Let's start with some data. I saw approximately 820 movies released in 2010 through 2019. Out of that group, I rated 179 high enough to be eligible for a list like this. The strongest overall year was 2012 and the weakest was 2017. I'm excluding 2019 from both of those judgments since I've had the least amount of time to evaluate it. All of that data came from imdb.com, by the way. I love that website. Someday it might be fun to write about what the imdb metrics reveal about movie watching habits, but I might be the only one interested in that.
So why do this? Isn't this just the highest ranked movies off the yearly lists? Well, not quite. Many of those movies are here but looking at a decade is different. The end of year lists don't allow for the passage of time to highlight which movies are enduring and which ones may not have had the staying power that makes a classic. Each of the lists would look different if I were to rank the films again. Not only that, but there are plenty of movies I simply don't see in time despite my best efforts. There are six movies in the top 25 that didn't appear on the top 10 lists because I didn't get to see them until after it was done.
As far as the returning champions go, this isn't just a copy and paste job from the other lists. That would be too easy, right? I felt it was more appropriate to examine the movies in relation to the decade, both in terms of movie trends and the real world events around them. I hope that's enough of an introduction. I'm a little nervous about this, so let's get started. There are lots of movies to talk about.
25.
Advantageous
Science-Fiction/Drama, 2015
Directed by Jennifer Phang
If there's a movie on the list I wish had gotten more attention, this is it.
Advantageous never got much of a release and the few critics that saw it mostly brushed it aside with little consideration. It's a small and quiet science-fiction film set in a not-too-distant future, focused on primarily human concerns with the futuristic technology mostly in the background (until the ending, at least).
Gwen (Jacqueline Kim) is a cosmetics saleswoman struggling to secure a future for her teen daughter, Jules. Despite having a genius-level intellect and perfect grades, getting her into college and ultimately to a good job is still considered a long shot. If that sounds hyperbolic, I'm not sure you've paid enough attention to this past decade as crowds of top-level students with top-level degrees bitterly competed for miserable bottom of the ladder corporate jobs as a means to pay back their gigantic student debt. In the face of this uphill battle, Gwen prepares to make a heartbreaking sacrifice that could bring in the money the family needs. The movie elegantly holds up a mirror to the audience and asks us how we can possibly survive as a society that throws away the future of its youth for the sake of short-term profit.
When I'm lying awake in bed at night wondering how in God's name our family could afford higher education for my kids, this movie often returns to my thoughts. Jennifer Phang has been working in television in the years since this movie came out, but I hope one day she is able to make another film.
24.
White God
Drama/Adventure, 2014
Directed by Kornel Mundruczó
Disney has largely given up on creativity in terms of their homegrown productions, happily raking in a fortune with a series of dull live-action remakes of their animated classics. Yet there's very little in these films that feel "live" - there's often almost as much animated content as the originals save for a few actors here and there. They even have the stones to remake
The Lion King with CG animals and call it "live action."
If you want to see an epic adventure starring real animals, this is your movie...although it's definitely not for kids. Through a series of cruel circumstances, a sweet dog named Hagen gets separated from his owner Lili (Zsofia Psotta) and left to wander the streets of Hungary as a stray. After he is subjected to the cruelty of the outside world, Hagen becomes a lethal fighter and even recruits other dogs. Lili is still searching for him but it might be too late. The whole adventure culminates in a brilliant finale where a huge army of dogs rebels and wreaks havoc on the city. It's majestic, a little scary and very funny all at the same time. The allegorical nature of the story is hard to miss, particularly in a decade where the theme of ordinary people driven to violence showed up again and again. Thankfully, nobody panicked that this film would inspire dogs to violent acts.
Kornel Mundruczo set a world record for the most doggos used in a single scene, with 225 of them sprinting through Budapest during the ending. Pulling off something like this is hard, there's a reason Hollywood likes the phrase "never work with children or animals." But if a director is willing to do the work, the results can feel like something a viewer has never seen before.
23.
A Girl Like Her
Drama, 2015
Directed by Amy S. Weber
I wrote an
entire post on found footage horror, but the format has plenty of potential for other genres as well. Both the "hidden camera" and "fake documentary" techniques are used to add some verisimilitude to this emotional roller coaster, which is one of the most honest portrayals of high school I've ever seen.
