Honorable mentions (A - Z):
The Artist - Maybe this movie only won awards for the gimmick of being a modern silent movie complete with title cards and a shrunk down aspect ration. But you know what? If it had been made back in the '20s, it still would have been an excellent movie.
Carnage - A dialogue-heavy dramatic comedy with some great actors giving great performances. I'm a simple man, I don't ask for much.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - One of Fincher's best movies, if you ask me. A n engaging thriller with an excellent Rooney Mara performance, a great musical score, and all the usually strong aspects of a film by Fincher.
The Innkeepers - It was hard cutting this movie from the top 10, as this is one of my favorite ghost movies in recent years. I love the lead performances, the slow-burn, and most everything about it.
Insidious - Another really good creepy horror movie, but this one falls slightly lower on my overall favorites list. Still, it's got great music, a really creepy atmosphere, and plenty of memorable scary moments. Just ignore most of the sequels and you're good.
Manborg - A very over-the-top and super low budget sci/fi action movie about a man who is half man and half man/half robot. It's obviously goofy, but there's a charm to this movie and all of its unwieldy aspirations that makes it addictively watchable.
Melancholia - One of the single most depressing movies of the decade -- which is only fitting, because it's a movie about depression, grief, and the end of the world. Visually wonderful, great acting, and probably one of the only Lars Von Trier movies most people could sit through.
Midnight In Paris - I probably should have this in the top 10, but the blandness of Woody Allen's direction kind of takes some away from this one on rewatch for me. Still, it's a fun fantasy movie with great acting and loads of memorable moments.
Moneyball - As a fantasy baseball player (don't judge), this movie appeals to me in a statistical way that wouldn't apply to a lot of other movie people. Add onto that the great acting and sharp direction, and you've got one of the few genuinely good baseball movies ever made.
A Separation - Yet another movie that was hard for me to cut from the top 10, this was y introduction to Asghar Farhadi, and it pretty instantly won me over on him. It's great in every way, full stop.
An admittedly dry and difficult sort of movie to sit through, this is the perfect throwback spy movie to really let wash over you if you have the patience to let it. Gary Oldman leads the terrific ensemble cast, and gives what I consider to be the best performance of his career, so packed with subtlety and restraint, he rarely shows any sign of emotion or humanity at all. It's a dense movie with beautiful cinematography and set design, but again, is so slow and methodical, most people wouldn't find it worth sitting through at all. But every time I re-watch this movie I find myself appreciating it even more, and find it to be a pretty one-of-a-kind experience.
It may be a grandma movie, but there's something about the city-based Hawaiian setting, the blend of comedy and drama, and overall mood of this movie that I find addictively watchable. George Clooney and Shailene Woodley both do pretty great work here, holding the movie together and providing the emotional core, but it's really the music and setting that let this movie stand apart. There are some great supporting performances and characters sprinkled throughout, and the cynical tone work to help flesh out the already-unique backdrop. It's taken a while to warm up to me, but it's one of relatively few "Oscar-bait" type movies I still think about years after.
One of the most genuinely original and exciting horror/fantasy movies of the 2010s, Trollhunter takes the unfortunate found-footage documentary style and works it to its advantage. With its unique Scandinavian backdrop and awesome classic troll creature design, there's enough variety in the visuals here to keep the experience fresh all the way through, blending modern with old fashioned folklore to create something new. I might have preferred this as a standard movie as opposed to shaky handheld cam, but in the end it stands out so much among this particular sub-genre that it manages to leave an even greater lasting impression on the viewer because of it.
Originally presented as a TV series with I think 6 20~ minute episodes, but re-cut shortly after as a movie. And while I am curious to see what they left out of the final product, I can say I think they probably made all the right cuts, as this is pretty much a perfect execution of more subtle dramatic character work blended with the improvised comedy of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan. It all seems a bit aimless at first, but the story is really just a framework to allow these two personalities to riff off each other, and in that way it totally delivers. Definitely not a comedy for everyone, but one I've really grown to love over the years.
Not the kind of movie that's easy to watch but difficult to shake. Michael Fassbender gives possibly the strongest lead performance of the decade in this emotionally draining and distressing drama, but that shouldn't distract you from the terrific work by Carey Mulligan, who was sadly overshadowed here, much in the same way as Paul Dano in There Will Be Blood. Steve McQueen may have reached mainstream success with 12 Years A Slave (which was also terrific), but this is the movie that I see as his best effort so far. A genuinely affecting character drama, beautifully shot, and truly impossible to shake.
While I've had little gripes with this movie within my mind over the years, there is one thing I can't deny about it: for all the minor nitpicks, this is a genuinely terrific and terrifying movie. Michael Shannon comes second only to Fassbender in this performance, as a character so obviously teetering on the edge of insanity, he becomes impossible to look away from. With an unforgettable musical score (which implements harp, an instrument more movies need to utilize to generate unease), great performances across the board, and a realistic rural setting, Take Shelter has stuck with me and has caused me to get the chills every time I see menacing storm clouds in the distance.
If this movie (and Oldboy) has taught me anything, it's that Choi Min-sik is one of the greatest actors of this century, and desperately needs more attention in this country. Though this movie doesn't offer him the opportunity for the depth of emotion found in Oldboy, his twisted performance as a serial killer is genuinely chilling and mesmerizing. And that isn't to take away from the movie's actual lead star, who also does a fantastic job. The cinematography is amazing in this movie, whipping around during key scenes and always finding the best lighting for each scene. Perhaps a bit over-long, I Saw The Devil is still one of the best movies South Korea has to offer.
I would probably be tempted to call Volver my favorite Almodovar film, but this would be a close second. Veering into a depraved body horror direction (as opposed to his usual melodrama), Almodovar gets the best performances possible out of his actors, with Banderas in particular standing out to me. This was the first time I had seen him in a movie where he actually did acting in it, and he was terrific. It's creepy, disturbing, coldly shot - which complements the tone perfectly - and totally unlike anything else Almodovar has ever done. I would love to see him try his hand at other genres like this again, but even if not, this is a one-off experiment that I will always appreciate.
In spite of a few truly cringe-worthy moments (1000 apologies to Ron Perlman, he didn't deserve that bit of dialogue), Drive is pretty much a perfect movie to me. Gosling plays up his strengths as a cool silent type, Mulligan has truly great chemistry with him (a testament to her skill, I must say), Isaac is a charming supporting character, but really it's Albert Brooks who steals the show here. It's been almost a decade and I'm still mildly irritated he didn't get an Oscar (or even nomination) for this movie, which totally transformed him from the comedian we know into a genuinely menacing villain with perfect line delivery. The music can't be ignored, as I see this as being responsible for a great deal of modern synth wave found in movies now. The visuals are great, the sound is great, the everything is great, and I don't even feel like writing this anymore, I just want to watch the movie now.
Takashi Miike might be the single most bizarre and fascinating filmmaker who has ever lived, as his transformations back and forth between genres and styles make him so erratic it becomes almost impossible to know what to expect from him next. Well, I didn't know about him so well at the point I first watched this movie, and around the halfway point I was invested, but not in love with the movie. And then the last half of the movie happened, and all the story set-up, character development, and intricate set design only served to aid what might arguably be the greatest series of action sequences in the history of film. With the minor exception of a brief moment involving flaming cows (ill-advised, from a visual standpoint), the execution of this final set piece is so amazing, any other issues I might have had with the movie were instantly out the window. It's almost too awesome for a live action movie, but I am so genuinely happy it exists...so even though I acknowledge many other movies on this list as being "better" that this, I still like this one the most. It's awesome.
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