I've now seen the last few films that I thought had a good chance of making this list (e.g. Parasite), so here it is! Of course it's difficult to assess the importance of this decade in film since it only ended four months ago, but it feels like it was a decade in transition. Most of my favourite films of the decade came out during it's second half, with 2019 being an espcially great year, so hopefully the 2020s will be even better, with more room for odder films finding distriution - hopefully the early 2020 success of 'The Lighthouse' and 'Parasite' should help this.
The ranking here is fairly accurate to my own opinion, (as of the date of publishing) other than that it should be said that I think all of these films are great.
50. First Reformed (2017) - Directed by Paul Schrader
49. Marriage Story (2019) - Directed by Noah Bumbach
48. Before Midnight (2013) - Directed by Richard Linklater
47. Holiday (2018) - Directed by Isabella Eklof
46. Midsommar (2019) - Directed by Ari Aster
45. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019) - Directed by Quentin Tarintino
44. Happy End (2017) - Directed by Mchael Haneke
43. The Irishman (2019) - Directed by Martin Scorcese
42. Paterson (2016) - Directed by Jim Jarmusch
41. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) - Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman
40. La La Land (2017) - Directed by Damien Chazelle
39. Force Majeure (2014) - Directed by Ruben Ostlund
38. Certified Copy (2011) - Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
37. Toni Erdmann (2016) - Directed by Maren Ade
36. Amour (2012) - Directed by Michael Haneke
35. Berberian Sound Studio (2012) - Directed by Peter Strickland
34. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - Directed by George Miller
33. Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) - Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
32. Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - Directed by Denis Villeneuve
31. 12 Years a Slave (2013) - Directed by Steve McQueen
30. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - Directed by Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson's films are perhaps the definition of style over substance, but when a film is as funny, visually incredible and detailed as this it's difficult to find too much issue with it. This feels like the absolute pinnacle of everything Wes Anderson has been building up to, and although I suspect Rushmore might actually be his best film, this is surely the most 'Wes Anderson' film that will ever exist. The cast is clearly having an absolute ball, which gives the film an infectious joy - if I was more prone to waching films for a good time this could maybe be among my top few favourite films. As it is, I prefer films that punch me in the gut or profoundly affect me, as is visible in a lot of the rest of the list, but when it comes to fun this is a masterpiece.
29. Madeline's Madeline (2018) - Directed by Josephine Decker
Perhaps the worst development in film in this decade was that the overwhelming quantity of films and especially television shows has led to most audiences expecting a baseline level of production value to differentiate 'real film' from YouTube fare, leaving a lot of experimental film with amazing ideas but lower production values being lost in the suffocating sludge of sheer content. I bring this up because watching Madeline's Madeline suddenly broke the mold of film in the 2010s that was beginning to depress me. It has so many ideas, and is presented in such an interesting way that it gives me hope for the future of film. Looking at power dynamics between teacher and student has been done hundreds of times before, but bringing the mother into the mix in a more prominent role really explodes the film into a frenzy of paranoia, discomfort and odd nauseusness. Few other films did so much with so little in the decade.
28. Parasite (2019) - Directed by Bong Joon-Ho
Perhaps the most unanimously praised South-Korean film of the decade, it seems like even the harshest critics of Parasite still enjoyed it. For me it's the closest thing I've seen to classic Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window Hitchcock - that is to say a darkly comic thriller that gets incredibly ludicrous but is clearly having so much fun, with such technical mastery that it's impossible not to be swept away in the conspiracy of it all. So many genius set-pieces immediately come to mind - Hell, the whole film is made up almost exlusively of genius set-pieces. I'm a little skeptical of how nuanced the social commentary is, and I enjoy Memories of Murder slightly more, but this is an obvious landmark film.
