Best of the 2010s Lists • Page 4

I really need to watch Hard to be a God, it’s one of the major works this decade that I still haven’t caught up with. It’s always intimidated me for some reason, even though I know hardly a thing about it.

 

In a world where everything has to be focus-tested to death, it is genuinely incredible that this got made because the director had clout from a Thor movie. I hated it in the first five minutes. I actually stopped about twenty minutes in and went to do errands because I was so worn out.

 

It is a rather exhausting watch.

 

A continuation.



80. THE SOCIAL NETWORK
DIRECTED BY: DAVID FINCHER

A horror film that only becomes realer as the digital age takes over more and more of our lives, we see how the people who talk about making platforms for connections and communication are motivated by various amounts of jealousy, greed, and amorality. In 2010, it was just an app, but as time has gone on it has linked to our other online accounts, monitored us for advertisements, and become a platform for the lowest common denominator politics that is so prevalent in American discourse. While MySpace and Friendster fell into obscurity, Facebook continues by buying competition like Instagram but also by constantly tweaking itself to make it slightly more and more addictive. While billionaires are known for their bad attempts at seeming folksy, Zuckerberg's jeans and t-shirt routine while he invades the privacy of people not even on his platform is the real man.



79. THIS IS NOT A FILM
DIRECTED BY: JAFAR PANAHI

It is a title with two meanings: he cannot call it a film since he has been banned from making films, but it also blends the line between reality and fiction. Film is full of protagonists who refuse to give up or choose to become martyrs, but Panahi is quite literally embodying it.



78. ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA
DIRECTED BY: NURI BILGE CEYLAN

A murder mystery, told as a shaggy dog story.



77. HAPPY AS LAZZARO
DIRECTED BY: ALICE ROHRWACHER

History is full of stories of people and groups not knowing about world events. The Battle of New Orleans took place after the Americans and the British had settled The War of 1812. Japanese soldiers were still defending their World War II positions into the 1970's. You also have coma patients, who can wake up years after going under. We get to witness this from multiple angles; the farm that didn't know sharecropping had ended years ago, and the boy who returns after years the exact same age. It is the reverse of anyone who has been or has seen a child grow for several years between visits. While the latter is natural, the former is not; why is he still a young man? Is it his eternal goodness, or are they themselves cursed for leaving the farm?



76. MUSEUM HOURS
DIRECTED BY: JEM COHEN

Take connections whenever you can, wherever they may appear. A museum is an aspirational place, full of tourists seeking culture but only recognizing one or two paintings, regulars seeking peace and solace, and employees who get to work adjacent to greatness without having it for themselves. That sort of monotony, while watching people struggle to identify what they feel and what they are supposed to do, is naturally going to make one more pensive.



75. SECRET SUNSHINE
DIRECTED BY: LEE CHANG-DONG

There is a really narrow line when it comes to portraying loss. It is very easy to appear histrionic and to alienate your audience, who often are not willing to plunge those depths, lest they be reminded of their own loss. Similarly, in real life we see an expectation to compartmentalize our grief; miss a few days of work, put them in the ground, and move on. You do not know when a certain song will remind you of them a year later, or a smell will trigger old memories and make you appear upset at your present company. Because we have destroyed the idea of community, we expect even death to be taken care of cleanly and out of view.



74. TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS
DIRECTED BY: RADU MUNTEAN

Adultery is a tricky thing; we were never supposed to be monogamous to begin with, so every day that you return to that person you are fighting your natural instincts. It can happen slowly; first it is a glance, then some light joking, then you are getting lunch together. It is so often portrayed that you cannot love this person you are betraying, but the human heart can love multiple people without seeing the inherent contradiction. Ultimately, though, we know that these things cannot work forever, unless people compromise or otherwise deny what is right in front of them. We see it in our elders and in our peers but think it cannot happen to us, but the same primal flaw continues.



73. BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
DIRECTED BY: ABDELLATIF KECHICHE

What is too taboo to show in film? We do not allow physical violence to be performed on-set, and in most countries the same applies to animals. This makes pragmatic sense; you would have a hard time finding actors that let you disembowel them for real. Sexuality is trickier. Film, especially in the United States, has grappled with how sexuality should be portrayed and how much of it is allowed. Your film is more likely to be restricted to adults if you show a woman's bare breasts than you are if hundreds of people die in your film, although one is just a state of nature and the other is the sort of unspeakable violence we wish to avoid. What does it mean that, while researching this list, it was easier to find clips of this film on Pornhub than it was on YouTube? It is exacerbated by the famous rift between the actresses who portrayed young lesbians and the straight male middle-aged director who created a hostile work environment. At the very least, it is not a film that will leave someone with a middling reaction.



72. THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV
DIRECTED BY: ALBERT SERRA

You are more likely to die under care of a doctor than anywhere else.



71. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
DIRECTED BY: MARTIN SCORSESE

If you want to know why our modern cinemas are dominated by STAR WARS and SPIDER-MAN, look at a lot of the responses to this film when it released. People were upset that it did not properly punish its characters, that it glorified excess, that it was sexist, and so on. These people entirely missed the point; while Scorsese's gangsters in GOODFELLAS and CASINO are murdered, arrested, or otherwise broken, the characters here get away with minimal punishment because that is how it did occur and still does occur every time a giant corporation squeezes the life out of the working class. It looks fun and exciting because it is fun and exciting; they are living to the edge with the money they stole from everyone else. They spend some time in country club prisons because they do it in real life; other than the occasional sacrificial lamb like Bernie Madoff, whose biggest mistake was stealing from other rich people, these people do get away with it. That is what makes the film truly horrifying; they are living like kings, young people will want to follow them, they face no consequences, and there is no happy ending. The FBI agent still has to ride the subway like everyone else in the end, while Jordan is back to motivational speaking before the credits roll.

 

A continuation.



70. MY JOY
DIRECTED BY: SERGEY LOZNITSA

The cinema of the post-Soviet Eastern bloc is constantly wrestling between the artistic freedoms that come from their liberalized governments versus the impersonal and soulless trappings of capitalism. There is a quality to their work, the idea that life is as it is and that it is foolish to expect more from it or to try and radically change it. It is a form of determinism, where the machinery is going to move forward and take you along for the ride whether or not you want it to. The older people know this to be true, and watch as the young and idealistic try to prove otherwise. In the end, they become like their elders, sometimes literally.



69. UNCUT GEMS
DIRECTED BY: JOSH AND BENNY SAFDIE

The Safdie brothers, more than perhaps any other filmmakers, know how to film constant motion. It can be a bit exhausting to watch, as characters are constantly moving and manipulating, the soundtrack humming, and the plot straying further and further away from its central conceit. Anyone who has gambled more than they should have will know that rush and how it is communicated in this film, as Howard throws up so many balls in the air that he knows how unlikely it is that they will land the right way. It is a drug just like any other, but perhaps more dangerous because of the way in which we glamorize it.



68. SOMEWHERE
DIRECTED BY: SOFIA COPPOLA

A lot of people like to criticize directors for revisiting the same themes over and over, but more often than not those are their best films because they have that air of authenticity. Sofia Coppola is the daughter one of one of the most important directors that ever lived, and her formative years occurred during perhaps the strongest stretch of work in a decade for any filmmaker ever. Like Cleo, she understands the ways that fathers can fail as they pursue their work; they think that the material possessions are a substitute, but everyone remembers those moments with their parents more than they do the presents they received. It may be asking a lot to literally abandon your sports car in the desert and to wander off, but the sentiment is in the right place.



67. SWEETGRASS
DIRECTED BY: LUCIEN CASTAING-TAYLOR

There is always a moment of epiphany when you watch a supposedly great work of "boring" cinema. It can lull you, sometimes for most of its runtime, until that one moment where it all clicks together. Here, it is a sheep herder, yelling on his cell phone about his daily problems while we film the landscape and the sheep, both unaware and uncaring of his plight. It is then that we can think about the romanticism of our own lives, and how we often dismiss it or have forgotten it. Your experience has interesting stories and experiences, even if you have become numb to them through repetition and monotony. The quiet dignity of the working class.



66. LET THE SUNSHINE IN
DIRECTED BY: CLAIRE DENIS

Even with all of its excesses, America never really got over its Victorian ideas about sexuality. Politicians can be forgiven for starting wars and mismanaging money, but they often have to resign over sex scandals. Meanwhile, the last three French Presidents have alternated between getting divorced in office, leaving the mother of their children for another woman, and marrying their high school teacher. The French laissez-faire attitude toward sexuality is more natural, but it will inevitably leave people feel wanting when they seek authenticity beyond the shallowness and hyper-libido of youth. Finding that middle ground can take a lifetime, and it leaves a lot of misery in its wake.



