FILMS OF THE DECADE

We asked seven of our regular contributors to pick three films of the last decade that have been overlooked, under-appreciated or that they just felt like writing about - happy scrolling!

Grace Crabtree

| A trio of coming of age films |

Tomboy (2011) | dir. Céline Sciamma

In this French drama the camera pulls the audience down to child’s height as it follows ten-year-old Laure, a newcomer in the neighbourhood who, with androgynous clothing, cropped hair, and a slight figure, is mistaken for a boy. Assuming a new name, ‘Mikaël’ slips into a gender-flipped identity. When this halcyon summer of suspended time draws to a close, there is tension as Laure/Mikaël’s experimentation with gender presentation sees the inevitability of revelation. The resolution now feels somewhat dated, but nonetheless a gentle, acutely perspicacious film.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) | dir. Taika Waititi

Waititi’s comedy-drama follows troubled Māori orphan, Ricky, who is placed in foster care on a remote farm in New Zealand, with kindly Bella and irascible Hec (Sam Neill). A tragedy throws Ricky, Hec, and Tupac the dog together on the run from the authorities. Waititi’s film is one of the first to build on rather than imitate the bittersweet films of Wes Anderson and he masterfully finds a balance between stylistic comedy and genuine warmth and feeling.

The Florida Project (2017) | dir. Sean Baker

The Florida Project also operates within the summer holidays, where time and space expands mirroring the interior world of child’s play. From the first scene, you are plunged into a world pooled in purple light, as six-year old Moonee and her sidekicks roam and yell their way through Magic Castle and Futureland, motels on the precarious periphery of Disneyland. These crumbling motel fairylands of pastel-painted dwellings are where down and out families are shuffled about to avoid residency charges, and motel manager Bobby (Willem Dafoe) attempts to keep the peace and order. Working mostly with first-time actors, Baker has an immense talent in diving, almost documentary-style, into the margins of society and in this film he takes on the world of the ‘hidden homeless’ of the Sunshine State. It is no gritty drama but instead infused with the shouts, laughter, and humanity of gleeful, impish children running riot.

Tom Beed

| Exploring humanity’s darker side |

Coldfish (2010) | dir. Sion Sono

In this tense, deeply unsettling feature, Sono plays out a psychosexual drama based loosely on a string of serial killings in 1993’s Tokyo. Coldfish is a fantastic study of a man whose failure to resist the seduction of cowardice and boredom leads to devastation. Shamoto is a slight, recently remarried fish shop owner, whose wife Taeko clashes constantly with his daughter Mitsuko. His failing business and home life are both invaded by Murata, himself in the business of live fish. Slowly but inexorably, Murata dominates every aspect of Shamoto’s life, and eventually his psyche. The unrestrained, charismatic Murata, capable of the wildest horrors, is all the more terrifying for his sense of humour and brazenness of will. Sono employs, seemingly at random, POV shots of the smiling Murata and others, during conversations far more efficient at generating disgust than the drawn out murders that permeate the film.

The Act of Killing (2012) | dir. Joshua Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer's chilling experiment in documentary filmmaking marks a turning point in the history of the mode. The stars of this film are several perpetrators of the 1965-66 Indonesian Genocide, which resulted in the murder of almost 1 million actual or suspected Communists, with a special focus on women and ethnic minorities. Oppenheimer invites thugs who tortured and killed untold numbers of people to discuss the morality of their actions, if they should keep lying about them, and to demonstrate the exact fashion in which they carried out their murders. Anwar Congo, a gangster turned death squad leader, said to have murdered 1000 people, is the main focus. All the more relevant for the recent publishing of Vincent Bevins’ The Jakarta Method (2020), which illustrates the role of the United States in encouraging this genocide to create new techniques of anti-Communism, this film is key to understanding the absolute evil that took place and has yet to be fully reckoned with.

