The 50 Best Films (2010–2019)
The following movies, released between 2010–2019, made lasting impressions on me (not including docs or some, yet-to-be-seen 2019 releases).
50. Chi-Raq, 2015 (Dir. Spike Lee)
Lee’s fantastical adaptation of Lysistrata brings us to Chicago’s Southside, where the women collectively decide to withhold sex from the men in their lives in response to the rampant violence that plagues their community.
49. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, 2014 (Dir. Ronit & Shlomi Elkabetz)
In her last film role, Israel’s greatest actress Ronit Elkabetz devastates in the the final chapter of the Viviane Amsalem trilogy, which sees Viviane — in one room for the entire film — fiercely fight against Israel’s regressive religious court to obtain a Jewish divorce.
48. Under the Silver Lake, 2019 (Dir. David Robert Mitchell)
Few films these days are as ambitious as Mitchell’s LA-set neo-noir, a mess of a movie that has managed to creep its way into my heart with each viewing.
47. 45 Years, 2015 (Dir. Andrew Haigh)
Will never not think about the final scene in this movie, where Charlotte Rampling defiantly (but also ambiguously) drops her arm to her side at her 45th wedding anniversary party, a day that has morphed into something somber after heartbreaking information calls her marriage into question.
46. Melancholia, 2011 (Dir. Lars von Trier)
A doomsday film done by one of our greatest living provocateurs is surprisingly pensive, and Dunst, in her best work, captures the creeping anxieties that burst to the surface as our world comes to its close.
45. Somewhere, 2010 (Dir. Sofia Coppola)
Coppola’s film captures her signature malaise, her devotion to chronicling isolation experienced by young women, but it’s also her warmest, most considered effort.
44. A Separation, 2011 (Dir. Ashgar Farhadi)
Farhadi’s greatest film, A Separation is an intimate and often harrowing study of a contemporary Iranian marriage and family, sees a woman — eager to create better opportunities for her daughter — attempt to divorce her husband.
43. Right Now, Wrong Then, 2015 (Dir. Hong Sang-soo)
Hong stumbles upon new territory in his playful but affecting two-parter, which sees two different outcomes of a new romance between an arthouse film director and a young painter.
42. Lady Bird, 2017 (Dir. Greta Gerwig)
What distinguishes Lady Bird from other high school coming of age films is Gerwig’s rich character work, her commitment to empathizing with a 17-year-olds interior life and preoccupations. It’s delightful.
41. Zama, 2017 (Dir. Lucrecia Martel)
A bizarre, impeccably directed feature that takes place in an isolated South American colony in the 18th century. Martel captures all the horrors and absurdities of a local administrators desire to better his standing in an environment that does not belong to him.
40. Good Time, 2018 (Dir. Josh & Benny Safdie)
A slick, greasy thriller about a good-intentioned (sometimes) petty criminal who wants to make a better life for himself and his intellectually disabled brother. Surprised at how deeply-felt this becomes, but that’s Robert Pattinson.
39. The Strange Case of Angelica, 2010 (Dir. Manoel de Oliveira)
Oliveira’s transfixing ghost story is about a photographer who is assigned to take photos of a family’s recently dead young daughter and his later obsession with his subject as she begins to reanimate in his documentations of her.
38. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2011 (Dir. David Fincher)
Fincher’s icy precision proves perfect for an adaptation of the Swedish book thriller, and while it feels like he put it together quickly, it’s as slick and jolting as the best the genre has to offe.r
37. The Bling Ring, 2013 (Dir. Sofia Coppola)
Detractors of the film cite an emptiness and its lack of a moral line, but that feels like a deliberate tone for Coppola’s surprisingly thoughtful adaptation of Nancy Jo Sales’s article about the notorious Bling Ring gang who robbed some of Hollywood’s highest profile stars.
36. Cemetery of Splendour, 2015 (Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Ever hypnotic, Weerasethakul’s most recent film chronicles a sleeping sickness that has plagued soldiers in a small village clinic. It’s all rather ambiguous, but has that typical Weerasethakul hypnotic energy that’s unlike anything else.
35. Moonlight, 2016 (Dir. Barry Jenkins)
Separated into three, earth-shattering chapters, Moonlight sees the molding of a young black gay man as he navigates his childhood, teenager years, and young adulthood in the projects of Miami — culminating in a cathartic diner conversation that will forever fuck me up.
34. 20th Century Women, 2016 (Dir. Mike Mills)
It’s 1979 in Santa Barbara and a single mother, concerned over her young son’s upbringing, enlists the help of a female boarder and the boy’s school friend, to help raise him and form his value system. If Beginners was Mills’s ode to fatherhood, here he shows his deep gratitude for the female presences in his life.
