The Top 25 Movies of 2010

Not many movie years out there like this one. It started off godawful slow, but once the summer was half over, it felt like we were in the midst of a full-time parade of landmark cinema. Per usual, there were a few crashing disappointments come December, but overall, there were lots of breathtaking pieces sprinkled throughout these past 12 months, and a shocking number of them were about REAL PEOPLE and REAL EVENTS! 2010 gave us a hefty package of comedy, drama, action, horror, news, romance, spectacle, and mystery, and I haven't even seen everything I need to take in (as usual on filmicability, these lists are a work-in-progress, changing as I catch relevant titles). And, is it me, or are a bunch of these films about letting go and accepting reality? Or am I in that point in my life where I'm only reading this into stuff? (Ahh, pshaw...come to consider it, I think it's all there in the movies.)

1) The Social Network (US, David Fincher) 

  2) Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)
Doing nothing requires a lot of effort.

3) Another Year (Mike Leigh)
Passage into old age, with a great filmmaker's coterie of MVPs.


4) The King's Speech (Tom Hooper)
A leader finds a voice in a brilliant piece of old-time entertainment.

5) The Fighter (David O. Russell)
An old story made anew by a top-flight acting ensemble under inventive direction.

6) Inside Job (Charles Ferguson)
How the mess we're in happened.

7) Inception (Christopher Nolan)
Time, dreams and movement vivisected. The visual experience of 2010.

8) Boxing Gym (Frederick Wiseman)
Punches thrown and footwork nailed in a Texas locale run over with rhythmic soul.

9) Let Me In (Matt Reeves)
No mean feat, this--to take a much loved movie and best it.

10) The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet)
A final script from Jacques Tati, beautifully realized through animation.

11) The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
We're up against a comedy of errors if we want to get to the truth.

12) Please Give (Nicole Holofcener)
NYC upper-class guilt gets a honest workout.

13) The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Chodolenko)
The comedy of the year, the heartfelt sort of which we rarely see.

14) Easy A (Will Gluck)
The OTHER comedy of the year, with a captivating, hilarious lead performance from Emma Stone.

15) Carlos (Oliver Assayas)
Gangster or freedom-fighter? You decide.

16) My Dog Tulip (Paul and Sandra Fierlinger)
The best animated film of 2010 is also the year's greatest love story.

17) Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Edgar Wright)
Put your quarter in and spar to see if you can love again.

18) Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)
After Tarkovsky's Solaris, the saddest science fiction movie ever made.

19) Frozen (Adam Green)
Real tension, literally, found in icy climbs.

20) A Letter to Elia (Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones)
The fan letter all us movie geeks would like to compose for our filmmaking idols.

21) Mother and Child (Rodrigo Garcia)
Conceptions made in innocence, regret and hope.

22) Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (Dean Flischer-Camp and Jenny Slate)
The most cuteness-laden and addictive film of the year: I've seen it thirty times.

23) Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
Romance, born and snuffed out.

24) Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy) 
A great joke, well told.

25) Lebanon (Samuel Maoz) 
Unfair wartime, seen through the lens of a tank's gunsight.

OF NOTE: Buried, Winter's Bone, Catfish, Cyrus, Day and Night, Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No, Dogtooth, Fish Tank, Four Lions, I Am Love, I'm Still Here, Insidious, Leaves of Grass, Louie CK: Hilarious, Lovely Still, The Oath, Rabbit Hole, Red, Solitary Man, Smash His Camera, Splice, Temple Grandin, The Tillman Story, The Town, White Material, Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?, You Don't Know Jack, Youth in Revolt

GUILTY PLEASURES: Death at a Funeral, Hot Tub Time Machine, Monsters, Multiple Sarcasms, Salt, Stone 

My 10 favorite classics I saw for the first time in 2010: A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger, 46); Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2003); Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins, 74); Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today (Stuart Schulberg, 48); Nights and Weekends (Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig, 2008); Disneyland Dream (Robbins Barstow, 56); Catalog (John Whitney Sr., 61); Our Day (Wallace Kelly, 38); Hausu (Nobuhiko Ohbayashi, 77); Deep End (Jerry Skolimowski, 70) 

