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| Scene from Mad Max: Fury Road |
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.
5. Get Out (2017) – Dir. Jordan Peele
On the one hand, the past decade has been a great time to be a horror fan with filmmakers finding new ways to not only scare but provoke with powerful images that hold deeper weight. Even then, nobody did it with quite as much efficiency as Peele, who created a race relations story that only grew more twisted with each passing minute. It’s so dense that it inspired collegiate courses and rewards additional viewings, finding the subtle ways that he’s intertwined American history into the story and showed that even those with good intentions may be just as devious. It’s a paranoid film expertly shot, and one that proved the value of horror as a genre not only to scare but make us understand perspectives other than our own.
4. Moonlight (2016) – Dir. Barry Jenkins
The title is a reference to the cinematography and how it makes the Black characters shine beautifully in the moonlight. This is one of the first films to revolutionize not only how they’re seen visually, but also narratively. With this groundbreaking Best Picture winner, a story of one man over the course of three significant periods that took risks to present a story that was provocative, showing a complicated figure. At the end of the day, it is a loving and embracing film, reflective of a growing queer acceptance that transcended into The Oscars themselves. After this film won, anything has felt possible by opening doors for even more diverse winners.
3. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) – Dir. George Miller
The winner of the most unexpected Best Picture nominee is a sequel that owes little continuity to a series that was last seen 30 years ago. With exception to protagonist Max, every character is new and their journey becomes one of the most exhilarating examples of road rage, reinventing the western with violent insanity that couches the feminist icon of the decade in Furiosa. There is so much creativity that every scene leaves the viewer dizzy, realizing the potential of pushing boundaries and making art that manages to be unhinged while being the most enjoyable form of itself.
2. The Social Network (2010) – Dir. David Fincher
There are dozens of chronicled reasons why this film losing Best Picture is one of the most notorious losses of the 21st century. While it may be overblown at the end of the day, there’s no denying that Fincher brought his A-Game by teaming with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to deliver a piercing takedown of obsession. Facebook has only become more prevalent in our daily lives and in some ways this depiction of Mark Zuckerberg is quaint, but it’s still a classic dramatic structure, capturing the modern youth creating something meant to bring the world together, but instead tears it apart. Everything about the film is a brisk accomplishment and it helped to launch many noteworthy careers (Andrew Garfield, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer, and composers Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross) whose continue to make great work to this day. Still, from the moment the opening notes of The White Stripes’ “Ball and Chain,” you know it’s going to be a special ride. Cinema wasn’t the same after this, and few have captured a biopic as effectively as this.
1. 12 Years a Slave (2013) – Dir. Steve McQueen
On the one hand, it’s the most predictable Best Picture winner of the decade. Who would bet against a powerful slave drama? Not since Schindler’s List has there been a film that recontextualized history, creating an evolution of understanding that is far more nuanced than anything that’s come before. It’s an unforgiving movie, searching for brutal honesty in America’s history that grows with Lupita Nyong'o, and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s underrated performance as a man who refuses to give up hope. He knew freedom once and he will experience it again. While many films since have helped to advance the conversation about race in America, none feel as important in that seismic shift quite like this.
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