Every Best Picture Nominee of the 2010's Ranked: #11-14

Scene from The Fighter (2010)

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.

14. Manchester By the Sea (2016) – Dir. Kennth Lonergan

The grieving process shouldn’t make for entertaining cinema. Then again, death hasn’t yet met an auteur of Kenneth Lonergan’s stature. What he finds in this sprawling story of a man consoling his nephew is something more personal and honest, finding room to mix depression and harrowing lows with a comedic force that is pretty biting. It all works as this defense mechanism, capable of hiding hurt underneath and waiting until total isolation to fully understand how we feel. It’s a story of guilt that treats the human condition with sensitivity, knowing that sometimes we need to laugh to keep from crying. Featuring great performances by Casey Affleck and Lucas Hedges, it’s a story that makes you think about what’s important in life, and how sometimes it’s hard to escape our past.

13. Zero Dark Thirty (2012) – Dir. Kathryn Bigelow

To put it simply, this is the most controversial Best Picture nominee this entire decade for a variety of reasons. Not only is the script now debunked as false, but painting America’s obsession with hunting down Osama bin Laden as a pro-torture hellscape doesn’t sit well with some. For all of its inaccuracies, it captures an atmosphere of uncertainty, that the United States will never be the same following 9/11. Something has permanently changed inside and the inability to let go will hurt more than help. What happens when the cat and mouse come to an end? Will there be any big celebration, or will we all have a hollowness inside that keeps us from ever being satisfies? Bigelow tackles hard questions with unrepentant finesse and a great Jessica Chastain performance that perfectly reflects the starts and stops of this decade-plus long mission. It’s frustrating, but the desire to keep moving forward drives something deep inside. The fear is not what the answer is, but what’s on the other side.

12. The Fighter (2010) – Dir. David O. Russell

For a brief and mythic period, Russell was an unimpeachable director in Oscar circles. For a four-film stretch, he reinvented himself as the king of ensemble dramas that conveyed the power of America as a group. With this boxing drama, he did his best job by ignoring farce in favor of heartbreaking central performances that find every cast member at their best, including Oscar-winning roles by Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. It’s a film that finds the value of family, even in a time of rich toxicity and drug addiction, trying to hold back potential greatness. It’s the underdog story of the decade and one that is impossible not to root for once it gets rolling. Russell has proven that he’s capable of getting to the heart of these characters. All he has to do is try to find a reason for us to care again.

11. Dunkirk (2017) – Dir. Christopher Nolan

Just when you thought that Nolan was out of tricks, he looked at the war movie genre and found ways to reinvent it. What he does with an action set piece is elevated into a more harrowing art form here. As he jumps through time, he finds ways to make it nonstop action, making every beat feel on the verge of a heart attack as Hans Zimmer’s gut-wrenching score manages to make this a collage of overcoming severe peril. It’s a story of a community coming together to survive, and it makes for a secretly endearing tale that shows the best in humanity even as it faces the worst. Nolan’s big message is that sometimes surviving is enough, and that’s pretty good advice for experiencing this film in its most visceral and successful moments.