100 Films of the Decade (2010-2019)

(Scroll down for the complete list without all the commentary)

Let me start by saying this is a stupid idea. It’s impossible to see every film, so this list incomplete (I have not seen Parasite or The Irishman or Marriage Story yet). It’s also a little arrogant to put out a list like my opinion means so much more, but since that has not stopped every professional film critic and plenty of other amateurs, here I am.

So with that out of the way let me explain that I read many sources including my own twitter and instagram reviews and plenty of “best-of” lists to try to not miss anything. I’ve grouped the films into 15 categories that I think capture the trends and styles of the past ten years and foolishly put a top 20 list in order.

The Mainstream

In a lot of ways these films are not “mainstream”. They really exist in this category because I had nowhere else to put them, or too many places to put them. All occupy a special place in the past 10 years for me, and not all for the same reason. Some have great stories, and others have great actors, but they are all highly recommended.

Best of Enemies (2015), Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011), The Descendants (2011), Hell or High Water (2016), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Philomena (2013), The Revenant (2015), Starbuck (2011), Super 8 (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), The Way (2010)

The Art of Filmmaking

These films took what we know about film and the process and did something extraordinary with it - story structure, production schedule, genre, editing, or post-production VFX are all places where innovation can be surprising and create something original.

The Artist (2011), Tree of life (2011), Life of Pi (2012), Gravity (2013), Boyhood (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), La La Land (2016), They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)

Bad People

We like to tell stories about fallen heroes or redeemed villains, but we also sometimes dabble in pure darkness. These are irredeemable people who start and end there, and they don’t care what you think about them (except when they secretly do).

Nightcrawler (2014), Whiplash (2014), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Black Stories Matter

Hollywood has many representation problems, but sidelining people of colour has been a big, obvious one for a long time. This decade saw a rise in Black filmmakers on both sides of the camera and they breathed new life and new points of view into old genres.

12 Years a Slave (2013), Black Panther (2018), Get Out (2017), Moonlight (2016)

For Kids of All Ages

Kids films, and specifically animated kids films, are pigeonholed more than any other into being for their target audience. But these films prove that there are stories out there that affect everyone even if they are rated G.

Coco (2017), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Inside Out (2015), The LEGO Movie (2014), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Toy Story 3 (2010)

Franchises Have Films Too

Sometimes it seems there is nothing a professional critic enjoys more than giving a film a low rating just as it’s making a billion dollars at the box-office. Vulture even ranked all 5,279 films of the decade in order and put Avengrs: Endgame at the very bottom (on a list that included Human Centipedes 2 and 3). But the fact is huge crowds don’t only go to terrible films, and even decades-old franchises can surprise us.

Avengers: Endgame (2019), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Skyfall (2012), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Gay (Cis-White-Male) Representation

Alongside race and gender, sexuality has been an over-shadowed part of mainstream films since the beginning. This decade built on the artistic, Oscar-baiting steps of the 2000s (Brokeback Mountain, Milk, Capote), and really came out of the closet. Non-white and non-male representation is largely missing because of my viewing habits (Carol, Blue is the Warmest Colour, and A Fantastic Woman are all waiting on my watchlist), but it’s fair to say the mainstream audience is still getting used to the topic through the least-challenging lens. Babysteps.

Call Me By Your Name (2017), Lilting (2014), Love, Simon (2018), Pride (2014), Weekend (2011)

History

Other than Shakespear and Agatha Christie, few sources of inspiration can compete with History. Films have taken their liberties with the truth since the very beginning (see The Birth of a Nation (1915) for example), and lately it seems we’ve relegated classic history storytelling to television with amazing series like Chernobyl. But sometimes a unique perspective or a timely topic breaks through the release schedule and we get wowed by a filmmaker’s presentation of the truth, which, wether it’s actually true or not, becomes the dominant narrative of how we understand the past.

The Big Short (2015), The Darkest Hour (2017), The King’s Speech (2010), Lincoln (2012), The Social Network (2010), Spotlight (2015), Vice (2018)

Lonliness

With every celebrity suicide, climate report, or story of international unrest it seems we’re a species slipping further into darkness. We’re becoming a population obsessed with sadness and division, unable to agree on anything except that we all feel bad. Now, there are plenty of good stories out there and we aren’t all gripped by the shadow of depression, but it’s hard to not admit there is a lonliness problem. Filmmakers have been looking at it from many angles this decade, at different ages and stages of life, with characters who seek solutions that range from vlogging to insurgent class warfare to falling in love with a fish.

Amour (2012), Eighth Grade (2018), Joker (2019), Midnight in Paris (2011), Nebraska (2013), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), The Shape of Water (2017), St. Vincent (2014)

Meta Matters

I think one of the words of the decade (if Dictionary.com does such a thing) will need to be “meta”. It’s used in a few different ways, but for film it applies to the self-aware and subversive. These are films that lose the artifice of trying to convince you they are real or not a story. They embrace their genre conventions and undermine them, or they talk directly out to the camera about what is happening. It’s a highwire act that has failed spectacularly for film school students everywhere, but when it’s done correctly it is a magical (usually R-rated) experience.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011), Deadpool (2016), Sausage Party (2016), Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010), Troll Hunter (2010), What We Do In the Shadows (2014)

Mindbenders

Also known as “mindfuckers” these are the films that require multiple viewings and/or detailed articles to fully understand. Lots of mindbenders are just pretentious science fiction films with twist endings, but these are the ones that go above and beyond science fiction or crime thriller (or in one case, a documentary), and crush your expectations and predictions.