65. BURNING
DIRECTED BY: LEE CHANG-DONG

While PARASITE deserves all of the recognition it receives, why is it that foreign films usually can only break through the American market if they are ultra-stylized and/or violent? Korean dramas have been great for years, but here we see someone trying to mold themselves into the hero without even really having evidence that anything happened. Have you ever been so sure of something, even if the evidence and everyone around you points otherwise?



64. SONG TO SONG
DIRECTED BY: TERRENCE MALICK

By now people know what they are getting into and if they are going to appreciate Malick's approach of finding truth and humanity within his hundreds of hours of rolls of people dancing, birds chirping, and wind blowing. What makes this film unique is that you see the world through people who are naturally transient, following the festival scene as well as the ebbs and flows of their own careers. While other directors would have had their actors spend months learning to at least competently pretend to play their instruments, Malick makes a film about the live music scene without a whole lot of music. It is impossible to tell if he is playing with expectations or if he is genuinely drawn away from the premises of his films, but through his extensive process he finds something that is real.



63. INHERENT VICE
DIRECTED BY: PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON

Every generation deserves their own version of THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Anderson's films take time to appreciate; initially, it seems like a basic effort from the master, but over time, it is easier to appreciate its formal style and attention to detail. It is even more of a miracle when you consider how committed he has been to deep, intensive character studies for the entirety of this century. He was always funny, but here he is irreverent.



62. BEYOND THE HILLS
DIRECTED BY: CRISTIAN MUNGIU

When Amish children become teenagers, they observe a tradition called rumspringa, where they are allowed to rebel against the community rules and customs before deciding to make the adult decision whether or not to commit to the lifestyle. Against our secular and modern notions, the vast majority choose to stay Amish. At the same time, the Amish do not let outsiders join their community, even if they show that they are devout. This represents the reality that we are going to be fully formed by our early experiences, and with only the most extremely rare exceptions it will stick with us throughout our lives. We all want to change, but the amount of actual change possible is much less than we would want to admit.



61. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR
DIRECTED BY: APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL

American fantasy films could learn a lot from the master of ghosts and spirits.

 

Where is SPRING BREAKERS

 

I had a rough list put together a couple weeks ago but since then I’ve seen a few good ones and it could use revising. Gonna wait on Little Women then make a top 100 I think

 

I've got a top 100 just waiting on Little Women. Seeing it on Monday.

 

A continuation.



60. ROMA
DIRECTED BY: ALFONSO CUARON

Being a servant is a life of daily minor cuts; any time you start to think you are part of the family or that these people think of you as a human being, there will be something done to remind you of your place. However, as modern psychiatry and the growing problem of prescription medication abuse shows us, people can only bury their problems for so long. It exists in the waitress, the flight attendant, the janitor, and the cashier, all fighting daily to deal with the indignities around them.



59. POETRY
DIRECTED BY: LEE CHANG-DONG

Alzheimer's is a terrible disease. While there are many horrifying illnesses and injuries, Alzheimer's robs you of your mind, the one thing that is essential to our being. Through our worst experiences, we still retain a sense of who we are, our past, our relationships, and our outlook, but Alzheimer's seeks to take that away from you, doing so so slowly that it can be hard to even notice at first. As our elderly succumb to diseases borne from our longer life spans, we also find ourselves dumping responsibilities on them that they can no longer handle. The world is full of grandmothers and grandfathers raising grandchildren because the parents were incompetent, and they simply do not have the stamina or the cultural connections to make it work. Of course, this only makes those elder-related illnesses more pronounced and problematic.



58. ARABIAN NIGHTS
DIRECTED BY: MIGUEL GOMES

The best six-hour movie criticizing austerity since SATANTANGO.



57. ALPS
DIRECTED BY: YORGOS LANTHIMOS

In film, the most outlandish of premise can reveal the most depth of emotion. Before Lanthimos took the money and access of the English-language film market, his work was about extreme situations where humanity is compromised. How much would it weigh on someone to play a stand-in of a dead person for relatives, friends, and lovers? How would this affect your own personal life, and where do you end and the character begins? How much empathy ultimately becomes harmful to oneself?



