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).

"Edge of Tomorrow" Provides Fun Commentary on Gaming Experience

Edge of Tomorrow plays with the time loop concept previously seen

in the likes of Groundhog Day and Source Code.

Edge of Tomorrow is Tom Cruise’s latest foray into science fiction. In the film, he plays Major William Cage a smarmy, army publicist who pisses off the wrong general leading to his getting thrown on the front lines of a battle against an invading alien force. Ill prepared for combat, Cage dies within minutes, but somehow he winds up in a time loop, forcing him to relive the experience again and again.

 

Cage’s situation enables him the opportunity to learn his environment, improve his skills, and, potentially, take down the seemingly unbeatable aliens (called mimics) once and for all. It also allows him to grow close to Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a celebrated war hero who understands what he’s going through because she experienced the same thing earlier in the war.

 

Watching a film like this, it’s hard not to immediately draw parallels to other films, which neatly ties into thoughts from my last piece, a review that touched on how it’s impossible to judge films in a vacuum. A lot of people are labeling Edge of Tomorrow as Groundhog Day with action (an idea given extra relevance by the love interest having the name Rita), but Next and Source Code are even better comparison points given their genre trappings.

 

Director Doug Liman gets a lot of mileage out of the premise, using many of the same tricks employed by Groundhog Day and Source Code to not only avoid monotony, but also to provide a great deal of exposition, humor and depth. As happened in those films, our lead begins to fall for the girl, but, unfortunately, although he has developed feelings and gotten to know this woman over weeks, years, decades or more, she can’t know him at all.

 

There is a great scene set on a farm in which Cage tries to stall their next step, because he just wants to live in the moment with Rita and knows that, no matter what he does in this setting, she will soon take action in a way that ends her life. However, the script tells a lot more than it shows, and I would’ve preferred an additional scene or two showing Cage and Rita’s developing bond. Cruise deserves credit for doing a lot of heavy lifting to overcome that issue.

 

This is yet another science fiction movie that boils down to taking out

a central hub to neutralize an alien threat.

One major positive to having an clued-in love interest in a film like this is that Rita is aware what Cage going through, which at least helps circumvent the “if you think about it” issue that plagued the other two films. For instance, in Groundhog Day, I was always amused by the fact Phil (Bill Murray) is finally able to land Rita (Andie MacDowell) on the day he barely spends any time with her at all (since he’s so busy helping out the townsfolk). Spending an entire day romancing the woman gets him nowhere, but building himself into a local legend and sculpting one ice sculpture makes her willing to not only sleep with him, but to drop everything in her life, marry the guy and move to Punxsutawney as well.

 

That’s not enough to kill Groundhog Day – it’s actually my all-time favorite movie, and it’s not like we haven’t gotten a chance to see that relationship develop – but it is one of the best examples I can think of when a movie goes “forget the logic – all that matters is that it works for the audience” (another example: the whole “T-Rex pushes the car over the cliff that wasn’t there” thing in Jurassic Park). At least in Edge of Tomorrow, Rita knows they must have formed a bond and is able to judge Cage and react to him based on that knowledge.

 

Beyond the inclusion of a strong, in-the-know female, Edge of Tomorrow also distinguishes itself as a clever commentary on the video gaming experience. Cage is dropped into a very Halo-esque scenario each day, and when he dies he respawns back where he started, ready to learn from his mistakes and advance. The film has a great deal of fun with Cage’s exasperation related to his failures. Even though Liman edits the film so that we aren’t seeing the same things over and over again, there’s an underlying understanding that Cage is going through the motions each day to get the his last point of death. Cruise humorously translates the frustration every gamer has felt as the film wears on and he fails to make progress – one training scene even has him try to convince Blunt he’s good to continue despite having broken his leg just so he doesn’t have to go through the motions of getting to this point again.

 

The film is pretty great from start to finish, but it really crackles in the middle third. I was somewhat annoyed it devolves into the typical mission concerned with blowing up a central hub, which, if you recall, also occurred in Cruise’s last sci-fi vehicle Oblivion (Why do so many damn movies resort to this plot point? The only trope more popular in the action genre seems to be the powerful object that falls into the wrong hands). It’s a little more forgivable here given that this movie is intentionally aping and commenting on what it’s like to play a video game, and, well, that’s a pretty common endpoint in alien invasion first-person shooters.

 

The film concludes with a questionable denouement that arbitrarily betrays the established logic of the film. It’s sort of cribbed right from Next, but not as annoying as it was there, because it feels more earned (I’m trying not to ruin either movie here, but if you’ve seen both, you’ll get what I mean). Regardless, as with Groundhog Day, the ending isn’t enough to hurt my view of the film. Edge of Tomorrow is an enjoyable, smart and well-drawn actioner – the kind it would behoove Hollywood to make a lot more of. A-