The last decade of film is more than just the superhero experience. Yes, those event films have pushed the mid budget story out of the major studio production. However, studios like A24, Annapurna, and Neon have picked up the slack. More importantly, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have provided outlets for more and more creative filmmakers to get their voices heard. It’s a more complicated time for movie storytelling, but still a rewarding one.
I see this list as a living breathing document, able to be change as I change over time. As such, below are 5 films that have a shot to get into the discussion the next time I review this list:
The two superhero entries, Logan and The Avengers, fall here. Both are great for different reasons, and provide hope for a new decade of superhero storytelling where we can hopefully get great stories amidst our spectacle. Hell or High Water is the fastest riser; I for a long time thought the Western was dead, but Taylor Sheridan’s great bank heist movie rewards repeat viewings.
These movies are all great, including a couple documentaries, another enjoyable trend this decade. Greta Gerwig and Richard Linklater have movies on here; both had GREAT decades and may or may not show up later on this post (did someone say TEASE?!?!?!). On this list are directing legends like Michael Haneke, Alfonso Cuaron, and Sam Mendes. Also on this list are some new exciting talents, like Gerwig and Adam McKay, now the king of political satires on complex topics. The movie I can’t get out of my head though is Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name, a fascinating surreal story that is one of the most beautiful animated movies I have ever seen.
But enough jerking around, here are my choices for Top 10 movies of the decade:
Slavery is a stain on many countries, especially the United States. Steve McQueen uses the tale of Solomon Northrup to show us how dehumanizing and evil this practice is in all its cruelty. The scene that breaks everyone is when Northrup is being punished, and no one is helping him, for fear of being punished alongside him. Scenes like this, alongside general bigotry and violence, emotionally exhaust the viewer into understanding how such an awful institution stayed around for so long.
Martin Luther King Jr. is as revered a figure in political history as anyone. As such, making a movie about him has to appease people who revere him while making the movie more complex and interesting than just a praise fest. Ava DuVernay is the queen of making stories around known historical figures more complex and rich. DuVernay’s MLK speaks messianically for sure, but in the quiet, he’s a thoughtful tactician who knows he has to strategically compromise and strategically act out to get civil rights passed. DuVernay walks that biopic line that only the best can pull off.
Maybe the best development of the decade was the emergence of Greta Gerwig: directing extraordinaire. This movie is her first feature, about a woman in her final year of high school. Gerwig taps into that feeling around that time. Lady Bird’s world is totally in flux: she wants to try on different social hats to prepare herself for college, which alters her friendships throughout the year. Most powerfully though, Gerwig gives us one of the best representations of a mother daughter relationship. Saoirse Ronan/Laurie Metcalf absolutely nail those conversations that feel like they’re happening on multiple levels, with multiple emotions.
As much as people talk about how cruel high school can be, it’s junior high that’s the viper’s den. Emotions roller coaster on a daily basis, and kid’s haven’t learned how to control their interactions with their peers yet. Bo Burnham and star Elsie Fisher capture the emotional routine of that life for a normal introvert. Josh Hamilton also shows how tricky this time can be for parents, who want to give their pre teens independence, but also don’t want to make them feel like they’re alone. The closest any movie came to capturing this time was Stand By Me, and Burnham, Fisher, and Hamilton have set a new benchmark for what a movie about junior high school should be like.
Korean Director Bong Joon Ho’s movies are always fascinating. For whatever reason, his tonal boldness or strange characters had a way of taking me out of his films. Parasite sees the mega talent finally put it all together. This is a story written and directed by a master: deep, universal themes, twisty storytelling, seamless tonal shifts, fascinating characters. Ho is Parasite’s composer, weaving all instruments of the movie into a beautiful harmonic masterpiece.
Christopher Nolan has taken Steven Spielberg’s mantle as the big budget, big idea filmmaker. No big budget film is as inventive and bold as this one. On its face, this movie is basically a heist movie. What’s being stolen? Dreams. This allows Nolan to wow the audience, by say, folding a city on top of itself, or having a fight in a setting that is rotating. Inception lets your imagination run wild, and your inner child dazzled at how inventive, smart, and original this movie is.
Richard Linklater is fascinated by humanity and its relationship with time (see any movie in the Beforeseries). That fascination culminates in this, probably his masterpiece. Focusing on that ubiquitous time kids grow up between 6 and 18 years old, Linklater derives power in this story by focusing not on the big moments in a child’s life, but of the day to day, normal living. Sounds boring, but Linklater’s writing is so well observed, that the movie grows and grows on you over time. By the end, you feel as shocked and emotionally drained as Patricia Arquette’s character, watching the 18 year Ellar Coltrane walk out to college, knowing that she’s known him his whole life, which bascially, the audience has too.
They should teach this script in all graduate level courses on writing. Asghar Farhadi’s first film takes its time at the start, setting up a scenario involving miscarriages, divorce, and haves vs. have nots in modern Iran. What then unfolds after the first 45 minutes is a series of scenes that shift power dynamics across the characters, propelling the story forward with tense, upsetting propulsion…only to have the rug pulled out from under the story pointing out what the story was really supposed to be about. It’s beautifully tragic in its brilliance and execution.
David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin prove a potent director/writer pair. Sorkin takes the story of Facebook’s creation and paints over it a story about power, artistic creation, and Shakespearean backstabbing. Fincher adds an urgency and erudite potency to the dialogue, giving a modernity and youthful energy to the movie. Plus, as the decade has unfolded, The Social Network’s – Jesse Eisenberg’s – portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg has gone under continuous scrutiny and praise because of how prevalent he has been in global politics.
The culmination of Pixar’s superior storytelling. On the surface, you have a fun prison escape film that will forever change how you look at certain toys. But the beauty of this film is the depth of its emotional experience. Having rewatched this movie more than a few times, I don’t recall as emotionally complex a journey that a movie has taken me on. Usually at the end of a movie, you feel nostalgic. Or melancholic. Or satisfied. With Toy Story 3, it’s all 3 put together and more, a rare feat only the truly superior films like this one can pull off.