56. SPRING BREAKERS
DIRECTED BY: HARMONY KORINE

It appeared that Korine had peaked very early as the 22-year-old writer of the controversial KIDS, but he found a new spark of creativity in examining the hedonism and culture of Florida. There is a story about young girls being seduced by and ultimately rejecting the guns and gang lifestyle that they thought they could handle, but it is just a framing for a series of increasingly absurd scenes and trolling of the audience. Disney child stars, along with a James Franco before he became artsy. A montage of violent robberies, set to Britney Spears. The rapper Gucci Mane talking about his baby starving while a mountain of marijuana is on the table. Two girls in bikinis gunning down an entire complex of armed guards. It is a Malick film if he rejected Christianity and humanism and found drugs and nihilism.



55. THE KID WITH A BIKE
DIRECTED BY: JEAN-PIERRE AND LUC DARDENNE

Children are constantly trying to find their place in the world. There are plenty of films that show how they discover themselves, where they fit in a social circle, and how they feel about the world. Films have often not been as good at showing the dynamic between children and adults, how they are failed by them, how they are disappointed by them, and how that harshness creates a coldness that ultimately makes them adults in the worst ways. No one is ever really ready to be a parent, and even the best ones have to live with mistakes and regrets that will leave scars that the children will spend the rest of their life trying to fix or mask. Even still, those moments where you can reach them in a moral way, whether as a parent or authority figure, is more rewarding than the child may initially realize.



54. MACGRUBER
DIRECTED BY: JORMA TACCONE

A movie that is dedicated to the joke from start to finish. The time period was full of the Judd Apatow template, which was full of crass humor and shock value until it decided to hit the audience with a moralism that could have come from Nancy Reagan. This film failed at the time, but led the way in the move away from this sort of sentimental cynicism in favor of exploitation and bad taste for its own sake. Almost any quote would be appropriate, but MacGruber's constant reminders about how he used to rip throats out lulls the audience into a false sense of security before the grisly act finally surfaces.



53. MEEK'S CUTOFF
DIRECTED BY: KELLY REICHARDT

Every year we hear about female directors not get nominated for meaningless awards bought by studio lobbyists, but how many of those people actually pay attention to Reichardt's career? With the exception of the misguided NIGHT MOVES, she has been one of the great American filmmakers over the last two decades. Here we see how men, given status and the air of expertise in patriarchal societies, fail themselves and the women who rely on them, forcing women into roles they were not expected to take part in and often given considerable hardships to overcome.



52. ALAMAR
DIRECTED BY: PEDRO GONZALEZ-RUBIO

We all want our children to grow and become better than us, but we also want to instill in them our cultural institutions and our history. These things naturally come into conflict, as the changing world naturally disregards the antiquated and obsolete. It can become even more exacerbated within a family unit, when parents come from different backgrounds. What is to be done when one parent is a creature of the modern world and one is a creature of tradition? Where does the child find their connection to reality? Divorce is many things, but it puts children in a position to choose between the lifestyles of their separate parents, whereas in a single family unit these would have been meshed together into a cohesive whole. Modernism can wait, but tradition can be lost very quickly.



51. LE QUATTRO VOLTE
DIRECTED BY: MICHELANGELO FRAMMARTINO

Sooner or later, we all become goats.

 

Funny you should mention that.

International travel wore me out and I fell behind by a day. I want to get my top 100 and my top 10 of 2019 done before school starts back.

 

I was really hoping to see Macgruber in your list. Thanks for delivering

 

It actually missed my list entirely at first. I thought it was a 2009 film for some reason. I actually published my first ten films before I realized my mistake.

 

It’s a worthy edit if there ever was one. I am curious to see what other comedies crack your top 50

 

You people need to start publishing your 10's and 100's.

It is actually really hard to do, simply because you forget so much. I watched a lot of trailers and read a lot of reviews to try and jumpstart my memory. I saw about 700 films from the decade, and a lot of them really started to blend together.

 

A continuation.



