If you asked me in 2010 which studios’ films would be amongst my favorites over the next ten years, I probably would have answered two correctly: Fox Searchlight (11) and Sony Pictures Classics (7). Those are two independent shingles of big Hollywood names that have been pumping out quality pictures for decades. Next up would have been The Weinstein Company (5), Warner Bros. (4), Paramount (4), Universal (4), and Sony Pictures (3) because they were cinema. So why are they barely beating those other two combined? Because the game changed.
A24 (9) hit the scene in 2012 and bet big on artists. Drafthouse Films (3) bowed in 2010 before evolving to Neon (3) in 2017. Magnolia (6), IFC Films (5), and Oscilloscope (3) kept growing. And the streamers arrived with Amazon (4), Netflix (2), and Hulu (1) providing top-tier content.
It’s only going to get wilder as the behemoth that is Disney/Fox unveils its strategy while A24, Neon, and the like continue to fill the void Weinstein has left. I hope it all becomes even more chaotic than it already is because it means money will be thrown at filmmakers of all genders, sexuality, and backgrounds to bring audiences unique visions unlike any we’ve seen before. More competition is never a bad thing (especially when the likes of Disney continue seeking to destroy it).
Until then, however, here are the 100 films (in alphabetical order) that left their mark on me the past ten years. I cheated a bit by simply compiling all my revised Top 10s together, but the margin of error between a #8 selection and a #15 is so small that having a built-in cutoff didn’t sacrifice much (while saving me increased levels of stress whittling things down). I’m pretty happy with the mix. And if you’re desperate to know what my #1 is … just look at the header image. (It’s Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight.)
Au revoir, 2010s.

12 Years a Slave

2013 | Steve McQueen | Fox Searchlight Pictures

50/50

2011 | Jonathan Levine | Summit Entertainment

The Act of Killing

2012 | Joshua Oppenheimer | Drafthouse Films

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

2013 | David Lowery | IFC Films

American Animals

2018 | Bart Layton | The Orchard

Aniara

2019 | Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja | Magnolia Pictures

Arrival

2016 | Denis Villeneuve | Paramount Pictures

Beasts of the Southern Wild

2012 | Benh Zeitlin | Fox Searchlight Pictures

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

2014 | Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Fox Searchlight Pictures

Black Swan

2010 | Darren Aronofsky | Fox Searchlight Pictures

Blue Valentine

2010 | Derek Cianfrance | The Weinstein Company

Call Me By Your Name

2017 | Luca Guadagnino | Sony Pictures Classics

Calvary

2014 | John Michael McDonagh | Fox Searchlight Pictures

Carlos

2010 | Olivier Assayas | IFC Films

Carol

2015 | Todd Haynes | The Weinstein Company

Cloud Atlas

2012 | Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski | Warner Bros.

Coherence

2014 | James Ward Byrkit | Oscilloscope

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

2015 | Marielle Heller | Sony Pictures Classics

Dunkirk

2017 | Christopher Nolan | Warner Bros.

Enemy

2014 | Denis Villeneuve | A24

Ex Machina

2015 | Alex Garland | A24

The Farewell

2019 | Lulu Wang | A24

The Fighter

2010 | David O. Russell | Paramount Pictures

First Man

2018 | Damien Chazelle | Universal Pictures

For Sama

2019 | Waad Al-Kateab & Edward Watts | PBS









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