27. The Master (2012) - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
When the last film you've made is one of the most revered epics of the 21st century, it's difficult to know where to go, but while Paul Thomas Anderson previously paired a larger film with a smaller film with 'Punch-drunk Love' follwing 'Magnolia', he instead chose to go more complex for his follow up to 'There Will be Blood'. As usual with PTA every technical aspect is pretty much perfect, leaving the actual judgement of the film to be based entirely on how much you as a viewer relate to the film. Although I preferred a certain film he made later this decade, this is definitely the headiest film PTA has yet made, tackling ideology - although like a flipped version of 'There Will be Blood', here the theme of ideology is the surface used to smuggle some wonderfully detailed character work into the viewers mind. The perfect send-off role for Philip Seymour-Hoffman, let's pretend the Hunger Games never happened.
26. Like Someone in Love (2012) - Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
This is one of the slower films I've seen this decade, so it had to be masterpiece just to keep me invested. But this man is a genius, so I was in safe hands. By making a film out of the contemplative, more uneventful parts of life Kiarostami manages to make a film that actually captures the feeling of reality, something most popular films make little attempt to do. In his films you anticipate casual conversations that would be filler in the average film - making a film that builds substance the same way most people do in reality, through conversation. While the average film would try and use hyperbolic tragedy to get an emotional response from the viewer, Kiarostami breaks your heart with the small disappointments and misunderstandings of the most average day of his characters lives. This works so well that when events do ramp up at the end it's almost too much to take. Probably the least accesible film on this list to most viewers, but something very special for those that can get into it.
25. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) - Directed by Banksy
I'm generally no fan of documentary, and neither I suspect is Banksy. This might be my favourite piece he has yet created - his work is always very on the nose, but here that works brilliantly. A documentary that seems to be fairly unconcerned with the true events, this instead looks at an insane, hilarious con, yet manages to sidestep the con that documentary always ends up as when it has a lack of self-awareness. Few pieces of media have made me laugh as hard as the last act here, with my obsession with bad art and kitsch also playing a part in my adoration.
24. Son of Saul (2014) - Directed by Laszlo Nemes
Nine out of ten times I think a holocaust film is a bad idea. Turning truly horrific true events into fiction is a dangerous practice - for years Schindler's List was my mental reference for the holocaust, which is pretty repulsive when I consider how sanitised that film is. I think Son of Saul recognises this, and chooses to present the holocaust in the most honest way film can allow. The experience is made entirely subjective, meaning that the film never comes off as an omniscient director relaying false events to an audience, but rather an attempt to capture the emotion of being trapped in as close as we may have come to a human-created Hell. The film is an anxiety overload filled with men who know they're dead from the first frame they appear.
23. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) - Directed by Martin McDonagh
Sometimes I can forgive all the sentimentality in the world if I fall in love with a film, and Three Billboards is the 2010s equivalent of a film like Magnolia. Yes, it has some silly and convoluted moments, but at the end of the day this is a film that argues for empathy, even for the kind of people that traditionally aren't given much of a chance on screen. Giving a racist cop a redemption arc in 2017 was hugely brave considering the context, but it works because it feels real - most people aren't evil, even if they do evil things, just as McDonagh bravely criticises the reductive Hollywood lie of the 'badass female protagnist' in the same way. Nobody is fully right or wrong in McDonagh's films and that's sorely lacking in the bigger blockbusters, which still play on the same good versus evil tropes.
22. Under the Silver Lake (2018) - Directed by David Robert Mitchell
Finally another fun film! Although this film had one of the most botched releases I've yet seen it seems like it's already crawling into cult status. A film dedicated to the very idea of mystery, there is so much happening here and it's all brilliant. Amazing cinematography, set design and music help this stand alongside its obvious influences Vertigo and Mulholland Drive, which are two of my favourite films of all time so perhaps I was going to love this no matter what. It's great to see a film which is so unafraid to descend into surreal oddness, with the songwriter scene in particular being one of my absolute favourite scenes in any film. It did require another viewing to nail down, but it's so easy to watch that it was a joy. A good one to watch with the BOYS.
