My Top 20 Favorite Films of the 2010s (plus 20 runners-up)

Exactly ten years ago, I was a lonely, miserable 12-year-old seventh grader who hated school and would find escape in movies such as Home Alone and TV shows such as Seinfeld. As I was approaching 13 and finally being allowed to see more serious films, my Dad showed me M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense and suddenly, I felt my world open up. That year, I began to write several feature-length screenplays, mostly as a way to express myself and to provide another form of escape from the hell that was middle school. I also began to religiously follow film critics like the late Roger Ebert, Richard Roeper, Michael Phillips, Nick Digilio, Erik Childress, and Collin Souter (the latter three of whom became mentors to me) who all in their own ways really helped to refine my taste in cinema this decade.

And then, a few years later, I began to host my own movie-review segment on my high school’s TV news program called Nick's Flix, which this blog is named after. I also began to attend film festivals regularly starting in 2012, when I traveled to Italy to serve as an American delegate at the Giffoni International Children's Film Festival, and then the following year I attended the very first Chicago Critics Film Festival, a phenomenal showcase of great independent cinema that I have been attending every year since. All of this was before I got accepted into DePaul University's School of Cinematic Arts, where I not only learned a ton about both filmmaking and film theory, but also had more access to great new cinema than I had ever had before, living in the city and being just an ‘L’ ride away from numerous independent/arthouse movie theaters. Many of the films you'll see on this list were first experienced by me in these theaters, and these experiences only solidified my passion for preserving the theatrical moviegoing experience in the face of streaming.

Looking back now, as a film school graduate working at the Sundance Film Festival and starting to set off on my professional journey in film, it's really amazing to see not only how much I have grown in the last ten years, but also how my love of film has grown and matured in that time. It's safe to say that the 2010s is the decade where I really fell in love with cinema and discovered the beauty and emotional power that cinema can have, and this list is definitely a reflection of that. I truly believe that every film on this list is a five-star masterpiece. Some of my all-time favorite movies are on this list. Many of these films have not only stayed fresh upon repeat viewings, but continue to get richer and deeper and more beautiful every time I watch them, and I fully expect to continue to watch them and find new things in them for the next decade and beyond. So, without further ado, here are my top 20 favorite films of the 2010s from 20 to 1:

#20. The Florida Project -- Here is a perfect example of an independent film from this decade that, despite relative critical acclaim and modest success on the indie circuit upon its release, was mostly ignored by the Oscars (save for a much-deserved Willem Dafoe Best Supporting Actor nomination) and hasn't been included on many best-of-the-decade lists that I've seen. It's a shame, because this is a truly special film. While it doesn't have much of a plot to speak of, what it does have is incredibly compelling characters at its center, characters that may be fictional, but are too real in the people they embody. Our focus character, a six-year-old named Moonee, is a composite of numerous little girls just like her, living on the outskirts of society with a mother who can't properly raise her because she, too, lives and acts like a child. The numerous characters we see living at Magic Castle, a welfare motel outside of Walt Disney World, are real people, people who have been pushed to the brink by society and are doing whatever they can to avoid being out on the street, and a man named Bobby, who runs this motel and is essentially everyone's glorified caretaker, is a composite of the numerous men and women who are practically forced into these positions and are doing the best that they can. What Sean Baker has done with this film is no less of an accomplishment than what Terrence Malick did with The Tree of Life and what George Miller did with Mad Max: Fury Road; Baker has structured a heartbreaking, but also entertaining and often funny, film around a real-world problem that most of society and the media likes to ignore, and thanks to his incredible writing and directing skills and the amazing actors he managed to recruit, he made it feel 100% realistic. The two actors in particular that carry this film are Willem Dafoe as Bobby (who is absolutely magnificent and, with all due respect to Sam Rockwell, should have won the Supporting Actor Oscar in 2017) and the adorable and amazing Brooklynn Prince as Moonee, who at the age of six has delivered a child performance for the ages. As I said after my second viewing of this film, Moonee is the heart of The Florida Project, and Bobby is the soul. When these two are together on screen, serious cinematic magic happens that can put any "magic" in any Disney film ever made to utter shame. And not to forget about the film's other major discovery, Bria Vinaite, who plays Moonee's immature and childlike mother Halley in a tragically realistic performance. But seriously, everything about this film works in its favor. Even the ending, which some people have had issues with, is absolutely beautiful and profound and deeply moving, and I encourage everyone who may have missed this movie during its theatrical run to please go and seek it out (it's currently streaming on Amazon Prime). It's not an easy watch, but it's an incredibly necessary and important film that I think even has the power to increase awareness about the hidden homeless. It's a real problem, and I'm thankful that a powerful film like The Florida Project can be used as a tool to increase awareness. 

#19. Won't You Be My Neighbor? -- In the midst of the tumultuous second-half of the 2010s, something that has been a true blessing to see is the posthumous re-emergence of Fred Rogers as a voice of beauty and reason and kindness and acceptance and love. And while I did really love Marielle Heller's recent A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which featured a magnificent Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, ultimately I think Morgan Neville's documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? is still the best and most complete portrait of who he was and is also one of the most beautiful documentaries I've ever seen. While I didn't really grow up watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on TV like a lot of people did, I knew about him and the show from my parents and it ultimately didn't really matter when watching the movie. Director Morgan Neville does a remarkable job at introducing you to the life and philosophy of Fred Rogers in a way that appeals to everyone regardless of how or when you grew up. Especially as someone who's struggled with feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing, it's incredibly moving to see someone like Fred Rogers use his platform to tell thousands of children that they have value regardless of who they are and where they came from, and to never do it in a false or condescending way. In many ways, he used his platform to spread the love of Jesus Christ in a way that impacted thousands of more people than he would have if he would have become a pastor (as was his original life's goal), and that is incredibly inspiring to me as someone who is both a Christian and an aspiring filmmaker. I could go on and on, but ultimately this is an amazing documentary that brilliantly captures a man who dedicated his life's work to being an example of Christ's love to children all over the world. It's currently streaming on HBO Go and HBO Now, and everyone should see it (and check out A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood too!).

#18. Life, Animated -- Speaking of one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, here's a film I first saw at the Chicago Critics Film Festival back in May that hit me incredibly hard back then, and it continues to hit me hard every time I watch it. While it's easy to despise Disney for their current creative bankruptcy and the monoculture that they're creating via Star Wars, Marvel, Disney+, etc., watching this film reminded me a lot of the magic I felt when watching Disney animated films as a kid, and how said films can really help people find their voice. In this case, Disney movies quite literally gave a young boy named Owen Suskind his voice. At the age of three, Owen, who at the time had been seen as a normal happy young boy with an active imagination, just stopped talking. After many doctor's appointments, it turned out that Owen had autism. His parents, understandably, were baffled and didn't know what to do to help him. One of the few things that they could still do as a family was watch the Disney animated classics that Owen always loved, and it was through this that they found a way to communicate with him. You can read my complete thoughts on this film here, but for right now I will just say this: as someone with an autism spectrum disorder (Asperger's, to be specific) and as someone who grew up watching and loving Disney animated films, this movie spoke to me on so many personal levels, and I honestly believe this is the best documentary about autism ever made, and it just so happens to also be about the magic of movies and the healing power of cinema. This is an absolutely beautiful film, and should be required viewing for every single human being who is a child, has a child, or has ever been a child.

