The 20 Best Movies of the 2010s: Part II

We’re counting down our picks for the best movies of the 2010s. If you missed #s 11-20—along with our discussion of the decade at large, and of which films just missed the cut—you can check them out here. Also, please remember that 20 is a very small number, so if your favorite film of the decade doesn’t appear on my list, rest assured that it’s nothing personal. Except where it is.

On to the top 10.

10. The Lobster (2016). From the opening scene of Dogtooth, which found three nameless adult children listening to cassette tapes on which their father intoned inaccurate definitions of basic words, Yorgos Lanthimos put his indelibly weird stamp on the decade. Years later, the Greek auteur uncorked two more stunners—I liked The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite even more than Dogtooth—but it’s The Lobster that’s most stuck with me. Lanthimos’ usual tics are on full display—the heavily mannered dialogue, the formal rigor, the absurdist deadpan—but while the movie bristles with strangeness and creativity, it’s also oddly elegiac. A romance where people only pretend to be in love—as well as a comedy where nobody laughs, and a dystopian thriller where the jackbooted thugs always say “please”—The Lobster is distressingly frank about the challenge of finding happiness in the modern world. Yet it’s genuinely heartfelt too, treating its beleaguered characters (led by Colin Farrell, in the performance of his career) with sincerity and respect. It’s a decidedly original work—its bizarre vision could only spring from a mind as twisted as Lanthimos’—but the yearning that it articulates is universal. (Full review here; streaming on Netflix.)

9. The Handmaiden (2016). Park Chan-wook’s early years were defined by garish and uncompromising violence, most notably with the cult hit Oldboy. But the underrated Stoker suggested a more delicate (if still bold) side to the provocateur, and that generosity of spirit burst into full bloom with The Handmaiden, a sweeping, delectably entertaining romantic caper. It’s still very much a Park film, laden with fiendish twists, outré flourishes, and deplorable villains. But there’s a luminous heart beating at the center of this intricate labyrinth of a movie, an honest-to-god sweetness embodied by the relationship between two women (Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee, both splendid) who are overlooked and underestimated. This sense of affection only heightens Park’s sumptuous craft, which breathes with both elegance and vitality. In narrative terms, The Handmaiden is complex, but the fluidity of Park’s filmmaking makes it pleasurable to become stuck in its enthralling web of intrigue and duplicity. If his initial pictures were the product of a gifted tactician who relied on brute and brutal force, The Handmaiden reveals Park rounding out his skill set with humanity. The result is a dazzling movie, one that fearlessly splices cruelty with beauty. (Full review here; streaming on Amazon Prime.)

8. Lady Bird (2017). Everyone’s coming of age is different, but every coming-of-age story tends to hit the same beats: sexual misadventure, social ostracism, romantic confusion, parental frustration. Greta Gerwig’s stupendous first film doesn’t dramatically depart from this playbook, but it still feels thrillingly new, rooted in specific details that go beyond its Sacramento location and its period-specific soundtrack. (Her follow-up, a radiant adaptation of Little Women, only reaffirmed her talent.) Every obstacle facing its protagonist feels crushing and insurmountable, which is of course why she’s so relatable. In Gerwig’s time machine of a movie, teen angst reacquires its inimitable sting, and the array of emotions that it presents—fear, hope, resentment, compassion, rage, joy—becomes overpowering. Yet Lady Bird is too warm a film to be disturbing, and Gerwig—buoyed by a typically fantastic lead performance from Saoirse Ronan, along with an equally wonderful turn from Laurie Metcalf—gracefully carries you to a place of sanctuary. To watch this movie is to feel safe, to feel seen, to feel loved. (Full review here; streaming on Amazon Prime.)