50. ALMAYER'S FOLLY
DIRECTED BY: CHANTAL AKERMAN

We all live with colonialism, every day and in all of our daily activities. Some of us are the beneficiaries; the brutality and genocide on indigenous people made way for these lands to be cultivate, sold, and built upon. Even if it was not our direct ancestors doing the dirty work, we occupy these lands. Others are the victims; the brutality and genocide inflicted upon them has created permanent ramifications, where entire populations were hollowed out and left to recover when the most egregious exploitation decided to start to pull back a little. The white person cannot truly understand how the person of color must truly feel, even if they think they are well-meaning.



49. HOUSE OF TOLERANCE
DIRECTED BY: BERTRAND BONELLO

Everyone loves casting aside prostitutes. Even the most ostensibly "progressive" Senators recently voted for FOSTA-SESTA, which was sold as a way to prevent online trafficking, has taken away some of the safer routes that these women had in performing their trade. Everyone wants to pretend that these problems will go away, but the prostitute, escort, lady of the night, courtesan, and any other name you can think of have always been around and will always be around in societies where labor is a commodity, some people have wealth, and others lack capital. Every time a moralist tries to pass laws to discourage or outlaw prostitution, under the guise of protecting the women, it only puts them in more danger because they cannot report abuses that occurred while they themselves were committing an illegal act. This is on purpose; if you make these women desperate enough, you can drive down prices and exploit them in even greater numbers. Equality of women is always a threat to men.



48. CAROL
DIRECTED BY: TODD HAYNES

Todd Haynes has always had homosexuality at the forefront of his films, both explicit and implicit. He captures the forbidden nature of the time period as it would be, talked about in euphemisms or not at all, brushed aside as a phase or a mental disorder. More than that, though, he tries to examine the ways in which these people were willing to hide who they were in order to accept the safeties of their surroundings. Much like BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, these characters are fighting their temptation more than embracing it, aware of how they cannot beat a system that is rigged against them.




47. THE LOOK OF SILENCE
DIRECTED BY: JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER

Continuing the documentation of the Indonesian genocide, here Oppenheimer moves past the conceits of the introductory THE ACT OF KILLING and instead brings relatives of the deceased to directly confront their captors. It is deeply disturbing and unsettling, both because of the heinous nature of their crimes and the quite understandable uneasiness of the killers. You can get a sense of their general understanding of the severity of their past, even if they have buried it deep in their psyche and tries to change the conversation.



46. KNIGHT OF CUPS
DIRECTED BY: TERRENCE MALICK

Moving to the modern era changed something about Malick's approach to filmmaking. He always sought to find the purity of the past, even in situations as dire as World War II. More recently, he contends that we are mostly lost, and that the pockets of connection and warmth are drowned out by cold and lifeless architecture and culture.The irony is that everyone seems to want some of that authentic love and affection, but we are all afraid to admit it to one another, or often to ourselves. It is easier to have another drink, watch another show, or send another tweet.



45. STRANGER BY THE LAKE
DIRECTED BY: ALAIN GUIRAUDIE

Our sex drive overrules everything, even our natural instinct for safety. This can be seen in both animals and humans fighting over a mate, but this is more often a result of not thinking rather than intentionally placing oneself within the way of danger. The film explores an even deeper dilemma, mainly how someone would react if their object of desire was dangerous themselves. A parallel can be made to those women who call the police after a domestic violence incident, only to protest their arrest or to take them back when they are released. It is a sort of deficiency in our own thinking, valuing sexuality above everything else.



44. MISTRESS AMERICA
DIRECTED BY: NOAH BAUMBACH

Never open up to a writer.



43. AQUARIUS
DIRECTED BY: KLEBER MENDONCA FILHO

Incredibly, the post-recession global political landscape did not lead to a renewal of social democratic principles. Instead, it ended up leading to even more flagrant corporate inhumanity, grabbing what was left as people worried about their own economic well-being. In major cities throughout the world, it has become nearly impossible for anyone from the working-class to even afford to live in these cities. There is very little that can be done; individual resistance to a corporate entity is an exercise in futility. The common person is at a disadvantage in manpower, economics, but also in ethics; corporations will do anything while people are constrained by their morality. The film is ultimately more hopeful about defeating these interests, and it shows how people that have been cast aside by society can be motivated simply by having nothing left to lose.