#17. Interstellar -- The first of two Christopher Nolan films to appear on this list, Interstellar is a film that hit me hard on my first viewing and has continued to make me cry every time I watch it. Much like the other Nolan film I talk about later on, this is big-budget Hollywood filmmaking at its best, one that possesses all of the bells and whistles and special effects necessary for the experience while also leaving room for a deeply emotional story about love and family and how the universe plays into that. In many ways, this film represents Nolan at his most Spielbergian, as he takes these big supernatural ideas and concepts and simplifies them to represent the protagonist's emotional and familial journey. The relationship between Cooper and his daughter Murphy, the film's true emotional crux, is one of the best father/daughter relationships I've seen in any movie this decade, and the scene where he has to leave her to embark on his mission, as well as a few other scenes later in the film, are some of the most heartbreaking work that Nolan has ever done, and should put an end to any argument that he is a cold, emotionless filmmaker. And while people can poke certain holes in this film's storylike, at a certain point Nolan's command on the craft and the sheer emotion on display caused me to willingly overlook any flaw. This is a film I always enjoy watching with different groups of people just to see how they get wrapped up in this story and these characters like I do each time, and I do believe that this will continue to be remembered years from now as a science-fiction masterpiece. It's currently streaming on Hulu, and if you haven't seen it (and even if you have), definitely make sure to watch it. It's a true reminder of the beauty and emotion that science-fiction and big-budget blockbusters can have.

#16. Mud -- And now we move onto a very different Matthew McConaughey vehicle from the middle of this last decade. Now I will confess, I have not had a chance to go back and revisit Jeff Nichols' Mud recently, but the reason I'm including it so high is simply because of how it made me feel at the time that I saw it. Other than being a great cinematic portrait of Southern life and a slow-burn thriller that in many ways works as a modern Mark Twain story, it's also a fantastic coming-of-age story that reflects painfully on the feeling of falling in love for the first time and the heartbreak and emotional turmoil that comes along with that. Having seen this when I was in high school having recently gone through this type of heartbreak and emotional turmoil myself, I had a deep connection with this film that has resonated through the years as I've grown and remained a hopeless romantic. McConaughey is absolutely fantastic in this film, and it's arguably my favorite performance of his (although his performance in Interstellar is a close second), though the film truly belongs to Tye Sheridan as Ellis. His performance in this is one of the best teen performances of this decade, one that is both joyous and painful to watch in equal measure. This is currently streaming on Hulu, and I personally cannot wait to go back and revisit this again, and I highly encourage everyone reading this to do the same.

#15. Little Women -- I really debated how highly I should rank this film because it is so new, and it hasn't quite stood the test of time as much as some of these other films have, but I'm ranking it #15 because I do believe this is an absolutely perfect film. I just saw it for the second time this past weekend, and it continues to be a beautiful, brilliantly-crafted, funny, joyous, but also heartbreaking and profound film that encapsulates pretty much everything love about cinema and storytelling. The way Gerwig structures this classic story to make it a meditation on the loss of innocence and loneliness and regret is absolutely remarkable and it totally speaks to me as a young adult in a turbulent stage of life. All four of the actresses who play the March sisters are terrific and perfectly cast, but the performances of Saoirse Ronan and Florence Pugh are extraordinary and absolutely deserving of awards attention (if it were up to me, Pugh would win Best Supporting Actress because she's that good). And even the supporting performances by Timothee Chalamet (who continues to be one of the greatest actors on the face of Planet Earth), Meryl Streep (who hasn't been this much fun to watch in anything since Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events), and Chris Cooper (who is quietly heartbreaking and devastating) are excellent and helped to round out a world that I wanted to stay in long after the credits rolled. In many ways, watching this film reminded me of the first time I read L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (which still remains my favorite book of all time), and not just because of the lovely female characters and period setting, but also because of how it created a world that is both joyous and comforting while never feeling shallow or phony. Much like I tend to go back to Anne of Green Gables when I'm depressed and need something that is going to fill me with sheer, authentic joy, I can imagine myself going back to this film when I'm feeling down in the future, which is not something I can say about many other films from this decade. So yes, this is a really, deeply special film, one I cannot wait to see again and again, and one that every single person on Earth should see. Also, I've decided that I want to marry Florence Pugh.

#14. Take Shelter -- The second of two Jeff Nichols movies on this list (with Mud being the first), this is one I actually did get to revisit in fairly glorious fashion just a couple years ago, when Michael Shannon visited DePaul University, screened the film and did a Q&A afterward. As opposed to my first time viewing this masterpiece, in a nearly-empty theatre at the Landmark Century Cinema with my parents, the second time seeing it in a sold-out auditorium at DePaul sitting right behind the film's lead actor was really transformative and reinforced this film's standing as the best of 2011 and one of the best of the decade. Michael Shannon's lead performance in this film is an absolute masterclass in acting on every single level, channeling mental illness and paranoia in such a nuanced, profound way that puts Joaquin Phoenix's performance in Joker to complete and utter shame, and the way Nichols is able to slowly build dread through careful and subtle changes in pacing is deeply inspiring from both a writing and directing standpoint. Like another film I mention later on this list, this is a film that takes its time building a crippling sense of dread before throwing you headfirst into a powerful, gut-wrenching third act that is both painful and cathartic for anyone who has come to care for these characters. And then the final scene...well, I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen this film, but watching it a second time it's crystal-clear to me that the scene is not a "cheat," but a brilliant, ambiguous coda to a film that can be read as both an illuminating portrait inside the mind of a disturbed, mentally ill man, and a searing warning about the effects of climate change and where the planet is possibly headed. However you want to interpret the film and its ending, this is still a remarkable piece of work from one of the greatest American independent filmmakers working, one who needs to work more, in my opinion.

#13. Stories We Tell -- The greatest documentary of the decade (one that certainly had no shortage of great documentaries), Sarah Polley's incredibly brave and personal Stories We Tell manages to transcend both its genre and personal focus by offering some genuinely compelling insights about family and truth and memory that are both specific to Polley's family and yet incredibly universal and relatable. Since I'm assuming that most people reading this now have not had a chance to seek out this film, I'm not going to go too in-depth on it, since the absolute best way to watch it is to go in knowing as little about it as possible. All I'll say is that what starts off as an often-entertaining look at Polley's family turns into one of the most compelling mystery dramas that I've seen this decade. And way that Polley plays with the structure and use of unreliable narrators in this film to comment on the very nature of storytelling is perhaps the number-one reason why I love this so much. Especially in our current "post-truth" era, films about the elusive nature of truth have only become more illuminating and necessary. I was lucky enough to get to see this film for the first time on the opening night of the first-ever Chicago Critics Film Festival with Sarah Polley herself in attendance. The Q&A that happened after that screening is still one of the best and most magical Q&As I've ever had the privilege to witness, and it really made an already-great film that much deeper and more meaningful. This film is currently available to rent at most places online (and apparently it's streaming on Tubi for free), and it definitely needs to be seen by everyone. With only three films under her belt, Polley has proven herself to be one of the best and most exciting filmmakers out there, and I cannot wait to see what she does next.

#12. Inherent Vice -- Now here's a film that I completely missed upon its initial theatrical release and only caught up with recently on streaming. Although Paul Thomas Anderson is absolutely one of the greatest filmmakers working today (Magnolia and There Will Be Blood are all-time favorites for me), I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from this, since it was definitely polarizing upon its release, but what I got was one of the most audacious and brilliant films I have seen in a long time, from a filmmaker in complete command of his narrative and visual craft. While I know one viewing of this film is not nearly enough to fully understand what Anderson is doing here, what I did pick up on is just how weird and subversive but still oddly beautiful this film is. What starts off as a neo-noir mystery film turns into a drug-fueled portrait of this specific place and time (Los Angeles, 1970) as well as a eulogy to the outgoing 1960s counterculture and an acknowledgment of what was to come. And while I know many who watch this film might find it to be a meandering, incoherent mess, the film is very much intended to be meandering, as it really helps to reinforce not only the main character's chronic mindset (the main character being Doc, played by Joaquin Phoenix in my favorite performance of his to date), but also just the landscape of Los Angeles in 1970. In many ways I think this would make a really interesting double feature with Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, in terms of just how accurately both of these movies reflect their settings and time periods both stylistically and narratively. Like most other Paul Thomas Anderson films, this is one I cannot wait to watch again and again so I can further piece together the puzzle at the heart of this story, it is absolutely one of Anderson's most impressive cinematic accomplishments in a career full of them, and if you're a movie viewer up for a wild challenge, definitely take this one and go with it.