Midsommar (2019) | dir. Ari Aster

American anthropology students. Obscure cult in remote Europe. Past trauma and relationship breakdown. Taking place almost entirely in dazzling sunlight, Aster combines these tired horror tropes into a tapestry of startling beauty that forces the viewer into the world of a commune in northern Scandinavia, layered with deeply symbolic ritual. While visually shocking, one can’t help but, in interpreting the symbolic power of the communes equally solemn and joyous society, be possessed by a fascination. Through the rendering of a predictable story into an arresting, unique piece, Aster shows that he is a master of his craft. Fans of the series Hannibal will appreciate the visual setpieces that could have been designed by the good doctor Lecter. If you enjoy horror, this becoming-beautiful film will leave you with an irrepressible smile at the final shot.

Stefan Matthews

| People aren’t always what they seem |

Inherent Vice (2014) | dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

Films based on ‘unfilmable’ books often tend to be quietly brilliant. In true fashion, Paul Thomas Anderson fails to not create an unfilmable movie. Instead, Anderson settles for creating a (quietly brilliant) idiosyncratic and hilarious 60s noir that, despite the source novel’s apparent unfilmable-ness, seems to have been filmed. Based on the book by author Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice is “kaleidoscopic”, “groovy”, or whatever 60s stoner term you’d like to use. Sure, it might not make much sense, but isn’t watching Josh Brolin yell for more pancakes in a broken Asian language far more exciting than sense.

Welcome to Leith (2015) | dir. Michael Beach Nichols, Christopher K. Walker

This fantastic documentary focuses on the tiny, titular town of Leith and an infamous white supremacist’s attempt to “take it over”. A fascinating microcosm of small town, American and world politics, the scariest part of the film might be the ordinariness and mundanity of the neo-Nazis that move into Leith. The ‘head’ honcho is intimidating enough, but the horrifying reality is that the nuclear family of supremacists just seem like regular, everyday folk. Welcome to Leith is both a sobering reminder of the racism that still festers under the surface of society, and a rallying reminder that there is still work to be done.

Possessor (2020) | dir. Brandon Cronenberg

Son of the legendary horror director David Cronenberg, Brandon Cronenberg’s second film is a brilliant slice of sci-fi body horror that feels extraordinarily timely. Possessor explores the abstract concept of the self, and the increasingly intimate and ofttimes indistinguishable relationship between the human body and technology. With fantastic performances, gross practical effects and an incredible ending, there’s no wonder that Possessor has caused such a buzz in 2020.

Bryony Moores O’Sullivan

| Fjords, folklore, and Fox News |

The Song of the Sea (2014) | dir. Tomm Moore

An enchanting Irish animation exploring the myth of the selkie or seal woman, this is a gentle tale which embodies the ancient magic of the land through beautiful imagery and a traditional Irish soundtrack, while avoiding the polished cheese of Disney and Pixar.

Woman at War (2018) | dir. Benedikt Erlingsson

A stunning Icelandic-Ukrainian film starring Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir as Halla, a fearless eco-activist. It’s a riveting and uplifting watch, as this believable protagonist takes down power-lines and runs from helicopters, all on a backdrop of vast green Icelandic wilderness. The score is performed in-scene by a three piece band and a group of Ukrainian folk singers. Acting as an inner monologue, while creating tension and humour, they add to the unique language of this film. It was also refreshing to see a female lead who was very much of the earth (that she is protecting) and not an airbrushed alien in skin-tight leather.

Bombshell (2019) | dir. Jay Roach

With all the pith and female power of Erin Brockovich, without any of the recognition, Bombshell unapologetically depicts the sexual assault scandal at Fox News, with stunning performances from Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie. This uncomfortable watch couldn’t be further from a chick flick, highlighting the sexism and corruption within American media and telling a story many still don’t want to hear.

Sky Herzog

| Cosmic horror comes to earth |

The Endless (2017) | dir. Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead.

Benson and Moorhead direct and star in this low budget cosmic horror movie centred around a small cultish community with far more going on behind the curtain. Made to make you think rather than blow you away with CGI, you will be drawn into these well-portrayed characters as they delve deeper into a mystery they thought they left behind. 

Annihilation (2018) | dir. Alex Garland.

