THE SCORES:
1. Last Night (2010) Clint Mansell
2. King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (2017) Daniel Pemberton
3. Inception (2010) Hans Zimmer
4. Interstellar (2014) Hans Zimmer
5. The Social Network (2010) Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
6. The Red Turtle (2016) Laurent Perez Del Mar
7. Incredibles 2 (2018) Michael Giacchino
8. Ex Machina (2014) Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury
9. Nocturnal Animals (2016) Abel Korzeniowski
10. The Wife (2017) Jocelyn Pook
THE PERFORMANCES:
1. Jake Gyllenhaal: Nightcrawler, Velvet Buzzsaw, Prisoners, Nocturnal Animals, Everest, Spider-Man Far From Home, Source Code . . . honestly, it’s difficult not to just sit here and list every single credit this man racked up this decade. There isn’t a single one he wasn’t critically lauded for, including movies like Enemy and End Of Watch that I never got around to seeing. He even successfully flexed his comedy chops with a guest appearance on the fourth season of Inside Amy Schumer. Overall, it’s hard to think of an actor who had a more consistent decade than Jake G., and it’s also hard to think of a single performance from ANY actor that impacted me as viscerally as his did in Nightcrawler. (For his sake, we’ll pretend the decade started AFTER the release of Prince of Persia.)
2. Sandra Bullock: Gravity and Our Brand Is Crisis. I thought her performance in Gravity was the absolute best of her career, so as much as I love Cate Blanchett, the Oscar should’ve gone to Sandra that year. It was so heart wrenching and memorable that she’s number two on my best of decade list even though I’ve only seen the movie once. (I’d gladly watch it again if I owned a private IMAX theater, but I consider it an insult to the film to watch it on anything smaller than a cinema-sized screen.) She was really good in Our Brand Is Crisis too, but what she accomplished in Gravity was unlike anything I’ve ever seen from her or any other actress in any other movie, ever.
3. Matthew McConaughey: Interstellar, Magic Mike, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Wolf Of Wall Street. Matthew McConaughey is such a publicly strange person that it’s sometimes easy to forget what an incredible actor he is. He won his first (and so far only) Oscar this decade for Dallas Buyers Club, but he got a lot more media attention for his strange Lincoln car commercials. In fact, arguably his best work this entire decade was on TV, because he was utterly legendary in the first season of True Detective. I’d love to see the exact vote tally between him and Bryan Cranston for the Emmy that year. If Breaking Bad hadn’t been in its final season, I don’t think he’d have stood a chance of beating McConaughey. Between that and the way his performance elevated movies like Magic Mike and the Lincoln Lawyer that had no right to be as good as they were, AND his stunning performance in Interstellar (the scene where he cries watching his children grow up is an all-time career best), he more than deserves his spot on this list. And you know what, there’s nothing wrong with being strange. After all, his strange vocal warm up exercise in The Wolf of Wall Street caught director Martin Scorsese’s eye and wound up becoming a cornerstone of not only his character, but the entire movie. So, strange sells.
4. Glenn Close in The Wife. Don’t ever let anyone fool you into thinking that there’s justice in the world. If there were, Glenn Close would have a shelf in her house that was about to collapse under the weight of all her Academy Awards, and one of them would be for her tour de force performance in The Wife. Bonus points for her TV work in the BBC’s excellent adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Crooked House and the last couple of seasons of Damages, which was one of my favorite shows of the previous decade. And SUPER bonus points for her willingness to appear in “lowbrow” movies other actors of her caliber wouldn’t deign to appear in, like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 and (one of my personal favorites of the decade) Warcraft.
5. Cameron Diaz: The Counselor (Bonus points for Bad Teacher and Annie.) Cameron Diaz seems like one of those fluffy actors who’s obviously just in it for the money, but then once or twice a decade she turns in a performance that proves she’s more than just fluff. It makes you wonder if the only reason she isn’t considered a great actress is because directors won’t give her a chance to prove that she can do more. Well, she proved it in The Counselor and I hope she now has enough in the bank to keep challenging herself with more roles like this one.
6. Edward Norton: Birdman, Moonrise Kingdom, The Bourne Legacy, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Edward Norton has been a personal favorite of mine ever since he blew me away with his jaw-dropping Primal Fear performance back in the 90s. He had a few good performances in the last decade, but I worried that he was more interested in making his F-You money than in continuing to take the kinds of acting risks that originally made me admire him so much. Choices like the animated misadventure Sausage Party prove that he’s still willing to take risks, and they don’t always pay off. But it paid off big time in Birdman, which has now become my new favorite Norton performance. It’s simultaneously an intentionally meta riff on his own reputation as an actor who takes his craft way too seriously and a (probably) unintentional depiction of a scene stealing performer with a scene stealing performance. He was fantastic in the other three movies I listed for this decade too, but those are strictly bonus points in my book. His performance in Birdman was the best of his entire career.
7. Daniel Day Lewis: Phantom Thread. He was also really good in Lincoln, but I fell asleep on that one, so I can’t in good conscience include it on this list. Phantom Thread, on the other hand, kept me riveted to every scene. He was so quietly mesmerizing and the twist at the end, delivered with such debonair, yet sinister aplomb was so compelling that “Kiss me my girl, before I’m sick.” is now one of my favorite film lines of all time.
8. Michael Keaton: Birdman, Spotlight, The Founder, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Toy Story 3. I’ve always had a soft spot for Michael Keaton, so I couldn’t be happier that this decade proved to be his big comeback after he kind of vanished from the public eye post Batman Returns. Both he and his eyebrows are a welcome addition to any film cast, and his willingness to poke fun at himself in Birdman was a great way to usher in his new era. I also loved him as a Spider-Man villain and as the guy who stole McDonald’s from the McDonald brothers. I love to hate him, but I love to love him even more, and I love that he made the list this decade! Also, and I will die on this hill, he was a better Ken doll than Ryan Gosling!