#11. Moonrise Kingdom -- Wes Anderson's sweetest and most magical film to date, this is a film that I had the privilege of seeing the summer before my sophomore year of high school. Watching this on the big screen as a fifteen-year-old boy resigned to the reality that I was a hopeless romantic was an experience I won't soon forget. By that point I had written many screenplays that were fantasies of young love and explorations of the high that comes with being young and in love, though obviously none of them came even close to being as beautiful and funny and poignant as this film. While I'm aware some people have grown tired of Wes Anderson's trademark idiosyncratic style, I happen to love it every time I see it, and it particularly works wonders in this story. Literally every scene with Sam and Suzy (the two main characters, played with brilliant naïveté by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) is awkward and heartwarming and perfect, particularly the scene where they kiss for the first time, which ranks right up there with My Girl in terms of best "first kiss" scenes in movie history. And as typical for Anderson films, the supporting cast here is phenomenal, with Bruce Willis and Edward Norton fitting perfectly into the oeuvre of regular Anderson actors, Bill Murray giving his second funniest performance in an Anderson film (behind his performance in Rushmore), and Tilda Swinton absolutely stealing her few scenes as the clueless and eccentric "Social Services". But overall, this is just a profound, hilarious, and fantastic coming-of-age story, one of the best movies about young love that I've ever seen, and one I love to go back to whenever I'm feeling down. However one feels about Anderson's style, they cannot deny that he puts his heart and soul into everything he does, and nowhere does that ring more true than in this film (which is currently streaming on Hulu), and it's a lovely thing to watch.

#10. Wonder -- I really debated whether or not I should rank this film in the top ten of the decade, since I have seen absolutely no one else rank this film anywhere on their decade lists and also since I know that this is probably not an objectively better film than Inherent Vice or Interstellar. But I'm ranking it #10 anyway because, I don't care what anyone says, this is a beautiful and profound film about isolation and loneliness, both social and familial. There are numerous, numerous smart choices that writer/director Stephen Chbosky made that propel this film to the powerhouse of emotion and intelligence that it is, but one of their smartest choices was showing the audience the perspectives of the numerous characters that inhabit the main character (Auggie)'s life in some form or another. It really drives home the movie's central and most powerful trait: empathy. Stephen Chbosky (who has one more film represented in my top 10), other than being my favorite new filmmaker to come out of this decade, has really shown himself to be a master of empathetic filmmaking, the best kind of filmmaking there is and the kind of filmmaking that I want to pursue because, at the risk of stating the obvious, there needs to be much more empathy in our culture. The performances in this film are spectacular all across the board. Jacob Tremblay is continuing to prove himself to be one of the greatest child actors on the face of the Earth, and he embodies the role of a child with a facial deformity with such truth and compassion that you felt for him every single step of the way. Owen Wilson has never been more likable in a film than in this one, playing the role of the fun-loving father with a level of delicacy not seen in any movie with Owen Wilson since maybe The Royal Tenenbaums. Julia Roberts likewise plays the mother with a levelheadedness not seen in many recent Julia Roberts movies. But for me, the absolute standout performance here is from newcomer Izabela Vidovic as Auggie's sister, Via. I had never seen her in anything before this film, but she is absolutely astounding here. While most of her performance is quiet and understated, you can feel her loneliness and isolation in much the same way you can feel Auggie's; obviously it's different, but it's still valid. I could go on about everything I love in this film, from the music choices to the incredible (Oscar-nominated) makeup job to an absolutely heartbreaking sequence set during a high school production of Our Town, but ultimately, this is just a beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, important masterpiece of cinematic art that needs to be seen by every human being alive. Maybe once that happens, the world will become a better place.

#9. Fruitvale Station -- In recent discussions of films that have spoken to what has happened in the sociopolitical climate and culture of the 2010s and have resonated throughout it, it's incredibly disheartening to me that people seem to be forgetting about this film, which is, in my opinion, the most nuanced and powerful film about race and police brutality to come out this decade. Released on July 12, 2013 (literally the day before George Zimmerman was acquitted in Trayvon Martin's death and the Black Lives Matter movement was born), writer/director Ryan Coogler's debut feature focuses on the last day in the life of a young man named Oscar Grant. Although we are told at the beginning of the film that he will eventually be shot on a train station platform, Coogler chooses to not focus on that particular moment until the end of the film. Instead, he focuses on how Oscar lived his life, how he was in the presence of his girlfriend, his daughter, his mother, and the various individuals he would come across throughout the day. In doing so, Coogler is making sure that Oscar is not defined by his death, like so many victims of police brutality are, but rather by the person that he was. And the person that he was is brought vividly to life by Michael B. Jordan in one of the best performances by any human being this decade. He is so incredibly raw and real as Oscar that you literally cannot imagine anybody else in the role, and I'm so happy to see that he and Coogler have continued to work together and bring out the best in each other. Octavia Spencer also gives arguably the best of her many great performances this decade as Oscar's mother, who channels both the pain of seeing her son go in and out of prison and the unimaginable grief when he gets murdered in powerful and heartbreaking fashion. But what ultimately makes this film stand head-and-shoulders above every other film about police brutality this decade is how it brings out the humanity in this case. By simply showing the everyday life and relationships of a man whose life happened to be tragically cut short by the disease that is systemic racism, Coogler has made a cinematic statement more powerful and gut-wrenching than anything a politician could write in a speech. And as discussions about police brutality and systemic racism continue into the 2020s, it's a statement that needs to be seen and heard loudly, especially by those who continue to view these issues through red and blue lenses as opposed to human ones. So if you missed this film when it came out in 2013 (as apparently the entire of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences did), please do your civic duty and seek it out. It is extremely painful but necessary viewing.

#8. The Social Network -- Speaking of films that have resonated throughout the 2010s and have spoken to the sociopolitical climate and culture of the decade, here is a film that has only gotten richer and more prescient as the decade has gone on. I remember going to see this film twice in the theatre when I was thirteen, and both times being immediately spellbound by the brilliantly written and photographed opening scene, which is still one of the greatest opening scenes to any movie I've ever seen. But perhaps even more impressive than that scene is the fact that the film that follows it is able to maintain the same level of pure kinetic energy that that scene establishes. This is largely thanks to the writing of Aaron Sorkin and the directing of David Fincher, two geniuses in their craft who came together and created a riveting, brilliant, Shakespearean classic of a film about a genius who just so happened to create one of the most influential websites to ever exist. From the dialogue to the performances to the cinematography to the editing to the hypnotic, pulsating score (composed by the incomparable Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), everything in this movie works beautifully in its favor, and it all adds up to a cumulative effect that is both troubling and immensely entertaining. And when looking at the explosion of social networking beyond Facebook since 2010, as well as the numerous controversies involving Facebook that have occurred in that time, it's easy to look at The Social Network as perhaps the definitive film of the decade, one that in some ways helps to explain the current state of our world. For that reason alone, I do believe this film will continue to be revisited and studied several years from now, and it will also be remembered as the crowning achievement of both David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's careers. It's just a masterpiece in every single sense of the word.