It starts off on a brutal note with the attempted suicide of Jessica (Lexi Ainsworth), who has been enduring daily abuse for months at a school where administrators brag about positive community programs. With Jessica out of commission, the film begins to focus on Avery (Hunter King), the troubled popular girl who made it a mission to see her suffer. Things come to a head when it’s revealed that Jessica had been documenting the bullying with a hidden camera and when all is said and done, your heart may break for both girls. Blessedly free of baby boomer condescension about kids spending too much time on their phones or getting “participation trophies,” this is a film that takes the all too common suffering of adolescence seriously and with great empathy.
This is not a movie that tries to be stoic or understated with its emotions. The characters do a lot of full-on ugly crying and it works - by the time you get to the ending, you may feel exhausted. It's more than worth it. It might sound like a cliche, but every kid in middle and high school should watch it.
22.
ParaNorman
Animation/Comedy/Adventure, 2012
Directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell
Laika Studios started the decade with
Coraline and ended it with
Missing Link. Nobody is making better stop-motion animation right now and the highlight of their body of work is this incredibly fun and meaningful story of a child outcast (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) who can see the dead.
Naturally, Norman becomes the only one who can stop an undead invasion orchestrated by the mysterious ghost Agatha (Jodelle Ferland). The movie gets a lot of jokes out of society's tendency to torment those who are unique, but it also explores the real damage that stifling conformity can do. Despite being born in the colonial era, Agatha turns out to have a great deal in common with Norman, which makes for a moving ending.
All that's just a bonus to the peerless stop-motion wizardry on display. Everything looks so smooth that a viewer could be forgiven for mistaking Laika's films for computer animation but this is all done in the traditional way. It results in movies with a ton of character. This is a great pick for Halloween night.
21.
A Separation
Drama, 2011
Directed by Asghar Farhadi
The international breakthrough for the Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, this is a lively domestic drama that examines issues both universal and specific to Iran. The red-haired Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to leave the country with her family, but Nader (Peyman Mooadi) insists on staying to take care of his father who is suffering from Alzheimer's. One can relate to both Nader's obligations and Simin's desire to spare her daughter the sight of the old man wasting away and start over in a new place. If that weren't enough to wrestle with, a dispute with a housekeeper escalates into an unexpected disaster, putting the couple in legal jeopardy. I can understand the feeling of going into a movie like this with the expectation that it will be slow and boring and feel like medicine. I worried a bit about that myself but was proven totally wrong by its unpredictable plot and gradually building intensity.
With its exceptional acting and pacing, this is the best example of Farhadi's skill as a dramatist. It won awards all over the world, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Upon accepting his award, Farhadi gave a
beautiful speech about how Iran's rich culture had been "buried under the dust of politics" and that the people of his country didn't want hostility despite what political leaders may have said. Five years later, Farhadi won again for
The Salesman but was unable to attend the ceremony thanks to Trump's Muslim ban. That's not progress. Both of our countries deserve better and I can only hope that by the time he wins again, things will be different.
20.
Tigers Are Not Afraid
Drama/Horror, 2019
Directed by Issa Lopez
Putting 2019 movies on this list can't help but feel a little bit reactionary, but I feel confident this one will endure. Mexican cinema had a great decade, proving once again that times of turmoil produce powerful works of art. Not that this will provide much comfort for the struggling masses in the conflict-ravaged cities of Mexico, and certainly not to the desperate children in this film, whose suffering is undoubtedly true to life despite the magical realist elements.
In a city reduced to borderline anarchy by the drug wars, Estrella (Paola Lara) finds herself cowering on the floor with her classmates as the school is shot at. To try and calm her down, her teacher convinces her that she now has three wishes. It seems to be true...or maybe circumstances are just unfolding in a way that makes it look like they are true. Either way, Estrella believes it and tries to help a crew of orphaned boys led by a little tough guy who goes by El Shine (Juan Ramon Lopez).
Clearly inspired by the works of her countryman Guillermo Del Toro, Lopez doesn't soften the reality and there are some brutal moments to contrast with the moments of fairy tale logic. It's a powerful experience and a reminder that the suffering of children should transcend whatever political bullshit is going on in the world. What a shame that we need a reminder so badly.
19.