9. Denzel Washington: Flight, The Book Of Eli. Denzel’s gonna Denzel, we all know this. I missed a few of his movies this decade, otherwise this list of great performances would no doubt be longer. While he definitely deserves bonus points for everything else I DID see him in, his performance in Flight was excellent enough to get him on this list all on its own. But bonus points anyway for The Book of Eli.
10. Jacob Tremblay: Doctor Sleep. This little guy got a ton of critical praise for Room and Wonder, neither of which I actually managed to see. He managed to make my top ten with fewer than ten minutes of screen time, which is a truly incredible feat for someone so young. But his death scene in Doctor Sleep literally traumatized me. I was seriously not OK after watching that. Normally that’s a huge negative, but in this case it speaks to the sheer power of his performance. I am now very much looking forward to seeing what this talented young man will do in the next decade of his already impressive career.
11. Lesley Manville in Phantom Thread. Lesley is one of several performers who made this list on the strength of a single performance. She was actually my favorite character in Phantom Thread. I LOVED her dynamic with Daniel Day Lewis throughout the movie, and the mystery that surrounded her character. How was it that a woman of such strong will came to be nothing more in life than her eccentric brother’s keeper? She could have single handed ruled an empire, but a fashion empire was as close as she got. It was my first time seeing her in any movie before, and she really wowed me. Now I can’t wait to dig up more of her old work and check out her new stuff this decade.
12. Michael Fassbender: Shame, The Counselor, Steve Jobs, The Light Between Oceans, Macbeth. Michael Fassbender took some HUGE swings this decade. For every critically acclaimed stellar performance, there was something pretty questionable on his resume. For every Steve Jobs, there was a Snowman. For every Macbeth, there was an Assassin’s Creed. Even his franchise work was hit or miss. For every X-Men: First Class, there was an X-Men: Apocalypse, and for every Prometheus there was an Alien: Covenant. (“I’ll do the fingering” would easily win worst line of the decade, if I were making such a list.) Fortunately, the highs were high enough to outshine the lows, which is how he earned a spot so high on this list.
13. John Goodman: Flight, Argo, 10 Cloverfield Lane. This man literally worked his butt off this decade, and as a result he’s much slimmer and his body of work is much bigger. That body now includes his fantastic turns in everything from comedies to dramas to big budget blockbusters to Oscar winners and even some fantastic TV work. I also loved him in the fourth season of Damages, but the three films listed here were absolutely his standout performances this decade, out of the ones I was able to see.
14. Toni Collette: Hereditary, Knives Out, Velvet Buzzsaw. Toni is the type of actor that other actors praise all the time, and these three movies make it clear why they’re all such big fans of hers. She stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Hereditary cast and she puts some elbow grease into her performance in Velvet Buzzsaw (If you have seen these two films, then you can fully appreciate the excellence of my pun work there.), but my favorite performance of hers this decade was definitely her kooky Knives Out portrayal of exactly the type of liberal other liberals love to hate.
15. Oscar Isaac: Ex Machina, The Two Faces of January, The Bourne Legacy, Drive. Oscar Isaac spent the decade going from the guy you don’t notice because he’s sharing the screen with Hollywood heartthrobs like Ryan Gosling in Drive, Jeremy Renner in The Bourne Legacy and Viggo Mortenson in The Two Faces of January to the guy you can’t possibly tear your eyes away from in Ex Machina. Within a few short years he went from being another guy in the movie to the reason you want to see the movie. And he gets MAJOR bonus points for being literally the ONLY tolerable aspect of the new Star Wars movies. His costars took bad scripts and made them worse, he took a bad script and made it watchable. Sort of. Once.
16. Charlize Theron: Atomic Blonde, Young Adult, Mad Max: Fury Road, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Huntsman Winter’s War. If Charlize Theron put on a Gladiator costume, jumped into an arena and screamed “Are you not entertained?!” for the world to hear, I would be one of thousands if not millions of people in the last decade to enthusiastically scream, “YES!” Even in objectively bad movies, she was incredible to watch. I loved her as the evil queen in the two Snow White movies, and she was literally the only reason I spent two hours of my life on the second movie after suffering through Kristen Stewart’s wooden performance in the first. I was actually rooting for her rotten character in Young Adult, and she was simply mesmerizing in the extremely underrated Atomic Blonde. Mad Max: Fury Road was the sweet, blood red cherry on top of her decadent decade sundae.
17. Rosamund Pike: Gone Girl. As the kids say, that’s it. That’s the tweet. Well obviously it’s not a tweet. Hell, even tweets aren’t tweets anymore. But my point is that if you’ve seen this film, then no further explanation is needed as to why she made this list.
18. Mahershala Ali: Moonlight, Hidden Figures. I know Mahershala best from his TV work in shows like House of Cards (before it went off the rails), Luke Cage (before they abruptly killed off his incredible character) and the third (unfairly maligned) season of True Detective. In fact, I’m pretty sure he made this list with the smallest amount of film screen time of anyone else on it. Yet, he’s not at the bottom because those few minutes he was on screen in the two films I saw him in were phenomenal, and he’s a phenomenal actor I hope to see a lot more of in the decades to come.
19. Christian Bale: The Fighter, The Big Short, American Hustle. I feel bad about excluding Christian Bale from this list last decade, because he was very good in movies like Nolan’s Batman trilogy (the last of which was actually released in this decade, so it legit counts), Nolan’s The Prestige, Public Enemies and The Machinist. So to be frank, I’m kind of lumping all of those performances in with his excellent work in the three listed films, and being very polite about ignoring the existence of Exodus: Gods And Kings. I also loved what I saw of him as Dick Cheney in Vice, but I could not make it through that movie. Overall, he’s a solid performer and I’m sure he’ll continue to impress in the upcoming decade.
20. Leonardo DiCaprio: in The Wolf of Wall Street, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Great Gatsby, Django Unchained, Inception. All of DiCaprio’s work this decade was excellent, as it always is, and kudos to him for finally getting his long-deserved Oscar.