#7. La La Land -- The most purely joyous film of the decade, this is a film that I just love absolutely everything about, from the opening musical number, which immediately threw me into its fantastical world, to the wonderfully committed performances of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, who continue to be two of the best working actors with everything they do. While yes, I know the plot itself isn't particularly exciting, the whole point of this film is that Sebastian and Mia are both incredibly passionate people. They're dreamers and they want to do whatever they have to do to follow their dreams. As someone who's been passionate about filmmaking and storytelling since I was seven-years-old, and just recently finished spending thousands of dollars to go to DePaul University film school just so I can follow my dream of writing and directing indie films, I can absolutely relate to the mindset of these two people. Writer/director Damien Chazelle perfectly understands this and made this film for people who feel like this, as also evidenced by the amount of passion and love he put into every freaking inch of this screenplay and production. The first thing I said after walking out of this film the first time I saw it was, "This is a love letter to everything that I love." And it's true. It's a film about the beauty and importance of storytelling, it's a film about love, it's a film about being a dreamer in a cynical you-need-to-make-money world, but it's also a film about reality, about the fact that not everything always gets wrapped up in a nice neat bow. And while I know that that's not something that everybody likes to hear in movies...well, that's the truth, and the truth ain't always pretty. All of the musical numbers in this film are brilliant, and while I know that Gosling and Stone aren't professionally-trained singers/dancers, they still do a fine job (particularly Stone, who belts out one particular number beautifully). Even three years after this film came out, I still get that electric feeling every time I turn it on. This is a perfect, brilliant, joyous, moving, and poignant movie on every single level. 

#6. Inception -- The second of two Christopher Nolan movies on this list, and also Nolan's best film to date, this is a film that has stuck with me ever since my first experience seeing it on its opening weekend when I was thirteen. As a young teenager first falling in love with cinema, the experience of seeing an original piece of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking as mind-blowing and intelligent as this was game-changing for me. And even rewatching this now as an adult, I still get completely caught up in the world and dreamscape that Nolan has created here, one that is viscerally breathtaking while also being deeply intellectual and a brilliant metaphor for filmmaking itself. Like Interstellar, this is a film that completely respects the audience's intelligence and gives its protagonist a compelling emotional arc while still leaving room for some of the most exhilarating set-pieces ever put to film (particularly one involving Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a zero-gravity hotel hallway that excites me every time I watch it). The cast in this film is one of the best ensembles ever assembled in a major Hollywood blockbuster, lead by Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best performances as both a tortured widower and tenacious leader of the team, and featuring underrated work from both Ellen Page as a stand-in for the audience and Marion Cotillard as the film's main antagonist. And the final shot...well, I won't spoil it in case there's still somebody out there that hasn't seen this film, but all I'll say is that the way the audience reacted to the final shot the first time I saw this film is one of the most unforgettable moments I've ever experienced in a movie theatre. If there is a film this decade that is almost singlehandedly an argument for the preservation of the theatrical experience in the face of streaming, Inception is it. While it is currently streaming on Netflix, any opportunity to see this on the biggest screen possible with the largest crowd possible should be taken without a second thought. This is a remarkable cinematic accomplishment from the best blockbuster filmmaker working today.

#5. Brooklyn -- One of the first films I fell in love with as a student at DePaul University's School of Cinematic Arts, John Crowley’s masterwork about an Irish immigrant in the early 50s torn between two countries and two lives was a film I went and saw on a whim that proved to be exactly the film I needed at that point in time. As most people who know me know, I am a complete sucker for coming-of-age films, period films, films with female leads, and love stories, and Brooklyn is all four in one. I still believe this film contains Saoirse Ronan’s best performance ever, as not only did I love and sympathize with her character for the entirety of the film, but she also just embodied her character so fully and with such delicacy that I always believed her as Eilis. And her main male love interest, played by Emory Cohen, is one of the best male love interests in any film I’ve ever seen, mainly because he just feels real; meaning, he wasn’t cast solely for his looks, but he actually has the charm and insecurities and other qualities needed to fit the part, and fit it beautifully. The love story between the two of them is one of the best and most beautiful in several years. But ultimately, what made the film stick with me ever since the cold November afternoon when I first saw it is that (as I alluded to earlier), it was the film I needed at the time. Having gone away to college for the first time almost three months before I saw this film, I related in a certain sense to Eilis’ anxieties about leaving home and building another life for herself in Brooklyn, and then coming back home after being away for a while and feeling like an alien in your own hometown. While at face value, Brooklyn is a film about an Irish immigrant in early 50s New York torn between two countries and two lives, its characters and themes are so universal as to speak to multiple stories and multiple backgrounds. This might as well have been a story about going away to college and being torn between two lives, as its characters and themes apply so well to that. And as I've gotten older and have had more life experience, this film only continues to get deeper more profound, and yes, I cry more at various parts. Far from being the "Oscar-bait" period drama some might have initially written it off as, this is a beautiful, romantic, perfect film with one of the most perfect endings of any film this decade. So please seek this out if you haven't seen it already.

#4. Inside Out -- Speaking of beautiful and perfect movies from 2015, here is a film that also happens to be the best animated film of the decade by a mile, arguably Pixar's best film to date and one of the best movies to ever have the name "Disney" attached to it. Especially compared to most recent Disney and animated films, Inside Out is just so mature and intelligent and powerfully cerebral that it becomes something more than how it’s branded and marketed by Disney. It’s really a film about growing up and having to learn to deal with hard things and hard adjustments in your life, and how your emotions play into that. Every time I watch this film, I’m taken back to when I was 11 (the age that the main character, Riley, is in this film) in 2008 and what a hard year that was for me emotionally and socially. While I didn’t have a big cross-country move at that age like Riley did, that year still was very hard and I was forced to grapple with my emotions in many different ways. And just the way the emotions are personified and portrayed in the film could have easily been cheesy and unbelievable, but the way that it is done is so intelligent and compelling that I took it seriously from the first frame to the last. And this was also accomplished further by the amazing voice performances, particularly from Amy Poehler, who I still felt should have gotten an Oscar nomination for her vocal performance as Joy. She was just so real and so powerful, as was this entire movie. I first saw this film right after I graduated high school and was going through a lot emotionally in terms of looking back on my childhood and feeling both very nostalgic and regretful about certain things, as well as looking forward to living on my own at DePaul and the uncertainties that were coming along with that. And I just recently rewatched this film after graduating from college and working at an all-girls summer camp, and it hit me in a lot of different ways for a lot of different reasons. Seeing the campers (some of whom are the same age as Riley) I worked with this summer go through turbulent emotional phases, while I was going through a turbulent emotional phase in regards to accepting that I was a college graduate who has to start getting my crap together, really reminded of just how universal the themes in this film are, and how it's normal for people to feel sad and angry and how important those emotions are in regards to personal growth no matter how old you are. And while I have heard some people argue that little kids shouldn't watch this film because they wouldn't understand it, I think this film could very much be used as a teaching tool in regards to showing kids the importance in accepting and understanding their own emotions (and I sincerely hope it has been used that way). This is an amazing, important film, and one that has set a bar for both Disney films and mainstream American animated films that has not been reached and perhaps never will be. This film is just that great.

#3. Eighth Grade -- From the moment I saw this magnificent film at the Chicago Critics Film Festival in May of 2018, I knew this was a special piece of work. Having been a bullied middle school student who turned to watching films and writing screenplays in order to work through my own loneliness and isolation, to see a film that perfectly encapsulates that experience and those feelings is something truly beautiful and all-too-rare and incredibly profound. And I can definitively say, after all these years of being haunted by my own middle school experience, that this is the most realistic portrayal of being a lonely, isolated middle school student I have ever seen, and the competition isn't even close. What Bo Burnham has done with this film is something incredibly special and significant. He has made a film that can help those kids like me at 13, who feel like they're not worth anything and that nobody likes them, understand that their struggles really are universal. Even now, as I'm almost 23, there are times where I feel like I'm alone and that the whole world is against me, and Burnham himself even said that this movie is really a reflection of where he's at now, and that is really quite powerful. But in addition to all of that, what also makes this movie incredibly significant is how it uses this micro perspective (that of the main girl, Kayla) to reflect on the entirety of Generation Z, the upcoming generation that has never known a world without the Internet. Texting and social media is almost religious for teenagers now, and the fact Burnham is able to show how we shouldn't be at all surprised by the level of anxiety teenagers and adults are constantly feeling now is something that is very important. As great as technology can be, it is also helping to aid our current mental health crisis in a way that needs to be addressed. And of course, let's not forget the actress who carries this entire movie on her shoulders: Miss Elsie Fisher herself. Oh my God, is she spectacular in this film. Her acting and Burnham's screenplay together make the character of Kayla the most three-dimensional, fully realized cinematic character of the year. And so much of the emotions she feels throughout the entirety of this film are conveyed on only her face in a way that is heartbreaking to anyone who has ever faced social rejection or is struggling with depression and/or anxiety (which I feel like should be most everyone reading this right now). This is a beautiful and important film that only gets more beautiful and important with age, and one that I'm sure will be looked back on years from now as a perfect time capsule of the second half of the 2010s, and one with some timeless themes to boot.

