Top 10 Favorite Movies of the 2010s
We have made it to the final top 10 of the decade list in this series. Where each month I did a different top 10 list from the 1980s-2010s. And this was the hardest list to make because this is the main decade I grew up with, so of all of the decades. By far the hardest one.
Honorable Mentions:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Toy Story 3
Guardians of the Galaxy
Gone Girl
The Avengers
Toy Story 4
Ford v Ferrari
Furious 7
Big Hero 6
The Dark Knight Rises
10. Captain America the Winter Soldier: If you go on the internet you can find a bunch of people that would say that this movie is the best MCU movie or one of the best MCU movies. And I think that this movie is one of the best crafted and made MCU movies. This is the political spy thriller of the MCU and this movie has all of the twists and turns that you want from this type of movie. One a choreography level that has the best fights in the MCU, the elevator fight scene is fantastic and the high-way battle with the Winter Soldier is also really great. This movie also changed the trajectory of the MCU and it’s revealed that SHIELD is actually Hydra which nobody saw coming but it made for this interesting threat in this movie. The movie can also have some nice emotional weight as you move into the third act and you have the final fight between Steve and Bucky and it’s one of the more emotional third acts in the MCU. This movie has everything heart, action, and twists. This is a fantastic movie.
9. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens: Unpopular opinion, but behind the Empire Strikes Back this is my favorite Star Wars movie. Maybe it’s because this was the first Star Wars movie I saw on the big screen so I have some nostalgia for it. But this is a movie that I think is a lot of fun and provides what I want from a Star Wars movie. Right off the bat, it’s a lot of fun to see Han, Leia, and Chewie return for this movie. And I think this is Harrison Ford’s best performance as the character where we see an aged Han Solo that has learned his lesson about the force. The new characters with Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren don’t feel like copies of the other characters and each bring something different to this trilogy. Finn has this likeable charm about him, Poe is similar to Han Solo with him being a bit hot headed. I think this movie has some great moments with the death of a character, escape from Jakku, and the final fight between Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren. A movie that I think does a lot of things really well and makes for one of my favorite Star Wars movies.
8. The LEGO Movie: One of the most fun and rewatchable movies of the 2010s, that I have so much nostalgia with seeing this movie FOUR times in theaters. For the first month this movie came out, I convinced a family member to take me to see it. And this is a movie that after seeing it about a half billion times it is still super fun and funny. This was one of Chris Pratt’s first big movies. 2014 of the year of Chris Pratt and this and Guardians of the Galaxy came out. Emmett, Wyldstyle, Batman, Benny, Bad Cop, and so many other characters make for a great batch of characters. The animation style that they went with is so unique and different that I think this one of the best animated movies of all time. The humor is on point, and they make fun of the different characters and the fourth wall humor works. But the heart in this movie once you move into the third act is a lot more emotional than you might think and it grounds this very silly and goofy movie. The fact that this movie didn’t get nominated let alone win best animated feature at the Oscars is still mind-blowing to me.
7. The Martian: This seems to be a movie that when it came out it was a big massive hit. But now after 5 ½ years of being out, I don’t really hear people talk about anymore. And it’s a bit of a shame because I think this movie is pretty fantastic, and does so many things really well. I’m a sucker for these types of stories with a person or a group of people getting abandoned somewhere and they are trying to escape, and I think this is the best use of that. Ridley Scott does a good job of making visually appealing movies and this one is no exception and the visuals for Mars and space look so real. The cast here is really so great, Matt Damon does such a great job of playing really smart characters, and with him and Jason Bourne it shows his talent. The movie itself can add some nice touches of humor to lighten up moments, but not feel like it’s taking away from anything. And Matt Damon helps add to these moments of humor. The rest of the cast and characters are fun and different make for a great ensemble of cast and characters. When you put the story, visuals, cast, and humor together you get one of my favorite movies of the 2010s.
6. Captain America: Civil War: You can call this Captain America 3 or call it Avengers 2.5. But either way you call it, it’s a fantastic movie that is so epic. I think the conflict between Steve and Tony makes sense and the previous MCU movies did such a great job of creating each of the characters worldviews. So when you get to this movie the worldview of the two characters is what causes the conflict, and the conflict makes a lot of sense. The third act isn’t one of the more big and epic final battles but it has the most heart. Where you have two friends fighting each other and you feel the emotional weight of that sequence. Zemo is one of the most underrated villains that I think gets overlooked because he’s in a movie that has a lot of other fantastic things. But, the airport battle is one of the best action scenes in any comic book movie and just one of the best MCU sequences or fight scenes. The sequence is like 20 minutes long and they give each character a moment to be in the spotlight. The new additions with Black Panther and Spider-Man are a lot fun, and Spider-Man adds some great humor to the movie. This is one of the best MCU movies, one of the best superhero movies, one of the best movies of the decade, and one of the best movies, period.
