We are finally at the end of the line!
With the 2010s, I do acknowledge that there was a certain decline in film quality and also a lack of passion for some of the films when compared to other decades.
The sad truth is that as I hit the 2000s and with this particular post, I knew that I was going to hit a bit of a snag with how quickly I would be able to get these posted. To my surprise, I am actually a little more bored than I expected.
Maybe I shouldn't own up to that, but it could also be related to the fact that I did all of these within a week. I got very much into writing about the other decades that I was actually excited to post them as soon as I had them more or less ready to go.
Nevertheless, I do think we have some strong films on this list...and I would easily rank my top 2 films on this list as being among the top films to have come out since the turn of the new millennium. Honestly, I do have passion for these films...but I think its really just the fact that they are more recent and that I've written about them before that makes a little less eager to discuss them now.
10 Honorable Mentions:
The Tree of Life (2011)
Melancholia (2011)
Amour (2012)
Whiplash (2014)
Selma (2014)
Arrival (2016)
The Handmaiden (2016)
Ladybird (2017)
The Favourite (2018)
Shoplifters (2018)
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#10 - Burning (2018)
Directed by Lee Chang-dong
I feel like Burning slipped a little under the radar the year it came out...but 2018 was a strange year. If you were to look strictly at the films that got Best Picture nominations, you would think it was the weakest year for film in years.
However, aside from The Favourite, none of the Best Picture nominees truly measured up to some of the more indie fare and foreign films that came out in 2018. It was almost like the 1950s or 1960s all over again with how Hollywood just couldn't measure up to International films or they would ignore the more edgy indie far.
South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong had taken several years off from making a film and then came back to give us what might be his best film to date.
Burning tells the story a young deliveryman named Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) who encounters a girl that he knew as a child named Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-so). However, Hae-mi seems to have some sort of new relationship with a man named Ben (Steven Yeun, who should've actually been nominated and won an Oscar for this performance) who makes Jong-su incredibly suspicious.
Burning was selected by South Korea to be their selection for the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars. Shockingly, it was the first film to actually make the shortlist of 9 films for the nomination (which is disgraceful considering some of the magnificent films that have come out of South Korea in the last 20 years alone). Not surprisingly, the film didn't get nominated although I suppose the Academy made up for it the next year by not being able to ignore the existence of Parasite.
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#9 - The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Directed by Wes Anderson
Some have criticized Wes Anderson movies as being a little emotionally hollow...and I can't argue against that necessarily, but I do think that he managed to create something truly special with The Grand Budapest Hotel, which gives his typical style and aesthetic such a grand flourish that it almost feels like he was trying to build to this film for his entire career.
Set in the fictional country of Zubrowka in 1932, we meet the young Zero (Tony Revolori in the past/F. Murray Abraham in the present scenes) who becomes a lobby boy at the prestigious Grand Budapest Hotel. His mentor is renowned hotel concierge Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes, in one of his best performances), who has a penchant for seducing old and very wealthy hotel guests.
One such client is the 84 year old Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) who is actually the secret owner of the hotel. When Madame D. mysteriously dies a month after her recent visit, Gustave gets framed for murdering her.
Gustave and Zero then embark on trying to claim a fortune which would include locating a priceless renaissance painting...all while the Nazi Fascist regime is on the rise throughout Europe as a backdrop.
There is certainly a potency to The Grand Budapest Hotel that isn't particularly common in Wes Anderson movies and I think that could be why I single it out as being his best...even though I tend to really enjoy most of his films and even love a couple of them a great deal.
But yes...I do feel The Grand Budapest Hotel is his pinnacle and it may be very hard to top.
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#8 - Her (2013)
Directed by Spike Jonze
A movie like Her was something of a risky endeavor. The script and direction needed to be precise and you had to have an actor who could make falling in love with a simulation seem believable.
Spike Jonze is a genius and so is Joaquin Phoenix...problem solved!
Set in the not-to-distant future, Theodore (Phoenix) works as something of a writer by composing letters for people who are incapable of writing such personal content themselves. He is currently lonely and severely depressed and feeling isolated as he is preparing for a divorce from his childhood sweetheart Catherine (Rooney Mara).