#2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower -- Yes, I will admit, ranking Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower as my second-favorite movie of the decade is certainly not a popular thing to do, but I honestly could not care less. This film also happens to be my third favorite film of all time, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that it came out at just the right time in my life, and it moved me in a way that no other film up to that point had done. I was in the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, I had just started my movie review segment "Nick's Flix," and I was just starting to become confident in my own skin. But in some ways, I still struggled with self-hatred and other emotional issues that held me back socially, and I still generally felt very, very isolated from those around me in school. So needless to say, I had already gone through a lot emotionally in high school by the time I saw this film, and up until that point, I had never seen a film capture with such brutal and heartbreaking honesty the truth of what it’s like to be a teenager and to feel isolated from everyone around you, and the joy of when you do find people who understand you and treat you with love and respect. In many ways watching this film, I felt like I was the Charlie character, simply because I was a lonely, isolated boy in high school whose childhood trauma prevented me from opening up to others, and when I did finally have people to open up to, my whole world transformed. This film, perhaps more than any other film I've seen, beautifully captures that feeling of your whole world opening up, particularly in the first "Fort Pitt Tunnel" sequence that still gives me chills every time I watch it. And watching this film now as an adult with more distance from my high school days, I can still attest to the fact that this film never hits a false note in regards to depicting high school friendships and the high school experience in general. If anything, certain parts in this film ring more true when watching them as an adult. The scene at Charlie's first high school party when Sam and Patrick toast him and officially welcome him into their friend group still kills me, and the two scenes with Sam and Charlie that take place in a bedroom are still as beautiful and devastating as they were when I first saw them. As easy as it can be to caricature teenagers, Chbosky never does. He’s someone who really understands how teenagers act and talk and he presents it perfectly in this film. And the three lead performances are still three of the best lead performances in any film I've ever seen, with Logan Lerman being so perfect as Charlie that you literally cannot imagine anyone else in the role, and Emma Watson being so phenomenal in her first post-Harry Potter role that she made me completely forget about Hermione Granger (and this still remains the best performance she's ever given). But what really, deeply moves me about this film and is the main reason why I hold it in such high regard is its unflinchingly realistic and profoundly moving portrayal of mental illness. There’s a sequence toward the end of the film (Spoiler Alert for those who haven’t seen it) where the main character Charlie has an intense mental breakdown that is one of the most brilliantly filmed and edited sequences in any film I’ve ever seen. I still remember sitting in the theatre watching this and being deeply affected by how realistic it was and how much it reminded me of my own experiences. As a result, I got motivated to be more honest in my work and to draw from my own experiences so that I could possibly reach someone who was going through the same things I was and remind them that they’re not alone. And every time I go back and revisit The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I get that same motivation and same emotional impact that I did on my first few viewings, and for that reason alone, this film justifies its spot at my #2 of the decade and Stephen Chbosky also justifies himself as my favorite new filmmaker to come out of this decade. He has only made two movies, and they are two of my all-time favorite movies, so needless to say, I cannot wait to see what he does next.

And...#1. Boyhood -- As anyone who knows me knows, Richard Linklater's Boyhood is my favorite film of all time, so naturally it is my #1 choice for the best film of the decade. I love everything about this film, absolutely everything. I still remember when I first saw the trailer for this absolute masterpiece of this film toward the end of my junior year of high school, and it still remains one of the greatest trailers I’ve ever seen. It blew me away and I immediately became obsessed with this film, and then I became even more obsessed with it after I saw it. So, so much more than it's "filmed-over-twelve-years" gimmick, Boyhood is seriously the most beautiful film I have ever seen in my life, just in how it’s able to be epic but also intimate and how it’s able to feel so personal but also so universal. Richard Linklater is my favorite filmmaker, and with this film he absolutely accomplished his masterpiece, one that I don’t believe he’ll ever be able to top. Not only is this film the complete summation of his career up to this point, but it also brilliantly showcases how he is an absolute master of neorealism and crafting scenes and sequences that are so realistic that you feel like you're watching the home movies of a real family. From the second scene of the film, when Mason's mother Olivia is driving him home from school and questions him on his poor behavior in school, to a later scene where Mason's father gives him a homemade CD compilation consisting of the best of each of the Beatles' solo post-breakup efforts, there is not a single thing in this movie that feels false or contrived or unrealistic. Much of this also has to do with the performances, which never hit a false note at any point during this film's two-hour-and-forty-five minute running-time. Patricia Arquette completely deserved her Oscar for this film, and it's still one of the best supporting performances I've ever seen, conveying the pain and turbulence of modern motherhood in stunning fashion. Ethan Hawke is also exquisite as Mason Sr., serving as both the comic relief of the film and the one solid male figure that Mason can look up to (this is beautifully shown in one scene late in the film when Mason has a talk with his father about how to move on after a bad breakup). And Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater -- as Mason and his sister Samantha, respectively -- are completely natural screen talents in their roles, and watching both them grow up on screen before our eyes is a really beautiful thing. But ultimately, I think the reason why this film struck such a deep chord with me is because of my age. Having been born in 1997, I’m only a couple years younger than Mason, so the twelve years depicted in this film that he grew up during are also the twelve years that I grew up during, and this film so brilliantly captures that time period and took me back to those years depicted in film, even through things as subtle as a pop song from 2003 that I have fond memories of or a piece of now-outdated technology that I owned in 2006. I truly believe this movie is and should be the definitive film for my generation because it captures our lives, our childhoods, and the various things both political and sociological that shaped who we’ve all become today, for better and for worse. Watching Mason and Samantha be lectured about the War in Iraq, go to a midnight book release for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," help their father canvass for Obama's 2008 campaign, and have to grapple with the realities of being a young adult in twenty-first century America all hit home for me and should hit home for anyone around my age. This film is just a beautiful time capsule of America in the early twenty-first-century, a brilliant examination of the human condition and the joys and pains and mundanities of growing up, and an incredible cinematic accomplishment. And yes, I understand that people who don’t like films without plots won’t exactly be fond of this film, both because of how it just depicts life as it is without anything super-dramatic or “movie-like” happening, and also because of how slow moving it is and how it allows its characters to just breathe and experience the life they’re living. But those who are willing to open themselves up and submit themselves to this film's rhythms and the lives of these characters will discover a truly unique cinematic masterwork, one that has changed the way I see independent film and has had an everlasting impact on me and my writing and filmmaking ever since the first day I saw it at the AMC River East 21 on a hot day in July 2014. It is my favorite movie of all time, and the absolute greatest film of the 2010s.

