a prescient indictment on what life in the social media age would eventually become. Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher have never been better than this, and, given everything that’s happened since with Facebook’s complicit relationship to fake news, I’d love to see them and Jesse Eisenberg find a way to crack a sequel.  

2. Short Term 12

Like The Rider’s Chloe Zhao, director Destin Daniel Cretton is following in the footsteps of Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi by moving on from indie acclaim into the Marvel machine with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. His first feature was this lovely little gem that focuses on a few days at a group home for wayward kids. 

Watching it now, the film plays like a who’s who of actors that would go on to utterly blow up later in the decade. Brie Larson (Room, Captain Marvel) and Rami Malik (Bohemian Rhapsody) are Oscar winners, of course, but Lakeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Get Out, Atlanta) and Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, Justified) continue to rise, and Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane, The Newsroom) haven’t exactly been slouches.

Getting back to Short Term 12 – despite its small scope, I constantly find myself thinking back on it for its beating heart and powerful displays of humanity. What Junebug was for my 2000s list, this is for my 2010’s list. I just want to watch scenes from this film over and over, which is easy enough to do give its wide availability of streaming services. More on the film can be found in my original review.

1. Frances Ha

I rewatched Frances Ha recently just to make sure my opinion would still track with the high esteem in my head, and I’d say I think the film is even better than when I first saw it. Sometimes, I’ll read a review I wrote years ago and realize I was off base on this or that element. Not so here. My thoughts in 2019 echo what I wrote six years ago, although I’d clearly up my grade from an A to an A+.

Bonus points for being the best film from Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, an off screen couple who managed to create much of the best stuff from the 2010s, both separately (Ladybird for her, Marriage Story and The Meyerowitz Stories for him) and together (this, Mistress America).

Sorry to Bother You

I'm Sorry to Bother You starts as a hip indie, something like if you crossed Dope with Thank You for Smoking, but then becomes something else entirely in the third act.

Initially we follow Cassius Green or Cash (the invaluable Lakeith Stanfield) rising up the ranks at a telemarketing firm called RegalView by using his white voice (David Cross) to sell junk to people.

This all occurs in a weird alternate version of Oakland where the most popular TV show focuses on kicking the shit out of people, while an increasing number of people sign on to work for a company called WorryFree, signing over lifetime rights as a worker for free food, lodging and a life free or bills.

The reason people are willing to do this is due mostly to rigged system that makes it a perferable life choice. In acknolwedgement of this, Cash's fellow telemarketers (organized by Walking Dead's Steven Yeun, who is really putting together an interesting career in his post Glen career) mount a workers strike, but Cash gets promoted and winds up crossing the picket lines a scab.

In his new role, Cash basically sells slave labor, contracting out the WorryFree work force to other companies. He initially balks at the idea but then submits to when he sees dollar signs, something that eventually fractures his relationship with his girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), who is secretly involved in a radical group of protesters known as "The Left Eye."

The film takes a turn for the weirder with the arrival of a corporate baddie played by Armie Hammer (showing increasing shades as an actor). It's a big swing from writer/director Boots Riley that you have to see to believe. To say more would be ruin the experience, but this is a vital takedown of of the status quo that investigates class warfare, white gaze, racial hierarchy, and media failings in fresh and challenging ways.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Although all of their films are identifiably Coen-esque, the Coen brothers have a large number of lanes they can work in -- they run the gamut from wacky, to serious, to comtemplative, to you get the idea. With it's omnibus approach, the Ballad of Buster Scruggs services all of their various proclivites.

In each of the six vignettes in this anthology, the brothers take time-honored archetypes and twist them around to drive home a cental thesis -- the universe is relentlessly cruel and we are hapless participants in a rigged game. It's simultaneously a homage and a critque of Westerns.

Some of the stories aren't as good as the others, but they are all distinct, masterfully realized and have an O. Henry vibe to them. My favorite is the first, which stars a never better Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs, an inverted Roy Rogers type that's secretly a nihilistic Bugs Bunny. He deserved a Supporting Oscar nomination, and maybe even a win. He's a force of nature. Of course, he got no recognition.

It's also just a flat out beautiful film, marking the first (and probably only) experience the duo have on digital. It's grown in my estimation since I watched it, and it's nature as an anthology means it'll be super easy to revist. Any one of these stories could be a major contender for best short Oscar, but, at its current length, the film was shut out. Nevertheless, this is uppertier Coens, and that's saying something.

Paddington 2

This is a sneaky good franchise. The first Paddington was an utter delight filled with great visual pinache reminscenct of Wes Anderson, a sense of madcap fun reminsicent of silent era stars, and, best of all, a large dose of heart. The casting was great and Paddington himself is an eminently winning creation, brought to life beautifully with crack VFX work.

