Top 10 Lists

In 2020, we stopped going to the movies, so the movies came to us.

It was, to say the least, a challenging year. In addition to spreading disease itself, the COVID-19 pandemic propagated innumerable strains of misinformation. Many of these were dangerous in terms of public health (“The cure can’t be worse than the disease!” “Are the vaccines actually killing people??”), but I naturally found myself drawn to (and repelled by) the specious argument that COVID was heralding the end of cinema as we know it. This wasn’t really a new outcry but was instead a mutation of an ancient form of doomsday prophesying, mingling contemporary scientific concerns with age-old fears. And so it was proclaimed: Theaters are dead. Streamers have won. The collective pleasure of piling into large auditoriums has been replaced by the lonely convenience of turning on your TV. Christopher Nolan’s next blockbuster will be automatically downloaded to your phone.

The consternation over the long-term viability of the theatrical experience isn’t entirely unfounded. After all, while fretting about declining box-office receipts—and lamenting the homogeneity of the Disneyfied movies that do dominate the market—is something of an annual pastime in critical circles, COVID really did shut down theaters for most of the year; many of them shuttered permanently. Even now, as vaccinations rise and the public cautiously returns to a pre-pandemic “normal” (some of us more cautiously than others), it’s fair to wonder whether theaters successfully weathered the storm, and whether viewers who grew accustomed to the homey perks of on-demand viewing might resist returning to the multiplex or the art house in large numbers. Read More

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.) Read More

Every “best of” list is by definition ridiculous, but best-of-the-decade columns constitute a particular form of lunacy. For standard year-end lists, writers are reacting in the moment, often (at least in my experience) only having seen each film once. The process is instinctive, reactive, impulsive; we’re basing our rankings off of relatively recent viewing experiences, often still buzzing from the visceral and emotional highs they gave us. The relatively short timeframe helps us make fair comparisons; when everything is equally fresh in our minds, we’re less vulnerable to recency bias or the primacy effect.

The method of compiling a “best of the decade” list is different. Instead of relying on the power of immediacy, it hinges on the peculiarity of memory. What strikes you in the moment isn’t always what lingers with you. Films that once landed with considerable force recede from view; conversely, certain scenes and images implant themselves in your mind, refusing to be washed away with the tide. Read More