21. Jesse Eisenberg: The Social Network. How do you out-Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg? In real life, this guy seems to have all the personality of a dead fish, with the soulless, protuberant eyes to match. But in Eisenberg’s hands, he became a genius you could simultaneously pity, loathe and admire — someone who was equal parts repellant and relatable. I’ve seen him in a number of other things and he has never matched this performance in any of his other films, so I have to assume that this is a one-off example of the perfect role and the perfect script finding the perfect actor.
22. Amy Adams: Big Eyes, Arrival, The Fighter, Nocturnal Animals, American Hustle. Amy Adams never successfully disappears into a role, yet somehow she manages to have impressive range. She really sells you on her characters. I even believed her as Lynne Cheney in what little I could stomach of Vice. Until she started spouting Shakespeare, that is. But I digress. She has a lot more range than she utilizes. I hope she digs into it one day and plays a really unhinged, deranged or evil character. When she does, and when she blows everyone away, I’ll be able to say I saw it coming because I put her on this list.
23. Greta Gerwig: Mistress America. Before she became part of the Hollywood A-List for Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie, Greta Gerwig was mostly known for being famed indie director Noah Baumbach’s writing partner and girlfriend. While that relationship is fascinating to consider in the context of Mistress America’s plot, it was Gerwig’s performance as the title character that really stuck with me throughout the decade. I couldn’t stand her, but I couldn’t stop watching her, and some scenes were so great that I rewound them to watch them again. She’s obviously a fantastic writer and director (Though full disclosure: I thought the Barbie movie was dreadful), but I hope she won’t give up on acting as her star rises behind the scenes.
24. Timothée Chalamet: Interstellar, Ladybird, Call Me By Your Name, The King, Little Women. It would be easy to dismiss Timothée as a youthful flavor of the month. Gen Z’s version of a Tiger Beat pin up boy, here today, a faded star by tomorrow. However, he’s way too talented to be pigeonholed like that and I’ve no doubt that none of his phenomenal performances this decade were a fluke. I see him more as the next generation’s Leonardo DiCaprio: pretty and popular today, but a serious actor whose body of work will continue to stun audiences tomorrow. It helps that his early career choices have been a lot more daring than DiCaprio’s ever were. No doubt he’ll make this list again next decade thanks to the Dune franchise and a lot of other interesting projects he’s already completed.
25. Guillaume Canet: Last Night. I’ve been a huge fan of both M. Canet and his real-life partner Marion Cotillard ever since they starred in the movie Jeux D’Enfants in 2003. He usually performs exclusively in French, so I haven’t seen as many of his films as I would like, but this one proves that language is no barrier to his extraordinary talent. His final scene in the airport while he looks at photos of the love he lost is so heartbreakingly beautiful that it alone was enough to put him on this list.
THE DIRECTORS:
1. Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, Inception, Interstellar)
2. David Fincher (The Social Network, Gone Girl, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)
3. The Russo Brothers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame)
4. Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Prisoners, Blade Runner 2049)
5. Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity)
6. Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler, Velvet Buzzsaw)
7. Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman)
8. Massy Tadjedin (Last Night)
9. Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread)
10. Ridley Scott (The Counselor, The Martian, All The Money In The World)
THE FILMS:
50. The Wind Rises / Kaze Tachinu (2013, Japan) — Full disclosure: this film is not actually one of the best of the decade, but I love Hayao Miyazaki so much that I can’t bear not to put what at the time was thought to be his final film on the list, so he gets a buy. In its defense, it’s a gorgeously rendered meditation on inspiration and the gears that move it. The fact that the invention in question was a weapon that went on to take thousands — perhaps even millions — of lives makes the film that much more intriguing.
49. Lady Macbeth (2016, UK) — This was my first introduction to Florence Pugh, and what an astonishingly talented young woman she is. She carried this entire film on her shoulders despite being pretty new to cinema at the time. I’m pretty sure it was her first starring role. Anyway, Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play, so I watched it strictly because of its title. I thought it would be a retelling of the play from Lady M’s perspective. It is definitely NOT that! It actually has nothing to do with the play whatsoever, but if you’ve read the play, the title 100% makes sense once you watch it. When I finished, I wasn’t thinking about Billy Shakespeare at all, I was thinking about when I could catch Ms. Pugh’s next film.
48. Nocturnal Animals (2016, USA) — Something in my nature is really drawn to stories that are chilly, remote and downright acerbic in both aesthetics and theme. It’s the reason I love Patricia Highsmith, and the reason this film made the list. It checks every single one of those boxes, and fashion designer Tom Ford brings the same measured, finely tailored eye to this film that he brings to his elegant menswear and his previous film, 2009’s A Single Man. That one was fantastic too, but it wasn’t quite icy enough to make my last Best of the Decade list. This one’s shattering conclusion lowered the temperature enough to get on here. Mr. Ford is apparently too busy with his fashion line to bless us with more than one movie per decade, but when the movie is this good, I guess that’s all we need. For a guy whose entire life is about beauty, it’s remarkable how he manages, literally from the first frame of this film to the last, to force his audience to consider the true face of human ugliness.
47. The Red Turtle / La Tortue Rouge / Reddo Tātoru: Aru Shima no Monogatari (2016, France/Japan) — There are no words in this film, so I don’t really feel like wasting any telling you why it belongs on this list. If you watch it, you’ll understand.
46. The Ones Below (2015, UK) — I’m a sucker for a crazy ending, and this film delivers that in spades. It’s so full of unexpected twists that the less you know about it going in, the better. I’ve only seen it once but it’s the kind of movie that sticks with you whether you like it or not.
45. Lion (2016, UK) — The ultimate goal of a film is to move its audience — meaning, create some kind of emotional reaction. So when a movie actually succeeds in doing that, you have to acknowledge its value. This one made me sob like a baby. The real life story it’s based on is already a tear jerker, so admittedly, they didn’t have to work that hard to bring out the waterworks. What elevates this one above the usual “based on a true story” BS is Dev Patel’s incredible performance. He carries the entire movie on his back. While he just barely missed the cut off for my favorite performances of the year, this movie absolutely deserves its spot on this list.
