Top 100 Films of the 2010s - 80-71

80. Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)

What’s amazing about Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria is that it is at once a very modern film – attuned to the cultural landscape of superhero movies, iPads, smartphones, etc. – and still feels like a throwback to classic art house films of the 1960s – like an Alain Resnais film for the modern age. His story of an actress (Juliette Binoche) preparing for her new role with her assistant (a brilliant Kristen Stewart). The film begins with a train ride, contains a retrospective at a film festival, and then settles into an isolated house for most of the rest of the film. Assayas has delivered quite a number of great films this decade – this is his most singular, and an example of what he does better than anyone else right now.

 

79. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier, 2015)

Green Room accidentally became one of the most horrifying films of the decade in part because of timing. When it was released in the spring of 2016 (after a festival run in 2015) it was a brilliant, claustrophobic horror film, about a punk band trapped by a murderous group of Neo-Nazis after a show. It was intense, scary, violent an unforgettable – a huge step forward for director Jeremy Saulnier after his already wonderful Blue Ruin. By the end of the year, when Trump won, bringing along all his racial animosity, it almost felt like Green Room was a portrait of America – a hopeless one, when all you can hope for is to survive – you’re not going to be unscathed, but perhaps you can make it through.

 

78. Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2016)

Julia Ducournau’s remarkable horror debut is a truly unsettling and disturbing film about a young vegetarian who goes off to vet school, and develops an unquenchable desire to eat raw meat. Young Garance Marillier delivers a remarkable performance as Justine, the student in question, who feels like an outsider from the moment she arrives – especially as she is poked and prodded by her older sister already at the school. Ducournau doesn’t hold back from beginning to end – and goes from absolute broke, provoking some vomiting and walkouts even among Midnight Madness festival audiences. And yet, despite the extremity is not just there for shock value, it’s part of the whole thing. I cannot wait to see what she does not.

 

77. It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)

David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows was one of the very best horror films of the decade – a portrait of the end of innocence for the teenage protagonists who are forced to confront their own morality for the first time. The concept is simple and brilliant – an unstoppable presence comes after you, very slowly, but unrelentingly, and the only way to get rid of it is to pass it on – through sex – to someone else. Even if you do that, it’s still going to end up coming after you eventually. The whole movie is terrifying, and brilliantly handled, coming right down to the final, unforgettable, and incredibly sad final shot. Even the one sequence – the swimming pool climax – that didn’t work for me that well on first viewing, worked wonderfully the second time around. A truly great new horror classic.

 

76. The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016)

Korean director Park Chan-wook slowed down a little this decade – he only made two films, and a miniseries. His best was The Handmaiden – a period epic about a Korean woman hired to be a Handmaiden to a rich Japanese woman – and then the twists keep coming. The film is long – two hours twenty-five minutes – and has twists galore, changing what we think the movie is about multiple times. The great Min-hee Kim delivers perhaps her best performance (I still cannot see her most acclaimed film with frequent collaborator Hong Sang-soo – On a Beach Alone at Night) as the Japanese heiress, and Tae-ri Kim matches her step by step as the Handmaiden. The film is extreme – as you would expect from the director of Oldboy – but features great art direction, costumes, cinematography and score. This is Park Chan-wook’s best film – hands down – it rewards multiple viewings in a way Oldboy doesn’t. The cult for this has been quietly building.

 

75. Roma (Alfonso Cuaron, 2018)

After 17 years of making movies in Hollywood, Cuaron returned to his native Mexico to make his most personal film – a film loosely based on his own childhood, except not seen through the eyes of the child. Instead of a nostalgic lookback, Cuaron focuses on the two women who raised him – the maid/nanny (a magnificent Yalitza Aparicio) – who has her own personal struggles over the year the movie takes place, and his upper-middle class mother (a wonderful Marina de Tavira) – who is left by her doctor husband, and struggles to raise her kids. The film is a technical marvel – the black and white cinematography by Cuaron is brilliant, mostly done in long, master shots, and the sound design is absolutely stunning (I think that was lost more by people seeing it on Netflix than even the cinematography). This is a beautiful, stunning masterwork – the kind of thing we don’t see much anymore.

 

74. Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018)

The best horror films always have more on their mind than simply scaring you. Ari Aster’s Hereditary is one of the very best of the decade precisely because it’s a portrait of a deeply troubled, dysfunctional family that is psychologically real and true, as well as a deeply troubling horror film. The film is built around a few shock moments – that car ride will be forever imprinted on my brain – but the care that Aster puts into building up this family into what they are is truly great. Toni Collette does the best work of her career here as the mother – who had a deeply troubled relationship with her own, now dead, mother – and in ways she doesn’t fully understand, she is now taking it out on her kids. The film builds and builds to its memorable climax – which is perhaps a little bit of a mess, but an effective one. A brilliant debut film – and a truly great horror film.

 

73. Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018)

Stand-up comedian Bo Burnham’s unlikely debut film follows the last week of Eighth Grade for the shy, awkward Kayla - -played wonderfully by Elsie Fisher. Kayla doesn’t really have any friends, but she goes about trying to be cool, trying to put herself out there online, on social media and in real life – although she’s more likely to hide in the corner than really participate. The film is painfully hilarious for those of us who can relate to being that shy and awkward. Burnham’s direction here is excellent – a pool party that he gives the whole horror movie treatment, a terrifying car ride that just slowly builds the mounting tension to almost unbearable degrees. Fisher is wonderful – it’s a debut performance for the ages, and Josh Hamilton will become a favorite for awkward dads trying too hard everywhere. A low-key film to be sure – but a great one, that sneaks up on you, and then stays in your mind forever.

 

72. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)

Pixar had a more up and down decade this time than the last decade (when they were really the most consistently great force in mainstream American movies). But their first film of this decade ranks among their very best – and is the best of the Toy Story series (and as much as I like the others, it’s not close for me). This film is really about growing up, and moving on – and how painful that can be, but how necessary. On a pure plot level, it’s excellent – it’s got a great bad guy (Ned Beatty’s adorable looking Lotso), as the toys have to fight their way home from a daycare center. As they all look doomed, as they head into the fire, it’s impossible not to get emotional. To me, this film brought the series full circle – and would have been an ideal place to leave this great series – the only one that Pixar has made that kept up the quality throughout.

 

71. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012)

Harmony Korine made perhaps the defining film of the Trump era – he just did it 4 years before Trump ever became President. His Spring Breakers was ahead of its time in many ways, and is basically a go-for-broke, over the top depiction of violence, sexuality and stupidity in the social media age. James Franco – who I run hot and very cold on – delivers one of the best performances of the decade as a pimp/rapper/criminal who loves to tell people to look at his shit. The four young women who end up on Spring Break, in their fluorescent bikinis (Selena Gomez, Ashely Bensen, Vanessa Hudgens and Rachel Korine) who just get sucked further and further down into the hedonism in Florida. Korine is a director who I’ve never quite warmed to – I admire his independence and his ability to make precisely what he wants, but don’t quite like the results. Here, everything works perfectly – and Korine made one of the defining films of the decade.