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).

"Draft Day" Wants to Be Football Movies' Answer to "Moneyball," but Falls Way Short of the Goal

Kevin Costner does his best to make Draft Day enjoyable.

“Draft Day is to football as Moneyball is to baseball.” 

That’s how I imagine Draft Day was pitched and sold, but while both films focus on the front office maneuvering and domestic issues of general managers, they don’t represent a correlation worthy of a verbal reasoning test. Better to say Moneyball is to a great film as Draft Day is to some ludicrous fantasy scenario with overzealous editing tricks that’s propped up and made serviceable by the charms of Kevin Costner. That probably wouldn’t get put onto any test either, but at least it’s honest. 

Costner plays Sonny Weaver Jr., the GM of the Cleveland Browns who has drawn the ire of fans for firing the beloved long-time coach of the team, a man who also happens to have been Sonny’s dad and who also just happened to die a week before the draft. 

With the seventh pick in the draft, Sonny is debating between Vontae Mack, the flashy linebacker he’d like to take, and Ray Jennings, the running back the fans and current coach of the team (Dennis Leary) want him to choose. Then he gets a call from the Seattle Seahawks with an offer: they’ll give him the first pick in the draft, which he could then use on heralded quarterback Bo Callahan, for his next three first round selections. Despite having a veteran quarterback coming off an injury who he believes in (Tom Welling), Sonny makes the deal because his owner (Frank Langella) has told him to make a splash. Then he spends the rest of the movie trying to convince himself why taking Callahan is a bad idea. 

For most of its length, Draft Day is satisfactorily amiable, even if it goes way overboard with overlapping scene editing and all the damn domestic issues plaguing Sonny on this of all days. That his budget person/secret girlfriend (Jennifer Garner) would tell Sonny she’s pregnant – on this of all days – seems odd enough, but then throw on top of that the fact that his mother would throw a stink about spreading his father’s ashes on the field – on this of all days – and it just comes across as a wee bit much. I mean seriously – on this of all days? 

However, the film really runs into problems with the climax, which takes a look at the far-fetched domestic pile up, and says “You want to get ridiculous? Fine. I’ll get ridiculous. Nothing is more ridiculous about this movie than me. ‘Ridiculous’ is my middle name.” (warning: spoilers coming). 

Draft Day employs a whole lot of overlapping split screens to liven
up what is mostly a series of phone conversations.

Convinced that Callahan doesn’t have what it takes, Weaver goes with his gut and takes Mack. When Callahan starts falling down the draft board, it begins to look like Seattle could end up with the consensus number one pick and Sonny’s next to first rounders – a true boon for Seattle’s GM, who has been getting crushed by the fans for giving up the rights to drafting the league’s next great quarterback. 

That's when the movie starts slinging bullshit. It becomes obvious Callahan will fall to the Jacksonville Jaguars at six, but their rookie GM is shitting his pants, unsure of what to do and nervous to pick Callahan since other teams are passing on him. Sonny calls the guy and offers him a safety valve against making a disastrous selection – trade Cleveland the sixth pick for three years of second rounders. Miraculously, the Jacksonville GM takes the deal, and then Sonny calls the Seattle GM. He offers him the chance to trade for the sixth pick, draft Callahan and calm the vitriol of the Seattle fans, provided he return the three first round picks back to Cleveland. Seattle takes the bait, Cleveland picks Jennings, and Sonny comes out of the whole thing looking like a genius. 

The problem here is that this whole climax is utter nonsense – it’s the type of thing only a genie could make happen, and even then I’m not sure. There is no way in hell the Seattle GM would just cave and give up the picks like that. He’d probably call the bluff, noting that Weaver passed on the quarterback once, and he’d probably do it again. 

And even if the Seattle GM would be spooked into doing what Sonny wanted, there is no way three second round selections would garner a top 10 pick in the draft. And even if the rookie GM was an idiot willing to do that, he’d still have a slew of advisers telling him, ‘No.’ And even if the team in Jacksonville did decide to trade the pick, they’d almost certainly use all of the allotted ten minutes to find a better deal (perhaps with Seattle, who would have all sorts of picks to deal). Instead, they trade with Cleveland before they are even on the clock – an awful decision that occurs solely so the movie can allow Sonny enough time to call Seattle and make a trade. 

Although it was criticized for being too inside-football for mainstream audiences, Draft Day, like Moneyball before it, tries to make things as digestible as possible. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but unfortunately, while Moneyball opted to focus on the simpler aspects of a complicated system, Draft Day flat out dumbs things down. Although reality isn’t something I really require in my movies, and it’s definitely not something I require in my sports movies, Draft Day is just too damn much to take. C-