Best Picture: The Social Network
Best Director: David Fincher -- The Social Network
Best Actor: Colin Firth -- The King's Speech
Best Actress: Lesley Manville - Another Year
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale -- The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress: Greta Gerwig -- Greenberg
Best Original Screenplay: Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh -- Greenberg
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin -- The Social Network
Best Cinematography: Grieg Fraser -- Let Me In
Best Production Design: Eve Stewart -- The King's Speech
Best Costume Design: Jenny Beavan -- The King's Speech
Best Editing: Lee Smith -- Inception
Best Sound: Black Swan
Best Special Effects: Inception 
Best Music Score: Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, The Social Network
Best Thriller: Frozen
Best Comedy: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
Best Documentary: Inside Job
Best Animation: The Illusionist
Best Action Film: Inception 
Best Entertainment: The Social Network
Most Promising Director: Matt Reeves -- Let Me In
Most Promising Actor: Andrew Garfield -- The Social Network and Never Let Me Go
Most Promising Actress: Greta Gerwig -- Greenberg
Most Underrated Films: My Dog Tulip and Easy A
Most Neglected Films: Greenberg, Let Me In, and Never Let Me Go
Most Imaginative Film: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
Best Re-Discovery: The Outsiders (director's cut)

MOST OVERRATED MOVIES OF THE YEAR: 127 Hours, Toy Story 3, Animal Kingdom, Get Low, Gasland
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS: Shutter Island and Nowhere Boy
WORST MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR: Kick  Ass, Unstoppable, and Macgruber
WORST STUDIO FILMS I DIDN'T SEE IN 2010: Alice in Wonderland, The Last Airbender, and Sex and the City 2
WORST INDIE FILMS I DIDN'T SEE IN 2010: The Human Centipede and Babies

PERSONAL HIGHS THIS YEAR: Getting to meet my favorite filmmaker in the world, Mike Leigh, after watching his newest, Another Year, at the New York Film Festival (and meeting a lot of my film blogging colleagues there, to boot). Also, getting to sit a couple hours with Player Hating: A Love Story and War Zone filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh West. Having my 150 Best Movie Endings article twittered about by Roger Ebert in May. Being given, as a token of friendship, my first personal film print of a movie I love, Thanksgiving, by its writer/director Alex R. Johnson. And last but not least, participating in the Movie Geeks United podcast and hitting more than 160,000 hits on filmicability!

BEST MOVIE-WATCHING EVENT OF THE YEAR: Seeing some amazing experimental Super 8mm, 16mm, and video work at the Millenium Film Workshop's monthly first come, first serve "show your own movie" show, along with my friend, celebrated documentarian Richard Sandler (who did The Gods of Times Square and, most recently, the 8mm footage for Winter's Bone; he was unspooling for the first time his newest experimental work, Forever and Sunsmell, based on the piece by John Cage and the poem by e.e. cummings). Saw some incredible work: a piece on food modification by Lily White and an absolutely astounding piece of 70s-era NYC pixilation by a man who introduced himself only as "Mr. E". Seeing all of this in the East Village's historic Millenium, where Stan Brakhage attended many a premiere, was overwhelming!

The Top 40 Movies of 2010

Not many movie years out there like this one. It started off extremely slow, but once the summer was half over, it felt like it was going to be a landmark year for cinema. There were a few disappointments, but overall, there were lots of breathtaking pieces, and a shocking number of them were about REAL PEOPLE and REAL EVENTS! 2010 gave us a hefty package of comedy, drama, action, spectacle, and mystery, and I haven't even seen everything out there (as usual on filmicability, these lists are a work-in-progress, changing as I see new things). Anyway, with only a picture and a 15-word review limit for each title, here are my choices for the best movies of the year:


1) Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)
Doing nothing takes a lot of effort. Performance of the year: Greta Gerwig.


2) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apiachapong Weerasethakul)
Sunken jewels, red-eyed ghosts, a talking catfish, a life passed, and temporal shifts.