21. Uncut Gems (2019) - Directed by Benny and Josh Safdie
Adam Sandler finally achieves his full cinematic potential in a film which feels like it could only have been made now. The Safdie Brothers ability to build and release tension is highly refined, and their scumbag characters lead to films which are deeply unpleasant to watch but are impossible to forget. Howard Ratner is by far one of the greatest cinematic creations of the decade, a character who feels completely repulsive and completely real. You don't really root for him as much as you just want one of his gambles to pay off so that things won't get any worse, but of course everything does get worse and worse, and it's all Howard's fault. The score is crazy, the acting is faultless and it damn near gave me a panic attack on my first viewing.
20. Spring Breakers (2012) - Directed by Harmony Korine
Spring break...
Spring break forever...
This film is one of the oddest post-ironic documents concieved of is the 2010s, at once a deconstruction of young adult party-hard comedies and gangster movies and a genuinely distressing, unexpectedly touching look at hedonism and coming-of-age. Taking a cast of A-list ex-Disney channel stars and corrupting them, this is a film which feels both conceptually and physically experimental, and the fact it was seen (and hated) by so many people is marvellous.
19. Call Me By Your Name (2017) - Directed by Luca Guadagnino
Probably the coolest film of the decade, this film oozes class, combining bisexual steaminess with a large helping of Italian history that grounds the film in something much older and more archetypal. This is what puts this film above the average romance film, as it imbues the story with a sense of myth far removed from the kitschy, tacky cliches of most romance films. Timothee Chamalet and Armie Hammer are already iconic as a duo, and like all of the best romance films this is a a lot more likely to make you cry than laugh by the end of it all.
18. OJ: Made in America (2016) - Directed by Ezra Edelman
Arguably a TV documentary series, 'OJ: Made in America' is here because it simply cannot be excluded from any list of great filmmaking of the 2010s. 8 hours in length but completely gripping for the whole runtime, this documentary uses the life of OJ Simpson as a starting point to look at seemingly every aspect of American culture, with a focus on police brutality against black people that meant it hit the zeitgiest in 2016. At its extended runtime it feels like this documentary is still only just about able to fit in all of the most interesting parts of Simpson's life, but no celebrity has had such a startling, nauseating fall from such a huge height. This is like if Dwayne Johnson threw a baby off a building. The architect behind all of this is Ezra Edelman, who manages to assemble seemingly every single living person who ever spoke to OJ for a series of genuinely exciting and enlightening interviews, which do most of the films talking - for a film this close to America's politics Edelman tastefully chooses to let the events and people speak for themselves, leaving this masterpiece as a document to spark debate with it's viewers rather than an ideological mailbomb telling them what to think. And the former is far more powerful, every time.
17. The Lego Movie (2014) - Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
This was a hell of a suprise, and immediately cemented my suspicions of Lord and Miller being able to take some of the laziest, most uninteresting film pitches around and turn them into works with real value. Although as a children's film it doesn't go as thematically deep as most of the other pieces here, it has a cutting satirical edge that is pretty on-point and relevant, especially in a film that was probably only commissioned with the intention to sell a product. The animation is also an absolute joy to watch in a world where it seems like most children's films are increasingly looking exactly the same - or in the case of Disney's recent experiments with photo-real CGI, looking like they aren't even animated anymore. Almost every new location entered by the characters of this film is packed with mind-blowing detail, and there is clearly a huge amount of love in every aspect of this film. Not to mention 'Everything is Awesome' has been forcibly inserting itself into my brain since I first watched this.
16. Whiplash (2014) - Directed by Damien Chazelle
There are few original film characters this decade that really stuck around, since most of the blockbusters were based on existing IPs, but perhaps the most iconic was suprisingly a terrifying jazz teacher, in the form of J.K. Simmons' Fletcher. With perhaps the supporting role of the decade, the rest of the film only had to be incidental to still be pretty great, but Damien Chazelle and his team lift the lid on the mousetrap of teacher-student abuse and construct an visceral, stressful film blessed with one of the all-time great third acts. Not to mention this film has finally given a comparison point for any student trying to describe their own psychotic teachers - Ms Blackborow, look at me now.
