96
Parasite review
A poor family infiltrates a rich household, and the film turns into something else entirely. The staircase motif is not decoration — it is the thesis.
★★★★★ 5.0/5
2010s
The decade that rediscovered ambition
The 2010s were the decade when directors started making large films with genuine ambition again. Streaming changed the economics, the Academy broadened its membership, and for a few years it was possible to make a two-hundred-million-dollar science fiction film with almost no dialogue, and to win Best Picture with a Korean-language film about a house.
The films on this list are the ones that took those opportunities and did something specific with them rather than merely filling a release slot. It is the largest section in our collection, which reflects both the volume of work and how much of it was formally interesting. Practical action staging, structural puzzles, social horror and a musical that refuses its own genre's contract all arrive in the same ten years.
- 11Films reviewed
- 92.1Average score
- 2019Earliest here
- 2019Latest here
2010s films we have reviewed
Ordered by our score, highest first.
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96
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95
Mad Max: Fury Road review
A two-hour chase across a desert wasteland with almost no dialogue and an extraordinary amount of practical stunt work. The best action film of its de…
★★★★½ 4.9/5
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94
Inception review
A heist film with five simultaneous timelines and an emotional core about mourning. The spectacle is the delivery system; the guilt is the payload.
★★★★½ 4.8/5
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94
Whiplash review
A jazz drummer and a conductor engage in a two-hour war of attrition over whether greatness justifies cruelty. The film refuses to answer, which is wh…
★★★★½ 4.8/5
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93
The Social Network review
The founding of Facebook told as a deposition drama, with a script that treats every conversation as a battle. Fincher's most perfectly controlled fil…
★★★★½ 4.8/5
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93
Get Out review
A Black photographer visits his white girlfriend's family estate and slowly realises something is very wrong. Peele's debut is a perfectly engineered …
★★★★½ 4.8/5
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92
Interstellar review
An unusually earnest science-fiction film that treats relativity as a source of grief. When it works it is overwhelming; when it explains itself it st…
★★★★½ 4.7/5
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92
Blade Runner 2049 review
A replicant blade runner uncovers a secret that could collapse the distinction between human and manufactured. Patient, beautiful, and uninterested in…
★★★★½ 4.7/5
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91
The Grand Budapest Hotel review
A legendary concierge and his lobby boy navigate a stolen painting, a family fortune, and the collapse of Europe. Anderson's funniest and saddest film…
★★★★½ 4.7/5
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89
La La Land review
A jazz pianist and an aspiring actress fall in love in Los Angeles, and the film builds to a finale that has divided audiences since release.
★★★★½ 4.6/5
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84
Joker review
A failed comedian in a decaying Gotham slides into violence. Phoenix is extraordinary; the film around him is derivative and uncertain about what it i…
★★★★½ 4.4/5
2010s index
Year, genre, director, runtime and score.
| Film | Year | Genre | Director | Runtime | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parasite | 2019 | Thriller | Bong Joon-ho | 132 min | 96 |
| Mad Max: Fury Road | 2015 | Action | George Miller | 120 min | 95 |
| Inception | 2010 | Sci-Fi | Christopher Nolan | 148 min | 94 |
| Whiplash | 2014 | Drama | Damien Chazelle | 106 min | 94 |
| The Social Network | 2010 | Biography | David Fincher | 120 min | 93 |
| Get Out | 2017 | Horror | Jordan Peele | 104 min | 93 |
| Interstellar | 2014 | Sci-Fi | Christopher Nolan | 169 min | 92 |
| Blade Runner 2049 | 2017 | Sci-Fi | Denis Villeneuve | 164 min | 92 |
| The Grand Budapest Hotel | 2014 | Comedy | Wes Anderson | 99 min | 91 |
| La La Land | 2016 | Romance | Damien Chazelle | 128 min | 89 |
| Joker | 2019 | Drama | Todd Phillips | 122 min | 84 |
Read around the 2010s
Genre hubs explain what each category is for, and ranked lists place these films in order against each other.