3) Another Year (Mike Leigh)
Passage into middle age, with a great filmmaker's coterie of MVPs.


4) The Social Network (David Fincher)
Being social while in a bubble of his own.


5) The Fighter (David O. Russell)
An old story made anew by a top-flight acting ensemble under crisp direction.


6) Inside Job (Charles Ferguson)
How the mess we're in happened.


7) Inception (Christopher Nolan)
Time, dreams and movement vivisected. The visual experience of 2010.


8) Boxing Gym (Frederick Wiseman)
Punches thrown and footwork nailed in a spot full of heart.


9) Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Edgar Wright)
Put your quarter in and see if you can love again.


10) The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
What we're up against if we want to get to the truth.


11) The King's Speech (Tom Hooper)
A leader finds a voice in a brilliant piece of old-time entertainment.


12) Please Give (Nicole Holofcener)
NYC upper-class guilt gets a workout.


13) The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Chodolenko)
The comedy of the year, the likes of which we rarely see.


14) Mother and Child (Rodrigo Garcia)
Conception and choices made in regret and hope.


15) Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
Perhaps the year's most chance-taking picture. Portman and Kunis spar for top billing.


16) Silent Souls (Aleksei Fedorchenko)
Incredible cinematography adorns this haunting piece from Russia.


17) Frozen (Adam Green)
Real tension, literally, found in icy climbs.


18) Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean)
A marriage's dissolution, told straightforwardly.


19) A Letter to Elia (Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones)
The fan letter we'd all like to compose for our filmmaking idols.


20) Aurora (Cristi Puiu)
What is this man up to?


21) Carlos (Oliver Assayas)
Gangster or freedom-fighter? You decide...


22) My Dog Tulip (Paul and Sandra Fierlinger)
The best animated film of 2010, about a subject that needs to be plumbed more.


23) The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica)
Such opulence, and so poorly spent.


24) Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (Dean Flischer-Camp and Jenny Slate)
The most addictive film of the year: I've seen it fifty times, at least.


25) Youth in Revolt (Miguel Arteta)
Michael Cera can keep his schtick going for a while, given this and Scott Pilgrim.



26) Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy)
Is this a joke? God, I hope it is.


27) Certified Copy (Abbas Kierostami)
Edward Albee and Richard Licklater meet in a mash-up.


28) Dogtooth (Giorgos Lanthimos)
From Greece, what might be the most difficult, but original, film of 2010.


29) I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino)
Pure gorgiosity.


30) Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
Not as good as Part 2, but even lesser Pixar can make a year-end list.


31) You Don't Know Jack (Barry Levinson)
Al Pacino returns to form with one of his finest showings in a decade.


32) Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)
Saying hello to a new acting presence: Jennifer Lawrence.


33) Four Lions (Christopher Morris)
Didn't know terrorism could be so funny, did ya?


34) Animal Kingdom (David Michôd)
A crime family, and a loving mother.


35) Multiple Sarcasms (Brooks Branch)
A 70s-flavored character study, with stupendous acting by all.


36) Temple Grandin (Mick Jackson)
A great mind finds her place in the world.


37) Monsters (Gareth Edwards)
District 9 done right.


38) Hot Tub Time Machine (Steve Pink)
The oldsters put up a fight.


39) Splice (Vincenzo Natali)
Somewhere Mr. Cronenberg is smiling...


40) Leaves of Grass (Tim Blake Nelson)
Edward Norton delivers a terrific double-time comic performance.


SPECIAL MENTION: A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
Seen by most in 2010, this would be near the top of the list if I hadn't seen it last year. One of the greatest gangster/prison pictures ever made.


MOST OVERRATED MOVIE OF THE YEAR: 127 Hours
WORST MOVIE I SAW THIS YEAR: Year One
WORST STUDIO FILM I DIDN'T SEE IN 2010: Alice in Wonderland
WORST INDIE FILM I DIDN'T SEE IN 2010: The Human Centipede

More individual awards to be seen at the turn of the year. 2011 is gonna rock. Best year ever. And I hope you agree. Have a happy one--glad to be back, myself.