44. Petra (2018, Spain) — As long as we’re on the subject of eliciting an emotional reaction, this movie actually had me talking to the screen. That probably annoyed the other people in the theater, but I couldn’t help myself. The plot twists are simply heartbreaking — so much so that they elevate the simple story of a woman who sets out to meet her biological father into something far more impactful than it otherwise would have been.
43. Logan (2017, USA) — Hugh Jackman spent more than a decade making audiences care for his comic book perfect interpretation of Wolverine, and this film, showing the clawed antihero at his worst and lowest point, is a fantastic period on the end of that long, sometimes meandering sentence. He and Patrick Stewart anchor the film, and a story that actually succeeds at creating an emotional reaction helps elevate it above the usual superhero fare. Superhero fatigue is definitely upon us, but it’s great that the genre has evolved enough to include all these different aspects of heroism and what it means to help people: what it takes from you, what you lose, and what you can never get back.
42. The Insult (2017, Lebanon) — This film was a fascinating look into the politics of a country I previously knew next to nothing about. I found the story utterly fascinating, and the performances riveting.
41. Stoker (2013, UK) — It’s odd to think that I’ve only seen this movie once, because I remember it so vividly. It got a lot of attention for being the first English language film directed by the South Korean director made internationally famous by his film Old Boy. Apparently that movie was just the beginning of his fascination with incest and social taboos. Stoker is visually arresting, the plot is creepily compelling, the performances are phenomenal (especially Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode) and strange enough to stay with you for decades to come. It also gets bonus points because it’s a great modern twist on one of my favorite Hitchcock films, Shadow of a Doubt.
40. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011, USA) — Every movie listed above this is one I’ve only seen once. From this point forward, I’ve seen nearly every movie listed at least twice. However, in this movie’s case, that was mainly so that I could actually understand it. The plot confused me more than a little bit, but I think I got it in the end. It’s really on this list because of one specific scene: the one in which Benedict Cumberbatch’s character goes home to his partner and kicks him out, because he was warned at work that the organization will be taking a much closer look at his private life from that point forward, and he cares more about his career than his boyfriend. The scene has no dialogue. It just shows the two men having a conversation, and then the boyfriend packing. Once he’s gone, BC’s entire face collapses and he sobs on a chair. It’s so arresting, and so sad, and so beautiful. There are a ton of other great performances in the movie, and no disrespect to the other phenomenal actors (especially the criminally underrated Mark Strong) but that one scene is the only reason it’s on here.
39. Call Me By Your Name (2017, USA) — After this decade ended, we learned that a peach filled with joy juice isn’t the weirdest thing Armie Hammer’s willing to eat. Luckily, this movie came out in the good old days, when we were happy in our ignorance of his weird and possibly criminal sexual predilections with women in real life, and able to focus instead on his sexual behavior in this movie. There’s a lot to potentially be said about the age gap between the two lovers in this film, since one of them is legally a child, but the story manages to neatly dodge those landmines and focus instead on the fragile beauty of first love, in about as idyllic and romantic a setting as you could possibly imagine. Its further buoyed in those potentially dangerous waters by great performances, a hypnotic score and a ton of beautiful memories for anyone who has ever fallen in love in or with Europe.
38. The Martian (2015, USA) — Matt Damon getting rescued from places is its own genre at this point, and Matt Damon getting rescued from outer space is its own subgenre. Christopher Nolan and Ridley Scott both dipped their toes into this genre this decade, but for my money The Martian is the better film. Interstellar was better on a purely technical level and had one very moving scene, but this film is far more entertaining, has a MUCH better ending, and is far more believable.
37. Steve Jobs (2015, USA) — Sorkin’s scripts are always the star of any movie they appear in, but in this one the lead actors manage to snatch some attention for themselves. It’s a fascinating concept combined with Sorkin’s trademark dialogue and the real life story of an actual world changer, and it’s a rare case where the whole is equally as good as the sum of its parts.
36. Molly’s Game (2017 USA) — Now that Aaron Sorkin has turned his considerable talents to directing, we can expect more movies like Molly’s Game to make future Best of the Decade lists. This one was also a great showcase for actors whose work I love: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Jeremy Strong and Kevin Costner. I still don’t understand how the game of poker works after watching this three times, but the main lesson to be learned here is that a movie doesn’t have to explain every little detail to you in order to be good. This one also gets extra points for actually making me feel grateful to the California Department of Education for making us read The Crucible in high school. Understanding the meaning of that play ahead of time takes the movie from great to brilliant.
35. How To Train Your Dragon (2010, USA) — One scene pretty much sold me on loving the entire film. I saw this one in theaters when it was originally released, and I’m not sure it would be on this list if I had seen it on a smaller screen. When Hiccup and Toothless take their first flight, I genuinely felt like I was flying, too. It’s an incredible bit of filmmaking and deserves its spot on this list.
34. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018, USA) — This movie could be considered another one scene wonder that earned its spot on the list thanks to a single spectacular sequence. In this case, it would be the scene where Miles first experiments with his powers to the thudding beat of “What’s Up Danger?” The combination of the music and the animation is powerful, and that one scene alone proves that it deserved to win Best Animated Feature at that year’s Academy Awards. However, I think it belongs on this list for a lot of other reasons too. Despite the very real fatigue with superheroes in general and Spider-Man in particular, the movie wakes you up, energizes you and makes you excited to soar through the skies on a web again.
33. Thor: Ragnarok (2017, USA) — We all thought Taika Waititi was going to save this franchise. Even though Thor 4 was a total bore, the fact remains that he’s the only director to date who has delivered a Thor movie that was actually good. As a huge Cate Blanchett fan, I loved seeing her in the villain role and I loved the fact that they actually destroyed Asgard. Amazing trailer too. Simply perfect entertainment.
32. The Overnight (2015, USA) — This is a hard movie to explain to people if you want to get them to watch it. It’s about two married couples with kids who arrange an evening playdate at the wealthier couple’s home. Sounds boring, right? And then you watch it, and you spend almost the entire movie, literally until the second to last scene, asking yourself, “Where is this going? Who are these people, really?” and especially, “What the hell am I watching?” Is it a mystery? A comedy? A strange but hilariously fascinating examination of marriage, parenthood, privilege, and envy with dozens of unsettling horror movie beats thanks to its horror auteur director? Yes.