42. BLACKHAT
DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL MANN

If we all forget about PUBLIC ENEMIES, and we have tried, BLACKHAT is a continuation of the abandonment of coherent narrative and the adoption of a much stronger sensory style from Mann. Much of the dismissal of this film came from complaints about casting, details about the technology, or the incomprehensibility of the plot, but that is not really what the film is after. The film is more interested in looking at the ways in which people are becoming an extension of their technology and the ways in which all traditional boundaries of geography are being eliminated. It is also the second consecutive (again, no PUBLIC ENEMIES) depiction of a romance in which we see their passion through actions rather than through dialogue telling us they are amorous. It is quite remarkable how few filmmakers are unable to achieve that.



41. THE ORNITHOLOGIST
DIRECTED BY: JOAO PEDRO RODRIGUES

"Werner Herzog: I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder."

 

Love reading these write ups and have added a few to my watchlist

 

I considered doing some sort of individual write ups for this at one point, but ultimately I didn't have the time or desire to really put anything together. Not to mention the fear of repetition when writing about a hundred films. But these are the works from the last 10 years that resonated with me the strongest. The reasons vary: some for their aesthetics, some for their emotion, some for their politics, but the best of the often synthesizes all these strands. It skews towards the second half of the decade, but that's what happens with the passage of time plus it was around 2015-16 where I feel that my taste settled around where it is now.

Hong Sang-soo is the most represented director here because I have gotten so much out of his work. They are all both ripe with humour and sadness in a way that feels very near to my own emotional state. Watching the little growths between films and piecing them together as a body of work has be the most exciting and rewarding experience of the decade. The fact that 5 of the 10 films he has on here came out within such a short span (between February 2017 and August 2018) leaves me all the more in awe. A few other directors from this decade that I would like to highlight:

Bruno Dumont - His pivot from stern seriousness to one of the great absurdists has been a fascinating shift. I ran through most of his films in 2016 or 2017 and reaching the stuff after Hors Satan was a near euphoric experience. Being one of some 5 people who thought Jeannette was hilarious at TIFF 2017 was maybe my single favourite screening of the decade.

Lav Diaz - When I first learned of Diaz - a director for whom a four hour film is considered short - I felt confident that this was someone who's work I would never engage with. But as time passed and I became more dedicated to certain spheres of "art cinema," confronting him was inevitable. Like Hong, I find Diaz's overall project fascinating mostly for the minor variations on the same set of themes. His co-opting of genre codes for his recent string of films - the thriller/noir in The Woman Who Left, the music/rock-opera in Season of the Devil, and science fiction in The Halt - has put an exciting new spin on oft laborious but always rewarding experience of sitting through his films.

Hu Bo - A filmmaker gone too soon. Hu made just one feature: An Elephant Sitting Still, a four hour, deeply melancholic piece that seems to reflect the mental state of a very sick person, and, as such, marks a reflection on a generation afflicted by debilitating mental health. It's impossible to read the film divorced from Hu's own death, but my experience with it was not that of wallowing in my own depressive state but rather one that felt comforting, a real affirmation that there is some universality to my experiences. The way Hu uses aesthetics to express this depressive mood, achieving a visual palate that makes the internal state of mind so palpable it feels like you can touch it, genuinely floored me when I encountered the film. I can't express how much it means to see an artist put forward such a personal and vulnerable work. I selfishly wish we could see more from Hu, but I hope he has found peace (whatever that means).

