29. High Life - It poses as a science fiction film, but really it's a philosophical film. It's a story about letting go of everything you once thought you knew and descending into the abyss of the unknown.
28. A Seperation - Quite possibly the best movie I've ever seen about divorce but also about family in general. It's as intense as it is meditative. An acting masterclass by all the actors involved. The characters are not good nor bad, not to be rooted for or jeered on, instead they are as flawed and nuanced as real life can present.
27. Sinister – We all have to face one thing. Bagul was the horror monster of the decade. And strangely enough this decade was a sort of new renaissance in great horror movies. So it’s even stranger that I must admit that there were many horror movies better than this one. But the truth is, this decade badly needed a memorable monster. The creepy nun and doll were okay, but those movies were not as good as this one. The twists are great and Bagul is actually pretty darn scary. Not really his appearance, but his motives and methods. It was one of the few movies that gave me the heebie jeebies both times I watched it.
26. Birds of Passage – There are whole tribes disappearing in the name of profit. But very few of them get to tell their story. And the stories they tell should be an omen to us all.
25. Wolf of Wall Street – I watched this movie twice. The first time I ended up intoxicated and the second time I ended up intoxicated. This movie is like a cocktail, I mean literally I can’t avoid drinking a cocktail while watching this. It is the ultimate “good times” capitalism critique possibly ever made. It is the story of the American dream, and why it is all a lie. But like selling something as ordinary as a pen, you have to believe it is extraordinary to sell it.
24. Upstream Color - If the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t revealed it enough, we should someday realize that we are all connected. This film is both poetic yet coldly calculated as if some science experiment. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.
23. Portrait of a Lady on Fire – Some sites list this as a 2020 film but it came out in Cannes film festival back in May 2019 and has been showing across the world in countless festivals the whole rest of the year including a December limited release. So I’m counting it damn it. Do I really have to say much? This movie literally feels like a painting and it is of course an absolute pleasure to marvel at.
22. Pariah – Very much the precursor of Moonlight. This one is more subtle and modest but it drives the message home beautifully. A great story of female oppression and the ultimate sacrifice of accepting that one may never be accepted
21. Moonlight - Because men are oppressed damn it! Most people like to think of this movie as a love story, but I always thought of it as a critique of male culture. It is a story about oppression and about how men cannot be who they are for perhaps most of their lives.
20. Hard to be a God - This movie really challenged me. It’s as confusing as it is grotesque. It is three hours long too. Yet it is one of the biggest cinematic accomplishments in the whole decade. This movie made me re-think how to shoot certain scenes and has opened my mind to how a film can move that I never knew before.
19. Zama – Brilliant fever dream of Spanish colonial life in the Americas. Most films on colonialism stylistically take on the narrative of a stranger in a strange place. This story is more like a strange man in a strange place. It is Kafkaesque in its satire of colonial bureaucracy.
18. Prometheus / Alien Covenant – I consider them both one movie. A lot of great science fiction films this decade. Every year there was a great one. But for some reason Prometheus / Alien Covenant resonated with me the most. What better story than the one about humanity looking for their creator and a robot who wants to know his purpose in life. It’s the only science fiction movie that has me wanting more, and when I mean more, I mean much more.
17. The Raid: Redemption – Martial arts film of the decade. This one sparked a fire into the martial arts world and introduced to the mainstream the best ensemble martial arts filmmaking team of the decade. Action choreography doesn’t get much better than this.
16. 13 Assassins – This is perhaps my favorite Takashi Miike movie and he has made a lot. I have never had a better time seeing so much blood shed than with this masterpiece remake. From the lines, to the set up, to the beautiful shots and a story more relevant to current times than one might think. This film not only channeled the greatness of golden age Japanese cinema, but sparked the magic of classic Hollywood as well.
15. The Wailing – Let’s face it, this was the best horror movie of the decade. I watched it twice and both times I was perplexed by its overall weirdness and absurd turn of events. One of the few movies that left me both scared and confused. It is a great skill in filmmaking to suspend your imagination of the supernatural even if for just a moment after the film ends.