33. Support the Girls, 2018 (Dir. Andrew Bujalski)
Marketed as a comedy, Support the Girls is surprisingly richer than any light fare. It’s a piece of hardcore realism, a look at the challenging life of a working class woman who is more than just the manages at a Hooters-adjacent restaurant.
32. Marriage Story, 2019 (Dir. Noah Baumbach)
Marriage Story feels like it was built for the stage. It’s composed of talky, quaint scenes, but its scope and impact are grander than anything Baumbach has done before. It’s magical in its precision, particularly the climactic fight between Johansson and Driver.
31. The Lost City of Z, 2016 (Dir. James Gray)
Gray’s grueling depiction of a man desperate for purpose and validation — The Lost City of Z depicts the life of English explorer/colonist Percy Fawcett, who took several journey’s to South America in a quest to find an ancient, lost civilization.
30. Clouds of Sils Maria, 2014 (Dir. Olivier Assayas)
While a stage actress prepares for a role in a play in which she first got her name, this time playing the older woman in a lesbian drama, she also faces tension with her personal assistant. It’s a subtle, but eventually moving work that features delicate performances from both Binoche and Stewart.
29. Sunset, 2018 (Dir. László Nemes)
Nemes’s follow up to his suffocating Son of a Saul is equally as claustrophobic, a disorienting tale of a woman finding her place in Budapest society on the heels of World War I. His POV structure is abrasive and nauseating, but essential.
28. Mr. Turner, 2014 (Dir. Mike Leigh)
Leigh’s challenging biopic of the famous landscape artist is also a deep character study of an eccentric, a man who struggled to balance the harmony depicted in his work with actual peace in his day to day.
27. Enough Said, 2013 (Dir. Nicole Holofcener)
There are a million lovely bits in Holofcener’s Enough Said, but what always sticks with me is that moment, during their first date, where you realize all the things that gross you out about someone and have to consider whether those are dealbreakers or things you can live with.
26. Never Let Me Go, 2010 (Dir. Mark Romanek)
Charlotte Rampling telling Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan that their existence was a test to see if they had souls — broke me. Romanek’s movie is small and bleak, but it’s etched in my mind.
25. Amour, 2012 (Dir. Michael Haneke)
Watching your partner deteriorate as your own body starts to fail you — Haneke unites legendary French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva for this masterful drama (also his warmest film).
24. Call Me By Your Name, 2017 (Dir. Luca Guadagnino)
A Rohmerian, fantasy piece — set in a time, place, and with people I’ve never encountered before. Guadagnino’s film is so textured though, full of catharsis and love that washes over you like the juices of a ripe peach. I’m sorry.
23. Phantom Thread, 2017 (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
The iconic turn near the close of the film shapes it, reveals a sense of humor in Anderson that we haven’t seen in his last few endeavors. It has this rejuvenating feel to it, with the central relationship functioning as metaphor for what any artist must do once their routine starts to feel stale.
22. Transit, 2018 (Dir. Christian Petzold)
An epic romance situation in purgatory, where two refugees from an unexplained war and occupation try to flee from France to Mexico. The fascist undertones are stark, and Petzold’s film is obviously meant to feel current, but it’s so grounded in its own sense of space and time that it’s never cloying.
21. Certified Copy, 2010 (Dir. Abbas Kiarostami)
One of Kiarostami’s final works, Certified Copy is a surprise. It’s unlike anything the director has done before — a simple, chatty movie about two people who seemingly meet for the first time but as the day progresses we begin to wonder if they actually have a past together. Love to question reality!
20. Personal Shopper, 2016 (Dir. Olivier Assayas)
The text exchange sequence is one of the most brilliant uses of technology in cinema, and that’s still not even touching upon the subtle profundity of Kristen Stewart’s performance in Assays’s second collaboration with her.
19. Ash is Purest White, 2018 (Dir. Jia Zhangke)
Rests on the strength of Zhangke’s greatest collaborator, the fierce Zhao Tao, Ash is the Purest White takes place in a ghost town, a former mining town that is now ravaged by poverty and crime — and follows the relationship between a gangster and his girlfriend who will do anything for him.
18. The Irishman, 2019 (Dir. Martin Scorsese)
Requires a lot of patience, but is ultimately worth it — a deep diver than Scorsese has ever taken into understanding the male ego, mortality, of the decisions we make and the paths we land on, and of Al Pacino’s psychopathic flamboyance.
17. Gone Girl, 2014 (Dir. David Fincher)
I’ve seen this movie almost more than any other on this list, and it never ceases to feel brilliant in its sinister deconstruction of a marriage and our collective obsession — and the medias — with the grotesque.
16. Lean on Pete, 2017 (Dir. Andrew Haigh)
Haigh’s last feature was buried, perhaps because of how challenging and relentlessly cruel it seems — on a surface level. In actuality, it’s an empathetic portrait of a teen grappling with his sense of self and the world’s cruelty, particularly a certain male toxicity he encounters on the road.
