Tag Archives: best10smovies

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Song of the Day #4,221: ‘Ali Baba’ – Louie Ramirez

Best Movies of the 2010s
#6 – Chef (2014)

In 2011, Jon Favreau directed Cowboys & Aliens, a big, dumb, expensive studio movie that failed to connect with critics and audiences alike. That movie is not on this list.

Cowboys & Aliens is, however, indirectly responsible for my #6 film, 2014’s Chef. That’s because Favreau, tired of the creative constraints accompanying big-budget moviemaking, decided to go back to basics, writing and directing a cheap, personal movie instead. And that movie is a goddamn marvel.

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Song of the Day #4,220: ‘Soju One Glass’ – Choi Woo-shik

Best Movies of the 2010s
#7 – Parasite (2019)

Last year was so great it has landed two films on my top ten of the decade list. It’s tied with five other years with three titles overall in my top 20. As I mentioned in the Knives Out post, I believe 2019 will be looked back on as a landmark year for cinema the way 1999 is now. I wonder if there is something special about the final year of a decade or if it’s just a coincidence. Probably just a coincidence.

My favorite film of 2019 was Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. I seem to share that opinion with many critics and audience members alike, based on the film’s performance in top ten lists, award shows, Rotten Tomatoes and the box office. Sometimes a movie works so well you just can’t deny it.

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Song of the Day #4,219: ‘Run Rabbit Run’ – Flanagan & Allen

Best Movies of the 2010s
#8 – Get Out (2017)

Jordan Peele’s Get Out is one of two directorial debuts in my top ten. Peele displayed such an expert command of the medium right out of the gate. I imagine he picked up a lot of these instincts on the set of Key & Peele (where he was a writer but not a director), because that show often toed the same line of comedy and surreal horror.

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Song of the Day #4,218: ‘We Belong Together’ – Randy Newman

Best Movies of the 2010s
#9 – Toy Story 3 (2010)

Yesterday’s film was the most recent on this list, and today’s is the oldest. Toy Story 3 just made the decade cut, premiering in 2010.

2019 provided a nice opportunity to revisit it, given the release of the fourth film in the series. The popular consensus on Toy Story 4 (before anyone saw it) was that it was entirely unnecessary because Toy Story 3 was such a perfect ending for these characters. TS4 ended up being pretty darn great in its own right, managing to find new metaphors to mine for humor and pathos, but it still paled in comparison to this masterpiece.

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Song of the Day #4,217: ‘Christmas Morning’ – Alexandre Desplat

Best Movies of the 2010s
#10 – Little Women (2019)

Alas, we have arrived at the much-anticipated Top Ten films of the 2010s. The top five titles have been cemented in place for awhile, but I’ve been all over the place with the rankings of numbers six through 10. I’ve changed a couple even as I’ve written these posts. But the order is unimportant; what matters is that these ten films spoke to me more than any others over the last decade.

Greta Gerwig’s Little Women is the most recent title on this list. I watched it for the first time on Christmas Day, less than a month ago. But to hell with recency bias, I was so touched and inspired by the film I knew right away it would find a place high on this list.

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