7. Inception (2010). The arbitrary rule that I enforced in building this list—no more than one movie per director—afflicted the prospects of several filmmakers, but it mostly existed to prevent me from turning the column into an extended tribute to Christopher Nolan. The blockbuster auteur had quite the decade; Dunkirk redefined the intensity and immediacy of the war film, while The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar—both severely underrated, in this critic’s view—pushed past their apparent genre boundaries in surprising and productive ways. But Inception remains the apotheosis of Nolan’s distinctive brand of genius, a seemingly impossible blend of ambition and execution. That its plot traffics in nested levels of immersion feels apt, given how the film itself amazes on so many fronts. To begin with, it’s a big, brawny, boisterous action movie, pulsing with momentum and suspense and smartly choreographed mayhem. But it’s also teeming with ideas, stimulating your mind as well as your nerve centers. Yet even as it’s posing complex, thoughtful questions about the nature of dreams and consciousness, Inception remains consistently fun; Nolan’s screenplay is littered with canny grace notes—playful rivalry, relaxed humor, whispers of pathos—which add pleasure and texture to his huge, meticulously constructed world. That this movie exists—that an artist marshaled his immense creative gifts within the studio system—feels like a miracle. It’s also a reminder that the dream of great movies shall never die. (Streaming on Netflix.)

6. Inside Out (2015). Pixar’s performance in the 2010s wasn’t quite as lustrous as in the prior decade, which is less a function of artistic slippage than of regression to the mean; when you crank out Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up within a six-year span, your subsequent output will inevitably pale by comparison. But the animation maestros still found room for one outright masterpiece, as Inside Out represents Pixar at the peak of its powers. (Toy Story 3 and Incredibles 2 are pretty terrific too.) Brimming with tenderness, insight, and imagination, it’s far more than just an animated feature that appeals to both children and adults; this is a fully realized production, a marvelous adventure that churns with thematic richness and visual dynamism. Directed by Pete Docter, who also helmed Up and Monsters Inc. (stay tuned for Soul later this year… maybe?), Inside Out doesn’t force you to choose between sadness and joy. It offers ample helpings of both, and to that buffet it adds sharp dialogue, gorgeous animation, and an overall sense of bustling invention. The characters may represent different emotions; the movie itself is singular, and unforgettable. (Full review here; streaming on Disney+.)

5. Brooklyn (2015). So, that Saoirse Ronan is pretty good, huh? The third movie starring the Irish-American actor to appear on this list, Brooklyn is arguably the most straightforward; it isn’t as structurally daring as On Chesil Beach or as emotionally turbulent as Lady Bird. (It certainly isn’t as kinetic as Hanna, in which Ronan is pretty damn fantastic too.) What’s remarkable about John Crowley’s drama is how it takes such a simple premise—Irish immigrant arrives in New York, seeking to start her life anew—and imbues it with monumental feeling, without ever adorning it with falseness or contrivance. The sense of truth that it exudes—a lived-in impression that’s both recognizable and inimitable—is largely thanks to Ronan, who lends her character an unfussy integrity that becomes its own form of grace. But Brooklyn is more than just a showcase for a powerhouse performance; it’s a grand and stirring picture, a proud testament to the virtues of partnership and decency. Crowley’s gentle craft elevates an intimate and earnest story which, with its vision of a noble and inviting United States, nowadays serves as something of a tonic. As America is gripped by a pandemic and plagued by derelict leadership, here’s a movie that reminds us of what this country can be. (Full review here.)

4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). I wrote yesterday that this list represents my attempt at distilling the films that have most lingered with me over the past 10 years, and while that usually applies to impressions and emotions, sometimes it’s more literal than that. One of the most quotable movies ever made, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has infiltrated its way into my brain and become its own repository, the place I instinctively turn to when searching for an offhand joke or pithy reference. Everything about this movie is funny: Kieran Culkin’s nonchalance; Anna Kendrick’s bafflement; Ellen Wong’s gusto; Alison Pill’s misery; Aubrey Plaza’s scowl; Brandon Routh’s glare. But Edgar Wright’s giddily metamorphic picture—it’s a zany comedy that’s also a bizarre fantasy, a nimble romance that’s also a special-effects extravaganza—is more than just a nonstop quip machine. It’s an urgent, propulsive work, rippling with thought and creativity. It also happens to feature some brilliantly inventive fight sequences; as he reaffirmed in The World’s End and then again in Baby Driver, Wright is a sneaky-great choreographer of action. And Michael Cera, as the dopey title character, provides a gallant cluelessness that clashes beautifully with Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s coiled acerbity. In terms of laughs, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is deeply memorable—rarely a week goes by where I don’t quote it—but its hilarity shouldn’t obscure its aesthetic and thematic qualities. Its wacky plot assumes the structure of a videogame, and while that’s typically a dirty word in film circles, here it validates the very concept of replay value. This is a piece of art that you want to watch over and over again. (Streaming on Netflix.)