I Am Not Your Negro
Documentary, 2016
Directed by Raoul Peck
This haunting, engrossing documentary is structured around an unfinished manuscript by the author and public intellectual James Baldwin. Entitled “Remember Your House,” it attempted to tell the story of race in America, with special focus on three figures – Medgar Evers, Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Samuel L. Jackson narrates passages from the work while Peck assembles a montage of archive footage, movie clips and occasional references to the present day.
Jackson's great but the real star of the film is Baldwin himself. His astute commentary on race in America is the product of a true genius and the film performed a public service by bringing him back into the spotlight. His
speech that concludes the movie may be the most profound statement I've ever heard in regards to these issues.
"What white people have to do is try to find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a n----r in the first place. Because I am not a n----r, I am a man. But if you think I'm a n----r, it means you need him...you, the white people, invented him and you've got to find out why."
The past decade has shown we are only marginally closer to solving this problem than we were in Baldwin's era. If any progress is to happen, it will happen by confronting the issue. I think the resurgence of fascism and racism has rightly convinced many filmmakers that these blunt confrontations are necessary. Movies like this are necessary...and in this case, very powerful.
18.
The Villainess
Action/Drama, 2017
Directed by Byung-gil Jung
The ruthless action and crime movies that come from South Korea are no joke. You don't get too many one-liners or comic relief sidekicks. They unfold in a harsh world with gut-wrenching twists that push their characters to their limits. They're also packed with ingenious action sequences that deliver the sort of thrills that have otherwise become rare in the genre.
The Villainess is such a masterful, sweeping action movie that it's hard to believe that Jung has only made one other action film (
Confession of Murder, which is also great). I remember being practically pinned to the screen by the opening mayhem, which is a five minute first person shot that ends when the lead character is slammed into a mirror. This is how the audience meets Sook-hee (Ok-bin Kim), who is recruited by a mysterious government agency and promised freedom in exchange for 10 years of service. While stationed in Seoul as a "sleeper agent," she becomes fond of her new quiet life with a young daughter but the dangers of her double life are a constant threat.
Jung knows that the audience has already been blown away by the first scene, so the movie takes its time establishing the story and characters, mostly conveyed in layered flashbacks that might take a second viewing to put together. But don't worry, there's also a wild motorcycle sword fight and a climactic chase where Sook-hee singlehandedly takes down a bus.
17.
Scream For Me Sarajevo
Documentary, 2018
Directed by Tarik Hodzik
Twenty-five years ago, Sarajevo was considered one of the most dangerous places in the world. Today it's a peaceful European city that doesn't really make the news anymore. The contrast between those periods, the strange feeling of going from apocalyptic terror to normalcy, is the core of this moving documentary. It also has quite a bit to say about how powerful music can be in the right circumstances.
In the midst of the Balkan wars, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia and Sarajevo was besieged by Serbian soldiers for years. In 1994, two United Nations personnel in the city invited Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson (who was estranged from the band at the time and releasing material with different musicians) to perform. Dickinson accepted, not totally understanding what he was getting into. My own love for Iron Maiden makes this particular choice an invitation for accusations of bias, but this movie isn't some fawning tribute to heavy metal. Dickinson doesn't even get interviewed on camera until about a half hour in. This is foremost the story of the people of Sarajevo, who lived through hell for years but found hope and inspiration for one night at a concert. While there are some heartbreaking stories told by the survivors, the film ultimately ends on a hopeful note as Dickinson returns to Sarajevo in the present day. Several people who attended the concert gather and marvel at what they managed to survive. It's a tribute to resilience that is sorely needed at this point in history...and it's got a great soundtrack.
The conflicts in that region were the focus of much reflection during the past decade. A video game called This War of Mine put players in the shoes of the beleaguered civilians and the main goal of the game is to survive for another day. It would be high on my personal list for best games of the decade, but I'm not doing one of those. This one is hard enough!
16.
Cold Hell
Crime/Horror, 2018
Directed by Stefan Ruzowitsky
Violetta Schurawlow gave one of my favorite acting performances of the decade as Ozge, a Muslim woman whose family left Turkey seeking a better life in Austria. Unfortunately for her, a serial killer is stalking the streets of Vienna and targeting Muslim women in particular. She witnesses one of the murders and becomes a target herself. However, she's an aspiring kickboxer with a lot of unresolved anger and gets in some extended and very well staged brawls with the killer. She's the victim that just won't go down, which is thrilling to say the least. The movie combines a colorful giallo production design with some digital video shots during the action scenes for what often feels like a mashup of Dario Argento's style and Michael Mann's.