15. A Bread Factory, 2018 (Dir. Patrick Wang)
Reminds me of Parks & Recreation in its capturing of small town earnestness, but it’s never as annoying and instead deeply moving? I say that as a question because I kept inexplicably tearing up, even when Wang’s two part feature felt kind of kitsch.
14. On the Beach at Night Alone, 2017 (Dir. Hong Sang-soo)
Chronicles the aftermath of an actress’s affair with a famous film director, her wandering through different parts of Korea and Germany, reuniting with friends and meeting old strangers. It’s typical “me” bait, and of all the Hong and Kim Min-hee collaborations, the one about their actual romance is my favorite.
13. The Master, 2012 (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
I love how imperfect The Master is, perhaps the Anderson’s most spiritual and “incomplete” work. It doesn’t feel as perfectly constructed as his earlier features, but it has this restless quality to it that summons me back. Like a cult.
12. A Quiet Passion, 2016 (Dir. Terence Davies)
Never have my anxieties over dying been as validated as they are in Davies’s Emily Dickinson biopic, which sees Cynthia Davis playing the famous poet through the many tragedies that appeared in her life, that undoubtedly informed her outlook of the world and her work.
11. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, 2010 (Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
As a man approaches death, he encounters the spirit of his dead wife and lost son and meets past versions of himself. Like of all of Weerasethakul’s films, Boonmee is melancholic and devoid of narrative drive, but it has that strange soothing quality that makes you both curious about the world and unafraid. That, and there’s a sex scene between a woman and a catfish.
10. Manchester by the Sea, 2016 (Dir. Kenneth Lonergan)
I remember feeling this insane wave of nausea as I watched Manchester by the Sea. Like Lonergan, I found myself curious of what one does in the face of insurmountable guilt and grief, how you move on from the great pain you have caused others and yourself. Lonergan’s thesis: you can’t ever really. That fucked me up.
9. The Social Network, 2010 (Dir. David Fincher)
The Social Network — from Rooney Mara’s opening monologue to the closing court scenes — presents us with a layered portrait of one the most powerful and dangerous egos of the 21st century. Sorkin could never have predicted just how right he got to the core of Zuckerberg.
8. First Reformed, 2018 (Dir. Paul Schrader)
My environmental anxiety peaked in Schrader’s frightening portrait of a minister’s wavering faith as the world around him proves to be godless. That magical scene with Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried is etched in my mind forever.
7. Silence, 2016 (Dir. Martin Scorsese)
Silence unlocked Scorsese for me. It’s a grueling and overlong film, but that serves to emphasize the central priest’s brutal journey with his faith, a journey that is always, in some way or another, around in Scorsese’s films. I just felt the heart here more than I usually do.
6. Carol, 2015 (Dir. Todd Haynes)
Haynes’s greatest film is an Edward Hopper fantasy, a reclamation of one of the most conservative eras in U.S. history through a lesbian love story between an unhappy housewife and a young woman who sells her a toy train set at a department store.
5. Certain Women, 2016 (Dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Reichardt’s Certain Women took several days to set, but it is — without a doubt — her most realized film, three vignettes seeing different permutations of melancholy in three different women. It’s all so slight and delicate, set in a sleepy Montana town. Oh, and Lily Gladstone watching Kristen Stewart eating diner food is forever planted in my head.
4. Happy Hour, 2015 (Dir. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)
Four best friends meet up and discuss a trip they plan to take to a nearby hot springs, and the film then alternates between passages of their lives: events and interactions that seem inconsequential until the floodgates open to reveal the underlying consequences of their long-term discontent and passivity. I’m obsessed with it, and wrote about the five-hour film here.
3. Tree of Life, 2010 (Dir. Terrence Malick)
A document of American life, of suburban childhood, of love for our siblings and parents, the earth — the small moments together and apart that mold us into the people we will become and will continue becoming. There’s nothing that feels as all-encompassing as Tree of Life.
2. Let the Sunshine In, 2018 (Dir. Claire Denis)
Denis does rom-com better than anybody, and it helps she has Juliette Binoche leading the picture, a small film — and perhaps Denis’s most conventional — about a middle aged divorced woman who is out of luck on love but decides, despite it all, to keep her heart open. She falls and falls and fall and waits for her “At Last” moment.
- Margaret, 2011 (Dir. Kenneth Lonergan)
Despite being delayed for FOREVER, Margaret (especially the directors cut) is a tour de force, opening with a heartbreaking and traumatic sequence of a woman getting hit by a bus and concluding with little resolution for the high school student who played a small role in the accident. Margaret asks how we can find peace in the face of our guilt, how we deal and don’t deal with the pain we cause others, and it navigates a ton of impossible emotions that only Lonergan would dare touch upon. I envy how great this movie is.