Top 100 Films of the 2010s - 60-51

60. Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)

Olivier Assayas three-part, five-and-a-half-hour film that chronicles 30 years in the life of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez – a Venezuelan terrorist and mercenary, who grabbed headlines, and become a wanted man the world over. The movie opens with him in his early 20s – where he pretends to be an idealist, in the Che Guevara – but it quickly becomes apparent that he isn’t really ideologically motivated. He will fight on behalf of the Palestinians, and other groups. While his “bosses” admire what he can do – they also know he cannot fully be trusted – he is a narcissist, and doesn’t like to follow orders. The final third of the film – with Sanchez drifting into irrelevance and excess isn’t nearly as exciting as the first two parts – which have some of the best set pieces of the decade – but are necessary to show just what becomes of a man like this. Yes, the film is very long – but it moves like gangbusters – like a Scorsese film (GoodFellas) that has been given even more time to breath. Call it a TV miniseries if you want – I saw it on the big screen, in one sitting, and loved every second.

 

59. A Separation (Asghar Farahadi, 2011)

Iranian auteur Asghar Farahadi peaked (so far anyway) with A Separation – a complex portrait of a couple who have to decide whether to leave Iran for a better life for their child, or stay and look after an elderly parent with Alzheimer’s – made even more complicated, when a seemingly innocent interaction, spirals into violence and tragedy. Farhadi’s film is a masterclass in screenwriting, showing all the complexities of this situation. It is an intimate portrait of Iran and its culture – grounded in this personal story, which becomes universal. Farhadi hasn’t come close to matching this since (The Salesman comes closest – but I wasn’t much of a fan of The Past, and Everybody Knows was pretty mediocre) – but in this film, he constructed a masterpiece.

 

58. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)

Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom is a deceptively sweet, deep film about young love. The two young teenagers at its center run away from their hometown – and parents, for varying reasons – and head out to an island – causing a search party to fan out and try and find them. The film, inspired by Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou (one of his very best films) – but entirely Anderson’s own. The two kids romance is sweet – the girl loves storybooks, and their romance is very much like those out of her books, which Anderson contrasts very nicely with the weird, twisted complicated world of their parents. As with everything Anderson does, the film is meticulously crafted and designed – but rarely has one of his films so emotionally attuned. After two live action films in a row (Life Aquatic and Darjeeling Limited) where I don’t think he quite got the balance right, Moonrise Kingdom was a great return to form.

 

57. Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

Jake Gyllenhaal gives one of the great performances of the decade as a shifty eyed psycho which harkens back to the films of the 1970s – specifically kind of combining Taxi Driver and Network, but updated for today’s dark media landscape. He plays a freelance cameraman, who makes his money filming accidents and crime scenes, and selling them to the highest bidder – and then he starts crossing one line after another. As great as Gyllenhaal is – and he has never been better – he is matched by Riz Ahmed, as his assistant, who seemingly has some scruples, and Rene Russo, who has none. The cinematography by Robert Elswit is great – no one quite shoots dark L.A. like him – and it is a great directorial debut for Dan Gilroy (his two films since cannot match this – but he’s always pushing something). One of the defining films of the decade in terms of just how screwed up the media landscape is.

 

56. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

One of the great films about parenting ever made, The Babadook is a horror film about a monster in the basement that threatens a mother and her son – but is really about the mother’s fear that she hates her own son, who may be a violent psychopath. This was Jennifer Kent’s directorial debut – and it seems like the American distributer didn’t know what they had (the film didn’t make my top 10 list back in 2014 for instance – because in Canada, it didn’t get released until March 2015) – but has gone on to be one of the most loved horror films of the decade. There is a reason for that – Kent is a natural at horror movie ascetics, making this old (but not quite dilapidated) house into a truly scary space – but making sure you know its what’s inside the house that is truly terrifying. Parental horror films had a great decade – and The Babadook is one of the very best.

 

55. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)

I understand why many want to leave slave narratives behind – and concentrate on other aspects of African American life and history. Still, I’m not sure we will see a better film that directly confronts American audiences with slavery in a dramatic movie – one that makes it clear that even the “good” slave owners were horrible people, and just how traumatic, violent, painful the slave trade was. By concentrating on the case of a man (played brilliantly by Chiwetel Ejifor) who was born free, became and slave, and then got out – the film is telling a more “uplifting” film than most slave narratives – where people were born, lived and died in chains, but Steve McQueen’s film doesn’t skirt that issue – doesn’t put a happy face on this, and shows the pain of those who were left behind. It’s a brilliantly directed film – like his other films, it concentrates on the physical body, and what is goes through. The camera doesn’t look away, and it is unflinching. The performances by Ejiofor, by Fassbender, by Nyong’o – and the entire cast is brilliant. It is a powerful and important film – and not just because of its subject matter.

 

54. The Act of Killing/The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012/2014)

The two documentaries by Joshua Oppenheimer, looking at the genocide in the 1960s in Indonesia make a great one-two punch. The Act of Killing was the first, and more innovative, of the two documentaries which follows those who perpetrated the killings, and have been national heroes ever since, even going to so far as to give them cameras so they can do stylized re-enactments in the form of different movie genres. Some felt that movie ignored the victims – and Oppenheimer told them to just wait, and the result was the powerful The Look of Silence two years later, a less innovative, but more emotional documentary that is from the victim’s side. Between the two films, Oppenheimer produced some of the best documentary filmmaking of the decade – and ones that will remembered and remain relevant as time goes by.

 

53. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, 2013)

My favorite film of the Before trilogy was this one – because it is the first film that felt that is built on something real, something substantial, not based on romantic idealism like the first two films. Now, the couple (played wonderfully by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy) have been together for nine years, and their conversation as they walk and talk through Spain means something, it’s built on their shared life, and how complex that can be. The film can be painful and awkward in its realism, but it is also still romantic and beautiful. For me, this is among Linklater’s very best films – and made the whole series better in retrospect. I would gladly take another chapter in 2022 – but for the first time in this series, I don’t think we need one.

 

52. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

Under the Skin is strange, complex, brilliantly well-made, disturbing film that shows just how much talented Jonathan Glazer. He’s made three films now – the other two being Sexy Beast and Birth – and they could be more different stylistically, but are all great. Scarlett Johansson (back when she could still take risks, and not just be in Marvel movies) stars as alien, driving around Scotland, seducing men for her own dark purposes. The film has images that will never leave you – some of them of the creepy, horror variety – like when she shows her true form, some that seem like they are out of a David Lynch film – the strange red places she goes with her men – and some just very real, like a crying baby near the water. I underrated this at the time I saw it at TIFF (it was released theatrically the next year, and didn’t make my top 10 list – a massive mistake) – but it’s been one of the most haunting films of the decade so far.

 

51. Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)

Spike Jonze works slowly – this was his only feature film this decade – and it’s one of his best. It is a film about the modern world, and how obsessed we all are with our phones – how personal that relationship feels. Joaquin Phoenix gives one of his gentlest, saddest performances as a man who grows through a breakup – and then basically falls in love with a more advanced version Siri – voice by Scarlett Johansson, who is also brilliant in her role. The film is a meticulously designed and shot film, and one that is both touching in its sincerity and sad in its depiction of this dystopia we are putting ourselves in. Jonze is a great filmmaker – his entire feature career is just Being John Malkovich Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are and this one – and they are all great. Here’s hoping the next decade has more than one film from Jonze.