In the midst of his depression, Theodore purchases un update on his operating system that includes a virtual assistant with artificial intelligence, and it is able to adapt and evolve.
Theodore activates the program and is amazed at the AI's ability to grow...and she gives herself the name Samantha (Scarlett Johannson).
Her is a movie that I loved almost instantaneously. It came out at a time when I was still kind of out of the movie going loop and also at a time when I had just moved to NYC and was adapting to a brand new life.
I really appreciated its beauty and simplicity and for tackling a story that many could've seen as far-fetched, but instead, the team of Spike Jonze and Joaquin Phoenix were able to take such an idea and make it seem completely believable.
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#7 - The Social Network (2010)
Directed by David Fincher
The Social Network had the misfortune to slip from its original slot on my list, which was #3. That isn't to say that I have drastically altered my opinion on it but I do feel maybe some of the allure has finally worn off a decade later.
I still think The Social Network is the finest script that Aaron Sorkin ever wrote and I also consider this to be the finest film that director David Fincher has ever been attached to.
A film about the legal battle over Facebook is something that I don't think anybody really wanted to see, but I suppose you can leave it to Sorkin to give the topic a certain jolt of wit.
I think a lot must be said about Jesse Eisenberg's take on the diabolical Mark Zuckerberg. Obviously, Zuckerberg is...a jackass and not someone I particular give a damn about, but Eisenberg was able to give this man a sort of bizarre charisma.
Then you have Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Savarin, his estranged friend with whom Zuckerberg is in the legal battle with. This was essentially the breakthrough role that made everyone take notice of Garfield and it is quite the performance. I still recall the controversy when he got snubbed for an Oscar nomination.
So yes...the biggest draws to The Social Network are the script and the performances. Obviously, Fincher does well with the direction but if you want to see his peak of directing powers, watch 2007's Zodiac.
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#6 - The Master (2012)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
It is always interesting to see what films are the favorites of the people who make them...especially when they tend to go against the grain of what audiences seem to like.
For example, Woody Allen loathed Manhattan and yet that still remains one of this most financially and critically successful films.
In the case of Paul Thomas Anderson, he considers The Master to be his finest work to date...which isn't really something I see a lot of people agree with.
I actually agree with him.
In what is my favorite performance of his career to date, Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie Quell, a WWII veteran who is struggling to adjust to society. While aimlessly going through life, he encounters a leader of a religious movement named Lancaster Dodd (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who each take something of an interest in each other and then Dodd accepts Quell into the movement.
The concept of religion is one that both fascinates and infuriates me...and here, we have a prime example of a true religious cult that basically destroys the livelihood of many who enter them.
As a cast, I think this easily some of the best work of the late Hoffman and also for that of Amy Adams as well.
Paul Thomas Anderson can really do no wrong it seems. Even his weakest efforts are still pretty good films in their own right...but I agree with him that this is probably his best work.
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#5 - Toy Story 3 (2010)
Directed by Lee Unkrich
This is a case where I actually rolled my eyes and groaned at the idea of a film.
Why does Toy Story need a second sequel? Pixar was at their peak at the time and I really felt like a sequel was not what needed to be done.
Cut to: me sobbing in the car on the drive home because that same film simply just blew me away.
Much like Pan's Labyrinth, Toy Story 3 completely subverted my expectations and I couldn't believe at how good the film was. It still remains my selection as the best film of that series, one of the finest offerings in the Pixar canon, and one of the best films of the last decade.
While the technical timeline is off a little bit, I was roughly Andy's age in the first Toy Story film when it came out (around 7 years old; in fact I think it came out in October 1995 which was when I turned 7). So in Toy Story 3, Andy is 18 and about to go off to college whereas I was just about to start my senior year of college...but I think it is still easy to say that there was a sense of connection based on a similar age timeline.
With Andy being 18, he isn't playing with his toys anymore so needless to say, those toys are feeling neglected and lonely.
