Top films of the decade

I wasn’t going to write this.

For a great many reasons.

Just to name a handful of them: 

• As other obligations have popped up, I don’t think I have kept up enough with films to rightly judge the crop from each year, which is the main reason I stopped writing reviews. I went from watching 50-100 films a year down to 20 or less. That really isn’t a fair sample size. 

• There are now thousands of lists like these to choose from online. I’ve read dozens of them and for the most part, agree with none. That just cements the subjective nature of film and art. And it makes me realize that anyone reading these reviews are most likely disagreeing with most of my assertions (which has always been apparent from the comments) 

• Film is dying. At least, the form of art we have recognized as film over the last century, is dying and will be reborn as something I can’t quite imagine just yet. If you don’t believe me try and make a list of the best comedies of the last 10 years. The reason I mention comedies is simply because they are probably the most effected by the rise of episodic, bingeable television slowly replacing movies over the last 10-15 years. But really it is every genre across the board. The best, most artful visual storytelling over the past two decades has come in the form of television. So much so, I almost bent the rules to force in what would have easily been my number 1 pick and feels more like an 18 hour movie broken up in parts instead of 18 individual episodes - Twin Peaks: the Return. 

But I did write this, because some of these thoughts wouldn’t stop rattling around in my head. That said, this isn’t going to be the usual drawn-out conversation with myself, and compared with the list I wrote a decade ago, this will be a brief and easy read. As I mentioned above, I missed a lot of good films over the last few years, so it is entirely possible that I just did not see a film you love as opposed to thinking it was lesser than any of the films I am going to mention. 

Just to mention a few films I really loved:

Lady Bird 

Shame 

Inside Llewyn Davis 

The Wolf of Wall Street 

Mad Max Fury Road 

Boyhood 

Molly’s Game

Spotlight 

Steve Jobs 

Ex Machina

Les Miserables

The Revenant

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs 

Blade Runner 2049 (shave 20 minutes of awkward pauses off this film and it might have been top-5)
12 Years a Slave

Anyway, here we go...

The Tree of Life:

I am an unapologetic Terrence Malick fan. When this film first came out I thought it was such a groundbreaking, visionary piece of filmmaking because it felt so personal and unique. And it was. But it is sort of the reverse of how I feel about the Cohen Bros early films like Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing (which I just watched again for the first time in over 25 years. It really holds up), where having seen the trajectory of where their careers went afterward, I understood the tone and style of those early films better and came to enjoy them more. With Malick, the unique style of The Tree of Life simply became how he made films throughout the decade. I still enjoy them, especially To the Wonder and Knight of Cups, but with each one, it makes The Tree of Life feel somehow less personal and special.

Into the Spider-verse: 

I am late to the game on this one, as I finally saw it far after it had become a phenomenon. But oh boy is this a special film. Just the pacing, look and message of this film are so fantastic, you immediately let go of all your biases that come with watching a cartoon superhero movie. This is a really great achievement and sets an impossibly high bar for sequels and for what films like this can, and should, be.

The Social Network: 

Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were not going to make a bad film. But somehow, combining these elements that do not seem to be an intuitive mix, made for something really fantastic that seemed to mirror perfectly the dark ironies and hypocrisies that make up social media today. This film felt a little too topical at the time of its release, where I didn’t think it would age very well, but as the world becomes a lot less social, I think society looks more and more like these characters every day.

Beasts of the Southern Wild: 

So, like a lot of people, I’ve read a whole lot of “Best of the Decade” list over the last few months, and this film was consistently absent even though at the time it was released it was widely praised. I’m not sure what happened to make people forget about this great little jewel of a film, but I’m going to prop it up right where it should be, amongst the best films of the last ten years. For me, the comparisons to Days of Heaven certainly don’t hurt this film, as both strive to show the wonder and rollercoaster of emotions that come with seeing the world through the eyes of a young child as they wrestle with confusing and complex adult concepts. And for both films, the unique and specific time and setting magnify the experience. If this film did manage to fall through the cracks, I highly recommend seeking it out and experiencing it for yourself. 

Inception: 

Ten years ago, if you had asked me to bet on what film Christopher Nolan will be most remembered for or what film you immediately think of when the directors name is mentioned, I would have thought that when the dust settles, that film would have been Memento. It is rare that somebody, in a good way and not for some heinous crime, can reinvent the myth of their own celebrity. But, after several heady action set pieces amplified by some really intense Hans Zimmer scores, Inception has come to be the purest example of Christopher Nolan’s genre-defying, epic filmmaking.   

The Grand Budapest Hotel: 

I still think that The Royal Tenenbaums is probably Wes Anderson’s best film, but the Grand Budapest Hotel is the most pure, unfiltered example of his style and my personal favorite. It is short, funny, gorgeously shot and designed and features a few fantastic performances. None more spectacular and hilarious than Ralph Fiennes M. Gustave, easily one of the most underrated and best performances of the decade.

Midnight in Paris: 

One of two films I can’t seem to look away from when they are on, and yet still manage to pop in the Blu-ray far too often for someone who complains about not having time to watch new films. I have seen this film, start to finish, an embarrassing amount of times. It effortlessly captures the myth of Paris and the faults that lie in impersonal nostalgia. Funny, clever and extremely self-aware, I don’t see myself getting sick of this film any time soon. 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy:

The other film I have watched so many times throughout this past decade. And every time I notice something, often very subtle but brilliant, that I never picked up on before. This is one of the best, most pure adaptations of a great novel that exists in cinema. It has an all-star cast that somehow manages to never overwhelm and features some absolutely fantastic performances. Gary Oldman has completely replaced how I see George Smiley in the novels. This is a film that, for me, represents the best that a spy-thriller can aspire to. It commands your attention and leaves you lost in a fog of confusion if you take your eye off the bouncing ball. Given the star power and rising salaries that came out of this film, I know it would be hard to get the surviving cast back for the sequels, but I am still holding out hope. 

Black Swan: 

Nobody does a tense downward spiral and emotional implosion quiet like Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansel. A decade later and I still love every aspect of this film. It is a rollercoaster that manages to portray every benign motion as an act of absolute violence. It takes all of our notions of ballet and converts them into a gritty, grimy, industrial world where fierce Darwinism sets the stage for a thrilling and infectious psychological transformation. A film that would make this list in any decade, and thinking about it now, I am surprising myself that it is not my number 1. 

Birdman:

Looking back on this list it is easy to think that I value originality over other aspects of quality. I’ve never been someone who believes in prioritizing the oedipal nature of art, but after decades of great films that follow traditional structures and narratives, it is hard to stand out from the pack without leaning into new and uncharted territory. Birdman certainly is very original. It felt like nothing I had ever experienced. But the structure and story of both Birdman and Black Swan are very similar; they are both very personal, singular viewpoints of an artist spiraling out of control for both their art and for their desperate need of acceptance. So it is not necessarily the originality that drew me to these excellent films, but the very personal perspective into crisis and drama. Where Black Swan was thrilling and tense, Birdman was clever, funny and so insanely immersive. The way it is shot and edited, with long winding, seamless scenes, moving throughout the narrow confines of the backstage of a theater production, along with the jazz drum beat soundtrack, create a very purposeful style and emotion and really showed the range of what can still be achieved in cinema. And hopefully this film will be a beacon for where film can go to and survive for the next decade.

Thanks for reading my nonsensical ramblings. This was fun and helped fill a serious lack in discussion and conversation. Cheers.