Best Films of the ’10s

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This is a dumb thing to do, of course. Even Vulture, who claims to have justly ranked them all, no way saw them all. Also, they missed at least one film, so even with all those thousands of movies, claims of accuracy are not justified.

Me, I really don't watch that many movies. I don't. As you may know, if you even moderately follow along.

But I was listening to an episode of Unspooled and it got me thinking about and creating and editing my list as they went on, which led to this Twitter thread, recreated here with added dates and links to any writing I did about said films (which sometimes ain't much and which, for the earlier writings, will require you to scroll post clicking, alas).

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Inspired not by all the decade-end lists I've read but by listening to @unspooled while doing dishes two nights ago, I've started assembling a top-ten of the '10s. I came up with a list of 11 that night, but I'm only writing it down now.

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I wanted to make a draft list without looking at everything I've written about movies. https://thmazing.blogspot.com/search/label/movies

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I've now forgotten what one of those eleven movies were and two (Fantastic Mr Fox and Gentlemen Broncos) actually came out in 2009.

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#1 is easy: Tree of Life^****. Nothing else affected me as much or felt as meaningful.

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The rest of that initial list, alphabetically, is:

Arrival^**
Damsels in Distress^*
Hunt for the Wilderpeople^**
Inside Out^**
It Follows^*
Scott Pilgrim vs the World^**
Silence^***

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(Now I'll look through everything I've written and see what horrible mistakes that first draft has committed.)

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One note before that:

They won't make my top-ten, but the 2010s were a decade of franchises, and the two best films from their respective megafranchises, in my opinion, are

Thor: Ragnarok^*** and Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi^**, excellent films both.

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I remembered the other one! Buster Scruggs^**!

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</research> Although I saw many great 2010s movies, these are the most serious competitors to bump one of the movies already listed off my list:

Amour^*
Edge of Tomorrow^**
It's Such a Beautiful Day^*
Moneyball^**
Moonrise Kingdom^*
The One I Love^*
Sorry to Bother You^**
Toy Story 3 & 4^*****

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A few other movies I loved from the 2010s that would make a longer list include, in no particular order, Get Out^**; Looper^*; Source Code^*; Moon^*; Tangled^*; ParaNorman^*; Boxtrolls^*; Freetown^*; The Report^*; Cabin in the Woods^*; Guardians of the Galaxy^**; Dunkirk^**; Hail, Caesar!^*; Ex Machina^*; Boy^*; Lady Bird^*; 10 Cloverfield Lane^* Kong: Skull Island^*; Mad Max: Fury Road^*; Sylvio^****.

(As an aside, the 2010s movies seen so far in 2020 are Knives Out^* and The Death of Stalin^*---both of which are excellent and, were I given more time to reflect, seem like possibles to show up here.)

Another way of seeing this list:

#1: The Tree of Life (hover over images for 2020's commentary):

Absolutely make my top ten:

Strongest candidates for remaining slots:

Other movies reasonably close to my top ten:

Dunkirk (2017)
Get Out (2017)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Lady Bird (2017)
Looper (2012)
Moneyball (2011)
The Report (2019)
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Source Code (2011)
Toy Story 4 (2019)