However, the real reason it works so well because of Ozge's characterization. She's not just traumatized by her past, she's pissed about it and her impulsive grouchy behavior alienates most of the people around her. Yet the audience roots for her anyway. That's some good acting and writing, folks.
The underlying themes about how supposedly "civilized" places can still hide (and even protect) hateful people who refuse to accept any sort of societal progress are obviously getting more relevant by the day. We can only hope those people will eventually run into a surly cab driver who will give them a nice kick to the nose.
15.
Selma
Drama, 2014
Directed by Ava DuVernay
It's hard to believe that before this movie came out, there hadn't been any major film with an actor playing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. All these years and no actor stepped up to the plate, probably because having to compete with the perennially compelling footage of the real Dr. King was too intimidating. Thankfully, David Oyelowo decided to go for it and the resulting movie was a worthy tribute to King and the other civil rights heroes of the era.
The city of Selma, Alabama had become a hub for demonstrations during the 1960s, with a march from there to Montgomery planned as part of a larger push for voting rights reform. There's a lot of emphasis on the behind the scenes planning and negotiation that goes into a major movement like this. The characters have fascinating discussions about how best to approach politics, the media and the legal system. Change is more than a single protest, it's a sustained effort. While there's a great deal of inspirational value to this history, DuVernay doesn't have to work very hard to draw grim comparisons to the present day. We would like to think that the brazen police shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson wouldn't happen today, but anyone who has even paid sporadic attention to current events knows that these atrocities haven't slowed down in the intervening decades.
It clearly struck a nerve since numerous commentators let loose with racist double standards and bad faith criticisms over the film's portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson, who is depicted as a resentful crank who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to sign the Voting Rights Act. Whether it seems accurate or not, and in this case I think it's more of a comment on white Democrats in general, it's perfectly within the bounds of historical interpretation. That's the kind of thing that separates narrative films about history from actual documentaries.
Selma deserved many more awards than it received, although it did get a well-deserved Oscar for the moving end credits song "Glory," which led to John Legend and Common giving what might have been
the decade's best acceptance speech.
14.
Paradise Lost: Purgatory
Documentary, 2011
Directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
The
Paradise Lost series is one of the greatest achievements in documentary cinema, with the third film following the story of the West Memphis Three to its bittersweet end. The first movie followed the trial of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, who were accused of murdering three boys in Arkansas in 1993. There wasn't much connecting the boys to the actual crime, so the prosecutors and jury opted to convict them on the basis of their interests - black clothes and heavy metal music. The blatant injustice reached the living rooms of millions of viewers thanks to HBO and a nationwide movement began advocating for their release. This movement was itself the subject of the second film, released in 2000. That installment ended with Echols accusing John Mark Byers, the father of one of the murdered boys, of committing the crime. However, Byers passed a lie detector test and was never investigated.
As
Purgatory begins, the audience learns that Echols wrote a heartfelt letter of apology to Byers and the two became unlikely friends. In fact, Byers became one of their fiercest advocates and frequently steals the show with his righteous rants. At this point, the West Memphis Three had spent 18 years in prison and originally, the filmmakers assumed they were headed for another downer ending. But in August 2011, as they were editing the film, news broke that the three were offered an Alford plea, a strange legal maneuver that granted them freedom but didn't require the state of Arkansas to overturn their convictions or even admit their mistake. It was a shocking turn and the cameras were there for it all.
Coming to the end of a saga that had lasted for almost two decades, this was basically the
Avengers: Endgame of true crime documentaries. For anyone who had followed the case (and you probably wouldn't be watching a third documentary about it if you weren't), this was incredibly emotional. Sadly, Bruce Sinofsky passed away in 2015. It would have been interesting to see where his career went after this, but he left behind an amazing legacy. The West Memphis Three got their lives back (if not quite justice) thanks to these movies.
13.
Nightcrawler
Drama/Crime/Satire, 2014
Directed by Dan Gilroy
"Our viewers are more interested in urban crime creeping into the suburbs. What that means is a victim or victims, preferably well-off and/or white, injured at the hands of the poor or a minority."
