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Top 100 Films of the 2010s

on December 30, 2019, 12:10am
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20. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Fox Searchlight Pictures)


Could this be the best line delivery of the decade? Monsieur Gustave, Ralph Fiennes in the role of a lifetime, is attempting safe passage with his lobby boy, Zero (Tony Revolori) in the European countryside. It’s all fake, the countries, the train, all of it, but this scene is about pastiche and memory. Reminiscing fraught times in lavender and rosy red. Gustave, is hassled by gestapo, halting his train. His nose is bloodied, he demands his lobby boy be left alone. And after a good soldier lets him loose, Gustave, composing himself explains to Zero that there are still “faint glimmers of civilization” left in the world. And we believe, he’s so cultured, and divine. That is. Until he raises a small glass of white liquor and purrs, “Oh, fuck it.” Just perfect. The Grand Budapest Hotel exists within a perfect space of nostalgia; comic, cool, saddening, and easy on the eyes. So divine, colorful, and opulent, it’s clearly a fantasy of how things once were. Yet, Wes Anderson’s hotel daydream is willing to acknowledging the creeping dread of war, time, and how brazen people can behave when arbitrary lines are drawn. –Blake Goble


19. Green Room (2016)

Green Room (A24)

Green Room (A24)

Jeremy Saulnier really had it out for his audiences with Green Room. His punk rock thriller is meticulously built to subvert any expectations and yet also indulge them. In other words, you know shit’s gonna hit the fan, but you don’t know how much will get on you. It’s a relentless feeling, but thrilling in every sense of the word. For a little over 90 minutes, Saulnier essentially covers his protagonists with chum and leaves them with the wolves as the stakes literally punch through the linoleum floor. But he never sits back. No, he stays right beside them, filming every bruise, every laceration, and every broken appendage, leaving your stomach to decide how much you actually care to see. –Michael Roffman


18. Tangerine (2015)

Tangerine (Magnolia Pictures)

Tangerine (Magnolia Pictures)

Tangerine received a lot of initial hype due to both having been shot on three 5S smartphones and having cast actual transgender actresses in the starring roles of Sin-Dee and Alexandra. But that only matters now because of how remarkable the film turned out. Filmmaker Sean Baker immerses us on Christmas Eve in a vibrant subculture of transgender sex workers and the men who support them one trick at a time. It’s a hilarious yuletide romp in the hot Los Angeles sun, but one that takes place on a knife’s edge, where things can turn dangerous and heartbreaking in an instant. For all its technical thrift and window on a world most of us rarely, if ever, get to witness, Baker’s film ultimately shines because, at its heart, it’s a relatable story about how people can both have our backs and let us down. –Matt Melis


17. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

12 Years a Slave (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

One of the great lies of early America was the promise that freedom belonged to all. 12 Years a Slave, based on the memoirs of Solomon Northup, is a pointed rebuke of that delusion, and of so many others entertained then and now about that time. Director Steve McQueen passes not only through some of the most extreme forms of abuse and degradation that black Americans endured for generations, but also the cultural myths (like that of the kindhearted slave owner) that sustained all of it. McQueen’s film is as much a corrective to cinema’s history of whitewashed plantation narratives as it’s a towering work of its own, a barbed reminder that the worst violence is often perpetrated by those who believe themselves morally correct. Yet there will always be those who survive it, and rise from it. –Dominick Suzanne-Mayer


16. Boyhood (2014)

Boyhood (A24)

Boyhood (A24)

To call Boyhood ambitious undersells it by a decade’s worth of craft and achievement. Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age tale, filmed bit-by-bit over the course of 10 years, shows growth and change in real time and with that, delivers an unmatched sort of cinematic bildungsroman. Rather than a straight line, the film dares to delve into the loose ends, cul-de-sacs, and open questions of growing up that have no more answers on the screen than they do in real life. Linklater’s slice of life approach adds a sense of relatability and realness to the proceedings, and Patricia Arquette’s Oscar-winning performance poignantly drives home the momentum of years that Boyhood captures like no other movie. –Andrew Bloom


