Top 15 Films of 2010 Picspam!
Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and you got all the presents you wanted! It's almost the new year and I don't think I'll be seeing any more films until 2011, so I figure now would be the best time to do the end of the year list. There are still a couple of potential list-makers that I haven't seen yet either because they haven't opened or I just haven't gotten around to it - Blue Valentine, Another Year, Somewhere, The Fighter, Inside Job, Waiting for Superman, and a bunch of foreign films like Biutiful. It's definitely possible one of those will eventually bump off something, but overall, I think I have enough to make this list. Enjoy!
These are all 2010 U.S. theatrical releases. Some of them may have debuted in 2009 in their countries of origin, but they were not released domestically until 2010. Overall, a pretty great year for movies. Diverse filmmakers and genres all produced impressive results this year. A definite improvement from last year, where there were some great films (mostly from the summer) and quite a few middling disappointments (the winter slate). Also, it seems like the award shows are generally making good choices this year in who and what they're nominating. The likely Oscar nominees in most of the categories are all very deserving, IMO.
honorable mentions
Winter's Bone | Shutter Island | Animal Kingdom | Fish Tank | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 | Never Let Me Go | Kick-Ass
In alphabetical order by film title.
1. 127 hours (dir. boyle)
Starring James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara, Clemence Posey, Kate Burton, Treat Williams.
Genre - Drama/Survival
2. black swan (dir. aronofsky)
Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder.
Genre - Psychological Thriller/Horror
3. exit through the gift shop (dir. banksy)
Starring Thierry Guetta, Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader, Monsieur Andre, Zevs.
Genre - Documentary (in question)
4. the ghost writer (dir. polanski)
Starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson, Kim Cattrall, Timothy Hutton, Eli Wallach.
Genre - Political Thriller
5. how to train your dragon (dir. deblois/sanders)
Starring Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill.
Genre - Animation/Comedy
6. inception (dir. nolan)
Starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Michael Caine, Tom Berenger.
Genre - Science Fiction/Action
7. the kids are all right (dir. cholodenko)
Starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson.
Genre - Family Dramedy
8. the king's speech (dir. hooper)
Starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham-Carter, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon, Claire Bloom, Derek Jacobi, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Ehle.
Genre - Historical Drama/Biopic
9. a prophet (dir. audiard)
Starring Tahir Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Reda Kateb, Jean-Philippe Ricci.
Genre - Prison/Crime Drama
10. rabbit hole (dir. mitchell)
Starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest, Sandra Oh, Tammy Blanchard.
Genre - Family Drama
11. the red riding trilogy (dir. jarrold/marsh/tucker)
Starring Andrew Garfield, Sean Bean, Rebecca Hall, Peter Mullan, Paddy Considine, Robert Sheehan, Mark Addy, Leslie Sharp, Tony Pitts.
Genre - Crime Drama/Neo-Noir
12. the social network (dir. fincher)
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Rooney Mara.
Genre - Dramedy/Biopic
13. tangled (dir. greno/howard)
Starring Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Brad Garrett, Jeffrey Tambor, Ron Perlman.
Genre - Animation/Comedy/Musical
14. toy story 3 (dir. unkrich)
Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, John Ratzenberger, Kristen Schaal, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Garlin.
Genre - Animation/Comedy
15. true grit (dir. coens)
Starring Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper.
Genre - Western/Coming-of-age
Notes
+ A Prophet and Red Riding are from 2009 in their respective home countries, but were given early 2010 theatrical releases in the U.S.
+ People who are represented more than once on this list: Andrew Garfield (starred in The Social Network and Red Riding: In the year of our lord 1974), Alexandre Desplat (composed scores for The King's Speech and The Ghost Writer) and Roger Deakins (cinematographer for True Grit and visual consultant for How to Train Your Dragon).
+ Actors in this list who also made appearances on my 2009 top 15 films: Colin Firth and Julianne Moore (A Single Man), Olivia Williams (An Education), Winona Ryder (Star Trek), Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker), Matt Damon (The Informant!), Michael Gambon (Fantastic Mr. Fox), Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) and JGL (500 Days of Summer).
+ The only directors that repeated from 2009 were the Coen brothers, who are on a four year streak with films in my annual Top 5 (No Country for Old Men in 2007, Burn After Reading in 2008, A Serious Man in 2009 and this year's True Grit).
+ Also, Winston Churchill appears on both 2009 and 2010 lists with minor parts in Inglourious Basterds and The King's Speech.
Yay! Now on to 2011, which I'm not super excited about just yet. A couple of things sound interesting - The Tree of Life, Meek's Cutoff, A Dangerous Method, Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Contagion. The big budget blockbusters look rather boring for next year though and we have to wait until 2012 for all the interesting stuff (The Dark Knight Rises, Aronofsky's Wolverine sequel, etc).