Top 10 Films of the Decade: 2010s
When you get to the end of a year, it’s natural to take stock. When you get to the end of the decade, everything just dials up a notch. This is especially true for film fans, reviewers, nerds and ne’er-do-wells, who find it particularly difficult to fight the compulsion to create a definitive list of the ‘best’ (or, if you’re a bit harsh, the ‘worst’.)
I am sadly no different, though I will refrain from calling this definitive. Without wishing to bore you with a filibuster of film theory, it’s impossible to give an empirical ranking to the cinema of the 2010s because any discussion of film is wholly subjective. Yes, even that very strong opinion you have about The Last Jedi. It remains just that, an opinion based upon your perception and interpretation of the film (that said, TLJ is superb). Instead, below are the 10 which I am loosely calling the ‘best’.
By ‘best’, I am of course using the (almost) universal metrics which anyone uses when watching a film. A lot of these revolve around plot and character. Are the characters interesting; do they develop? Does the story run along a predictable path, or does it surprise you? Frankly, how does it look as well as sound, and perhaps most importantly, feel.
This last factor is the hardest to pin down. Indeed, if I was going solely off this, then About Time would likely be lodged at number one. Mark Kermode, film-reviewer-in-chief, often says that you get out of a film what you take into it; whether that be your mood that day or the life experience you have accrued to that point. Perhaps if I had watched these films on a miserable, wet Wednesday, or off the back of a lingering hangover I’d feel differently.
However, there’s something to be said about films that stay with you. Sometimes the best films aren’t those you revisit every few months. Instead, they’re the ones that you may only see once, but have the ability to lodge themselves into your brain. Anyway, pre-amble over. Here’s my top 10 of the decade…
10. Paddington 2 (2017)
I know what you’re thinking. How can a twee, family film ever come close to challenging a top 10 of the decade? Well Paul King’s ursine follow-up does so by being note perfect for the duration of its 100-minute run-time. King’s gorgeous, Wes Anderson-inflected pastel visuals are joined in every frame by an infectious message of kindness and empathy. It’s to the film’s immense credit that it never dodges an opportunity to make this explicit. Whether it’s through the maxims of Aunt Lucy or the actions of Paddington himself, the film commits wholly to its message. This being said, it still knows how to have fun. Hugh Grant steals every scene he’s in, while the whole prison setting delivers in every beat. Especially in the mid-credits scene.
9. Interstellar (2014)
Here’s the thing: Interstellar may not actually be Christopher Nolan’s best film. However, there is no doubting that it’s his most ambitious. This towering cathedral of a film reaches across time and space, but beneath it all is the elemental importance of love. Trying to balance the big and the small is what makes Interstellar such an experience to watch, as it feels like the film is perpetually reaching for something, even if it may not quite know what. This is all underpinned with a brilliant Hans Zimmer score which manages to be hopeful, poignant, huge and intimate all at once.
8. Moonlight (2016)
Barry Jenkins’ triptych bottles a life’s worth of experience and emotion into one film. The connection between Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes give Chiron an incredible depth. In a film which grapples with identity, Jenkins allows the audience to delve deep under Chiron’s skin, despite his reluctance to open himself up to others. It also gives us a superb performance from Mahershala Ali and one of the scenes of the decade, when Juan cradles Chiron in the lapping Floridian waves.
7. Arrival (2016)
The year Amy Adams should’ve won an Oscar (otherwise known as 2016), gave us two superb performances from one of Hollywood’s most consistently excellent actors. She may not have taken home the little golden statue, but she did anchor Denis Villeneuve’s cerebral, breathtaking sci-fi. The film is beautifully shot and acted, but it’s the structure which makes it stand out. The outstanding volte face in the closing section is one of the ‘twists’ of the decade, and catapults this film into the top 10.
6. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
Steve McQueen’s film pulsates with injustice. It’s able to do so through McQueen’s emotive directing, Hans Zimmer’s thumping score and a pitch-perfect cast. Chiwetel Ejiofor is staggeringly good in the lead role, Lupita Nyong’o’s breakout brings something to every sinew of Patsey and Michael Fassbender has never been better. This is a visceral, powerful film which depicts an extraordinary true story without a hint of gloss. Instead, it just lays out the realities of Solomon Northup’s life in painstaking, and often painful, detail.
5. The Social Network (2010)
Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin are at the peak of their powers in this Greek Tragedy. The razor-sharp writing cuts through the noise, allowing the audience to compare the social network Zuckerberg created with his own unsociability. Nine years down the track, The Social Network has become even more relevant in a world where the cracks in Facebook are beginning to show. It’s as if the issues of its inception — jealousy, deception, hubris and more — have finally bubbled to the surface.
4. Lady Bird (2017)
Just on a casual viewing, there’s so much to love about Greta Gerwig’s genre-defining coming-of-age film. Central to it is the jagged but deeply caring relationship between the eponymous Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother (Laurie Metcalf). While Lady Bird dreams of New York, this rubs up against her a mother who is altogether more pragmatic, even jaded in her view of life.