31. Before Midnight (2013, USA) — I love the fact that we don’t see any children in this movie. It’s literally just Ethan and Julie, aside from a few background extras and randos. If you’re a fan of the Before trilogy, you can’t help but love that, too. We don’t need to see their life to know that they have one, one that they’ve built together after years of being apart. As someone who has met tons of people while traveling abroad, I can assure you that this is the ideal endgame, even if it’s not always an ideal relationship. Happiness doesn’t have to look the way you expected it to look. It just has to exist, and it has to be maintained by two people who love each other enough to keep at it. As far as great endings go, I’ll take perfectly imperfect every time.
30. Edge of Tomorrow (2014, UK) — This movie is far more entertaining than it has any right to be. It’s just another Groundhog Day copycat, after all, right? Thanks to Doug Liman’s innovative directorial style and Tom Cruise’s inhuman levels of charm and charisma: wrong. Despite the tired concept, it’s a movie that still feels fresh even after you watch it again. And again. And again.
29. The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016, USA) — I’m kind of secretly obsessed with witches. I wrote a whole book about them that I’ve never managed to get published, and I eventually get around to watching any movie or show released that has anything to do with witches. So that theme, plus the amazing Brian Cox plus some genuinely creepy scares, make this one of the best horror films I’ve seen in a long time, and one of the best of the decade. In fact, there’s only one horror film I thought was better . . .
28. Everest (2014, UK) — I’m also kind of secretly obsessed with Mt. Everest. I’ve never written a book on it or anything, but I have spent years devouring every article I could find on the subject. And though I don’t usually go for nonfiction, I’ve really gotten into the subgenre of high altitude climbing. That includes the books The Climb and Into Thin Air, which were both written about the same doomed Everest climbing season that this movie depicts. It’s a clear case of great filmmaking meeting a great real-life story and creating a cinematic experience that’s equal parts terrifying, exhilarating and heart wrenching.
27. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017, USA) — Any movie that opens with a Spoon song and stars Michael Keaton is going to quickly find its way to my heart. Tom Holland is a cute little guy and is the best live action Spider-Man without a doubt. Folding him into the MCU was a fantastic move. Yes, it’s the second Spider-Man movie on a list that has a lot more superhero flicks than someone complaining about superhero fatigue should have included, but the movie’s appeal is simply undeniable.
26. Warcraft (2016, USA) — I said what I said! I saw this in theaters THREE TIMES, and hoped that between me and the Chinese box office, we’d at least get one sequel. Apparently not. I may be the only one on the planet who’s upset about that, but I stand behind my choice.
25. Macbeth (2015, UK) — Like I said, Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play, so this star-studded adaptation in which you can practically feel the cold Scottish wind on your face while you watch was guaranteed to get my attention. Michael Fassbender’s performance kept it. And rest assured, I’d’ve named this one of the best of the decade even without his full-frontal nude scene. But maybe lower on the list.
24. Argo (2012, USA) — Ben Affleck turned out to be a much better director than he ever was an actor. He’s made only one bad movie since he started directing, and this one definitely isn’t it. While I feel he should have hired an actual Hispanic actor for the lead in this one, I bet the studio pressured him to star in it himself to help box office. Despite that, it’s undeniably a well-made thriller, and undeniably one of the best films of the decade.
23. The Lincoln Lawyer (2011, USA) — This is a tight, well-crafted thriller that immediately presents you with a character you’re willing to follow into the horizon, perfectly embodied by Matthew McConaughey. Movies in this genre rarely get the praise they deserve, and McConaughey in particular has made so many of them that people tend to ignore them. But make no mistake, this is a great film and the Netflix series is, shockingly, even better. It’s just great source material, well adapted and well executed.
22. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013, USA) — This is one of Martin Scorsese’s most entertaining movies. In fact, you could even compare it to a theme park, but Leonardo DiCaprio is the one who gets to ride all the fun rides while you watch him vomit over the side and scramble to get out of the splash zone.
21. Friends with Kids (2012, USA) — Really funny, really poignant and really different from your typical rom com. I’d expect nothing less from Jennifer Westfeldt, who both wrote and directed this, and also cowrote the equally out-of-the-box rom com Kissing Jessica Stein. This one’s even better thanks to fantastic comedic performances from name actors and a grounded sense of realism that prevents it from ever being typical, basic or average.
20. Black Panther (2018, USA) — This is the first and only Marvel movie I bought on DVD. Since DVDs are going the way of the dodo bird anyway, I feel safe calling it the last one. I took that trouble partially because I wanted to support the movie, but mostly because I just love the film. It’s hard to separate the two. What this movie meant to black audiences cannot be gainsaid. It’s also the only Marvel movie my mother ever went to see in theaters, and she hates going to the movie theater. Yet, she even took the trouble of seeing it opening weekend because she wanted to support the film too. It helps that in exchange for our support, we got a movie that was actually excellent. To date it has the best villain of ANY MCU or DC movie. It even forces you to do some critical thinking: if you fully support the character’s goals and even agree with a lot of his methods, is he really the villain? And if the hero is making the wrong choices, even for the right reasons, is he really a hero? All that, plus great performances and a piping hot Kendrick Lamar soundtrack and you’ve got pure movie magic.
19. Hereditary (2018, USA) — This is a horror movie that genuinely scares you instead of just trying to shock you with over-the-top gore, then does legitimately shock you with well-earned scenes that are genuinely horrifying, yet perfectly in sync with the tightly woven plot. What sets it apart from other horror movies is that it’s well written, meaning that not only does it actually have a compelling story that doesn’t merely exist as a vehicle for blood and guts and over the top kills, it has fantastic dialogue that merits paying attention to what the characters say. That’s because a second watch proves that they actually give away a lot of plot details and subtext in their lines, and those lines are fantastically delivered by excellent actors with real talent and not just whatever hot teens were on a break from their insipid low budget TV show. This movie is proof that horror done right can truly result in cinematic masterpieces. It’s disgusting that the Academy completely ignores this genre. Most of the time they’re right to do so, but when a movie like this comes along, they should bloody well (pun very much intended) take notice. Toni Collette was robbed of an Oscar nod that year. I still think Glenn Close deserved to win for The Wife (she was also robbed, as usual), but the fact that neither Collette nor the movie got a single freaking nomination just proves how pointless and out of touch the Academy has become.