A caustic tour de force that was a debut for the ages for the longtime screenwriter Dan Gilroy. Jake Gyllenhaal is all sorts of creepy as Lou Bloom, a man desperate for work who gets drawn into the dark world of crime journalism, where people with cameras prowl the city streets looking for murder and mayhem to film. Lou is an off-putting man who speaks almost entirely in trite advice repeated verbatim from the laziest corners of the internet but becomes a natural at this new profession, even starting to arrange events in order to have something for the camera. Gyllenhaal’s performance is an impressive feat of characterization and the movie also features strong work from Riz Ahmed as Lou’s nervous assistant and Rene Russo as a TV producer who sold her soul a long time before the film begins.
In addition to being a tough indictment of the public's appetite for lurid true crime violence, it's an incredibly engaging and suspenseful film. The climactic sequence where Lou puts himself in absurd danger for the sake of capturing a crime is a breathless masterpiece on its own.
12.
The Florida Project
Drama, 2017
Directed by Sean Baker
The reaction to Baker's film
Tangerine mostly focused on how it had been shot on an iPhone. For
The Florida Project, he opted to put the phone down (You boomers happy now?) and was able to get more recognition for the unique tone of his movies - a combination of realism and social commentary, bittersweet emotion and warm comedy.
The setting for the film is a gaudy three-story motel in Orlando painted purple. So classic Florida, in other words. Families visiting Disney World used to stay at places like this until the company built its own hotels inside the park. Now it's an unorthodox housing project where little Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) cavorts with her friends daily, oblivious to the struggles of her loving but immature mother Halley (Bria Vinaite). The cast is made up of mostly first-time actors except for Willem Dafoe, who has played everyone from Jesus to the Green Goblin but finally gets a role where he's just a normal guy - the overworked, compassionate hotel superintendent who has accepted that he's basically running an apartment complex.
It's fairly lighthearted slice of life storytelling until Halley's impulsiveness puts her and Moonee's future at risk. The ending takes an abrupt turn into surrealism, perhaps because the sad reality is just too awful to consider. It's a deeply empathetic film about forgotten Americans whose neighbors are having too much fun at the theme park down the road to give them any thought.
11.
Fruitvale Station
Drama, 2013
Directed by Ryan Coogler
The story of Oscar Grant, whose outrageous death at the hands of trigger-happy police officers was captured on video for the whole world to see. You could make a whole anthology series of movies like this with a different person as the main character each time. We're living in the world's worst cinematic universe, where cops execute black people with the flimsiest of justifications, if they bother to justify it at all.
With a premise like this, the ending is a foregone conclusion, but the bulk of the movie is simply the last 24 hours of Oscar Grant's life. Grant is played to perfection by Michael B. Jordan and Melonie Diaz is heartbreaking as his girlfriend and the mother of his child. The more time you spend with these people, who have their gifts and flaws and are just trying to make sense of the world like anyone else, the more devastating that foregone conclusion becomes. There aren't any big speeches about injustice or racism, just a gentle reminder of someone else's humanity. Nobody could possibly justify the shooting after watching this. Unfortunately the people who reflexively defend authority even after the most blatant atrocities probably won't ever watch it.
There may not be a director who had a better run this decade than Ryan Coogler. After this film, he resurrected the Rocky series with great success with
Creed. Then with
Black Panther, he was able to explore all sorts of powerful themes despite the enforced sameness of Marvel movies and it went on to become the first superhero movie to ever compete for the Best Picture Oscar. Jordan was with him every step of the way. I hope to see a lot of these two over the next decade.
10.
The Raid: Redemption
Action/Crime, 2012
Directed by Gareth Evans
The “redemption” could very well be for the action genre itself, which had hit a serious dry spell by the time this film came along. Hollywood studios have gone all-in on superheroes and while those films have plenty of action, generally viewers are watching computer-generated replicas of the actors when it's time for a fight. There was a void to be filled and it was Asian filmmakers who stepped up.
This amazing Indonesian thrill ride makes an unbeatable case for the power of good old-fashioned fight choreography. The pleasantly bare bones plot is about a police raid on a notorious drug lord's apartment building that goes bad early on, leaving only a handful of specialized agents to fight their way through several floors of henchmen. Iko Uwais plays the lead character and he also choreographed the fights alongside Yayan Ruhian, who plays the toughest enemy.