Arrival (2016), Cloud Atlas (2012), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Gone Girl (2014), Knives Out (2019), Looper (2012), Prisoners (2013), Room 237 (2012), Shutter Island (2010), The Skin I Live In (2011)

Chris Nolan

Most people who know about my taste in films can likely name the top 2 directors that I bore people by talking about: Stanley Kubrick and Charlie Chaplin. But Chris Nolan rarely bores people, and with his least-successful film of the decade making half a billion dollars worldwide, I doubt I’m alone in that belief.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Dunkirk (2017), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014)

Original Action

Action is an interesting genre when you look at it’s whole history. It goes in huge waves where the genre is overtaken by a setting, style, or hero type for years at a time. The Westerns of the 1950s, War films of the 1960s and 70s, Science Fiction and Horror films of the 1980s, and then the Crime and Post-Modern Science Fiction of the 1990s. Of course critics love to point out we are in the age of the Superhero film, where nothing without a pair of tights gets the greenlight. These films (with one comic-book-adjacent exception) show the action genre can be more than just Superheroes, and it can also tell intense, personal stories while it blows things up.

Baby Driver (2017), Free Fire (2016), Headhunters (2011), John Wick (2014), Logan (2017), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), The Raid (2011), Sicario (2015), True Grit (2010)

Women Lead

It’s not just because of overt movements like Me Too or Time’s Up that women are telling more stories and taking the top spot on the movie poster. There is a modern audience out there absorbing stories at a rate we’ve never seen before. Streaming (and it’s illigitimate predecessor, Piracy) are giving us so many options to find the films that speak to us that previously underrepresented groups are starting to look like profitable audiences, and people who have been ignored are now seeing their stories on screen.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), Black Swan (2010), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Lady Bird (2017), Roma (2018), Room (2015), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Warnings From The Future

Climate Change (among other things) threatens us daily. Technology pulls us apart while claiming to connect us further. Answers can be hard to come by, but there are always visions of the future that show us what we can accomplish or expect to face together as a species. These films push us in ways that are believable and sometimes horrifying, but always interesting to watch.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Contagion (2011), Ex Machina (2014), Her (2013), The Martian (2015)

The Complete 100 (in Alphabetical Order)

  1. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

  2. Amour (2012)

  3. Arrival (2016)

  4. The Artist (2011)

  5. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

  6. Baby Driver (2017)

  7. Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

  8. Best of Enemies (2015)

  9. The Big Short (2015)

  10. Black Panther (2018)

  11. Black Swan (2010)

  12. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

  13. Boyhood (2014)

  14. The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

  15. Call Me By Your Name (2017)

  16. Cloud Atlas (2012)

  17. Coco (2017)

  18. Contagion (2011)

  19. Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

  20. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

  21. The Darkest Hour (2017)

  22. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

  23. Deadpool (2016)

  24. The Descendants (2011)

  25. Dunkirk (2017)

  26. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

  27. Eighth Grade (2018)

  28. Ex Machina (2014)

  29. Free Fire (2016)

  30. Get Out (2017)

  31. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

  32. Gone Girl (2014)

  33. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

  34. Gravity (2013)

  35. Headhunters (2011)

  36. Hell or High Water (2016)

  37. Her (2013)

  38. How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

  39. Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

  40. Inception (2010)

  41. Inside Out (2015)

  42. Interstellar (2014)

  43. John Wick (2014)

  44. Joker (2019)

  45. The King's Speech (2010)

  46. Knives Out (2019)

  47. La La Land (2016)

  48. Lady Bird (2017)

  49. The LEGO Movie (2014)

  50. Life of Pi (2012)

  51. Lilting (2014)

  52. Lincoln (2012)

  53. Logan (2017)

  54. Looper (2012)

  55. Love, Simon (2018)

  56. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

  57. The Martian (2015)

  58. Midnight in Paris (2011)

  59. Moonlight (2016)

  60. Nebraska (2013)

  61. Nightcrawler (2014)

  62. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

  63. Philomena (2013)

  64. Pride (2014)

  65. Prisoners (2013)

  66. The Raid (2011)

  67. The Revenant (2015)

  68. Rise of the Guardians (2012)

  69. Roma (2018)

  70. Room (2015)

  71. Room 237 (2012)

  72. Sausage Party (2016)

  73. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

  74. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

  75. The Shape Of Water (2017)

  76. Shutter Island (2010)

  77. Sicario (2015)

  78. The Skin I Live In (2011)

  79. Skyfall (2012)

  80. The Social Network (2010)

  81. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

  82. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (2018)

  83. Spotlight (2015)

  84. St Vincent (2014)

  85. Starbuck (2011)

  86. Super 8 (2011)

  87. They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)

  88. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

  89. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

  90. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

  91. Toy Story 3 (2010)

  92. Tree of Life (2011)

  93. Troll Hunter (2010)

  94. True Grit (2010)

  95. Vice (2018)

  96. The Way (2010)

  97. Weekend (2011)

  98. What We Do In the Shadows (2014)

  99. Whiplash (2014)

  100. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

All photos are the amazing work of Adam Scotti.