18. Captain America: Civil War (2016, USA) —There are nine total superhero movies on this list, and all of them are based on Marvel comics characters. That’s actually kind of ironic, because I was a DC gal growing up, and read Batman comics almost exclusively. (Well, Batman and Archie, but we’re talking superhero comics here.) This one came out before fatigue set in, and it was not only a great film in its own right, it was a game changer for the MCU. Taking their characters and splitting them up and pitting them against each other was a risky move, but it worked for the franchise. I was extremely entertained, and that’s what it all comes down to.
17. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014, USA) — This movie was an unexpected pleasure. I didn’t like the first Captain America movie at all, and I was never a Captain America fan. I dislike that character for the same reasons I dislike Superman: he’s too much of a boy scout. I prefer my heroes dark and dangerous and brooding. Like I said, I’ve always been a Batman fan. I also wasn’t a Chris Evans fan at the time. I didn’t dislike him, but I was totally neutral to him. This movie turned me into a fan of both the actor and the character. Sebastian Stan won me over as well. And then they brought in Anthony Mackie on top of that. What was I saying? Something about how much I like this movie. Sorry, I lost my train of thought.
16. Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016, USA) — To this day, I am not sure why I love this movie so much. I had a positive reaction to the first one and a neutral reaction to the second. I liked the first two books in the series but refused to read the third because Helen Fielding killed off Mark Darcy. The writers of this movie had much more sense and ignored that soggy storyline in favor of an actual comedy with a deliriously happy ending that inexplicably makes me tear up every time I watch it. I hate that I turned out to be such a sap in my middle age, but I love this movie.
15. Weiner (2016, USA) — Fallen heroes don’t fall much farther than this. Anthony Weiner used to be my favorite politician. I LOVED the way he got out on the House floor and screamed at Republicans. Back then, I honestly thought that we needed loud, screechy elected officials on the left to counter all the unhinged loonies on the right. Nowadays, I’ve rethought that approach, and I’ve definitely rethought my stance on Weiner. I was deluded enough to think that screaming made him a good politician. He was deluded enough to let a documentary crew film his 2013 New York City mayoral campaign. I guess he thought they’d capture an unlikely underdog victory? What they actually did was film a dumpster fire burning in real time, and God are the flames mesmerizing. Rumor has it that Weiner is considering running for mayor yet AGAIN in an upcoming election. If he’s seriously THAT deluded, all the opposition needs to do is screen this film in as many NYC theaters as they can and give the public free tickets. You don’t have to love politics to appreciate this movie, you just have to love the sweet taste of schadenfreude.
14. Phantom Thread (2017, USA) — Like I said, I’m a sucker for a crazy ending. This one caught me completely off guard and threw the entire film I’d just seen into a completely different light. That made rewatching it even more enjoyable than seeing it the first time. It’s truly a shame that this will be Daniel Day-Lewis’s last film. He seems like the type of guy to mean what he says and not be lured out of retirement but maybe one day something else as out of left field as this movie was will tempt him. We should be so lucky.
13. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016, USA) — Usually when you hear that a movie needed tons of reshoots, that’s a bad sign. However, in this film’s case, everything worked out perfectly. I haven’t enjoyed any of the Star Wars films that have been released since Disney bought the brand, except this one. And I haven’t bothered with any of the series on Disney+ except Andor, the one based on the main character from this movie. No surprise that it’s just as good — arguably even better — than this movie. If this movie, Andor and the original trilogy were the ONLY Star Wars properties in existence, I’d be perfectly content with that. The five of them put together tell a captivating, devastating but ultimately uplifting story. The rest is just stardust.
12. Sicario (2015, USA) — A fantastic Denis Villeneuve film, starring Benicio Del Toro at his absolute best. Josh Brolin is far scarier here than when he’s covered in purple CGI. The one weak link is Emily Blunt. Her role probably could have been played by almost any actress in Hollywood and she didn’t add anything to the movie, but she didn’t take anything away, either. It’s both tense and intense. And the best thing about it is that it’s just as tense every time you watch it. I’ve seen it three times now, and it had me on the edge of my seat even when I knew exactly what would happen next. That’s some crazy good directing right there.
11. The Counselor (2013, USA) — This flick is cold as a bottle of frozen vodka that someone smashes you over the head with in a bar fight. Cormac McCarthy wrote this script himself, and it turned out to be his final one. Cameron Diaz deserves more credit for her chilling performance of the most coldhearted character I’ve ever seen onscreen. If you can think of a single film or television character who sets a series of nastier events in motion than she does, I’ll buy you dinner. It’s bleak, hopeless, and has an ending that’ll leave your skin crawling for weeks. That’s what I love about it.
10. Nightcrawler (2014, USA) — Another icy, creepy, skincrawly movie, anchored by Jake Gyllenhaal in his most chilling role to date. In fact, they should have just called this movie Skin Crawler, because everything from Jake G.’s dead eyes to his evil actions had that impact on me, almost from the first frame. It’s truly crazy that he didn’t even get nominated for his work in this thriller. Both his performance and the genre as a whole are deeply underrated. It’s another one that kind of lives in your brain like a parasite long after the credits roll. And special shout out to Bill Paxton, who was as great in this as he was in everything else. A man gone far too soon.
9. Moana (2015, USA) — Cheeeeeeese! I know, I know. It’s a cheesy family movie in several respects, and there are several scenes I always fast forward through, but the final battle in this movie really connected with me on a personal level. It’s not every movie that can make you viscerally identify with the villain, especially when the villain is given no real personality and not a single, solitary line. But I absolutely LOVE the final scene where Moana looks down into the swirling abyss, realizes that the monster is really a goddess, and then she crawls towards Moana while Moana walks calmly through the water singing “You know who you are.” I’ve felt like that crawling monster so many times in my own life, wishing there was a Moana ready with a magic spell to turn me into my inner goddess. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. That plus some pretty catchy freaking songs makes this movie a definite best of the decade.
8. Birdman (2014, USA) — I love Michael Keaton as Batman. Until the new Flash movie, I thought this was as close as we’d ever get to seeing him play that character again. Frankly, his performance here is better than in the new Flash movie. I love how meta the whole thing is. The rest of the cast is fantastic, even including Emma Stone as his ex-druggie daughter. Edward Norton is the real stand-out, but even he can’t hold a candle to director Alejandro Iñárritu, who achieves the double miracle of turning his camera into a character all its own, and then having that character utterly steal the show.
7. Arrival (2016, USA) — Another amazing Denis Villeneuve film. I’m pretty sure this guy is going to keep making masterpieces just to force me to learn how to spell his name without looking it up. This story is a stand out on its own, and I owe a huge debt to this film for introducing me to Ted Chiang, the author of the short story on which it was based who has now become one of my all time favorite writers. But there’s no doubt that Villeneuve’s visual flair and great performances from Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner are what make this movie truly special.
6. Gravity (2013, USA) — An incredible achievement in filmmaking that should’ve won an Oscar for Sandra Bullock. Seeing it in theaters was such a marvel that I haven’t had the heart to watch it again on anything smaller than a giant screen. That it makes it the ONLY movie placed this high on the list that I’ve only seen once. In this case, once was more than enough. Hell, this movie deserves a spot on the list just for the epic Golden Globes joke it inspired Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to write. (Spoiler alert!)
5. The Social Network (2010, USA) — David Fincher rarely disappoints, and this movie was enthralling from its very first trailer. The actual story of how Facebook came to be was a lot less dramatic than this, but the movie is so entertaining that you can easily forgive its lack of accuracy. It introduced us to a slew of young actors who would go on to impact the decade in different unique ways, had one of the decade’s best scores and had one of the decade’s most quotable scripts thanks to Aaron Sorkin. The best thing about this movie is that it pulled off the ultimate victory over its source material: it will outlast Facebook itself. Long after the social platform has fully morphed into the abandoned digital husk that it has already started becoming, this film will remain what might be the world’s most entertaining cautionary tale.
4. Avengers: Infinity War & Avengers: Endgame (2018 & 2019, USA) — Yes, yes, I know these are two different movies, but it’s my list and I can cheat if I want to. I love them both, I’ve watched them both many, many times and any movie(s) that can make me both choke up and cheer deserve a spot on this list. I was a film major, but I’ve NEVER been a film snob. Movies are allowed to be entertaining. People around the world whooped and clapped and gasped and cried in these movies. Do you know how many times that’s happened in a Martin Scorsese movie? ZERO. So fuck you Martin Scorsese. Get out of the way and let me enjoy my theme park.
3. Knives Out (2019, USA) — The mystery genre was dead as a doornail until this movie’s runaway success revitalized it. As a long time Agatha Christie fan, I’ve always adored plots like this, and I was totally sold on the film’s eclectic cast. I was also one of millions of women mesmerized by a sweater. That was weird. But after Captain America: The Winter Soldier turned me into an obsessive Chris Evans fan, I guess it was just a matter of time before I fully succumbed to the madness. Menswear aside, it really is a fantastic movie, one I’ll continue to rewatch with pleasure as the decades roll by.
2. Last Night (2010, USA) — Who would have guessed that the best movies of this decade would come out as it was beginning and as it was ending? The middle of the decade had some great stuff too, but 2010 really was a banner year for filmmaking. Kinda unfortunate that it was, in all honesty, because in a year less stacked with competition, this movie might have gotten more attention. It richly deserves more attention. It’s a thoughtful, artistic but never overly “artsy” meditation on fidelity and what constitutes infidelity. What is the greater sin? An affair that’s purely physical and clearly based on lust alone, or an affair of the heart in which no physical lines are crossed? The movie doesn’t answer that question, but leaves it up to the audience to decide, and that’s what makes it a masterpiece. That and a trio of amazing performances from Keira Knightly, Sam Worthington and Guillaume Canet (anyone could have played the Eva Mendes role) and Clint Mansell’s best score since The Fountain.
1. Inception (2010, USA) — The decade started off with this incredible film and nothing over ten years later has come close to it. For sheer audacity, for arresting imagery, for a puzzle that we’ve spent a decade dissecting, this film had everything. One of the things I’ve noticed in YouTube comments under any video dealing with this movie is young people who saw it years later on some kind of streaming device lamenting that they never got to see it on the big screen. That is an accurate thing to be upset about. Best. Movie. Ever.
Here are the ten worst movies of the decade:
10. Mama (2013, USA) — A really innovating short film became the most confusing mess of a horror movie made all decade. There are always plenty of bad horror flicks to choose from, but this one gets special recognition because of the top tier talent involved. Stars Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau were both famous enough by this time to have chosen something better written, and producer Guillermo del Torro should have provided the first-time feature director Andy Muschietti with more guidance. He redeemed himself by going on to direct It Chapter One, but then stumbled again with It Chapter Two, so perhaps this first movie and its abysmal ending really is proof that he will always have trouble sticking the landing.
9. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (2016, USA) — J.K. Rowling has always been a better story teller than writer, and her insistence on writing the screenplays for these Fantastic Beasts movies really displayed that weakness for the world to see. The movie was sloppy, overly long and alternated between exposition dumps and scenes that should have been cut. I fell asleep on it in theaters, woke up after God knows how long and still didn’t miss anything that prevented me from understanding the plot. Maybe if I had stayed asleep longer, I would have liked it better. I didn’t bother to see the next two movies. On the bright side, it helped me close the door on the Harry “Potterverse” for good.
8. The Hobbit Trilogy (2012, 2013 & 2014; USA) — This one hurts. Last decade, I cheated by lumping all the LOTR movies into one entry on my best list. Now these three movies (Which NEVER should have been three movies!) are lumped together on my worst. Bloated, boring, and full of filler that should have stayed on the cutting room floor, these movies were an absolute embarrassment. And it’s a shame, because I simply adore the book.
