In a decade dominated by blockbuster sequels and comic book adaptations, I found myself more and more removed from the multiplex. Instead, I embarked on journeys at my local independent cinemas, buried under DVDs of classic films, or watching Turner Classic Movies. It is at the Princess in Waterloo and the Carlton or TIFF Bell Lightbox in downtown Toronto that I saw many of these films, and I feel they represent my rather diverse taste. You'll find chamber dramas, science fiction and musicals intermingled with neo-realism, documentaries and surrealist phantasmagorias. I'm a rather receptive, open audience member, but still a discerning one. I tend towards the emotional, but still appreciate the austere. Simply put: if it's well-crafted, I'll probably enjoy it regardless of genre, language or budget. Here are what I consider my favourite films of the 2010s. Let's begin!
Honourable Mentions
The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet, 2010)
Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)
Caesar Must Die (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 2012)
Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012)
A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke, 2013)
Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
The Theory of Everything (James Marsh, 2014)
Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller, 2014)
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)
The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017)
Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017)
Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)
First Man (Damien Chazelle, 2018)
Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller, 2019)
THE TOP TWENTY
20. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)
Tarantino's best of the decade wasn't the rather excellent Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood, but this wild blast of a ride. I saw it with some students of mine, and we had a total riot. Thinking back to my most memorable experiences in the cinema, this shines as one of them (another is the Tarantino-Rodriguez Grindhouse premiere). Yes, it's a bit indulgent, and could perhaps use an editing job, but the dialogue is delicious, the score fantastic, and the plot keeps turns enough corners to keep you engaged the entire three hours.
19. Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015)
Another violent affair, this time filling one with dread. The performances, especially del Toro and Blunt, and the script by Sheridan are excellent, but it's two elements that make this one to remember: first,
Jóhannsson's score. One of my favourite composers of contemporary classical music, he sadly passed away a few years ago, but left us with a rather
extraordinary oeuvre. The
main musical motif of
Sicario is a dripping, falling orchestra, and stayed fresh in my memory for weeks afterwards. The second element is the incredible night-vision sequence: claustrophobic, intense, with some of Deakins' best work. Bravura techniques and a stinging political statement to boot,
Sicario is brutally violent and very, very scary.
18. Wadjda (Haifaa Al Mansour, 2012)
Saudi feminist neo-realism? It's probably an accurate way to describe Wadjda. Continuing with (neo-)realist cinema's obsession with bicycles (Bicycle Thieves, The Kid With a Bike), here we find a young Saudi girl desperately trying to get her hands on a bike, which is forbidden to girls and women. It's amazing that this film got made in the first place: it was touted as the first Saudi film directed by a woman, which alone is an achievement, but the content is equally radical in a country dominated by extremely conservative Wahhabi Islam. Yet as I often say, good politics doesn't necessarily make good art, but here it's a slam-dunk of technique and emotion.
17. The King's Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010)
Hooper's career may have taken a downfall after this film (
Les Misérables is dreadful, and you can read by recent review of
Cats), but for a moment at the beginning of the decade, he seemed to be a promising talent, even capturing the Oscar for Directing. The style of the film may seem to be a bit much sometimes, however, I think it actually works. But here's a film that is so good because it's a wonderful story, wonderfully told. The scene with Colin Firth
spewing profanities is hilarious and strangely inspiring, especially for those of us who have speech disorders.
16. The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles, 2019)
A riveting, first-rate film on two of the most powerful figures in the world: Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. I expected a simple chamber drama --by no means a negative-- but was instead greeted with a film that bounces between geographic locations, time, and contemplative states: it makes you laugh, and it makes you think. Led by masterful performances by Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins, the film is also a stylistic and tonal wonder, which one would expect from the director of City of God.
15. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn, 2012)
One of the most creative and powerful documentaries I've yet seen, The Act of Killing interviews the perpetrators and victims' families of the Indonesian killings of 1965-66 -- and invites the perpetrators to re-enact these atrocities into scenes that reflect on their feelings and memories of the killings. The resulting scenes are gangster films, Westerns, and even musicals. It's a fascinating, horrific testament to the banality of evil, and to the repercussions that are felt in Indonesia to this day. Not for the faint-hearted, but essential viewing especially for those interested in the documentary form.
14. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
Whiplash is a crash-boom-bang of a film. It's amazing to think that this was Chazelle's debut feature, considering that it's so expertly put together, with some incredible crisp editing and sound work: but it's also an absorbing story with excellent performances. Dissecting ambition, prodigies, and the student-teacher relationship, it's psychologically intense, like the blast-beat of drums.
13. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)
A deeply humanist, sympathetic film, Kore-eda's examination of family, morality and survival is a total triumph and a well-deserving Palme d'Or winner. There's a delicate touch here in a film that could have had a heavier hand in another director's grasp, but instead we have a perfect blend of pathos, humour and coolness. Rarely have I felt so much for an on-screen family.
12. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)
Lanthimos is a very particular director, with a bizarre cadence to his writing and direction that is certainly one-of-a-kind. It's therefore a surprise that his best film since Dogtooth is one that he didn't write. Still, the film benefits from Lanthimos' unique directorial touch. Candlelight, conventionally bizarre--yet appropriate--camera lens choices, repetitive music, and a pile of vitriol, this film certainly isn't for everyone, but it's also a cinéaste's treat: an even stranger Barry Lyndon meets All About Eve that has a trio of fantastic actresses tearing each other apart. Delicious.
11. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)
Science fiction can often go in rather disparate directions: it can be kitschy, it can be horrific, it can be cerebral: think of how
The Thing and
It Came From Outer Space can exist in the same genre as
Things to Come and
Star Trek. Villeneuve's film is of the cerebral variety, and it's a mind-twister of a flick. The less I say of the narrative the better, as you want to experience the confusion and awe head-on with little bearing. What I can say is that the film is a technical and narrative marvel, led by one of the leading actresses of her generation, Amy Adams (who was absolutely robbed of an Oscar nomination). The score and soundscape is another Jóhannsson collaboration, this time also featuring Max Richter's perfect "
On the Nature of Daylight".
10. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
Impeccably directed with such restraint whilst leaping across tonal shifts, Phantom Thread is a treat for audiences that are willing to take in the sumptuous settings with a great deal of acid. The narrative moves to places unexpected, but the film is anchored by excellent performances from all involved: but really, would you expect anything less from Daniel Day-Lewis, directed by Anderson?
9. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
Haneke's cinema of cruelty and sympathy reaches a sort of zenith with Amour, his second Palme d'Or winning film after The White Ribbon. It's tough watching, but also incredibly moving. Riva and Trintignant are pretty much perfect as an elderly couple who live a lonely and difficult existence as he acts as her caregiver after she suffers a stroke. It takes place almost entirely in one Parisian apartment, dominated by only two actors, and is minimal in narrative, but the emotional impact is incredible.
8. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)
Arthouse action isn't something you see very often. A rather divisive film, but I found myself completely enraptured in its mythic neo-noir Los Angeles. Moments of violence puncture a glacial neon environment, supplemented by a synth-soaked score. Refn would take this aesthetic to more extremes with his follow-up Only God Forgives to lesser effect, but here it works gloriously.
7. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
An international arthouse crowd-pleaser? You betcha. Parasite has been a phenomenon at the international box-office, which is a bit surprising given that it's a subversive drama on class distinctions. The film changes tones throughout in unexpected ways, going from hilarious to horrific in only a few minutes -- while sometimes being both. It's biting satire, leaving no one unscathed, but it also has a lot of heart for its characters, being unexpectedly moving at times. Bong has been a fascinating director to watch over the years, and here he really hits a grand slam.
6. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
From dinosaurs to humanity, a treatise about Life and Everything through the lens of an everyday family. If IMDb and RottenTomatoes are anything to go by, audiences were divided by The Tree of Life; but I found myself on the side of the Cannes Jury and see it as Malick's masterpiece. (Days of Heaven is a close second.) The film is easy to mock, but once you get on its wavelength, it's a powerful picture. Yes, the whispered dialogue. The elliptical narrative. The sheer scope of it all. But there's also the stunning cinematography, the vast ideas, the deeply touching moments. This is a film to savour, to breathe in, to read as if you're tackling Kierkegaard.
5. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, 2017)
This is truly an "Andrew movie", through and through. Whimsical and magical, a little bit gruesome, a sci fi-horror-romance with a musical number: it's a genre picture elevated to something rather extraordinary. This film seems so tailor-made to my tastes, yet del Toro's signature is written in every frame of the picture, and I think here he really lived up to the promise shown in his 2006 masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth.
4. La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)
A dreamy yet bittersweet Hollywood-set musical that takes more than a liberal dose of inspiration from one of my all-time favourite filmmakers, La La Land is the spiritual sequel to that great one-two punch of Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort. While some pictures will take inspiration from the New Waves of Europe and Hollywood and end up being little more than ripped homages, Chazelle is too clever to be a mere copy. He takes what we loved about those nouvelle vague musicals, updates it, and makes it his own. A candy-coated, saturated colour scheme enlivens a wonderful score, led by two memorable performances from Stone and Gosling, who both feel like real people who have found themselves in a City of Stars.
3. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)
I saw this at the TIFF Bell Lightbox by myself, and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried. Thrice. Roma is a balancing act of melodrama, social realism, sentimentality and detachment, all wrapped up in some of the most striking cinematography I've come across. This film is both hugely epic and universal in scope, yet intimate and culturally specific to Cuarón's childhood memories. This is detailed filmmaking from a master filmmaker, with even the soundscape being spot-on. Learning more about his directorial techniques at an after-screening talk at TIFF was eye-opening and surprising, and only made me appreciate the film more.
2. Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, 2012)
This is probably my most-watched film of the decade. I rarely have a movie that I'm always in the mood for, and this is one of them. A bittersweet romantic comedy --which even has dancing!-- with an excellent cast, led by career-best work by Cooper and Lawrence. But Silver Linings Playbook isn't just escapist fare: it has a real agenda to it, and that is to give those of us who struggle with our mental health some hope. It might be corn-ball to some, but it really touched me on a very intimate level.
1. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
The most thrilling movie of the last ten years is Leos Carax's genre-tripping masterpiece. I managed to re-watch it a few weeks ago at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and it holds up. I'll write a full review soon, explaining just why I love this film so much. A series of vignettes, it still coalesces into a surrealist dream, led by an astonishing performance (really, performances) by Denis Lavant. It's mind-bending, it's bizarre, it's joyful and melancholy and wonderful and like pure exhilaration captured on film. Few films make me as giddy thinking about them as
Holy Motors.
So to sum it up as a list:
1. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
2. Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, 2012)
3. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)
4. La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)
5. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, 2017)
6. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
7. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
8. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)
9. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
10. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
11. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)
12. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)
13. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)
14. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)
15. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn, 2012)
16. The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles, 2019)
17. The King's Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010)
18. Wadjda (Haifaa Al Mansour, 2012)
19. Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015)
20. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)
Biggest Disappointments
Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010)
One of my favourite directors at the time paired with some beloved source material didn't pan out the way anyone wanted it to.
Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
Is it a bad
film? Not particularly, but I certainly didn't find it to be the masterpiece many made it out to be.
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)
I really didn't get the hype with this one, instead scratching my head as to why people found it clever.
Widows (Steven McQueen, 2018)
I love McQueen, but this was too drawn out, lacking thrills and was a rather morose affair.
Most Hated Films
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
The award for most pretentious, convoluted blockbuster of the decade goes to... (Beating Nolan's own
Inception!)
Kingsman: The Secret Service (Matthew Vaughn, 2015)
I'm not one to normally shy away from cinematic violence, but this? Despicable.
The Smurfs (Raja Gosnell, 2011)
I think I've actively tried to erase this movie from my mind. (Why did I see it in the first place? It was a family event with my little cousins at the Starlite Drive In.)
Need to See
Rams, White God, The Image Book, Force Majeure, Good Time, A Separation, Knives Out, Your Name., Manchester By the Sea, Burning, Shadow