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And, for anyone who's curious, here's a list of 20 runners-up, i.e. films that are also five-star masterpieces that just missed the cut for my top 20, listed in alphabetical order:

Call Me By Your Name
Her

If Beale Street Could Talk

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The King's Speech

Life Itself (2014)

Manchester by the Sea

Midnight in Paris

A Monster Calls

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Parasite

Phantom Thread

Roma

Short Term 12

Sing Street

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Toy Story 3

Warrior

Whiplash

The Wolf of Wall Street

My Top 15 Favorite Films of 2019 (plus 15 runners-up)

"It was the end of a decade / But the start of an age..."
-- Taylor Swift

2019 was a very emotional year for me. I spent my last two quarters of college making films and honing my voice as a filmmaker, I graduated summa cum laude from DePaul University with a degree in Film & Television, I had a fantastic summer working as a Video Counselor at an amazing summer camp in Maine, and I began collecting my first film industry paychecks doing day gigs on film sets in Chicago. And on top of all of that, I saw a lot of really, really great movies this year. Granted, because of my summer camp job and the fact that I moved back home to Crown Point, Indiana after living in Chicago for four years, I didn't get to see as many films as I have in recent years, but a lot of the ones I did see were really powerful films from unique, diverse voices, the kind that are all too often sidelined by multiplexes and the moviegoing public in favor of billion dollar "theme park films," to quote a certain Mr. Scorsese. And while I did have a hard time ranking some of these films, I do feel like this is a very strong top 15 that represents both the diversity of films that spoke to me this year, as well as the different ways that said films spoke to me.

Before I get into my top 15, here's a list of 10 films from 2019 that I have NOT yet seen but definitely want to as soon as possible:

Honey Boy
A Hidden Life
The Souvenir
Ad Astra
Climax
Apollo 11
Richard Jewell
The Lighthouse
I Lost My Body
The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Now as I say every year now, these 15 films I'm about to list (and the order in which I list them) may not be what some would consider the BEST films of 2019; but rather, they are my personal FAVORITE films that, for one reason or another, impacted me as a student of film and as an aspiring filmmaker and that, in my opinion, speak in some way to the broader world we all live in. So, without further ado, here are my top 15 favorite films of 2019 from 15 to 1:

#15. The Farewell -- One of the most unabashed crowd-pleasers of the year, this is a really special, deeply personal film for its creator that succeeds in telling its very specific story in a way that is universally relatable. I've seen this film twice now, the first time at the Chicago Critics Film Festival back in May, though it wasn't until the second time that it really hit home for me. For those who don't know me too well, I lost my grandmother to cancer almost two years ago now, and watching how the family in this film attempted to enjoy their final days with their matriarch reminded me of how, in different ways, my family attempted to keep things as normal as possible in the last month of my grandmother's life, including having her fill out an Oscar ballot for our family pool. So while this film is definitely informative in terms of showing how this specific culture deals with death and grief when it comes to family, it also is a great, much-needed reminder that we aren't all that different from one another. Anyone who's ever had to deal with the loss (or impending loss) of an older family member will be able to relate to this story. But far from being a depressing story about grief and death, The Farewell is also one of the heartwarming films I've seen this year. The family dinner scenes, the family's numerous interactions with Nai Nai, the grandmother and matriarch at the center of the story (played exquisitely and hilariously by Zhao Shuzhen, who absolutely deserves a Best Supporting Actress nomination), as well as the granddaughter Billi's internal struggle with the Eastern and Western cultures she's torn between, are all portrayed with such warmth, grace, and humor that it made me wish the film was a full hour longer just so I could spend more time with this family. So yes, I adore this movie, and I honestly cannot see why anyone wouldn't like it, so please do yourself a favor and see this immediately if you haven't already.

#14. Luce -- Speaking of films that I first saw back in May at the Chicago Critics Film Festival, here's one that completely took me my surprise and knocked for a loop when I first saw it there. I had not read anything about this film before going to see it on closing night, and that is definitely the best way to watch it. All I'll say here is that, of the many films that have come out in the last few years that deal with race, this is easily the most nuanced, insightful, and deeply intelligent of the bunch. The screenplay, co-written by director Julius Onah and JC Lee (and adapted from a 2013 stage play by Lee), is one of the best of the year in the way it slowly builds tension, constantly subverts the audience's expectations at nearly every turn, and ultimately leaves the audience with no easy answers. The performances by all four leads are great, but Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Octavia Spencer in particular are absolutely phenomenal. The range that Harrison Jr. displays in his performance is near-breathtaking without ever feeling showy, and Spencer continues to be one of our greatest working actresses, portraying a concerned teacher dealing with her own inner turmoil in a way that's quietly powerful. I really hope more people discover this film (it doesn't appear to be streaming anywhere unfortunately), if only because of the conversations and debates that it's sure to stir up. And I personally can't wait to hear (and participate in) some of those conversations and debates.

#13. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood -- This is now the second year in a row that a film about Fred Rogers has made my top 15 (Morgan Neville's beautiful documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? was #4 on my list last year), and while Marielle Heller's narrative film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood isn't quite as powerful as Neville's documentary was, it is still a great film in its own right, mainly because of how it takes a completely different approach to Rogers than the documentary did. Rather than doing a straight-up biopic about his life and career, Heller instead chose to do a film showing the impact that Rogers had on the life of one man, in this case a fictional journalist named Lloyd Vogel, who is a composite character based on both Tom Junod and Tim Madigan, two cynical journalists who profiled Rogers on separate occasions and were given new perspectives on life. While there have been other films that have been told from the point-of-view of a journalist to varied results, I thought the approach worked exceedingly well in this film, mainly because of how well-written the Lloyd character is. He is a man that is clearly struggling with pain and trauma and he has every reason to be skeptical of Rogers, and yet he finds himself completely taken by Rogers when he is exactly who he presents himself to be on his show. And because of this, Lloyd is able to open himself up to Rogers and even strive to become a better person because of him. Part of the reason this arc works so well (other than because there are at least two other instances of this arc actually occurring in real human beings) is because of how the movie is framed. Heller has stated that she intended this film to be a feature-length Mister Rogers' Neighborhood episode for adults, and it very much is that, all the way from the use of miniature sets of Pittsburgh and NYC during transition scenes to the film's bookend scenes when Rogers talks and sings to the camera as he did on every single episode of his show. And speaking of Rogers, there really was no more perfect person to play him in this than Tom Hanks. While they don't exactly look or sound alike, Hanks nevertheless beautifully captures the essence of who Rogers was, and that alone should be enough for most people to see this film if they haven't already. It serves as both a great companion piece to Won't You Be My Neighbor?, and a heartwarming, inspiring film in its own right.

#12. Knives Out -- Ever since I saw Rian Johnson's first three films (Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and Looper) during my freshman and sophomore years of high school, he has been one of the filmmakers I've been most intrigued by, mostly because of how he can create his own unique stories out of genres as disparate as neo-noir, caper, and science-fiction. He even did that with The Last Jedi in a way, creating his own unique story in the Star Wars canon (which is really good by the way, you can fight me on that). But with Knives Out, he's arguably created his masterpiece, taking the whodunit genre and crafting a unique story that is both smart, unpredictable, timely, and just damned entertaining. The entire ensemble cast is terrific, with Chris Evans and Don Johnson giving two of their best performances as particularly despicable characters, but the two absolute standouts in this film are Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas. Craig is an absolute joy to watch as private detective Benoit Blanc, a hilarious cinematic creation that is familiar but at the same time wholly original. But Ana de Armas as Marta, the true heart and soul of this film, is absolutely outstanding. She is not only by far the most sympathetic character in this story, but like Benoit Blanc, she's just a lot of fun to be around, and she even has some great comedic moments that I won't spoil here because you really need to see them for yourself. In addition, the film's production design is absolutely exquisite, paying homage to other films and plays of this sort (one of the characters even calls it a giant Clue-board) without ever distracting from the story, and the cinematography and editing provide a great, propulsive rhythm that makes the film feel much shorter than its 130 minutes. I am so glad that this film is doing so well at the box office, and I hope and pray that its success leads to more films like this being made and released in theaters, because this is a truly fantastic piece of entertainment, and one that makes me ecstatic to see what Rian Johnson does next.