Leading actress Natalie Portman delivers a somber performance in a story that captures much of what inspired its creation (a book of the same name written in 2014 by Jeff VanderMeer). Drawing much from H.P. Lovecraft’s Color Out Of Space (1927), the main character Lena must investigate a quarantine zone after a mysterious object crash lands where temporal and spatial anomalies warp not only plant and animal life around them, but their very minds. It leaves you with questions, as it should.

Color Out Of Space (2019) | dir. Richard Stanley.

This is a direct adaptation of Lovecraft’s novel of the same name starring good ol’ Nicholas Cage. Now normally you might roll your eyes, but watching Nathan Gardner lose not only his farm, his family, and his dreams but his mind, as well, captivates you with one of Cage’s best performances. With CGI used in tandem with classic Carpenter-esque special effects, you’re in store for a horrifying and quite frankly brilliant piece of Lovecraftian filmmaking.

Jack Wightman

| Human (dis)connection |

Tree of Life (2011) | dir. Terrence Malick

After a twenty year hiatus, Malik returned with an astonishing visual poem to celebrate life, the universe, the spiritual, and our humble place within it.

Mother! (2017) | dir. Darren Aronofsky

Arronofsky’s urgent and angry parable about our destructive relationship with each other, our planet, and where this inevitably leads us is timely, and increasingly relevant.

Anomalisa (2015) | dir. Charlie Kaufman

A stunning stop-motion human drama about love, loneliness, and the difficulty of forming a true connection with others, with plenty of Kaufman’s signature surreality.

Fred Warren

| Sun, sex and telemarketing |

Sorry to Bother You (2018) | dir. Boots Riley

Director Boots Riley said that he pitched his film to financiers as “an absurdist dark comedy with magical realism and science fiction inspired by the world of telemarketing”. What Riley omitted was that his film was also an uncompromising satire of late capitalism, taking on everything from sadistic reality TV to contemporary labour’s tendency to leach into the private life of employees. Cassius Greene (LaKieth Stanfield) struggles with a new telemarketing job until he discovers his ‘white voice’ which catapults him through the echelons of the corporate world and eventually to the dark heart of the Worry Free corporation. The film’s final third takes the increasing inequality of society to an absurd, yet disturbingly logical, conclusion. Brilliant, subversive and funny, I’m not sure if Boots Riley will ever get funding to make another film, but I’m glad Sorry to Bother You exists either as an agent to provoke change or as a prescient vision of things to come.

Enough Said (2013) | dir. Nicole Holofcener

In 2013, Nicole Holofcener, a kind of social realist of middle-class America, produced her most warm-hearted film to date with this modest character study of a romance between middle-aged divorcees Eva (Julia Louis Dreyfus) and Albert (James Gandolfini). Holofcener is never afraid to show the cold-heartedness of people, and backstabbing, lies, and guacamole-shaming abound in Enough Said, but she’s no misanthrope and her characters have a pathos and humour which prevents them descending into suburban stereotypes. Unfortunately, she has made only six films in the last 25 years – more Nicole for the next decade please!

The Beach Bum (2019) | dir. Harmony Korine

During the last year when everything seemed swaddled in sincerity, where even every TV advert was taking shameless advantage of the ongoing pandemic, nothing came as more of a relief than watching Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum.  The film loosely follows free-verse poet Moondog (Matthew McConaughey) as he glides, zen-like, on an odyssey along the Florida coast encountering characters from rapper Lingerie (Snoop Dogg) to rehab patient Rickey (Zac Efron) and dolphin tour guide Captain Wack (Martin Lawrence). Contrary to appearances, the film is not ‘irreverent’ but is, instead, like its main character, profoundly content; Korine doesn’t mock the media personalities he casts but, more radically, gets fantastic and funny performances out them as they elevate Floribbean, stoner dialect to a level of pure poetry: “He got glaucoma in both his eyes. But when he’s zooted off of that shit, he gets you where you need to be.”

If capitalism sustains itself by stoking consumers’ insecurities and creating artificial needs, then Korine’s Moondog, so profoundly at ease with himself, so resistant to ‘productive’ change is a truly welcome creation. So, instead of making new year’s resolutions to become ‘fitter’, ‘richer’, ‘healthier’, ‘more successful’, take a leaf from the Moondog, and just try to enjoy the year instead.