15. The Tree of Life (2011) - Directed by Terrence Malick
Last year I had one of the singularly boring experiences of my life when I sat down at Leeds International film festival to watch 'A Hidden Life', Malick's three-hour look at an Austrian conscientious objector during World War II (Not a bad film but I was tired and needed the toilet). Immediately I forgave this, because this man made 'The Tree of Life'. This film, already seemingly canonised by critics, is the experience of reminiscing about your childhood, absent-mindedly staring at a cloud while you do it. If that sounds pretentious wait for the sequence where Malick takes you on a trip through the history of the formation of the Earth itself, complete with CGI dinosaurs. Yet for me it's the smaller moments that stick best in my head - a child sneaking into his empty parents room and checking through their drawers, smelling their clothes. It is a genuinely beautiful piece of work, though it is not for the cynically minded.
14. Moonlight (2016) - Directed by Barry Jenkins
It feels strange to put 'Moonlight' on here at all, because it's been about four years since I've seen it and I don't doubt I would love it even more on a rewatch, but as it is every time I think about it I get such an overwhelming feeling of quiet sadness that I usually put something else on. Other films might be more cutting, but few this decade were as tender as this. Post-modern, dream-like and surely one of the greatest achievements in cinematography of recent times, this makes a sorely under-represented story painfully relatable. It runs off pure empathy.
13. It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012) - Directed by Don Herzfeldt
Another film that rides on the very fine line of pretentiousness, 'It's Such a Beautiful Day' is an hour-long stick-figure-animation experience of one man, Bill, completely losing his mind. If it all sounds like a bad student film make no mistake, Herzfeldt imbues this story with more humour, distress and once again, empathy, than any edgy nineteen year old trying to expose the horrors of schizophrenia ever could. The use of aspect ratio - or rather it's complete discarding - makes the film visually unlike anything else, drowning Bill in a black void for so much of the film that the occasional breaks from it are extremely powerful. The film is also incredibly detailed and encourages multiple viewings, something which is easy to do due it's short runtime. Few films made me feel so happy to be alive, while so sad at the same time.
12. Birdman (2014) - Directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu
Films done in one long take are already becoming a gimmick - albeit one that always yields interesting results - but when I saw Birdman I didn't even register that we never cut away from the action. That's because even if there were hundreds of cuts, the core of 'Birdman' is such a brilliant, relevant conciet brought to life so vividly and with such joy that it's impossible not to be captivated. A film about a has-been actor best known for a campy role as a kitsch super-hero starring Michael Keaton is just perfect casting, and almost everyone here delivers career-best performances. Not to mention the soundtrack - paired with 'Whiplash' this was a great year for drum fans in cinema.
11. Shame (2011) - Directed by Steve McQueen
Porn addiction is one of the more unique struggles that has sprung up with the internet, and Steve McQueen's scathing look at lust in a Godless age is about as polished and economic as you can get. This is the kind of filmmaking that impressed so many in the comparable 'Drive' from the same year - fully accomplished. Every shot, every sound, every beat feels exactly accomplished the way it was planned, and Shame works with a lot more substance than Drive (Still love Drive though, it would appear on a longer list). Michael Fassbender's performance here is exceptional, playing a man who seems to have been incredibly succesful in every area except the single one he cares for most. It's a film that stares at what it means to have sex, to be responsible and - thankfully - looks at how someone can start to dig themselves out of those low depths.
10. The Wolf House (2018) - Directed by Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña
This is a film i watched on MUBI based off the nightmarish thumbnail image, and something that has not left my brain since. Almost nothing I have seen has left me as awe-inspired as this, the film formed of stop motion sequences where the methods are gloriously transparent. A running technique used throughout the film is the construction and deconstruction of large models made of paper and tape, something which is woven into the fairytale plot later on. Perhaps more of an experimental art film than something with characters and conventional narrative, but one of the most memorable, terrifying and criminally under-seen masterpieces of the decade.
