Top 15 Films of 2010

RED One Digital Camera; what many of this years most acclaimed films were shot on, including The Social Network

In 2010 we witnessed numerous natural disasters across the world; from Chile and Haiti to the Gulf of Mexico and Pakistan people suffered in numbers that are difficult to fathom. That wasn't the only sort of suffering though, the world's financial troubles only seemed to deepen. Greece and Ireland both needed to be bailed out and numerous other countries were brought to the brink. Amid all of this turmoil and angst, in the face of an uncertain future, movies continued to be made. And it is in terms of all that is happening globally that this year's films are best analyzed.

In the 30's we reacted to the Great Depression with stories that all but ignored it. People wanted escapism on the sort of scale that they could only get at the movies. This time around (and maybe this says something about the scale of this crisis compared to that one) our greatest films tackle our problems head on. Small regional films like Winter's Bone, about a young girl who must do the unspeakable to protect her family, resonate far more than as isolated tales of woe and were more widely seen than they would have been even 5 years ago. Two other surprise box office successes in The Town and True Grit also tackled characters who were down and out, financially and otherwise. They are genre films tailored to our times, made with care and skill.

The Top 10 of the Decade

The decade is quickly coming to a close. What began as decade defined by (the now ridiculous) Y2K quickly turned serious on September 11, 2001. The relatively carefree 90's turned into a decade which seems, to me at least, to be most defined by the paranoia of the Bush presidency (the patriot act, the invasion of Iraq) and the recent financial collapse, which is just now finding its way onto the screen. The films this decade reply to the seriousness of the decade both by reflecting it with the realism of the Dardenne brothers, mumblecore, and Kelly Reichardt among others and by deflecting it with escapist cinema like Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Superhero films, and many others. This has resulted in a greater disjoint between art-house and mainstream cinema than ever before.

As I sift through all the other top 10 lists which have already been released I'm struck by just how diverse they are. It seems as if all end of the year lists turn out the same, yet somehow it seems as if when contemplating ten years instead of one everyone suddenly finds the ability to express something much more personal. One of the main problems with the critical landscape (and one of the reasons its shrinking) is how uniform it is. Who needs to read 20 different critics in 20 different publications when they are all saying the same thing. At the bottom I'll put a few links to lists I find interesting. And without further ado, my picks for the 10 best of the decade, 2000-2009: