Every Best Picture Nominee of the 2010's Ranked: #65-69

Scene from American Sniper

As 2019 reached its end, another decade of cinema had passed. It's amazing to think about how things have evolved since 2010 when the biggest controversies were about recognizing genre movies. Things look different now, especially as genre films like The Shape of Water and Parasite are winning Best Picture and the voting body looks incredibly different with each passing year. With this period in the books, it feels like a good time to celebrate their accomplishments by ranking all 88 titles nominated for Best Picture from worst to best with the goal of seeing which films are more likely to stand the test of time. Join me every Saturday and Sunday as I count them down, five at a time. It's going to be a fun summer looking back on what was, especially as we prepare for the decade ahead and an even more interesting diversity that we haven't even begun to think of.

69. Les Miserables (2012) – Dir. Tom Hooper

There will be those who rank this near the bottom for a variety of valid reasons. For starters, this film feels like a fluke when compared to Hooper’s next musical Cats. Where having unprofessional singers perform live clash with an editing style that has been notoriously lampooned. It’s a mess of an adaptation when compared to the masterpiece of the Broadway version. With that said, there is still an audacity to it that is endearing to those willing to embrace its flaws, see into the personal aesthetic that Hooper was laying down. It may not be the version we need, but it’s a decent placeholder until a better remake comes along in a few decades. 

68. Lincoln (2012) – Dir. Steven Spielberg

As far as presidential biopics go, none have been this jam-packed with recognizable faces in minor roles. Who wouldn’t want to be in this film, featuring Spielberg at his most dramatically tight, working off of a script by the maestro Tony Kushner, and featuring an Oscar-winning turn by Daniel Day-Lewis? The legendary method actor was so convincing as Abraham Lincoln that many co-stars believed that they were talking to the man himself. The quiet performance was radical, reflective of the version described in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography. As a result, it shows democracy as a push-and-pull effort, where society doesn’t change for the better overnight. It takes effort, and those who love a good negotiation movie rarely get better than this.

67. American Sniper (2014) – Dir. Clint Eastwood

The conversation around this film became a nightmare in 2015 following its wide release. It wasn’t just the infamous fake baby that Bradley Cooper carried around. It was the morality placed inside Cooper’s Chris Kyle, who was portrayed as a war hero despite having a less than stellar real-life story full of xenophobic comments. It’s among the most divisive films, creating one of the most heated discussions about modern warfare that has as much good to say about P.T.S.D. as it does arming unstable men. By the end, you understand what Eastwood was going for, but how willing you are to accept his message will depend on your level of overt-patriotism.

66. The Kids Are All Right (2010) – Dir. Lisa Cholodenko

There is something amazing about this lesbian drama coming out just years after California's Prop 8. In a time where gay marriage was still not legal, it managed to portray a relationship in such a mundane way that it stopped being taboo. Instead, it chose to debunk the myth that straight kids can’t live normal lives with gay parents, finding new ways to update the tropes of youthful rebellion as an exploration of parental discovery adds wrinkles to their comfortable lives. It’s a charming film, and one with plenty of emotional impacts, showing that we were getting closer to the crossroads, where queer cinema could be accepted for being art without having a single martyr character in the cast. There was nothing dour about this film. In fact, it was one of the most feel-good films of 2010.

65. Captain Phillips (2013) – Dir. Paul Greengrass

There will be endless papers written in years to come about how The Academy did Tom Hanks a disservice for his work in this film. Among a late-career resurgence as the everyman that you can’t help but root for, this story about being hijacked at sea by Somalian pirates creates one of the tensest rescue missions of the decade. Along with a career-making performance by Barkhad Abdi (“I’m the captain now!”), it’s an abrasive journey that saves the best beats for last. What Hanks does in the final 10 minutes of this movie remains some of his most heartbreaking, captivating moments as an actor. While you can excuse The Academy overlooking every other performance of his, it becomes increasingly unclear why Captain Phillips remained ignored given how singular it is in his bigger career.