15. The Tree of Life (2011)

The Tree of Life (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

The Tree of Life (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

The modern parlance around “montage” tends to drum up images of Sylvester Stallone or marionettes buffing up against ‘80s rock or some such thing. But step back for a moment, and bathe in Tree of Life’s fluid beauty. It’s like a perfect distillation of the power of montage as a means to convey something richer than mere progress: moods, views, sensations, and feelings. Tree of Life, edited to abstraction by Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezende, Billy Weber, and Mark Yoshikawa, is like a literal stream of consciousness placed on to film. Philosophical quandaries ranging from the birth of our children to the mysteries of the cosmos, become connected at the cut of a shot. Tree of Life is a divine mystery, grounded in everyday life, boundless in its vivid explorations. –Blake Goble


14. Get Out (2017)

Get Out (Universal)

Get Out (Universal)

At its core, an excellent Twilight Zone episode, Get Out found writer/director Jordan Peele going full stop into the horror genre. It shouldn’t have come as much as a surprise as it did seeing how he and comedy partner Keegan Michael-Key routinely skewered genre cinema on their breakthrough sketch comedy show, Key & Peele. Peele’s Oscar-winning screenplay was at once terrifying and chock full of biting social and racial satire, deftly blending horror and comedy like An American Werewolf In London before it. In sum, Get Out announced Peele as a bold voice in genre filmmaking and will be remembered of one of the best horror flicks of the decade. –Mike Vanderbilt


13. Bridesmaids (2011)

Bridesmaids (Universal)

Bridesmaids (Universal)

The drunken plane stunt. The Mexican lunch gone awry. The giant cookie that Kristen Wiig beats to hell. Puppies as gifts. Wilson Phillips in person. And no dialogue for Tim Heidecker thank goodness. Bridesmaids is gilded with so many good and silly ideas. All its place-cards are on the table. Paul Feig, Wiig, Annie Mumolo, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy. All of them came into Bridesmaids with nothing to lose and everything to gain. And re-watching the affectionate, absurd Bridesmaids is like seeing a coming out party for these talents that have grown into A-listers in the last decade. In terms of replay value and shocking heart, Bridesmaids is the comedy of the decade. –Blake Goble


12. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Blade Runner 2049 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Blade Runner 2049 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

To say expectations were high for the follow-up to Ridley Scott’s influential 1982 cult sci-fi classic is a massive understatement, but wow did director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriters Hampton Francher and Michael Green deliver. Blade Runner 2049 takes the existential themes of the ’82 film and dives into them in deeper, more intimate ways, centering the story on Ryan Gosling’s weary blade runner Agent K, who unearths a secret that leads him straight to the missing Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). The other star here is Oscar-winning cinematographer (what a relief to say that!) Roger Deakins, who makes every frame a feast of bold hues, chilly textures, and atmospheric dread. Blade Runner 2049 is the rare sequel that expands on its predecessor in all the right ways but stands as a superior piece of filmmaking in its own right. It’s a masterpiece. –Emmy Potter


11. Inside Out (2015)

joy sadness inside out pixar

Inside Out (Pixar)

Inside Out shouldn’t work. It just shouldn’t. When your characters are feelings, how can there be tension? Fear (Bill Hader) will always be afraid, Disgust (Mindy Kaling) will always be disgusted. Nothing to it. Yet the decade’s best animated film works all too well, with tension to spare—a sensitive, emotionally sophisticated permission slip for kids (and grownups) to feel the things that they feel, and to allow those feelings to be complicated. Anchored by the terrific vocal performances of Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith (as Joy and Sadness, respectively) and enriched by Pixar’s usual brand of ensorcelling art direction and visual style, it’s the rare piece of entertainment that both delights and, without a doubt, makes the world a better place. If you need us, we’ll be over there, remembering Bing Bong and giving ourselves permission to feel sad. –Allison Shoemaker


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