If it's not yet obvious, this movie didn't make this list for the originality of its storyline. It's here because there is a true sense of awe at what the viewer is seeing. That feeling had been absent from this genre for way too long.
9.
The Babadook
Horror/Drama, 2014
Directed by Jennifer Kent
Horror was another genre that was redeemed this decade as a wave of ambitious new talent sought to truly explore its potential. It had quietly started by 2010 but
The Babadook, a superb debut film from the Australian director Jennifer Kent, was the first major breakthrough.
If the Academy Awards weren’t predisposed against horror films, Essie Davis would have been a leading contender for Best Actress as a struggling mother named Amelia who is still coping with the sudden death of her husband while trying to raise an extremely difficult child (Noah Wiseman). He's not the "cute precocious troublemaker" type, this kid is an unpredictable terror. The family begins to encounter a strange monster who is first introduced to the audience with insanely creepy pop-up book art. The monster may be a real threat, but there's another possible explanation that isn't supernatural but much more frightening - the Babadook may just be a visualization of Amelia's buried feelings and urges that are almost too horrible to say aloud.
This movie displays many of the hallmarks that would define this New Wave of Independent Horror - avoiding cheap jump scare fake-outs, an emphasis on mood and cinematography, and a rich subtext that supports varying interpretations. Case in point - the Babadook himself has enjoyed a second life as a gay icon due to some fans perceiving him as a symbol of repressed homosexuality.
"The more you deny, the stronger I'll get."
8.
It Follows
Horror, 2015
Directed by David Robert Mitchell
I went back and forth on whether to rank this or
The Babadook higher - they're basically sharing a spot. If I favor this one slightly more, it's because it seemed to build on the former's release a few months prior. It really felt like the moment that the aforementioned new wave of horror had truly arrived.
Jay (Maika Monroe) contracts a curse that spreads like a venereal disease and now finds herself pursued by a bizarre entity who takes different human forms depending on the situation. Wherever she is, the creature is slowly walking towards her. As she and her tight-knit group of friends try to maintain distance from the monster, the viewer is treated to a series of harrowing encounters and twisted imagery. With its striking deep focus cinematography and a dreamy electronic soundtrack by the musician Disasterpiece, it's one of the most aesthetically impressive horror films ever made.
You can tell you've got a good premise when people start theorizing about strategies if they were in the same situation, many of which were detailed at length on social media and blogs. Regardless of what the mysterious force represents (STDs? Shame? The inevitability of death?), its unique properties really engage your intellect.
7.
Let the Fire Burn
Documentary, 2013
Directed by Jason Osder
It's fitting that this film has "fire" in the title, because most of the adjectives I can think of to describe it involve heat. Searing, blistering, scorching, take your pick. It leaves a mark, digging up an unbelievable incident from 1980s Philadelphia that had plenty of resonance during the 2010s.
The cultish MOVE activist group annoyed many in the city with their aggressive bullhorn speeches and the unsanitary conditions of their neighborhood, but the mysterious death of a police officer in the area began a deadly standoff. Ultimately the police went to insanely dangerous lengths to bring the situation to a violent end. They dropped a C4 explosive from a helicopter on top of MOVE's headquarters with no clue as to how powerful it really was. The resulting inferno killed numerous members of the group and even inflicted harm on citizens not involved in the dispute. The mind-boggling and completely unnecessary overreaction earned Philadelphia the flattering nickname of "The City that Bombed Itself."
As far as the movie goes, the method of storytelling is just as compelling as the story itself. There are no interviews with experts or narration, just archive material interspersed with riveting footage from the hearings conducted in the wake of the massacre. A gripping masterpiece with righteous outrage emanating from every frame.
6.
Your Name
Animation/Romance/Drama, 2016
Directed by Makoto Shinkai
In a lot of anime TV shows, the creators rely on evoking strong emotions to try and make up for the low-budget animation. For example, Dragon Ball Z establishes grandiose stakes and larger than life moments of desperate rage to help viewers forgive the fact that they're watching looped animation of a blurry fistfight. But what happens when you have both an overwhelmingly emotional tale and gorgeous animation that can match it? Well, you get a movie like
Your Name.
