Best of the decade: films
Here we are, folks; the end of an era. The past decade has been an interesting one for movies. In making the difficult decision of which films to put in my top five, it came down to a few crucial criteria: the film should be compelling and emotionally affective in some way, it should be bolstered by great writing, directing, and acting, and it should also be highly re-watchable, I should look forward to watching it time and time again. Choosing just five films still wasn’t an easy task, but with those criteria in mind, I came up with a list that (I think) I’m pretty happy with, so hopefully you’re inspired to go and watch some of them (if you haven’t already). Anyway, here’s to the next ten years in cinema. May they be just as great as the ten that came before!
5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
I almost didn’t put Christopher McQuarrie’s 2018 flick Mission: Impossible – Fallout on my list. I worried that, being simply the latest installation in an action franchise, it somehow wasn’t worthy of the praise. But upon returning to the film, I was reminded of how thrilling, unrelenting, and downright entertaining it is. I’ve spoken before about our reluctance as a culture to bestow praise on the rom-com genre, and I suspect it’s a bit the same with action. When films aren’t ‘dark’ or ‘poignant’ or any of those other buzzwords which we bestow upon great cinema, then we seem to exclude them from the conversation. This time, I’m putting my foot down. Sure, the formula is more or less the same as ever, as we follow IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team in a race against time, but the execution is entirely innovative, supported by mercilessly violent fistfights in a nightclub bathroom and riveting motorcycle chases through Paris (oh, and a lot of Cruise running). Mission: Impossible – Fallout is both a perfect follow-up to the film before it, and an exciting glimpse into where the franchise might go from here. The answer, it seems, is everywhere.
4. Interstellar
2014 was a big year for Matthew McConaughey. It marked the beginning of the ‘McConaissance’, when he chose to set aside his heartthrob persona in exchange for more versatile pursuits. This shift in McConaughey’s style is evident in Christopher Nolan’s 2014 sci-fi drama Interstellar, in which he stars as Coop, an astronaut-turned-farmer who is brought out of retirement and enlisted to travel, alongside a team of other astronauts (including Anne Hathaway) into space on a mission to save earth. The film is further brought to life by the cinematography of Hoyte van Hoytema, whose masterful vision invites us to behold both the terrors ‘out there’ and the terrors at home. It’s a sci-fi film, yes, but it’s also Nolan at his most emotionally resonant. Interstellar is grand yet deeply introspective, existential yet grounded in those salient things which make us human: love, connection, hope, and fear.
3. La La Land
Generally speaking, I don’t love musicals, but Damien Chazelle’s 2016 La La Land is different. I don’t just mean it seems different to me personally; I mean Chazelle, with the assistance of composer Justin Hurwitz, purposefully crafted a musical that is stripped away of the usual flare and pizazz that you might find in West Side Story or Singing in the Rain. Don’t get me wrong, those films are in there, but Chazelle has re-purposed them to create something that’s new yet infused with nostalgia, as we’re invited to partake in his bittersweet love letter to the Golden Age of Los Angeles. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are enchanting as the two leads, Mia and Sebastian, and while they’re (quite deliberately) better at acting than singing and dancing, it’s the occasional wobbly voices and uncertain movements that gives the film its charm. La La Land is ultimately centred around the age-old tension between ambition and love, as Mia and Sebastian are forced to reckon with their commitment to their art and to each other. It’s real and it’s uncomfortable, but the film’s heartbreak has a focus and, what’s more, it stays with you: every note, every look, lingers long after the credits have rolled. I can’t ask for more than that.
2. Call Me By Your Name
Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 coming-of-age romance Call Me By Your Name marked a new achievement in the brief annals of mainstream queer cinema. Set in Northern Italy in 1983, the film chronicles the blossoming relationship between seventeen-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), the bold, brash, American youth who comes to spend the summer working for Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg). Seeing Call Me By Your Name was, for me, one of those rare cinema experiences where time loses all meaning: so absorbed was I with what was on the screen, that I could scarcely breathe. Part of this can be attributed to the film’s visual nostalgia, as Guadagnino captures the feeling of a long, hot summer: fresh apricots in the orchard, a glistening lake, a well-worn villa, and an endless expanse of Italian countryside. But the film is also aided by deftly crafted characters brought to life by outstanding performances (Chalamet and Stuhlbarg are particularly notable), as Guadagnino offers us an insight into a teenager’s sexual and emotional awakening. Call Me By Your Name is many things: it’s tantalising, lyrical, poignant, and entirely overwhelming. Most of all, it's a timeless depiction of a love that’s impulsive and confounding, but also fragile and melancholic, leaving you irreversibly changed.
1. Sicario
In the past ten years, few films have affected me more than 2015 drama-thriller Sicario. And, really, it’s no surprise, given that the film is directed by the acclaimed Denis Villeneuve, written by Taylor Sheridan, and stars Emily Blunt as a naive F.B.I agent who joins an elite U.S. government task force, helmed by Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, to address the escalating war against drugs. The film is immeasurably aided by Roger Deakins’ cinematography, which helps to create the visceral menace of the lawless border area between the U.S. and Mexico where the film takes place. What's more, Villeneuve places the viewer right at the centre of the experience, and Sicario has that rare quality of being both an intricately-layered episodic feat, and an uncomplicated cops-and-robbers tale. It all depends on what you, the viewer, want it to be. At a macro level, it is an entirely atmospheric film, bolstered by riveting action and immersive brutality, but on a micro level, it’s driven by morally ambiguous hero figures as they grapple with one of humanity’s most fraught questions: which side am I on?