As the most recent decade has come to an end, the 2010s feel more distant every day. It might not be far back enough to give it a broad definition or to designate it as a decade where a certain type of movie was at its most popular, but it is possible to look back on it and celebrate the best of what it had to offer, cinematically.
Letterboxd makes such a thing particularly easy to do, thanks to the fact that it allows one to see what its users collectively voted as the highest-rated movie of each year. The following shows the most-favored film of every year in the decade according to the site’s users, starting with 2010 and ending with 2019.
10 ‘Incendies’ (2010)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.4/5
Denis Villeneuve may have achieved a higher level of fame in the years since 2010, but there’s an argument to be made that the film he released that year, Incendies, is still his best. Its scale is smaller than his more recent blockbusters like Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, but it’s still just as impressive as those, functioning efficiently as a very dark and intense psychological drama/mystery movie.
It sees a pair of twins going on a harrowing journey of self-discovery in the wake of their mother’s death, and while it’s a slow and not-at-all-easy watch, it is gripping. It wasn’t Villeneuve’s debut film, but it was his first great one and deservedly started to get the Canadian filmmaker more attention on an international scale.
9 ‘A Separation’ (2011)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.4/5
Speaking of difficult movies about family drama, A Separation has a similarly strong Letterboxd rating to Incendies and stands as 2011’s highest-rated feature film on the site. It follows what happens to a middle-class Iranian family in the wake of a couple separating, it leading to great hardships and tension between three generations within the family unit.
Letterboxd users do seem to enjoy sunnier films sometimes, but given life has its ups and downs for everyone, perhaps it’s inevitable that well-made and bleak character dramas are going to be beloved also. A Separation certainly can’t be called feel-good by any means, but it’s well-assembled and excellently acted, exploring its tense subject matter with care, restraint, and empathy.
8 ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ (2012)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.4/5
There are plenty of movies that help disprove the idea that animation is just for kids, but few do so quite as effectively as It’s Such a Beautiful Day. This is an odd, sad, confronting, and surprisingly beautiful film, running just over an hour yet achieving so much in that time, exploring the lonely life of a man named Bill as he questions the purpose of living while grappling with a potentially terminal illness.
It’s both intimate in story yet expansive in the things it explores thematically, all presented with uniquely minimalist animation and an odd sense of humor that perfectly complements the darker aspects of the film. It’s a singular experience that might not be for everyone, but it is generally for Letterboxd users, at least, judging by how celebrated it is on the site.
7 ‘Prisoners’ (2013)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.3/5
Three years after the release of Incendies, Denis Villeneuve returned to the big screen with a vengeance, putting out two movies in 2013. Both starred Jake Gyllenhaal and had one-word titles, but were otherwise quite different, with Enemy being an arguably experimental psychological thriller and Prisonersbeing a more conventional (yet still somewhat challenging) crime/thriller.
It’s understandable why Prisoners has the better reception on Letterboxd, given it’s more accessible and all, but both films are interesting in their own ways. Prisoners deals with two young girls going missing and the extremes one of their fathers (Hugh Jackman) goes to to find them. It’s stomach-churning and challenging but always engrossing, benefiting from distinctly moody visuals and some very passionate performances by its talented cast.
6 ‘Whiplash’ (2014)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.4/5
Fans of the HBO show Oz will have already been aware of how terrifying J.K. Simmons could be on-screen, but those who hadn’t seen that boundary-pushing prison drama would’ve likely been made aware of this come the release of Whiplash. Simmons’s complex and menacing performance here helps make Whiplash as great as it is, with the film exploring how far one ambitious young drummer is willing to go to achieve perfection.
The drummer is played by Miles Teller, with Simmons being his intense and uncompromising instructor, Terence Fletcher. The film is about them continually clashing, with intensity building throughout, cleverly never being obvious regarding when a line is crossed in the pursuit of brilliance. It’s accessible and open-ended, the former quality making it thrilling and the latter quality making it hard to stop thinking about.
5 ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.2/5
A brutal, explosive, and relentless action movie, Mad Max: Fury Road might be up there with the most exciting and visually spectacular releases of the 2010s. Anticipation was high for a fourth Mad Max movie, especially because it was being helmed by George Miller, who’s been the sole director of the long-running series so far… and even then, Fury Road exceeded expectations and then some.
Much of it plays out like a feature-length car chase across the desert, seeing the titular character (now played by Tom Hardy) get wrapped up in the escape attempt of a group of women (led by Charlize Theron’s character, Furiosa) from a fearsome ruler and his army. It’s everything a great action movie should be, and it genuinely pushed the genre forward in ways not too often seen.
4 ‘The Handmaiden’ (2016)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.4/5
Though The Handmaiden is dark and filled with twists like many of Park Chan-wook’s best-known films, it does ultimately stand out for being more romantic than many of the director’s past works. It follows two swindlers targeting a wealthy heiress, only for one of them to develop unexpected feelings for her during their attempted swindle.
To say too much more about the plot would feel sacrilegious, but it does also have a great deal to offer beyond its story, with great performances, memorable characters, and beautiful visuals. It’s deliberately paced but never boring and already feels like the kind of movie that will age gracefully in the years – probably even decades – to come.
3 ‘Paddington 2’ (2017)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.2/5
While the first Paddingtonmovie from 2014 was very well-received across the board, its 2017 sequel proved to be even more beloved. Paddington 2 was a critical hit and surprisingly good, all things considered, following the titular character after being framed for a crime and then imprisoned, leading to a daring escape attempt and an entertaining quest to prove his innocence.
It’s an admittedly difficult movie to dislike, with it being just as highly praised on Letterboxd as it was on various other sites across the internet. Time will tell whether the third movie manages to somehow improve upon it, but for now, it remains one of the greatest sequels in recent memory and an undeniably charming film for all ages.
2 ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ (2018)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.4/5
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is undeniably a film that helped popularize the multiverse as a concept in fiction, with its plot seeing Miles Morales become an unlikely version of Spider-Man while also meeting other Spider-People from other dimensions. As far as exploring the idea of a multiverse goes, perhaps only the Best Picture-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once has done it, as well as this 2018 animated film.
Its animation is stunning, its narrative is both heartfelt and hilarious, and it might well be about as good a superhero origin story as cinema’s ever seen. It’s easily up there with the greatest animated movies of the 21st century so far, and easily earns its title as Letterboxd’s favorite film of 2018, too.
1 ‘Parasite’ (2019)
Letterboxd Rating: 4.6/5
Bong Joon-ho had made numerous great movies throughout the 2000s and 2010s, but he still managed to top them all with 2019’s Parasite. If you didn’t know about the South Korean filmmaker before Parasite, you certainly did afterward, with the film being a critical and commercial success and eventually being the biggest Oscar winner of its year (its accolades included a much-deserved win for Best Picture).
It’s a movie about class conflict, with a story that starts funny and gradually becomes darker and more upsetting as it goes along, showing two families with different amounts of power and wealth all being crushed under capitalism and the way it makes society function. It’s a socially conscious movie in a way that never feels preachy, being equal parts thought-provoking and riotously entertaining.