1. House of Tolerance (Betrand Bonello, 2011)
2. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo, 2017)
3. An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo, 2018)
4. A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (Lav Diaz, 2016)
5. Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2014)
6. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, 2012)
7. Daguerreotype (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2016)
8. Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont, 2017)
9. Milla (Valerie Massadian, 2017)
10. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
11. The Dreamed Path (Angela Schanelec, 2016)
12. Liberte (Albert Serra, 2019)
13. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa, 2019)
14. Hotel by the River (Hong Sang-soo, 2018)
15. Let the Sunshine In (Claire Denis, 2017)
16. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, 2019)
17. Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, 2013)
18. Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick, 2015)
19. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas, 2016)
20. Transit (Christian Petzold, 2018)
21. Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo, 2015)
22. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
23. Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
24. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018)
25. The Halt (Lav Diaz, 2019)
26. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
27. The House that Jack Built (Lars Von Trier, 2018)
28. The Kindergarten Teacher (Nadav Lapid, 2014)
29. Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)
30. High Life (Claire Denis, 2018)
31. La flor (Mariano Llinas, 2018)
32. Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)
33. Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
34. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)
35. Maison du Bonheur (Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2017)
36. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012)
37. The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2011)
38. The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zurcher, 2013)
39. Laurence Anyways (Xavier Dolan, 2012)
40. Kaili Blues (Bi Gan, 2015)
41. Our Sunhi (Hong Sang-soo, 2013)
42. No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman, 2015)
43. On the Beach at Night Alone (Hong Sang-soo, 2017)
44. Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher, 2018)
45. Scarred Hearts (Radu Jude, 2016)
46. Elle (Paul Verhoeven, 2016)
47. I Was at Home, But… (Angela Schanelec, 2019)
48. The Giverny Document (Single Channel) (Ja’Tovia Gary, 2019)
49. Horse Money (Pedro Costa, 2014)
50. Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (Hong Sang-soo, 2013)
51. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2019)
52. Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke, 2015)
53. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)
54. Museum Hours (Jem Cohen, 2012)
55. Lover for a Day (Philippe Garrel, 2017)
56. Aquarius (Kleber Mendonca Filho, 2016)
57. Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves (Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie, 2016)
58. Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2016)
59. Caniba (Varena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 2017)
60. Bitter Money (Wang Bing, 2016)
61. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)
62. Despite the Night (Philippe Grandrieux, 2015)
63. Burning (Lee Chang-dong, 2018)
64. The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
65. Anne at 13,000 ft. (Kazik Radwanski, 2019)
66. Fail to Appear (Antoine Bourges, 2017)
67. Grass (Hong Sang-soo, 2018)
68. Taxi (Jafar Panahi, 2015)
69. The 15:17 to Paris (Clint Eastwood, 2018)
70. Scary Mother (Ana Urshadze, 2017)
71. The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira, 2010)
72. The Wild Boys (Bertrand Mandico, 2017)
73. Werewolf (Ashley McKenzie, 2016)
74. The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo, 2011)
75. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)
76. Le Havre (Aki Kaurismaki, 2011)
77. Genese (Philippe Lesage, 2018)
78. In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo, 2012)
79. Curling (Denis Cote, 2010)
80. Like Someone In Love (Abbas Kiarostami, 2012)
81. Season of the Devil (Lav Diaz, 2018)
82. Bastards (Claire Denis, 2013)
83. Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)
84. Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, 2014)
85. The Gold Bug (Alejo Moguillansky and Fia-Stina Sandlund, 2014)
86. Short Stay (Ted Fendt, 2016)
87. The Ornithologist (Joao Pedro Rodrigues, 2016)
88. A Woman’s Revenge (Rita Azevedo Gomes, 2012)
89. Tom at the Farm (Xavier Dolan, 2013)
90. Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier, 2015)
91. Good Time (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2017)
92. A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke, 2013)
93. The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013)
94. Western (Valeska Grisebach, 2017)
95. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)
96. Winter Brothers (Hlynur Palmasson, 2017)
97. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan, 2018)
98. Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015)
99. Claire’s Camera (Hong Sang-soo, 2017)
100. Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

 

It's fun seeing Morrissey count down these films & finding some stuff I dig sprinkled through (like Blackhat, Mistress America, & Like Someone in Love), in spite of me having throughly different (& often shamelessly bad) taste. Though, I didn't care for Knight of Cups & was really into Jojo Rabbit, so whatever, lol.

Was Sweetgrass by the same person as Leviathan? Remember that being pretty neat; don't recall how I ended up watching it.

Anyways, if I make my list, I know that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse will be my #1, Tree of Life will be in my top 5, & Edge of Seventeen also top 5. Not sure what it'll look like otherwise. Too many superheroes, that's for sure.

 

Sweetgrass and Leviathan are the same director. Their team also made Manakamana.

 

Here's the first part of mine. Copied Morrissey's format because I dig it. Was planning on writing something for each movie but I don't really have the time and I'm a shit writer anyway. I loved all of these films a lot!