3. Her (2013). It’s the sincerity that kills me. Spike Jonze’s futuristic fable is a bravura piece of filmmaking, using clean and efficient technique to ask big, probing questions about our relationships with technology and with one another. But Her isn’t some theoretical think-piece; it’s a love story, and it explores its characters’ budding romance with a hushed honesty that borders on reverence. That one of its principals happens to be a machine is of course a complicating factor, but Her somehow doesn’t need to choose between operating as an allegory or a character study. It’s both of those things, and more beyond: a sweeping drama that grapples with the idiosyncratic obstacles facing its lovers even as it uncovers powerful truths about our species’ behavior. Joaquin Phoenix delivers perhaps his greatest performance as a tentative introvert, but Jonze’s generosity extends beyond his protagonist; he adds shape and color to all of his characters, in particular to the one who lacks an actual shape. As Scarlett Johansson’s voice acquires the flesh-and-blood qualities of personhood, her mechanized soul becomes both more and less than human. And Her itself gradually turns into something otherworldly, something beyond strips of celluloid or bits of digital code. Maybe that isn’t so farfetched. Maybe, if voice assistants can transform into something unreal and unclassifiable, then movies can, too. (Full review here; streaming on Netflix.)

2. La La Land (2016). This movie isn’t perfect. Perfection implies safety, caution, cleanliness. And Damien Chazelle’s majestic picture—an ode to music, cinema, Los Angeles, life itself—is too vivacious, too crammed with motion and passion, to be clean. Not that it’s by any means sloppy; Chazelle is a virtuoso, and his formal command is both energetic and immaculate. But as aesthetically stunning as this film is—the bolts of color, the lissome cinematography, the precise synchronization of image and sound—it’s more than just an exceedingly well-crafted piece of entertainment. For me, the sensation of watching La La Land is… well, it’s a bit like floating, like being borne upward on a current of pure joy. That, of course, is exactly what happens to the characters during one of the movie’s many magnificent songs, which pulse with verve and rhythm. Yet La La Land isn’t just a pleasure factory; it’s also a brutally clear-eyed romance, spiking its transcendent fantasy with sharp doses of reality. That somehow only makes the film more triumphant, as do the complementary performances of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, who create a union that’s funny, bittersweet, and magical all at once. So, no, it isn’t perfect. To describe a movie as ambitious and astounding as this, “perfect” just isn’t good enough. (Full review here; streaming on DirecTV and USA.)

1. The Social Network (2010). I wish I had something more exciting for you, something more audacious or transgressive. It’s boring to pick such a critically acclaimed movie as the decade’s best. I don’t want to be normal; I want to be special. But one of the many lessons imparted in David Fincher’s masterpiece is that sticking to your guns at the expense of all else can be an awfully lonely enterprise. As an exemplar of filmmaking craft, The Social Network is of course masterful, most notably the editing, which is sharp but never excessive. There’s something tragic about the movie’s rigorous internal logic, the way it systematically closes in on Jesse Eisenberg’s cruel and hopeless genius. The control that Fincher wields should be impossible, given the massive amount of information that Aaron Sorkin’s script delivers, not to mention the writer’s characteristically whip-smart, pinging dialogue. Yet straight from that incredible opening scene—a gripping medley of pride, confusion, and hostility—The Social Network never relinquishes its hold on you; like its anti-hero, it is too dominant and pitiless to tolerate weakness or mistakes. Its ultimate marvel, then, is how it still makes room for so much feeling: rushing rivers of humor, swelling streams of anger, crashing waves of melancholy. Whether the film is factually accurate barely matters, nor does it matter whether it’s a rousing tale of professional success—perhaps the real social network was the two billion friends we made along the way—or a devastating story of personal failure. What matters is its existence, its permanence. It is a landmark, conceived by artists of superlative skill and vision. And like all great art—and, presumably, like Facebook—it will outlive us all. (Streaming on Netflix.)