Favorite/Best Movies of the 2010 Decade

Yeah, that's odd. Fuck 'em.

33. Django Unchained (2012)


Year: 2012
Release Date: 12/25/2012
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer(s): Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, and Don Johnson
Based on: N/A
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Running Time: 165 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

[Note, this was one of the first captions I wrote for this, and it ended up being longer than most of the rest of them] Django Unchained is Quentin Tarantino’s highest grossing movie to date. Pulp Fiction did slightly better domestically if you adjust for inflation, but by worldwide gross it isn’t even close; the movie managed to make no less than $425 million dollars around the world. That’s close to being franchise tentpole money. To put that in perspective it made more money than Captain America: The First Avenger, Solo: A Star Wars Story, X-Men: First Class, Cars 3, and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. And he managed to make a hit on that level not by compromising his usual style or making concessions to marketing, rather he managed to do it by making a two hour and forty five minute throwback western with a funny title which fearlessly tackles one of the most sensitive topics in all of American history. We’re used to Tarantino punching above his usual weight class at the box office so this doesn’t quite stand out like it maybe should, but it really is quite the achievement when you step back and think about it. It’s also a bit of an achievement that the movie did not really generate a whole lot of controversy. Spike Lee preemptively expressed distaste for it and there was some flinching about how many times the N-word was featured, but by and large the African American community seemed to be in favor of the movie and thought it did a good job at empowering its ex-slave protagonist against the Southern Aristocracy.

Personally, I thought and to some extent still think the movie was kind of stuck living in the shadow of Tarantino’s previous film Inglourious Basterds, which in many ways set the tone for this one and kind of had more going for it on a stylistic level and had a more complex narrative, but Django Unchained is in some ways the more purely entertaining movie of the two. Despite the dark subject matter Django Unchained is absolutely hilarious; I’m not sure that I’d call it a comedy but it’s certainly funnier than most of the studio comedies that have come out this decade. The film also does have Tarantino venturing out of his comfort zone a little by incorporating some newly commissioned music by modern artists and the period setting also requires him to stick more closely to referencing a single genre than the usual menagerie of references he usually brings to the table, but all the quotable lines and irreverent violence you expect form him is still there and he also manages to bring some unexpected elements to the table like references to German mythology and French literature. Only in a filmography as spotless as Tarantino’s could this be viewed as a minor work and only someone with his track record could have sold the film on as wide a scale as he did.

32. Phantom Thread (2017)


Year: 2017
Release Date: 12/25/2017
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer(s): Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, and Lesley Manville 
Based on: N/A
Distributor: Focus Features
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Running Time: 130 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

By the midpoint of the decade Paul Thomas Anderson had created a towering reputation as a modern master and seemed like he could do no wrong. Then he made Inherent Vice, a movie that had several strong elements but which largely baffled me and which I frequently kind of forget exists. That movie was also something of a financial boondoggle and there was probably some pressure to come back with a more commercial film and while his follow-up would make more money at the box office and on a lower budget it was hardly a sellout. In fact the film’s basic milieu, the London fashion world of the 1950s, hardly seems like the stuff of cinematic gold Anderson does a great job of making the work at London fashion houses interesting to watch. But really the setting is just a unique little backdrop, what the movie is really about is its central relationship between the towering Reynolds Woodcock and a younger woman named Alma who he invites to be his assistant and muse. So it’s essentially a movie about a relationship with a clear power imbalance, which is tricky subject matter for a movie to have been covering in the year of #MeToo, but Anderson manages to walk that tightrope pretty effectively. Daniel Day-Lewis has said that this was his last role before retirement (so far he’s stuck to that, but we’ll see) and while this certainly isn’t the showiest or most difficult work he’s ever done it is very strong. But equally impressive is Vicky Krieps, an actress who had primarily worked quietly in Europe before this big break and manages to hold the screen with Day-Lewis seemingly without too much trouble. The relationship at the center of the film is kind of twisted, yet not to the point where it’s completely unrelatable and in many ways it's this fascinating mystery for people to untangle for years to come.