#11. Jojo Rabbit -- Speaking of filmmakers I'm constantly intrigued by, Taika Waititi has been a big presence on my cinematic radar ever since I saw his wonderful Hunt for the Wilderpeople at the Chicago Critics Film Festival in 2016 (I still have yet to catch up with Boy and What We Do In The Shadows). And even though I'm not a Marvel fan, I still appreciated how he at least made the character of Thor interesting in Thor: Ragnorak. But with Jojo Rabbit, his self-described "anti-hate satire" set in Nazi Germany toward the end of World War II, Waititi has created his boldest piece of filmmaking yet, one that is audacious, hilarious, and surprisingly emotional. In tackling the coming-of-age of a ten-year-old boy named Jojo who idolizes Adolf Hitler (who is portrayed as Jojo's idiotic imaginary friend in a wonderfully comedic performance by Waititi himself) and views Jewish people as inhuman monsters, Waititi walks a very fine line, but manages to succeed in showing just how stupid and childish these beliefs are, and also how easy it is to fall into this way of thinking when it's all you know and when you so desperately want to fit into a group. And later, when Jojo discovers that his mother is secretly hiding a teenage Jewish girl named Elsa in their attic, his entire worldview is turned upside down and he begins to form a friendship with her that is one of the sweetest friendships you'll see in any film this year. Thomasin McKenzie follows up her breakthrough performance in last year's Leave No Trace with another remarkable performance as Elsa, and she brilliantly plays off of newcomer Roman Griffith Davis's Jojo, whose sweetness and naiveté make him lovable in spite of his warped belief system and make it all the more exciting when he finally renounces it. Waititi's writing and visual style has been rightly compared to that of Wes Anderson, and while there are definitely some flashes of Anderson here, the film is still uniquely Waititi's, and there are more than a few deeply shocking and tragic moments in this film that Anderson could never attempt. In all, Jojo Rabbit is a wonderful satire that is equal parts hilarious and unexpectedly moving, and like Knives Out, it makes me incredibly excited to see what its filmmaker does next.

#10. One Child Nation -- And now we go from a satirical portrait of horror and tragedy to a shocking and devastating one. From the moment I learned that this documentary existed last year, I made it a personal goal to seek it out and tell people about it, because China's old child policy is not just some distant thing or piece of trivia for me -- it has had a direct impact on my family. In 2013 (exactly two years before the end of the one-child policy), my aunt and uncle adopted a baby girl from China. Reading later about the prevalence of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide in China under the one-child policy made me realize just how lucky my cousin was to (a) be born in the first place, and (b) actually have a chance at life after birth. So I already had a strong personal connection to this film before I even saw one frame of it, and as expected, that connection was only strengthened further upon seeing the whole thing. This is a painfully grim yet powerful portrait of not only the human rights travesty that was China's one-child policy, but also of what happens when a society loses all respect for human life. Two of the most gut-wrenching sequences in this film involve an elderly midwife who atones for her past participation in forced sterilizations and abortions (many of them very late-term abortions) by helping couples with infertility issues, and a Chinese artist who made it a point to photograph aborted babies he found in garbage dumps and alongside the road as a testament to the human cost of the policy. Later in the film, it is revealed that, once China opened its borders for adoption in the early 90s, Chinese government officials began abducting "extra children" from their homes and placing them in government-run orphanages to be adopted by Western families. This was especially troubling for me thinking of my cousin and the circumstances that possibly lead to her being adopted, and I can only imagine the feelings and questions that would provoke in any family that has adopted from China. Although there were some consequences of the policy I wish could have been explored a little more (i.e., the massive gender imbalance in China), this is still a haunting and remarkable film and easily the best documentary I've seen all year (it thankfully has made the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature, and if there's any justice at all, it will get nominated and win). It certainly is not an easy watch, but it's a gravely important one, and one that you owe it to yourself to see (it's currently streaming on Amazon Prime).

#9. Blinded by the Light -- So people who know me know that I am, to put it mildly, a die-hard Bruce Springsteen fan. His music has meant so much to me throughout my entire life, the experience of seeing him in concert is almost-religious for me, and his lyrics have provided inspiration for a number of my short films and screenplays. So, naturally, when I saw the trailer for Gurinder Chadha's Blinded by the Light, it immediately became the most anticipated film of 2019 for me. Soon afterward, I had the distinct privilege of getting to see it at the Chicago Critics Film Festival with a group consisting of family and friends (in addition the rest of the large crowd), and that is where I first experienced this profound, joyous, and magical film. And while it certainly is a must-see for fans of Bruce Springsteen like myself, at its core it’s really a fantastic portrayal of the power of great music and art to transcend cultural boundaries and make a significant impact on the most individual of levels. From the moment that Javed (the protagonist of the film) puts the cassette tape of Born in the U.S.A. in his Walkman and hears the lyrics of "Dancing in the Dark" (which appear around him on the screen), I openly wept in the theatre, because I get that feeling when you first hear the music that changes your life, and when you hear those individual lyrics that feel like they were written for you. But in addition to all of this, the film is also a deeply moving portrait of race and identity in 1980s Britain, the conflict between fathers and sons, first love, and friendship that should resonate with everyone regardless of their musical taste. And while I can see this film's flaws more clearly now than I did back in May (when I prematurely named it my favorite film of 2019), I still absolutely love this movie, it brings me pure joy every time I watch it, and I cannot see why anyone would not like this film...unless, for some reason, they hate joy. ;)

#8. Brittany Runs a Marathon -- This is now the fourth film mentioned on this list that I saw at the Chicago Critics Film Festival back in May (in case you haven't figured it out by now, it's a really awesome film festival), and it is easily the biggest surprise of the year for me. Going into it, I just assumed it was going to be a fine, generic indie comedy about someone trying to lose weight and feel better about herself, but this is so, so much more than that. Not only is this movie hilarious, sometimes painfully so, but it's also really sweet and, by the end, unexpectedly moving. The character of Brittany (based on writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo's close friend and roommate) is one of the most fully-realized and three-dimensional protagonists that I've seen in a movie of this sort, never once coming off like a stereotype and always feeling real. This is in large part thanks to Jillian Bell's brilliant, empathetic performance as Brittany. I had never seen Bell in anything before this, but for her to be given her first lead performance in a film and knock it out of the park like this is really a joy to watch. The supporting performances are great too, with Utkarsh Ambudkar and Lil Rel Howery (who I love in just about everything I see him in) playing off of Bell in ways that are both funny and really touching. But the main reason I ended up loving this film so much is because of how beautifully it earns its ending. I won't spoil it, but I'll just say that I was crying really hard both times I saw this in the theatre. It's so cathartic and moving and a brilliant payoff to the previous 90 minutes, and it really reinforces the beauty of actually working toward self-improvement and taking responsibility for yourself. That certainly spoke to me on a lot of different levels, and if you've ever struggled with self-improvement and taking responsibility for yourself, this film will almost certainly speak to you, and it might even inspire and motivate you to pursue that more. It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime, and I cannot recommend this highly enough. 

#7. The Peanut Butter Falcon -- Speaking of films that surprised me when I first saw them, here's another example of a movie that just came out of nowhere and knocked me out emotionally in all the right ways. I literally had no idea what to expect when walking into Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz's The Peanut Butter Falcon. I knew the basic plot and that the lead was a young man with Down syndrome, but that’s about it. But...wow, did I absolutely LOVE this movie. It is earnest and sweet without ever being saccharine or condescending, it’s beautifully shot in a way that grounds its story in reality while still evoking a sense of childlike wonder, and its use of the Southern locale is remarkably authentic and never resorts to degrading cliches. I don't think Shia LaBeouf has ever been better than he is here (although that might change once I get around to seeing Honey Boy), and Dakota Johnson continues to be beautiful and lovely and awesome in everything she’s in (no, I have not seen and will never see the Fifty Shades movies). But the true star of this movie is newcomer Zack Gottsagen, who is so outstanding and lovely to watch playing a role that was clearly written to highlight his gifts as an actor. And he plays an actual full-bodied three-dimensional character, not Hollywood’s normal idea of what someone with Down syndrome is like, which is so important and such a joy to watch. There are so many ways this story could have been screwed up in the hands of lesser filmmakers, but Nilson and Schwartz (first-time feature filmmakers, no less) really pulled off a beautiful miracle of a film here, one that I cannot wait to experience again. So yeah, this is absolutely a masterpiece of American independent cinema, and an important milestone in representation of people with disabilities that will hopefully open the doors for more films like this.

