Best of the Decade Lists

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Precious Doll
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Precious Doll »

Sabin wrote:
Precious Doll wrote
Glad to see that my top two films of the decade (I really doubt anything will better them in the next six months) at least placed on the list at numbers 45 & 48.
Wow. Can't wait for Parasite.
Parasite is Bong's best film to date and he will have a very hard time making a better one as the film is utter perfection. I sort of hating saying that because no film really is but I had a very similar reaction with A Separation as I did to Parasite and no other films really paid off as perfectly as this pair for me did this decade. Its funny that there are some vague similarities between them. They both deal with two families (one poor and one middle class in A Separation & one poor and one wealthy in Parasite) and class as well as having very easy to follow but heavily convoluted plotting that are meticulous in their execution. Though Bong's uses a much larger canvas.

And importantly both films hold up just as well on a second viewing. Parasite has a lot of twists and knowing them on a second viewing didn't matter one bit as the film is such a marvel but don't let anyone ruin it for you. However, a couple of female friends my age were indifferent to Parasite - they loved the first part but had issues with aspects of the second part. I also think Parasite is more a 'boys' film than a 'girls' film too, whereas A Separation works with both sexes.
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Big Magilla »

Here are my top 35 of the decade so far:

1 Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
2 The Social Network (David Fincher)
3 Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
4 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)
5 Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
6 Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)
7 A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
8 Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois)
9 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
10 Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
11 Her (Spike Jonze)
12 Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
13 Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
14 Brooklyn (John Crowley)
15 Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
16 Carol (Todd Haynes)
17 The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)
18 Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)
19 Coco (Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina)
20 Les Misérables (Tom Hooper)
21 Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
22 Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
23 Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)
24 First Man (Damien Chazelle)
25 Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)
26 Green Book (Peter Farrelly)
27 BlackKklansman (Spike Lee)
28 Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
29 Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (Paul McGuigan)
30 The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)
31 If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)
32 First Reformed (Paul Schrader)
33 Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller)
34 Silence (Martin Scorsese)
35 Hell or High Water (David Makenzie)
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Sabin »

Precious Doll wrote
Glad to see that my top two films of the decade (I really doubt anything will better them in the next six months) at least placed on the list at numbers 45 & 48.
Wow. Can't wait for Parasite.
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Precious Doll »

I haven't seen nine of the films, some of which I have never heard of:

All These Sleeping Nights (2016), Girl Walk//Al Day (2011), Happy Hour (2015), Cameraperson (2016), The Farewell (2019), Paddington 2 (2017), Magic Mike XXL (2015) & World of Tomorrow (2015). The only of these I intend to see is The Farewell due to the raves it has been receiving but it looks like a third rate Chinese soap opera from the trailer. I would like to see Happy Hour which I have had the opportunity to see on a couple of occasions but couldn't fit in.

There are some real head scratchers there (The Souvenir which stars Tilda Swinton's daughter who should become the poster girl for the evils of nepotism based on her work in the film) and some small obscure gems like The Arbor which is nice to see get a mention.

Glad to see that my top two films of the decade (I really doubt anything will better them in the next six months) at least placed on the list at numbers 45 & 48.
Last edited by Precious Doll on Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Big Magilla »

In looking over the full list of 100, not just the top 25, I am struck even more by my initial reaction that this is a list of films that those doing the voting were saying "these were the most important films released this decade" as opposed to "the best".

I have seen 53 of them. There are maybe 5 that I haven't seen that I want to, but most of those that I haven't seen, I have no intention of ever seeing.

For those that I have seen, these are my ratings:

A
Moonlight
Inside Llewyn Davis
Carol
The Master
Lady Bird
The Social Network
Call Me by Your Name
Toni Erdmann
Phantom Thread
Get Out
Boyhood
Amour
The Wind Rises
Paddington 2
First Reformed
Grand Budapest Hotel
Roma
The Babadook
Zaro Dark Thirty
A Separation
Before Midnight
Elle
Cold War
Jackie
The Handmaiden
Leave No Trace
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

B
Certified Copy
Burning
The Lost City of Z
Force Majeure
Frances Ha
Black Panther
Inception
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

C
The Wolf of Wall Street
The Tree of Life
Only Lovers Left Alive
Margaret
Hereditary
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Inside Out
The Illusionist
The Great Gatsby

D
Magic Mike XXL
La La Land
A Star Is Born
We Need to Talk About Kevin

F
Under the Skin
Mad Max: Fury Road
A Ghost Story
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Inherent Vice
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Sabin »

Mister Tee wrote
I take Ten of Best of X Year lists more seriously, because there you're working from relatively recent memory.
I would agree with you for exactly the reason you bemoan in the next sentence.
Mister Tee wrote
Even when so little as a decade as gone by, it becomes haphazard, and it's easy to suspect critics of choosing in ways that make them look noble. To wit: at this moment when Representation is such a big deal, putting a black gay movie at the top seems a little neat. And placing Boyhood -- which, we may remember, vaulted to a 100 score on Metacritic -- way down in spot number 24, behind films (like The Wolf of Wall Street) that weren't nearly so widely revered...seems odd...
If Moonlight was just a "black gay movie," I might agree but I think it's become more than that. But I don't think there's anything about odd or neat about Moonlight being chosen. I think it's a terribly meaningful film to a lot of people.