7. The Lion King (2019, USA) — Ever wondered what would happen if the animals featured on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet burst into song? No? Then this isn’t the movie for you. And if you have wondered, this isn’t the movie for you either. This is a movie for studio executives, and literally no one else. They needed some cash so they reanimated an animated classic. Seriously, how does it count as “live-action” when it’s filled with nothing but computer-animated animals incapable of making a facial expression that matches the emotions their voice actors are desperately trying to convince us are real? Don’t let this ruin your childhood. Enjoy the Beyoncé soundtrack, but leave the movie stranded on the savannah.
6. Downsizing (2017, USA) — The trailers for this movie are incredibly misleading. It presents itself as a film that explores a fun concept: what if people could shrink themselves down and save money by living “small”? It purports to take the whole “tiny house” concept to the ultimate extreme. However once you get about 30 minutes into the movie, it becomes clear that the real intention is to beat you over the head with a bunch of feel-good messages about how people treat immigrants and migrant workers, and it’s not remotely funny or interesting. Nor does it do an effective job communicating its message. If people don’t care about your characters or their journey and are fighting to stay awake, your message won’t be effectively communicated. My favorite part of the movie was the boat trip through the fjords of Norway. It made me long to go to Norway. But really at that point, I would have gone anywhere to get away from the movie.
5. Mother! (2017, USA) — I suspect that this movie only exists because Darren Aronofsky wanted to hook up with Jennifer Lawrence. I really don’t see any other reason for it to have been made. Sure you can argue that it’s a metaphor for creation, or the destruction of the Earth, or whatever. All I know is that by the time they got to the part where a bunch of people start eating pieces of a live a baby, I was done. It’s nice that a major Hollywood movie came out which was bold, daring and not based on a superhero franchise or a YA Sci Fi series. It’s not nice that it was this hot mess masquerading as an artistic statement piece.
4. Jupiter Ascending (2015) — I find this movie so confusing. Bad, yes, but more confusing than anything else. How did the movie make it from concept to script without anyone stopping to ask themselves if it made sense, or needed some edits? How did it go from script to development without the usual studio interference? Yes, at the time, the Wachowski . . . siblings had already made the studio billions of dollars with the Matrix trilogy, but they’d also made the huge box office bombs Cloud Atlas and Speed Racer. Didn’t anyone at Warner Bros. have concerns??? We’re talking about the same studio that trashed the movie Batgirl after it was already completed because some number crunching poindexter in accounting told them it would make more money as a tax write-off. This studio interferes with directors so much that Christopher Nolan publicly called them out for it, yet they stayed silent for this one!?!? This movie is BEGGING for the guiding hand of an interfering studio boss. It’s like your coked up cousin showing up high at your daughter’s ballet recital. Time for an intervention, dude! The fact that no one stepped in to save this movie from itself is more tragic than comic, until sit through the fucking thing. And if you didn’t lose your mind laughing when Jupiter the alien bee queen and the half dog boy fought the dinosaur men on flying roller skates, then it’s probably because you, like me, lost it asking yourself how the hell this movie happened in the first place.
3. Dark Shadows (2012, USA) & The Lone Ranger (2013, USA) — I’m cheating again by lumping these two terrible movies together. Johnny Depp’s had it rough the last 15 or so years, and that’s no lie. Between his flailing film career and the tabloid mess his marriage to a psycho abuser became, I feel sorry for the guy. I really do. But none of that excuses these two ripe turds. I didn’t even make it through all of The Lone Ranger, but it was so offensively awful that I wanted to make sure it got recognized for being one of the worst of the decade, and I couldn’t decide between it and Dark Shadows, so I decided to just count them as one. Here’s hoping Hollywood gives Johnny another chance so he can redeem himself from not only these, but some of the other choices he clearly made for money.
2. I Love You Daddy (xxxx, USA) — I’m cheating yet again by putting this movie on the list, because while it was certainly made in this decade, it didn’t actually get released in this decade, and will probably never be released in any decade thanks to wrier/director Louis C.K.’s sexual misconduct scandal. The thing is, this movie is too gross not to mention, just to give it the black eye it so richly deserves. If you watched this NOT knowing its director admitted to masturbating in front of women without their consent, you’d still find yourself disgusted by the proxy character he created for his film, a male actor who graphically and VERY vocally mimes masturbation in front of women. Without their consent. Knowing what we know now about Louis’s personal life, that and many other things he throws into this movie are simply unforgivable. Add to that the cheesy score, the over-the-top performances, the criminal misuse of Edie Falco and Helen Hunt, the faux-French new wave-wannabe pretentiousness of C.K.’s directing choices and the insufferable characters, and you have a movie that would have been one of the worst of the decade regardless of what the director confessed to doing in the New York Times. Hopefully he confessed the sin that is this movie to a priest or someone else willing to listen to him blather. I’m no longer willing to give him my attention.
1. Ophelia (2018, UK/USA) — The Force was definitely not with Daisy Ridley in this weak performance as the weak Ophelia, a Shakespearean character long denied her due. As a Shakespeare fan, I was excited about this twist on an old tale, this time told from Ophelia’s own perspective. However, from the opening shot of Daisy Ridley floating in a pond looking as if she was trying to hold in a fart, accompanied by cringe-worthy voiceover narration, it was immediately clear that this film was going to be a let down. The screenplay is a mess. The writers packed it full of cheesy fake Shakespearean dialogue and were hellbent on cramming bastardized versions of the play’s most famous quotes into the weirdest possible places in the story. The screenwriters also insisted on shoehorning in a wholly unnecessary B-story involving Naomi Watts playing both the Queen and her own twin sister, who is a witch. It steals from both Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, which are both tragedies too, then tacks on a happy ending it barely earned. It’s basically just Shakespeare salad. The only positive thing I have to say about the entire awful experience is that I loved Clive Owen’s horrible wig. Why? Because at least it distracted me from his hambone performance.
Comentarios