5. Joker: One of the more darker and best made superhero movies of all time. That didn’t take inspiration from other superhero movies but from movies like Taxi Driver and created a fantastic movie. Joaquin Phoenix gives one of the best movie performances of all time, they needed somebody who you can buy when he’s not the Joker and a scared and timid man. But you can also buy him once he turns into the Joker and his journey is pretty incredible. And we get to see Arthur’s journey from calm to madness, and we know where the story ends but we are still on the edge of your seat for the entire time. The score from Hildur Guonaitor is great and it also helps with the tension of each scene and makes you feel the danger of a given scene. Once you get to the end of the movie it makes you think what was all real because of little things that were set up earlier in the movie. So this movie stands out in a genre that I love because of its unique and tone, and the fact that it feels more like Taxi Driver than a superhero movie. This is a movie that I’ve wanted to re-watch, I only saw it once in the theater.
4. Knives Out: The teaser trailer for this movie is one of the trailers I watched the most. I was just scrolling through my YouTube feed and saw a video with Chris Evans in it. Watched it, and then watched it about 1 billion times. Each character has a different type of humor about them. Daniel Craig has a more dry sense of humor, while Chris Evans has a more sarcastic and mean spirited sense of humor. And no matter what kind of humor it was it made me laugh. This is a murder mystery that kept me guessing from beginning to the end. Each 25ish minutes there would be another twist that would make you rethink everything you saw up to that point. But through-out the movie I wasn’t putting pieces together on who did the murder. The cast here is one of the best cast in a movie. Like I said everybody delivers a different type of humor that is fun and funny. And even the way they are characized and acted helps. Chris Evans is so different from Captain America in this movie and it’s a lot of fun to see him in this movie. Daniel Craig is great as the detective. But the rest of the cast with Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, and Toni Collete all do a very good job. And the legendary Christopher Plummer may you rest in peace.
3. Parasite: If you’ve been paying attention, number 3-5 on my list have been 2019 movies. And there is one more 2019 movie on the list after this. But this is one of the most interesting movies I have ever seen. I just want to know how Bong Joon-Ho came up with the idea for this movie, and why he decided to make this movie. You hear the concept and you think “this doesn’t sound like a good movie”. But mixed with great direction and a great script you get maybe the best written and directed movie of the 2010s. It’s one that balances the tones of the movie really well. It can be a comedy, thriller, and drama but it always feels like one movie and not like three different movies. And when the big twist happens about half way through the movie (literally half way through the movie, the twist happens on the middle page of the script). It changes the trajectory of the movie but it doesn’t feel like a different movie it feels like one consistent movie from beginning to the end. If you haven’t seen this movie, go watch it and then watch videos about the symbolism. And you see and understand some things. This is easily one of the best movies of the 2010s.
2. Avengers Infinity War: The first part of the end of the Infinity Saga, and one of the biggest and most ambitious movies of all time. What I think makes this movie so far great is that time that they focused on Thanos. Since all of the other heroes already had their time to shine, Thanos was the only big character left. And they gave a lot of time for the audience to understand his plan, and it made him one of the most compelling movie villains of all time. There are some great moments that made an impact and when they happened my theater went crazy. The moment when Thor lands in Wakanda is epic and awesome, and when we first see Cap in the movie it is awesome. The little moments between Thor and the Guardians and Iron Man and Doctor Strange are some of the funniest moments in the MCU. This movie might have the greatest cliffhanger ending of all time, and didn’t end in a place that I thought it was going to. And the ending of the movie wouldn’t have happened without The Empire Strikes Back where the hero’s lost. A movie that could have failed because of all the things it was going for, but it didn’t and it lived up to the 10 years of hype.
1. Avengers Endgame: Speaking of movies that could have failed...Avengers Endgame is a good example of this. There was so much anticipation for this movie and had to land the ship where the audience felt satisfied. And I think this movie lived up the hype and landed the ship of characters arcs in a perfect way. It’s hard to imagine a third act being better than the third act of this movie. Every couple of minutes is another great moment of fan service, that when I saw this movie with a packed crowded it was awesome. And the greatest theater experience of all time. Alan Silvestri’s score is fantastic, and the music that plays during the portals sequence is the greatest piece of music of all time. I mentioned earlier but this movie closes out the story arcs of both Steve and Tony really well, and I can’t imagine them ending better than this movie. I mentioned when I was talking about Infinity War that movie was one of the most ambitious movie of all time. In my eyes, this is the most ambitious and epic movie of all time. When you put the story, characters, scores, and epicness together you get my favorite of the decade and of all time.
There you go, that is my 10 favorite movies of the 2010s. Thank you so much for reading! Remember, I did a top 10 favorite movie of the 80s, 90s, and 00s.
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