100. High Life
Directed By: Clare Denis



99. Inside Out
Directed By: Pete Docter



98. Ida
Directed By: Paweł Pawlikowski



97. The Conjuring
Directed By: James Wan



96. The Broken Circle Breakdown
Directed By: Felix van Groeningen



95. Interstellar
Directed By: Christopher Nolan



94. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Directed By: Edgar Wright



93. The Man from Nowhere
Directed By: Lee Jeong-beom



92. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Directed By: Matt Reeves



91. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Directed By: Céline Sciamma



90. Frances Ha
Directed By: Noah Baumbach



89. Laurence Anyways
Directed By: Xavier Dolan



88. Toy Story 3
Directed By: Lee Unkrich



87. Roma
Directed By: Alfonso Cuarón



86. Baby Driver
Directed By: Edgar Wright



85. Brawl in Cell Block 99
Directed By: S. Craig Zahler



84. Endless Poetry
Directed By: Alejandro Jodorowsky



83. The Social Network
Directed By: David Fincher



82. Creed
Directed By: Ryan Coogler



81. A Silent Voice
Directed By: Naoko Yamada

 

80. Boyhood
Directed By: Richard Linklater



79. Moonlight
Directed By: Barry Jenkins



78. Cold War
Directed By: Paweł Pawlikowski



77. Manchester by the Sea
Directed By: Kenneth Lonergan



76. One Cut of the Dead
Directed By: Shinichiro Ueda



75. Thor: Ragnarok
Directed By: Taika Waititi



74. War for the Planet of the Apes
Directed By: Matt Reeves



73. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Directed By: Rian Johnson



72. A Separation
Directed By: Asghar Farhadi



71. Another Year
Directed By: Mike Leigh



70. Oslo, August 31st
Directed By: Joachim Trier



69. The One I Love
Directed By: Charlie McDowell



68. What We Do in the Shadows
Directed By: Taika Waititi



67. You Were Never Really Here
Directed By: Lynne Ramsay



66. Tyrannosaur
Directed By: Paddy Considine



65. Hardcore Henry
Directed By: Ilya Naishuller



64. Tangerine
Directed By: Sean Baker



63. The Skin I Live In
Directed By: Pedro Almodóvar



62. Weekend
Directed By: Andrew Haigh



61. Mad Max: Fury Road
Directed By: George Miller

 

They made Caniba in 2017 too. Horrifying film.

 

Forgot about the man from nowhere that movie was cool

 

60. Birdman
Directed By: Alejandro González Iñárritu



59. The Witch
Directed By: Robert Eggers



58. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino



57. Gone Girl
Directed By: David Fincher



56. Nightcrawler
Directed By: Dan Gilroy



55. The Wolf of Wall Street
Directed By: Martin Scorsese



54. The Dance of Reality
Directed By: Alejandro Jodorowsky



53. About Time
Directed By: Richard Curtis



52. If Beale Street Could Talk
Directed By: Barry Jenkins



51. 13 Assassins
Directed By: Takashi Miike



50. Django Unchained
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino



49. Shoplifters
Directed By: Takashi Miike



48. Nymphomaniac
Directed By: Lars Von Trier



47. The Favourite
Directed By: Yorgos Lanthimos



46. The Lighthouse
Directed By: Robert Eggers



45. Parasite
Directed By: Bong Joon-ho



44. Wild Tales
Directed By: Damián Szifron



43. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Directed By: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman



42. Moonrise Kingdom
Directed By: Wes Anderson



41. Climax
Directed By: Gaspar Noé

 

40. The House That Jack Built
Directed By: Lars von Trier



39. Phantom Thread
Directed By: Paul Thomas Anderson



38. Black Swan
Directed By: Darren Aronofsky



37. Sing Street
Directed By: John Carney



36. The Tree of Life
Directed By: Terrence Malick



35. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Directed By: Yorgos Lanthimos



34. The Raid
Directed By: Gareth Evans



33. Anomalisa
Directed By: Charlie Kaufman



32. The Wind Rises
Directed By: Hayao Miyazaki



31. Midsommar
Directed By: Ari Aster



30. Poetry
Directed By: Lee Chang-dong



29. Get Out
Directed By: Jordan Peele



28. Logan
Directed By: James Mangold



27. Enemy
Directed By: Denis Villeneuve



26. Knives Out
Directed By: Rian Johnson



25. The Handmaiden
Directed By: Park Chan-wook



24. Guardians of the Galaxy
Directed By: James Gunn



23. Beginners
Directed By: Mike Mills



22. mother!
Directed By: Darren Aronofsky



21. Whiplash
Directed By: Damien Chazelle