The "Best" Movies of the Decade

There were over 6000 movies released in U.S. theaters in the last decade – a staggering number – and anyone claiming to list the “best” of the decade first has to provide a disclaimer that they can only rate what they’ve seen.  For me, I watched approximately 240 films released within the last ten years, and I’ll undoubtedly add another 20 or so soon as I catch up on movies I’ve missed.  Case in point: I haven’t yet seen “Bohemian Rhapsody” or the Paddington movies because they’re not yet available for rental on Prime, so there they sit in my watchlist.  I’ll get to them eventually.

In the meantime, I’d like to share what I think are the best movies of the decade out of the 240 I’ve seen.  The word “best” is open to interpretation, of course.  Do we mean the movies we enjoyed the most?  Those films that moved us the most?  Those that we consider the most important?  For my list, I chose films from all three categories.  Some I just enjoyed the hell out of, some brought me to tears or gave me chills, and others resonated with me for days or weeks or months as I pondered their impact.  All are worthy movie-going experiences.  As a society, we tend not to reward the first category enough and tend to reward the middle category too much.  We’re suckers for sentimentality.  I’ve tried not to lean too far forward in any one direction.

First, my top ten, in order of release date:

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Beginners
Searching for Sugar Man
Silver Linings Playbook
Argo
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Birdman
The Big Short
Arrival
First Reformed

“Beginners” gets my favorite film of the decade vote.  I’ve already watched it four times, and for reasons I can’t entirely explain, I love everything about it: the characters, the pacing, the dry wit, the melancholic aura, and of course the inimitable Christopher Plummer’s first Oscar-winning performance.  But if I have to pick one film as the best of the decade, I’ll go with “The Big Short.”  It exposes the insanity of capitalism and human behavior in such an entertaining way, and it’s one of those films that I think we’ll look back on in decades to come as an unheeded warning sign for the future.  (The same could be said of “First Reformed,” but this is a tougher movie to watch.)  It’s worth noting that when my three children and I made our choices independent of each other and compared notes, only one film made all of our top-ten lists: “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”  It’s a rip-roaring good time with such humor and creativity, along with a good heart, that it’s tough not to like.

Of course, there were a helluva lot more than ten great movies in the 2010s.  Here are another 28 that were in contention for me: The Social Network, The Tree of Life, The Descendants, Moneyball, Hugo, The Impossible, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Zero Dark Thirty, Drinking Buddies, Bad Words, Chef, Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, Manchester by the Sea, Hail Caesar!, Zootopia, Hell or High Water, La La Land, Lion, Wind River, Get Out, The Florida Project, I Tonya, All the Money in the World, Searching, Vice, Parasite, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  

These movies would serve me very well were I to be sent to a desert island with only one decade of movies to choose from.  The last ten years were certainly a source of disruption in the way we view entertainment, but one can’t argue that the quality (and certainly the quantity) suffered as a result.