14. Roma – Mexico is both a wonderful and stark place at once. I should know because I used to visit every year to see family. One moment you’re in paradise with loved ones, then the next moment death is near. This story really paints the country very well and the overall feeling of what is Mexico. The country is acceptance and rejection, death and rebirth. Only in rejection can you be accepted and only in death can you be reborn.
13. Shoplifters - Neorealism at its best. Very similar to Parasite but much more grounded in the subtleness of living in poverty. What is family? The answer is in this modest yet powerful story.
12. Parasite – What more can I say about the movie phenomenon of 2019? It’s dark comedy, melodrama, suspense thriller, magical realism, part mission impossible set piece and a political critique on capitalism and Korean class struggle all rolled into one.
11. The Last Black Man in San Francisco – Not belonging is a hard feeling to explain and it’s an even harder fact to accept. This is poetic cinema. Amongst all the great histories and great cities of the United States, there are still many upon many who may have never been welcomed in its richness, no matter how long we’ve come to know the place.
10. Burning – My second favorite film of 2018. This movie really stuck with me in more ways than I can count. Every scene is meticulously laced with symbolism and meaning. It’s about so many things at once yet it is so limited and restricted to slow meditative shots. Masterfully directed and perhaps a worldly cautionary tale.
9. Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice – This was the blockbuster movie event of the decade for me. I’ve waited all my life for Batman to come face to face with the man of steel. But like all destinies, you must expect the unexpected. I did not expect a movie about Batman and Superman to be about destiny or to be metaphysical. To talk so deeply about what makes us human or how we give so much purpose to one name… a name is all we need to awaken our purpose in life. And that name is….
8. The House That Jack Built - This was my personal favorite of 2018. Incredible directing by Von Trier, and I argue it is one of his best. The symbolism is beautiful and it is an incredibly dark but funny parable. Evil is not simply racism, sexism or any of that, it is a person who thinks they are brilliantly special but they are not, and typically those guys encompass all of those things without even knowing it. It’s basically a movie about every guy I hate.
7. Timbuktu – Outstanding look into a city changing in Africa. From the invisible soccer scene, to the beautiful music played by its citizens, to the heartbreaking death scenes, it’s just a perfect movie.
6. The Perfect Dictatorship – This was comedy movie of the decade for me. I fell in love with Luis Estrada’s wit and vividly stark humor with El Infierno. But The Perfect Dictatorship appears to be Estrada’s masterpiece. From the cleverly inserted Beethoven selection, to the hysterical dialogue and every scene that does not skip a beat, this is the perfect dark comedy. The blueprint of Mexico’s manufacturing of consent.
5. Mad Max: Fury Road – Action movie of the decade, perhaps of the millennium. George Miller deserved best director that year by a million miles over everybody. Sadly his brilliant return to the mad world of Max was not fully appreciated. Its release was trampled by Pitch Perfect 2, because you know singing n stuff. Thankfully, Max will return again. But this time we should all bow down and pay the man his dues.
4. The Turin Horse – Simultaneously one of the most challenging movies as well as one of the most easy to watch films I’ve ever seen. Looking into it is like looking into life itself. It’s about nihilism, about meaning, and perhaps a great study on Sisyphus as well. Beautifully shot, sound production is incredible and it’s the last swan song from one of the great master directors.
3. Embrace the Serpent – Into the abyss, into the light. What a marvelous film. If any movie reaffirmed my belief in the afterlife, it is this one. Humanity’s hunger to make a perfect world is eternal. That is because the perfect world already exists; it’s the nature that feeds us. To enter this perfect world we must forever embrace the serpent.
2. Only God Forgives – This is Refn’s masterpiece. It is cinematically perfect. It is a reflection on humanity. Why can’t humanity ever forgive itself? Why must we live in a land of revenge, law and punishment? The answer… is that Only God Forgives and our only sin is that we can never forgive.
1. Inception – Because life is a dream. And the movies we watch are a dream within a dream. And our dreams are the limbo that Cobb is forever stuck in. It’s a clear homage to filmmaking in general, but I argue that it is homage to life itself and trying to make sense of it all. Without a shadow of a doubt this is Nolan’s masterpiece and the greatest experience of cinema I dreamed of this decade.