Makoto Shinkai has carved out a niche for himself in Japanese animation with sweeping tales of young adult romance with fantastical elements. As a comet streaks across the Japanese skies, two high schoolers begin periodically waking up in each other’s bodies - Taki from Tokyo and Mitsuha from the small village of Itomori. It seems like a silly body swapping comedy in the vein of
Freaky Friday, but when Taki decides to try and meet Mitsuha, he and the audience are in for a massive surprise.
It's one hell of a twist and the second half of the film has an urgency that leaves viewers hanging on every little accomplishment or setback. Even the most cynical person might end this movie believing in the power of love to transcend time and space (until they get back on the internet, at least).
5.
Inside Out
Animation/Comedy/Fantasy, 2015
Directed by Pete Docter
Pixar's movies are a series of similar concepts that work out more often than not. What if toys had feelings? What if bugs had feelings? What if fish had feelings? I suppose it was only a matter of time before we got to "what if feelings had feelings?"
A heartfelt fantasy about a teenage girl dealing with her family moving away from home and the personified emotions living in her brain who try and manage everything. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust are brought to colorful life thanks to some perfect casting (Lewis Black as Anger? Genius). A lesser movie might have had Anger and Fear as villains, there are no antagonists in this Miyazaki-esque adventure. Every emotion has a role to play, which is an important message since boys are still told they can't cry and girls hear that getting angry isn't ladylike. But it's not all heavy - this is still an animated family film and there are plenty of wacky adventures to be had as the emotions explore different parts of the mind. The
scene involving the creation of dreams is some brilliant comedy.
Yet even with the laughs, this movie reduced crowded theaters full of people into a mass of sobbing wrecks. It's fascinating to speculate how it was able to have such a widespread impact. It evokes the loneliness when we're kept from making our feelings known for whatever reason, but also the relief when someone finally listens. There are profound, powerful themes here that are sorely needed.
4.
Parasite
Drama/Satire, 2019
Directed by Joon-ho Bong
Yep, here we are again.
Parasite is going play a major role in four of these blog entries in a row (with the Oscar predictions being next). Too recent to place so high on the list? Honestly, at the moment I'm not quite sure it's high enough but time will tell.
The tale of the struggling Kim family's ingenious plot to install themselves in the home of the wealthy Park family arrived just at the right time. The term "income inequality" gets thrown around all the time but finds powerful representation in the contrast between the Park house, full of unnecessary huge rooms and the Kims' half-basement apartment where they open the windows when the street is being fumigated to try and get free pest control. But who are the actual parasites? The desperate poor scheming up ways to make enough money to survive? Or the wealthy who hoard more money then they'll ever need while their neighbors suffer and starve? There are a lot of unexpected twists and turns in this upstairs/downstairs tale but nothing ever feels random thanks to the polished screenplay. Bong is making a strong statement but he also wants to make sure the audience has an exciting experience in the theater, packing the film with unforgettable cinematography and editing.
Many excellent films from around the world come and go in the United States without getting the acclaim they deserve, but this one made everyone sit up and take notice. It's had a phenomenal run on the American awards circuit, becoming the first Korean film to win both the Screen Actors Guild Ensemble Cast award and the top prize at the Writers Guild for its screenplay. It has an honest to God shot at winning Best Picture at the Oscars, but will it? You'll have to check back here in a few days to get the official prediction.
3.
Boyhood
Drama, 2014
Directed by Richard Linklater
A grand experiment that was filmed intermittently for 12 years that could have failed at any point if star Ellar Coltrane got sick of it. Instead, the audience gets to watch him grow from age 6 to 18 in a movie that was truly like nothing else.
The effect draws viewers into its small-scale story that always feels gentle and intimate despite its nearly three hour length. Mason (Coltrane) goes through the ups and downs of adolescence while trying to navigate his relationships with his divorced parents, Olivia (Patricia Arquette in an Oscar-winning performance) and Mason, Sr (Ethan Hawke). The big milestones that we experience while growing up happen offscreen and instead the film concentrates on the smaller moments that may not feel significant at the time but linger in our memories nonetheless. Ultimately, Mason gets through an emo phase and leaves for college as a sensitive, artistic and generally confident young man.
The subtle performances of the actors and Linklater's ear for dialogue lend a lot of authenticity and while it is clearly a personal film for the director, its widespread popularity indicated that many in the audience found it personal as well. Not one to sit still for long, Linklater is reportedly working on a film that will be shot over 20 years. Whenever it's done, I'll be there to see it.
2.
Moonlight
Drama, 2016
Directed by Barry Jenkins
The beautiful, haunting masterpiece that gave an honest, compassionate look at the kind of people rarely represented in movies. A poor black boy named Chiron grows up in Miami during a story told in three distinct acts.
Played as a boy by Alex Hibbert, Chiron tries to avoid his terrible home life and forms an unexpectedly close relationship with the local drug dealer (Mahershala Ali). Ashton Sanders plays him as a teen facing a growing uncertainty about his identity, a segment that ends one of the most satisfying "revenge on a bully" moments I've ever seen. Finally, Trevante Rhodes plays Chiron as a hardened adult who has almost all of his vulnerability figuratively and literally beaten out of him. There are powerful moments of reckoning in this final act, including a tearjerking reconciliation with Chiron's drug addict mother (Naomie Harris). The conclusion follows Chiron to a reunion with a childhood friend and there's a moment we know needs to happen. When it does, it hits with the force of an entire life lived. That scene has taken up permanent residence in my brain. I'm honestly grateful that this movie exists, especially in an age where any expression of empathy is taken implicitly as a political statement. The sad part is...that has become true.
As you may have heard,
Moonlight was at the center of a bizarre and completely unprecedented mix-up at the Academy Awards. The presenters were given the wrong envelope and for a few minutes, it appeared that the musical
La La Land had won Best Picture, which everyone (including me) assumed would be the case anyway. But eventually the situation was cleared up and the statue was presented to the real winner. It would be sad if the headlines about that moment forever overshadowed what a triumph it was that a movie like this won Best Picture. It gave a lot of hope that the Academy was truly evolving, but it's become obvious since that there's still a long way to go.
1.
The Act of Killing
Documentary, 2013
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and Anonymous
A movie so brave, so daring and so dangerous that one of the co-directors and most of the cast and crew were listed as "Anonymous" for their own protection.
The Act of Killing takes on the genocide in 1960s Indonesia, an atrocity mostly unknown to the world at large before this film came out. Approximately a million suspected Communists, union members, public intellectuals and ethnic Chinese citizens were murdered by the Suharto regime, which remained in power until the 1998. His reign is over, but the perpetrators of the killings were never prosecuted. Instead, they are protected by the state and are held up as heroes by para-military groups.
The filmmakers explore the nature of impunity by offering several of the killers, who feel no need to try and conceal their identities, to conceive and direct their own films about the massacre. "Cognitive dissonance" doesn't even begin to describe the results as they stage increasingly surreal recreations of the event while borrowing tropes from their favorite crime films and musicals. The main subject of the film is Anwar Congo, a man who was selling scalped movie tickets on street corners until the government recruited him to help with the purge. Something changes in him after he watches his own film about the murders. Anwar, who claims to have killed a thousand people, returns to the site of many of his murders and becomes physically ill. The horrible guttural sound of his dry heaving is the sound of someone confronting an unspeakable truth.
This film forced Indonesia to reckon with their history in a way they never really had. It deserved both an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, but sadly received neither. That won't do anything to damage its legacy and the courage of the people who risked their lives to make it. If there's one lesson I hope we can take into the next decade, it's that the truth is worth fighting for.
Honorable Mentions (unranked, in alphabetical order)
13 Assassins (2011)
Annihilation (2018)
Apollo 11 (2019)
Attack the Block (2011)
Baby Driver (2017)
Best Worst Movie (2010)
Black Klansman (2018)
Blindspotting (2018)
Django Unchained (2012)
Eighth Grade (2018)
Gasland (2010)
The Hate U Give (2017)
Hell or High Water (2016)
Hot Coffee (2011)
Hugo (2011)
Inception (2010)
The Invisible War (2012)
Lady Bird (2017)
The Look of Silence (2015)
Short Term 12 (2013)
Spotlight (2015)
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Train to Busan (2016)
Trollhunter (2011)
Virunga (2014)
And we're done. The next time I do this, I'll be 46 years old. Let's hope a few movie theaters remain above water in the meantime.