However, Andy has grown to show a stronger sentimental attachment to Woody as it seems that Andy is going to take him along to college while the rest of the toys go into the attic. Then an honest mistake by Andy's mother leads all of the toys into a situation where they are taken to a daycare as a donation.
It is at that daycare we get introduced to the film's villain, a cuddly strawberry-scented teddy bear named Lotso, voiced by the late great character actor Ned Beatty...and with Lotso, we get one of the more interesting villains in the Disney/Pixar canon.
I won't spoil it for anyone but I also want to add this film might have one of the best uses of "deus ex machina" that I have seen in a movie...look it up if you aren't entirely sure what that means but I still think what Pixar achieved with that whole scene was astonishing.
Lastly, I have seen this movie maybe 5-6 times in the last decade or so and every single time, the movie's ending makes me cry...and considering I have only cried at maybe 7-8 movies over the years and I don't think more than once, that is a pretty big honor for Toy Story 3 to hold.
I seriously think it is one of the greatest sequels of all time.
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#4 - Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Directed by Celine Sciamma
The concept of the "female gaze" reigns supreme in Celine Sciamma's exquisite Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which is truly one of the most visually stunning and sensual movies I have seen in quite some time.
Set in 18th Century France, a young painter named Marianne (Naomie Merlant) is commissioned to do a portrait of a young woman of the gentry named Heloise (Adele Haenel), who will be marrying a wealthy Milanese nobleman.
Heloise is not particularly thrilled with the idea of the marriage and is not thrilled with the idea of getting painted so Heloise's mother (Valeria Golino) asks Marianne to act as something of a guardian to Heloise and steal glances of her to actually make the portrait happen.
A certain trust...and attraction...forms between the two of them which allows for Heloise to agree to properly pose for the portrait.
The two do begin to have an affair but both know that it isn't going to last.
As I stated above, this film is simply stunning to look at. The visuals are truly some of the most vibrant and gorgeous I have seen in a film and then you combine that with a story that is both beautiful and bittersweet all at once.
Lastly, the ending....
I won't directly spoil the ending but the moment prominently features that of Haenel's Heloise. I won't even say what exactly is occurring in hopes that some of you may watch the film but this scene, which is an uncut nearly 3 minute shot of Haenel, is one of the best acted scenes I have ever seen in a film.
She goes through about every moment of expression and feeling she can: passion, sadness, anger, happiness, lust...and all by her face. No words are used.
It is a masterclass...and so is the film.
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#3 - A Separation (2011)
Directed by Asghar Farhadi
While Hollywood fell hook, line, and sinker for the silent film/cutesy gimmick that was The Artist and then forgot about it within a couple of years, the real beacon of 2011 cinema was the Iranian take on a divorce film: A Separation.
In many ways, I feel like A Separation was the film about divorce that I didn't really I was actually waiting for.
Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moaadi) are an Iranian middle-class couple who are at a bit of an impasse. Simin desperately wants to leave Iran while Nader is too concerned with the health of his elderly father. Simin decides to apply for a divorce but it is deemed insufficient reasoning by the family court judge.
When this occurs, Simin moves back in with her parents while Termeh, their young teenaged daughter stays with Nader. In order to assist with his father, Nader hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a nurse from the lower-working class which soon will cause further problems for the family.
A Separation was something of a revelation when it came out. I feel like it truly made many people, including me, take notice of films that were made in the Middle East, particularly that of writer/director Asghar Farhadi.
**AND FOR THE RECORD: Asghar Farhardi has a film coming out this year called A Hero and I couldn't be more excited. It already won the Grand Prix (the second place prize) at the Cannes Film Festival)**
I think it is a shame that it didn't get more awards attention, but it did manage to net an Original Screenplay nomination but it lost to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris and while that might have been his best script in many years, I just can't fathom someone overlooking the brutally real take on divorce and family discourse that was A Separation.
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#2 - Moonlight (2016)
Directed by Barry Jenkins
At the 2017 Oscars, I had made peace with the fact that Best Picture was going to go to La La Land...it wasn't like it would be the first time a film that didn't deserve to win was going to take the prize.