9. The Favourite (2018) - Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
I saw a lot of lesbian dramas this decade, and a fair few period pieces, but none of them reached the completely unique heights of 'The Favourite'. Yorgos Lanthimos might be my pick for director of the decade, with 'Dogtooth', 'The Lobster' and 'Killing of a Sacred Deer' being some of the strangest films I have ever seen, all contained within the same idiosyncratic universe where the masks we all wear day-to-day are just a little more pronounced. When paired with a cracking script written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, the results are perhaps the best time you can have watching a film about royals - until of course it destroys your heart. Anachronistic as hell, but in all the right ways, this is the future of filmmaking - where all genres swirl into each other, where fish-eyed go-pro lenses are used alongside glowing, candle-lit 35mm, and it all works simply because its all so brilliant.
8. The Hunt (2012) - Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Paedophillia is one of the few topics that feels just as contriversial to create art about now as it was a hundred years ago, and The Hunt is a nuanced and terrifying look at how even the seemingly most civilised societies react with blind anger at the merest accusation of such crimes. Mads Mikkleson is finally given a role other than evil European bad guy and is completely sympathetic as a good man caught up in an accidental conspiracy. A rare film that makes you question whether there are still gaps in public consciousness where nerves sit exposed, and what you would really do if somebody nudged them.
7. Her (2013) - Directed by Spike Jonze
This has been the decade where science-fiction stuck it's middle-finger up to humanity. Perhaps kicked off by Charlie Brooker's obsessively miserable and occasionally brilliant Black Mirror series, it felt like every original sci-fi film that came out was just about how awful humans can be - from the men-being-horny cult classic Ex Machina to the-military-blow-things-up drabness of Arrival, it felt like all science fiction writers wanted to do this decade is warn us of a horrible future. This is where Her stands up and says maybe we won't mess everything up. Maybe rather than being killed by technology we could fall in love with it - and it could fall in love with us too. Spike Jonze makes all of the potentially silly aspects of Her seem remarkably plausible, from the future hipster protagonist, Joaquin Pheonix at his most likeable, to the central conciet of a man falling in love with his AI system. It's beautifully, beautifully rendered, with it's visuals, sound, score and writing all managing to be genuinely touching, while also maintaining a sense of humour and without going too far. It made me cry, which almost nothing else on this list has done, and it felt completely earned. Amazing.
6. Good Time (2015) - Directed by Benny and Josh Safdie
Every film runs on a different engine, a core emotional track that the filmmakers want to convey. For many this might be romance, beauty, big set pieces, depression, witty dialogue... For Good Time that engine is claustrophobic danger. No other film I've seen this decade puts its protagonist through the ringer as hard as Robert Pattison's career-changing performance as the manically desperate Connie. This film starts off unbearably tense and just keeps going, getting higher and higher. Even when exposition is dumped at one point by side-character-extraordinaire Ray, it's delivered so fast that you cannot breathe in case you miss something. The style behind the madness is something to behold, with the film only occasionally cutting away from over-the-shoulder shots and close-ups, and the psychadelic synth soundtrack adding a level of dream-like transcendece to these staunchly earthly affairs.
5. Under the Skin (2013) - Directed by Johnathan Glazer
British film is something I have never really connected to, despite... being British. A lot of it seems routed in either bleakness or tweeness, and although there are some great british television shows, I felt like I was a missing a sense of strangeness and originality from the UK. Then Johnathan Glazer comes along, puts Scarlett Johansson in rural Scotland and finds some of the most shocking and fresh sounds and images I have seen this decade. Under the Skin is the rare but valuable sci-fi film which would rather tell you less than more. If you want to, sure, you can work out where the aliens in this film have come from and why they're here, but this is so much more than 'what if' fiction. This is a film about what it means to be an outsider, and of course what it means to be human. More than that for me though are the images that remain long after the film has been seen - the black voids, the floating, empty jellyfish of human skin, the terrifying score.