The sequel matches the first in almost all categories -- it equals the impressively designed doll house introduction to the Brown family with the magical use of a pop-up book to highlight the attactions of London, while surpassing it in others (Nicole Kidman was fun in the first, but didn't have as much to play with as Hugh Grant does here).

Writer/director Paul King is doing something really great with this franchise. The Bafta's showed this movie some love last year, but there was no Oscar nominations, despite worthy work on set design, score, VFX and costuming. No matter. It's one of the best films of 2018.

Avengers: Infinity War

I've been colder on Avengers movies than most. I've found them enjoyable, but rate them as mid-tier entries in the MCU. That changed with this film, which is the movie Avengers was always supposed to be. The mix-and-match character pairings all work like gangbusters, and the emotional stuff -- especially Iron Man/Spiderman and Thanos/Gamorra, really lands. It's incredibly impressive they pulled all of this together so well and in such a casually subversive way.

I am especially delighted the filmmakers and Josh Brolin made Thanos such a vivid and well-realized protagonist -- a crazy thing to write since he's the big villain. He's not as affective in the sequel, but here he's a near perfect movie villain, which marks a refreshing change of pace. Obviously, the characters who disappeared were always going to come back, but this one left me legit excited to see the payoffs in the follow-up anyway.

Mission Impossible: Fallout

I know it's the sixth film in an action franchise staring a grade-A jerk, but these movies are awesome generally, and this one is specifically top tier.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is the first film in the series to repeat with a director and it also serves as a direct sequel (the love interest and villian from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation return) as well. I was initially hesitant to much of thar, but the film is all the better for it given how great Tom Cruise's chemistry is with Rebecca Ferguson's Illsa Faust and uow insync Cruise is with Christopher McQuarrie.

I love how this one distinguishes itself by leaning into the neurosis of Ethan Hunt -- so much of what has become fun about watching Cruise in these is in his daring, physicality and reaction shots, but here they really build out the character as an anxiety timebomb, and I love that.

The helicopter chase scene is bananas, the Paris car chase scene is even better, and the bathroom fight scene is worthy of all the memes, but my favorite moment is how Cruise plays the realization that his ex (Michelle Monaghan) is in the same location as an armed nuclear bomb (the start of which is shown below). The way he says Julia crushes me every time. Cruise pulled a similar trick in showing vulerability in a key moment of Edge of Tomorrow, and these scenes encapsulate so well why Cruise is the best action movie star out there. Not only can he do his own stunts, but he can absolutely bring the acting chops.

My one critique is that the opening scene (and thus much of the plot) necessitates a level of stupidity on the part of these very smart operatives, but it's not enough to dim the wattage here. This is a great entry in a phenominal franchise.

You Were Never Really Here

It's crazy how this Hollywood system consistently limits the access of female filmmakers, resulting in great female directors having massive gaps in their filmographies.

Private Life writer/director Tamara Jenkins has three films to her credit, and went 9 and then 11 years between them. Lynne Ramsay is another great example of this. She's had multiple movies taken away from her due to creative differences, and as a result she's only made 4 feature length films since her first 20 years ago.

You Were Never Really Here is typical of her work -- uncompromising, sparse dialouge, vivid imagery. It's an extremely lean (85 minutes) and lyrical film about Joe (Joaquin Pheonix), a hired gun who rescues traffiked girls via brutal methods. He is haunted by a traumatic past that clearly includes sexual abuse from his father, and more opaquely includes emotionally exhausting work in the FBI and the military (we literally only see short snapshot flashbacks with little to no explanation).

Joe spends most of his free time doting on his elderly mother, but when he gets involved with a conspiracy that goes all the way up to the Governor, his life is turned upsidedown. Plot is beside the point here, in a film that got none of the accolades of Joker, another Pheonix vehicle that mines similar territory.

Pheonix is front and center and he uses every ounce of his skill to fully inhabit Joe far beyond the limits of the minimal script. Ramsay shows off a bit with some choices, but my favorite aspect is her atypical approach. In one scene, Joe infiltrates a baddie compound, and we see static shot after static shot of the place, but each shot includes the aftermath of his actions (you can tell by the bodies on the ground).

In another, Joe lies on the ground next to a mortally wounded would be assassin and then the two begin to sing a song together. When the baddie reaches out to hold Joe's hand whole he dies, Joe allows him the kindness. The vulnerability of the scene (shown below) is overpowering. So to is this hypnotic gem of a film.