Reflecting back on the last ten years of cinema, I’ve selected my 25 favourite films, which is a somewhat arbitrary number I arrived at to narrow down my initial shortlist of over 100 films. Rather than going for a list that represents an attempt at evaluating the most significant, influential or accomplished films, I’ve simply tried to identify the films that I’ve had the greatest personal connection with, for whatever reason.
1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)2. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)3. Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 2013)4. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) 5. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G Iñárritu, 2014)6. Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013)7. We Need to Talk about Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2011) 8. Amazing Grace (realised by Alan Elliott, 2018) 9. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)10. Room (Lenny Abrahamson, 2015)11. Leave No Trace (Debra Granik, 2018)12. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)13. Hugo (Martin Scorsese, 2011)14. Son of Saul (Saul fia, László Nemes, 2015)15. Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, 2014) 16. Elle (Paul Verhoeven, 2016) 17. Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)18. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)19. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)20. Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)21. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)22. Jackie (Pablo Larraín, 2016)23. Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)24. Mystery Road (Ivan Sen, 2013)25. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
And finally, a special mention to the thing I most enjoyed watching in the 2010s, which isn’t a film (it really isn’t) but a television series:
Twin Peaks: The Return (created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, 2017)
CINEMA AUTOPSY 