There were a handful of movies from the decade I really wish I'd given a second watch before making the list and that was one of them.

30. Before Midnight (2013)

Year: 2013
Release Date: 5/24/2013
Director: Richard Linklater
Writer(s): Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy
Starring: Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy
Based on: Characters created by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Before Midnight has the distinction of being the only film of the 2010s that I placed on the top 100 films of all-time list I made five years ago, a list that otherwise disqualified films made after 2009 but it only seemed natural to include the entire “Before” trilogy on the list rather than sticking so stringently to the rules as to leave the film off. However a big part of why I was so willing to bend that rule five years ago is that it was plainly apparent almost right away that Before Midnight more than lived up to the two films that preceded it. In fact there are some fairly reasonable arguments to be made that the film is actually the best of the three in the trilogy. It’s a lot more grounded in reality than Before Sunrise and a lot more relatable than Before Sunset and while it more than delivers the kind of character portrait that fans of the series expect it isn’t inflexible in its adherence to franchise expectations and does some things noticeably different than the other films, most importantly it’s a movie where Celine and Jesse seem to be falling apart rather than coming together. There have certainly been a lot of movies made about couples having their relationships tested to the point of breaking, that was actually kind of a trend for the decade, but it was certainly the only one where audiences had already invested something like twenty years of interest in before being hit with that gut punch. Like all of these movies the film ends on a moment of ambiguity about the couple’s future and it remains to be determined if there’s a fourth film on the way at some point but as it stands this leaves us with one hell of a trilogy.

So you gave the whole trilogy one spot?

29. Burning (2018)

Year: 2018
Release Date: 5/17/2018
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Writer(s): Oh Jung-mi and Lee Chang-dong
Starring: Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, and Jeon Jong-seo
Based on: The short story "Barn Burning" by Haruki Murakami
Distributor: Well Go USA
Country of Origin: South Korea
Language: Korean
Running Time: 148 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

There’s a scene about halfway through Lee Chang-dong’s 2018 film Burning where the film’s protagonist is casually watching a news broadcast which includes a speech by Donald Trump. What Trump was saying is incidental and this is never really brought up again but I don’t think the inclusion of this rather… controversial person was incidental either. The character watching this news report (who seems entirely apolitical) is a farmer of modest means and while the movie isn’t suggesting he’s sympathetic to this American politician but he does sort of fit the demographic of people who traditionally do fall in line with these right wing authoritarians and given that much of the movie deals with a sort of inferiority that he feels in the face of more urban, some would even say elite, characters I think there is something there. But the politics of the film’s protagonist is not front and center here so much as his psychology and his story is kick started when he reunites with a lady from his youth and after a brief hookup she goes on a trip and comes back with a man of mystery who she met while traveling and the protagonist finds himself in something of a freindzone. How he chooses to react to this will characterize much of the rest of the film but it’s not a straightforward question of social dynamics because there are additional mysteries to be found here over and above whether this female in question is a cocktease. This is very much a film about modern societal questions but one with shades of Vertigo and Last Year at Marienbad.

Burning is awesome.

Both great movies. I love Burning.

27. The Witch (2016)


Year: 2016
Release Date: 2/19/2016
Director: Robert Eggers
Writer(s): Robert Eggers
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, and Lucas Dawson
Based on: N/A
Distributor: A24
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1

The 2010s were notable for being a pretty great decade for horror cinema and late in the decade we saw a sudden rise in critically lauded if unevenly received by the public indie horror films from daring filmmakers like Jennifer Kent and Ari Aster but the crown jewel of all of them is probably Robert Eggers’ incredibly accomplished debut film The Witch. Set in 17th century colonial New England, the film draws upon deep wells of American history and folklore in order to tell the story of a puritan family isolated in the woods and seemingly under siege by a witch in the woods and also by their own insecurities and paranoia. Horror movies are often made by people who are so singularly knowledgeable about past horror films and while that can have its benefits it is oddly refreshing when a filmmaker shows that he actually knows about things outside of cinema and has read a book or two. At the very least Eggers did all the necessary homework in construct this world and gives his characters what appear to be period accurate dialogue and mannerisms for extra authenticity. This goes a long way to put you in the mind of people who live lives that are rather foreign to modern viewers and the various cultural mores they’re dealing with. The film’s entire cast is magnificent both in their ability to handle the period detail and the breakdown of their family and as the film grows increasingly supernatural towards the end it knows just how far to go without seeming silly.

26. Moonlight (2016)


Year: 2016
Release Date: 10/21/2016
Director: Barry Jenkins
Writer(s): Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney
Starring: Trevante Rhodes, André Holland, Janelle Monáe, Ashton Sanders, Jharrel Jerome, Naomie Harris, and Mahershala Ali
Based on: The play "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Distributor: A24
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

It almost feels like if Moonlight didn’t exist the critical community would have had to invent it. It was exactly what so many people had been looking for: a film with all the aesthetic virtues of European and Asian art films, made by a person of color, which look at the life of a person with intersecting identity disadvantages in society but doing so in a way that’s still relatively accessible. Short of being directed by a woman or being in black and white the movie pretty much checked ever “critic bait” box imaginable and I do think some of the praise it got back in 2016 might have gotten a little bit over the top at a certain point, but it certainly deserved most of it. The film looks at the same character at three different ages, a high concept hook that probably would have been a more defining feature of a lesser movie, but here that feels more like a means to an end than a prominent gimmick. Moonlight is in many ways more defined by its style and the emotions that lie right beneath its surface. Stylistically the film draws on the longing present in the work of Wong Kar-Wai but the film has a real sadness to it rather than a mere melancholy in keeping with his younger and more confused protagonist. It’s a movie about a lonely and impoverished childhood but one with moments of joy here and there. The film also managed to assemble a pretty amazing cast which brought under-appreciated actors like Mahershala Ali, Trevante Rhodes, André Holland, and Jharrel Jerome to the forefront while showing new depths from more known actors like Naomie Harris and the R&B star Janelle Monáe. The film is one of the most improbable Best Picture winners ever, it feels way smaller and less populist than the movies that normally win that award, but something about it was so undeniable that even the most basic of Academy members couldn’t deny it.

25. The Tree of Life (2011)


Year: 2011
Release Date: 5/27/2011
Director: Terrence Malick
Writer(s): Terrence Malick
Starring: Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn
Based on: N/A
Distributor: Fox Searchlight
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Running Time: 139 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

My experience with Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life has been kind of complicated. Before the movie came out I was anticipating its release more than I had anticipated any other movie this decade. This was back when there were expected to be five plus year gaps between Malick movies and this film’s critical acclaim and evocative trailer had me expecting that it could very well be the best movie ever made. But when I saw the movie I found myself watching something that was a little harder to love even if it was impossible to not respect. I admired the film’s audacity and vision; the way it boldly folded the life of a modern family into the very creation of the cosmos was a pretty wild perspective, but as the film went on it did sort of start to test my patience. In its second half the film spends a lot of time just watching kids play outside and that did get a little tedious at a certain point. I also didn’t think the Sean Penn segments ever quite slotted into the rest of the film perfectly and I ultimately ended up leaving the film, not disappointed exactly, but kind of questioning if the overall film quite worked as wells as it felt like it should. But despite that I still had a tough time letting that get in the way of the aspects of the film that are extraordinary like Emmanuel Lubezki’s stunning cinematography and the way he and Malick are able to make everyday life look so amazing. Repeat viewings have been kinder to the movie as I watch it kind of knowing what to expect and the positives have risen to the top for me, it’s a pretty damn fine accomplishment but I can’t quite consider it the “all-timer” that it can appear to be on certain levels.