Favourite films of the Decade 2010 - 2019

Whenever I start a “top ten” list, I like to preface it by saying it is a personal list for me, an emotional one. I’m not interested in arguing about what is “best” a concept I just don’t believe in. Instead I’m interested in sharing the films which have meant the most to me, which I enjoy, and which move me. I thought it would be fun to reflect back on the years from 2010 – 2019 and which films in that period meant the most to me and remain my favourites.

While I’m not interested in arguing about the so called “quality” of films, I’m also not interested in arguments about when the “decade” actually begins or ends. For the record a “decade” is any ten consecutive years in a row. I just chose, like many, to start counting January 1 2010, and since that time, these are the 10 films which meant the most to me.

Les Amours Imaginaires

I’ve always felt this was Xavier Dolan’s most underrated film. It sucks me in each time I watch it, turning me into a mushy ball of emotion. I laugh. I cry. I feel a melancholy that I rarely feel. This treatise on friendship and selfishness and desire and insecurity makes me look into a mirror I rarely let myself see, and gives me sympathy for what I find.

Before Midnight

My favourite movie series of all time is the Before series, a series which follows a couple through each stage of their adult lives, at just the moment I am experiencing that stage of life. And with each installment, the series gets richer. This is the first to explore the true challenge of sharing a life with someone. Films are always about falling in love, or falling out of love. But films about living into that love are rare, especially when they are so astute. Each film ends with a moment of delicious and painful unknowing and this ending I found the most intense of all.

Moonlight

If I had to pick this might win as my absolute favourite film of the decade. Rarely do I feel as much as I feel when I watch this film. Jenkins’ has crafted one of the most beautiful films ever, both in terms of how it looks but also in how it feels. The meeting of the two men at the end of the film is one of the rawest, most powerful love scenes I’ve ever seen, and it is also one of the most restrained. Simply perfection.

 

The Raid 2

Action movies leave me cold most of the time so when one can wrap me up in its story and have me on the edge of my seat I pay attention. The Raid 2 sits squarely within its genre but exceeds all the expectations of that genre. It is filled with the sort of delicious characters and world building which invests you in its story, building off the strong foundation set up in the first film, but The Raid 2 explodes out of that into something even greater. The art direction, cinematography, and choreography make it a gorgeous film to watch. I never tire of falling down the rabbit hole that is one of the rare sequels to be a better movie than its predecessor.

Shame

While many of my favourite films of this decade are fun movies I love to watch, a number of them are painful movies I love to watch. Shame is one of the hardest, yet also one of the most visually beautiful, films I’ve ever seen. Frame by frame this film is stunning and in that the sense of desperation and isolation is amplified. The performances of Mulligan and Fassbender are gorgeously sad. I’m wrecked by the film by the end, with an ending that fills me with uncertainty and dread. And then I watch it again.

 

Star Wars The Last Jedi

The more I watch this the more I feel it may be the best Star Wars movie ever. The way it questions the hero’s journey troupes exploited in the original films and the archetype of most tentpole blockbusters from the Marvel movies to the origins of the sci fi genre, is brilliant. Yet all of this set in a film which captures everything magical and wonderful about Star Wars, the films which first made me a film lover in the first place.

Tangerine

I remember the first time I watched this story of two friends spending Christmas Eve searching LA for one of their exes with my jaw on the floor, stunned at the power of the performances and the gorgeousness of the film shot entirely on iphones. To say it is “raw” feels simplistic. Perhaps "honest" is a better term. I love a film that puts us in the skin of people who are usually the source of the joke in other films and gets us to see what is truly beautiful about imperfect humanity.

Us

The best horror teaches us something about ourselves, and that learning should be terrifying. Few “scary” films actually scare me but Us is one of the exceptions. Centered around the amazing one of a kind performance of Lupita N’yongo and a blow your mind Twilight Zone story, Jordan Peel’s second film is, in my opinion, better than his more praised breakthrough.

Weekend

What makes Weekend so sexy for me is just how real the sexuality feels in this film, how honest the emotions are arising from the physicality, and by the time the film’s climax arrives, I am as hopelessly and senselessly in love as the characters. Weekend feels like it captures a uniquely queer emotional power in a way most cinema isn’t able to manage. Sometimes falling in love exists in just one moment. While there are times that moment will lead to other moments, sometimes they won’t. Weekend is beautiful in how either way this love is worth savouring and celebrating.  

Wonder Woman

I had been waiting for this film all my life. Patty Jenkins has taken a legend and made a first rate blockbuster which speaks to generations of women while showing us all what real strength and heroism can be. While its critique of war is palpable and one of the reasons I adore this film, the movie also captures the transformative intention of Wonder Woman’s creator Marston who brought her to life to change our system of values. When I watch it I am a child again, playing superheroes in the school yard. I am a teen again reading comics and seeing the problems of our world solved through those stories. And to all those who told me I couldn’t love Wonder Woman because I was a boy, I get to flip them the bird and enjoy this film again and again. 

Which is what I do with each and every one of these films, each one a source of joy for me. There were many great films, many far more acclaimed than this list, but for me, these are the most treasured films I experienced in the last 10 years.