4. Climax (2018) - Directed by Gaspar Noe
Sometimes you need millions and millions of dollars, a hundred scenes and an ensemble cast of the most talented actors you can find to make a great film - As Gaspar Noe learned on Enter the Void. Sometimes you just need twenty horny street-dancers and a 45 minute long take to pummel the viewer into pieces in the most nightmarish, distressing, anxiety inducing and psychadelic film of the decade. This film is morbidly fascinating in its combination of art-house sensibilities and extreme, extreme violence, made all the more horrible with how plausible it is made to seem. The central conciet of the film is already more frightening than the majority of spooky-ghost horror movies - unknowingly being spiked with a copious amount of LSD with a group of twenty people who have a lot of friction as is. The characters are all colourful and memorable, with surely one of the most diverse casts in horror history, and there is not a weak performance here, especially impressive when considering some of the things they have to do. I feel like I remember every second of this experience and morbid curiosity - along with the killer soundtrack - keep me coming back again and again.
3. Phantom Thread - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson is a director that has yet to ever really misstep as a filmmaker, despite always changing the tone and genre of his work. So after the heady look at ideology in The Master and the seventies stoner comedy Inherent vice it almost makes sense that he would make a classy, tasteful period piece romance. But Phantom Thread has an appropriately spectral, haunting nature to it that has made it grow on me a huge amount from my first viewing. Few films manage to get to the heart of what it is to fall in love, and to be maintain love like this one does, and to reach this conclusion PTA plays familiar scenes with unfamiliar elements that ring absolutely true. This is far from the sanitised, predictable costume drama that you might expect from a blurb, it is something much more important. The technical elements are so beautiful that occasionally you are struck by an image that will stay with you for weeks afterwards. The soundtrack is just perfect. Most of this film is just perfect. If you want something endearing, intelligent and life-affirming, this is the best film of the decade.
2. The Lighthouse (2019) - Directed by Robert Eggers
And this on the other hand is a tiny, horny and angry piece that feels like an all-time classic already. This is flawless no matter which way I try and look at it - it's full of humour which works every single time without detracting from the atmosphere, an atmosphere which not only feels unique but so much deeper and bigger than almost any other film of the decade. You do not want any more or less out of The Lighthouse than you get. Every expertly edited sequence of building surreal horror, every shot that fills out the unique aspect ratio with an equal measure of beauty and grime, every line spoken by Willem Dafoe in the melodramatic performance of the decade and his career, all of these elements are all forgotten or ignored while consuming the Lighthouse because they don't feel like elements of a film any more. You feel trapped on an island with these two crazy characters, doing hard labour through the day and getting drunk at night as you lose track of all sembelance of time. There are over a dozen sequences here which rank among my all-time favourites, and the nature of the plot means that I pick out a different interpretation every time I see this film. A document which looks back, forward and inward at the same time, drowning you in it's salty waters the whole time.
1. Anomalisa (2015) - Directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
Anomalisa is my favourite film of the decade. This is probably the only film this decade that has really made me question some less pleasant aspects of myself that are generally not talked about by people. Michael, the protagonist of Anomalisa is not particularly likeable. You get the feeling his life has come to a point of stagnation that will continue until his death. He does not do good things, but he is never painted as anything less than human, which of course ignores the fact he is a puppet. It became a tagline of sorts, but it's true - this is the most human movie of the decade and it's absence of human beings in front of the camera only helps rather than hinders this. Duke Johnson deserves more credit than he recieves for the awe-inspiring visual quality of this film, not just the vividly imaginative art direction but the hyper-realistic detail of the animation, which often makes you forget you're even watching animation.
This is a slow, minor, arguably uneventful film, but once again I feel as if I can remember every second. It starts gaining a real momentum half an hour or so in that progresively rises and rises, giving the audience moments of genuine beauty, humour and terror all underpinned with a sense of unending existential lonliness which can never quite be resolved. There has never been, and will never be another film like Anomalisa, and there is no more fitting compliment than that.