I think Moonlight became very close to peoples' hearts after the election of 2016 and during that Oscar race became a rallying cry for invisible people. It's also a film of notable artistic integrity, clearly birthed from a place of cinephilia with influences like Wong Kar-wai. It's the highest rated Oscar winner on Metacritic (of the last 30 years) with a 99% and a 98% on RT (highest rated since Marty, tied with a few notables like Lawrence of Arabia, The French Connection, and On the Waterfront). It waves the banner of A24 (the studio of the decade). It's never really left our memory. Certainly it's Best Picture win is among the most surprising and memorable ever. In every Oscar race that has followed, we've been asking ourselves about what The Academy That Honored Moonlight will honor.

I also think Moonlight is directly responsible for the decline of the reputation and collective memory of Boyhood. It shows how much our world has changed. If you were to tell me at the end of the decade that a list of the 100 Best Films could possibly exclude 12 Years a Slave, I'd think you crazy. But for me, it feels like a film from a different era. That being said, film criticism has always been a cottage industry of revisionism and I think right now that favors film critics feeling comfortable (emphasis on comfortable) with calling Moonlight the masterpiece of the decade.
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

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These sorts of lists are always interesting to go through but ultimately I think the best lists are ones own.

I agree that doing a all-time list or even a decade best list is very hard and too bothersome. Like a list of the 100 greatest performances of all time - I really can't be bothered wasting my time with that - I'd rather watch a film or read a book.

There are about half a dozen films on the list I've never heard of but I don't feel compelled to seek them out. And it may not be the worst film on the list but the only film that raised my eyebrows was the inclusion of The Souvenir.
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by OscarGuy »

12 Years a Slave was omitted as was If Beale Street Could Talk, both universally acclaimed films. I think the problem here is that you have some voters choosing idiosyncratic choices just to be cool and others clearly trying to thumb their nose at fans (your reference of Last Jedi for example).
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Big Magilla »

I have the same problem as Tee.

I've done 100 and 250 best lists but they are so arbitrary I don't keep them up. The same goes for decade lists. On the other hand, I frequently update annual lists although most lists generally gradually go back to where I started.
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Re: Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Mister Tee »

On one of the older incarnations of this board, we were asked to submit a top 100 of all-time. I found it took me an eternity, and by the time I got to the top 20 or so, it struck me how utterly random my decisions became.

I take Ten of Best of X Year lists more seriously, because there you're working from relatively recent memory. Even when so little as a decade as gone by, it becomes haphazard, and it's easy to suspect critics of choosing in ways that make them look noble. To wit: at this moment when Representation is such a big deal, putting a black gay movie at the top seems a little neat. And placing Boyhood -- which, we may remember, vaulted to a 100 score on Metacritic -- way down in spot number 24, behind films (like The Wolf of Wall Street) that weren't nearly so widely revered...seems odd.

But, hey: any of the films on the list are notable, and no doubt somebody's choice among the decade's best. And, as I say, such lists are inevitably random.

If I had to pick the most surprising omission from this top 25, I guess I'd say 12 Year a Slave. Its 99 score on Metacritic apparently faded from memory pretty quickly.(ON EDIT: Unless I'm missing it -- my computer had trouble scrolling through the whole list -- 12 Years a Slave isn't even among the top 100. Apparently not as memorable as The Last Jedi.)
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Best of the Decade Lists

Post by Sabin »

Not sure where to put this but it's monumentally silly to post a Best Films of the Decade list before the end of the last year. As if no good films came out in 1999, 1989, or 1979. My hunch is at the end of the year, they'll just release a new one.

But I thought I'd post it because I'm a little fascinated by consensus. Or maybe I should say I'm fascinated by a lack of consensus. There's usually more or less a consensus choice (or choices) for Best Film of the Decade by mainstream critics. During the decade where I came of age (the 1990's), it teetered between Goodfellas, Schindler's List, and Pulp Fiction. Again, these are mostly mainstream publications. Now we live in an age where the lid off the kettle but even if it wasn't I'd been wondering for a bit what the film might be that critics circle. I've thought about the fanfare and enthusiasm that greeted Boyhood, The Master, The Social Network, The Tree of Life and more but nothing really seemed to fit.

And then I started to think about Moonlight and how it seems like a perfect fit in our current climate for critics to call the best film of the 2010's... and IndieWire would seem to agree. I think they're trying to drive the conversation.

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best- ... 0s-decade/

Top Ten
1. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
2. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
3. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
4. The Act of Killing/The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
5. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen)
6. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
7. Carol (Todd Haynes)
8. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
9. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
10. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
11. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
12. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
13. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
14. Leviathan (Verena Paravel & Lucien Castain-Taylor)
15. Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos)
16. The Social Network (David Fincher)
17. The World of Tomorrow (Don Hertzfeldt)
18. Call Me By Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)
19. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
20. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
21. Get Out (Jordan Peele)
22. Burning (Lee Chang-dong)
23. O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)
24. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
25. Amour (Michael Haneke)
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