Delve deeper and this sensitively drawn relationship sits alongside a vivid collection of characters in a film which is beautifully paced; never slow, but never rushed either. There’s something tactile to the redolent early noughties Gerwig uses as her setting, even if it is mildly depressing to think of 2002 as a period piece. Put simply, it’s just a fantastic film which muses on the end of adolescence before its had a chance to really begin.
3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Spider-Man is no stranger to the big screen. In fact, there was something of a collective shrug when another adaptation was announced. Yet when it arrived, Into The Spider-Verse was a shot of pure adrenaline, one which delivered a breathtakingly imaginative and daring canvas. It’s one of the most ambitious animations every attempted, but is underpinned by a tightly-told story which is both completely in love with superhero mythology and completely aware of its limitations.
Genius, too, is the change of emphasis from Peter Parker to Miles Morales. Combining the world-weariness of Jake Johnson with the earnestness of Shameik Moore brings the best out of both characters. It also casts light onto the similarities and differences between these two heroes. Up to now, we’ve been lulled into believing that only the gawky Parker could be Spider-Man, but the film’s powerful central belief is that anyone can pull on that mask. All you need is a leap of faith.
2. La La Land (2016)
Until the last fifteen minutes of its run-time, Damien Chazelle’s golden-age revival is waltzing into the ‘very good’ bracket, perhaps even ‘excellent’. But then comes the epilogue; a transcendent fever-dream of colour and emotion which sends La La Land soaring into breathtaking heights. Caught somewhere between a dream and an alternate reality, it packages the film’s fixation on life’s possibilities into a glorious, 8-minute vision.
Though the set up is nothing new, Chazelle fills the film with a modern sensibility. If Singin’ In The Rain was the perfect expression of what Hollywood could be, then La La Land is surely the perfect answer to what it has become. Yes, there’s the chance of stardom, but there’s also the mundane baggage. The constant auditions, the vapid parties and the odd jobs needed to pay the bills. Gosling and Stone sizzle in a technicolor Los Angeles, all shot beautifully by Linus Sandgren.
1. Spotlight (2015)
The ‘journalist as hero’ archetype is fairly well worn. We’ve seen Woodward and Bernstein take down Nixon in All The President’s Men, for instance. Yet Tom McCarthy’s depiction of The Boston Globe’s ‘Spotlight’ team is an achingly prescient and utterly necessary depiction of institutional decay and the abuse of power.
Central to Spotlight’s success as a film is its acute sense of place. Boston is brought to life in intimate detail, but the most impressive nuance is how claustrophobic it feels. These deeply religious communities may be loyal, parochial and deeply protective, but these same characteristics form the foundation of abuse. The survivors of sexual assault are trapped into a community and suffocated under the power of an all-encompassing church. As a result, their accounts are starved of oxygen and the survivors deprived of any help, closure or justice.
The weight of this responsibility is galling. As Michael Keaton’s Robby Robinson says on numerous occasions, the team have one shot to get this right. Otherwise, the Church will pick their pieces apart and brush everything firmly under the carpet. This means that, while the reporters are at times desperate to show sympathy, there isn’t always room for sentiment.
This restraint is the calling card of newly appointed editor Marty Baron (a career best turn from Liev Schrieber) and is born out in the economical and effortlessly tight writing of Josh Singer’s script. It also makes you respect the journalists even more. They’re suspending their natural inclination towards human empathy in pursuit of a broader, more lasting piece of justice. The result is that when the team lay out the extent of the abuse in cold, forensic detail, the audience has no choice but to feel the injustice in every fibre of their being.
This stirring, beautifully constructed film is packed with huge, career best performances by almost the entire ensemble. Yet perhaps the most clever scene is, actually, a small one. When discussing when and where to publish the first story, the senior team ask the Metro editor to step out of the room. This is, of course, to protect the integrity of the story and to ensure nothing leaks by mistake. Yet it gives a clear impression of how power operates. It’s in the exclusive rooms, among the wealthy and important where huge decisions are made. Whether it be for good or for ill.
Any review of cinema during the 2010s must, quite rightly, point towards the seismic changes off-screen. In the wake of Weinstein, TimesUp and MeToo, this has been a decade where power dynamics have been appraised like never before. Though set in the early 2000s and centring on an altogether different institution (the Catholic Church), Spotlight dissects the interplay between power, agency and abuse. This is a conversation which resonates across every walk of life, including the hills of Hollywood itself.
Indeed, the film closes not with finality, but with a chorus of ringing telephones. Voices across Boston compelled to speak up in a way which, hitherto, had been impossible. Spotlight doesn’t have a tub-thumping, glorious finale. Instead, it suggests the story has just begun.
A few extras which nearly made the cut (not that they’ll mind too much):
Get Out (2017) — Gripping from start to finish.
Marriage Story (2019) — Beautifully written and knockout performances.
Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) — The end of an era perfectly done.
Whiplash (2014) — A thrilling, brutal look at obsession.
Jackie (2016) — Worth it for Natalie Portman’s sublime performance.
The Shape of Water (2017) — A complete triumph of production design and score.
Booksmart (2019) — Loud, brazen and completely hilarious.
Les Intouchables (2011) — Incredibly warm, funny and touching.
The Commune (2016) — Intriguing film with a knockout use of ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.
13th (2016) — Incredibly ambitious in its scope and told with so much power.