The fact that La La Land got called the winner only for the accountants from Price Waterhouse Coopers to come out and say that this was incorrect essentially proved three things:
#1- Should someone really read the wrong name...it WILL get corrected.
#2-Tying in to #1; this means Rex Reed's vendetta against Marisa Tomei's win for My Cousin Vinny is unfounded.
#3-The better film won.
Moonlight could be seen as the perfect film for voters to vote for so they will feel like they did an important service. Whether or not that was a factor, I can't really say. I do feel the preferential voting ballot system had to have helped it as well but I do think that as a film, Moonlight just packed the stronger punch.
Based on a unpublished and unproduced semi-autobiographical play by Tarell Alvin McCraney called In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, the film focuses on three stages of the life of Chiron, a young gay black man living in Liberty City, a suburb of Miami.
A lot of the film is about Chiron struggling to accept that homosexuality while also dealing with the fact that his mother is a crack addict who isn't properly taking care of him
The three stages of the film are titled as such: Little (representing Chiron as an 8 year old), Chiron (as a teenager), and Black (in his mid-20s).
As a script, co-written by McCraney and the film's director Barry Jenkins, it is simply stunning. Jenkins' direction along with the cinematography is absolutely first rate.
However, the acting from this ensemble really deserves praise. I know Mahershala Ali won the Oscar but I think the real standouts for me where Ashton Sanders, who played Chrion as a teenager and Naomie Harris, who plays her crack addicted mother Paula. Both of them should have Oscars on their mantle for these performances and the shame of that is that Sanders wasn't even nominated.
Moonlight became the first film to win Best Picture that featured an all-black cast and had a LGBT theme at its core...so yes it was quite the impressive feat for this film to win but not even going into the importance of that win, Moonlight was one of the key films to truly pull me out of me movie-going slump...and I thought the film couldn't be topped.
I was fully prepared to name it the best film of the decade, until....
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#1 - Parasite (2019)
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
....Parasite came along.
Anyone who knows me knows that I was obsessed with Parasite from the moment I saw it in December 2019.
I basically became an ambassador for the film and would rave it about to anyone who was willing to listen, and even if I may have cooled down as nearly two years have passed, I still acknowledge that only is Parasite the best film of the 2010s but I would rank it among the best films ever made.
I still don't like discussing the plot in full for this film. It is best to go into it as blind as possible, but the main premise is that a poor South Korean family manage to find a way to assimilate themselves into all working for a wealthier family and then hoping to use that leverage into getting a better life.
The film certainly has dark comedic elements...but much like Psycho, the film takes a drastic turn halfway through that simply turns the whole movie on its head. It is a masterpiece in every way, shape, or form.
Honestly, I think we should just erect a statue of Bong Joon-ho and start worshipping it....oops, I just broke a commandment....
I owe Parasite some additional praise on a personal level.
I had been somewhat erratic on my movie viewing for most of the 2010s as I stated in my introduction. Certain films piqued my interest and I would get excited about the prospect of seeing films (Moonlight was certainly one of those, as I stated in my mini-review for it), but Parasite basically reignited the film fanatic in me that had more or less been dead for roughly a decade.
It honestly couldn't have happened at a better time because when I would sit at home during the quarantine, I opted to revisit so many movies I hadn't seen in years that I remembered loving or that I felt could use a reevaluation. On top of that, I also made an affair to try to watch as many 2020 films as I could so I could do a very proper "Best of the Year" list like I used to several years ago.
Had it not been for Parasite, I honestly don't even know if I would be doing these posts right now...and maybe that is a bold claim to make.
I just know that part of me has felt a little bit empty for quite some time and getting back into the movie viewing has been a significant change for the better.
Movies were my escape at a time when I was truly unhappy and didn't know what to truly expect for my future. That obsession certainly opened my eyes to a lot in terms of the world as a whole...especially coming from a medium-sized town in West Virginia.
So yeah...I guess you can say I love movies.
And I leave you with that.
Thanks for reading and following me on this 90 year journey of sorts!