#6. Uncut Gems -- A couple years ago, I wrote an essay for a Cinema Studies class at DePaul on the film Punch-Drunk Love. In it, I briefly discussed how bold of a move it was for Paul Thomas Anderson to cast Adam Sandler in that film, since Sandler was coming off of films such as The Wedding Singer and was widely known as the king of juvenile humor, while Anderson was just coming off of the critically-acclaimed prestige dramas Boogie Nights and Magnolia. In the seventeen years since Punch-Drunk Love, Sandler has continued to make several critically-reviled juvenile comedies while occasionally doing an interesting dramatic film like Jason Reitman's Men, Women, and Children or Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories. But I sincerely hope that Uncut Gems marks a turning point in his career, because he gives an absolutely astonishing performance in this film, one that deserves to be compared to Al Pacino's performance in Dog Day Afternoon. But beyond Sandler's performance, Uncut Gems is an absolute masterclass in suspense filmmaking, one that barely allowed me to breathe for the entirety of its 135-minute running-time (which absolutely flies by) and one that is genuinely unpredictable. The second you think Sandler's character is realizing the error of his ways, he decides to dig himself in deeper, and I don't think I've ever heard a louder collective groan in a movie theatre than when that happens here. And the final twenty minutes of this film (which, again, I won't spoil) are absolutely extraordinary, and set a new creative bar for the Safdie brothers that I'm not sure they'll ever top (although I'd love to see if they do). And I haven't even mentioned Julia Fox, who turns in a brilliant debut performance as Sandler's mistress, one that makes me really excited to see what she does next. So yes, this was one of the most unforgettable moviegoing experiences I've had in several years, and definitely make sure to see this one on the big screen. You will not regret it.

#5. Marriage Story -- And now we transition to a movie I really wish I could have seen on the big screen but wasn't able to (I missed it at the Music Box Theatre last month but I'm really hoping they bring it back after the Oscar nominations come out). Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story is easily the best film I've ever seen about divorce, and one of the most emotionally devastating films I've seen this decade. As someone who's lucky enough to have never had to endure being a child of divorce, watching this film gave me a real and visceral understanding of the horrible and insidious nature of divorce, especially when there are kids and lawyers involved. Perhaps the most brilliant thing Baumbach does in his screenplay is give equal time to both Charlie (an Oscar-worthy Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson in a career performance) and their respective sides in the divorce proceedings, so that the audience is never implored to side with either of them over the other. And while I'm sure some people will still side with one over the other, especially if they've been through something similar to what these characters are going through, what Baumbach beautifully illustrates in this film is that the true villain in stories like this is the system that pits people against each other and causes irreversible damage to the men, women, and children involved. There is one scene in particular where the tension that has been building throughout the film explodes in the most painful and gut-wrenching way imaginable, and by the end my heart was broken for both Charlie and Nicole. So while this is far from a comfortable, escapist watch on Netflix, it's also one of the most deeply moving and rewarding things you will find on that streaming service right now (although if any of you reading this find an opportunity to experience Marriage Story in a movie theatre rather than in your living room or God forbid on your smartphone, take it without thinking twice). It's just a magnificent character study with some of the best acting you'll see this year, a quantum leap for Noah Baumbach, and I firmly believe it will be remembered years from now as one of the greatest cinematic depictions of divorce.

#4. Those Who Remained -- While I know that this film has still not been given a proper release in the U.S., it has been (rightfully) included on this year's Oscar shortlist for the Best International Feature Film category, so I am counting it as a 2019 film. It's been almost two-and-a-half months now since I saw this film at the Chicago International Film Festival, and it continued to stay with me and haunt me throughout the entirety of those almost two-and-a-half months, because this is absolutely one of the most beautiful and haunting masterpieces I've seen this year. As someone who has been fascinated by this period of history ever since reading The Diary of Anne Frank in middle school (which is still one of the most powerful things I've ever read), I was deeply moved by how this film depicts the devastation in Budapest after World War II on the most personal of levels, and how it's able to communicate the collective trauma without resorting to flashbacks or anything of the sort. The father-daughter relationship between the two leads is one of the best I've seen in a long, long time, one that conveys their own need to fill the voids left by their lost family members as well as the broader societal struggle to try and achieve some sense of normalcy as a way of coping with grief. The performances of the two leads are outstanding as well, especially Abigél Szõke, who absolutely knocks it out of the park in every single scene (there's a scene in particular when she's looking through two old photo albums that nearly destroyed me). I could go on about how this is a nearly perfect movie on every single level, from the pitch-perfect cinematography to how the score is sparingly used to great effect, but I'm just going to say to please keep an eye out for this movie. As I mentioned above, it is on the Oscar shortlist for the Best International Feature Film category this year, and if there is any justice in this world whatsoever, it will absolutely be nominated. And when it is, it will be released in the Chicago area (and hopefully most major metropolitan areas), and when that happens, it will be everyone's civic duty to see this movie and then get their friends to see it. So please do your civic duty when it comes time to do so.

#3. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood -- I have been an admirer of Quentin Tarantino's work ever since my parents took me to see Django Unchained on Christmas Day 2012, but it was really when I watched Inglourious Basterds for the first time that I truly saw him for the genius and visionary that he is. Having seen this film twice now (the second time at the Music Box Theatre on glorious 70mm), I can safely say that is absolutely one of Tarantino’s best films and one of the greatest movies ever made about Hollywood and L.A. in general. Not only was it so cool to see a lot of the places I went to a lot during my time in L.A. (Musso and Frank’s on Sunset, the Cinerama Dome that’s now a part of ArcLight Hollywood, the Bruin Theatre that I sat across from every week), but this is really just a beautifully layered, ambitious, surprisingly funny and oddly melancholy film that manages to pay tribute to the time period it depicts while also examining its darker aspects in classic Tarantino fashion. Leonardo DiCaprio is perfectly cast in his role, and Brad Pitt hasn’t had this much fun in a movie since at least Burn After Reading (and I do believe he will win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar). Even Margot Robbie is great here, even if the Sharon Tate character is treated as more of an idea than a person. There are just so many great scenes and lines of dialogue that are a joy to revisit, in particular an extended sequence involving Pitt's character at Spahn Ranch that is both hilarious and unbearably tense, and a scene involving DiCaprio's character talking with an extremely precocious eight-year-old actress played by Julia Butters, who is out-freaking-standing and gives the best child performance in any movie this year (and she's in one scene!). And this is also the fastest two hours and forty-five minutes I’ve ever experienced, without a single second wasted (unlike a certain three-and-a-half hour movie that, in my opinion, has several wasted seconds). So yes, I loved this movie, like really, truly loved this movie, and this is absolutely a must-see if you’re a Tarantino fan, or a fan of movies in general, or a human being.

#2. Parasite -- From the moment the credits rolled on this film back in October when I first saw it (funny enough, just a few days after I saw the other foreign-language film in my top 5, Those Who Remained), I knew I had witnessed something truly special, a film that is literal definition of cinema, a film from a master filmmaker in complete and utter control of his craft, and a film that will become regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema. These are not phrases I use lightly, but I feel that they are ones that accurately apply to this film, a hilarious, terrifying, almost-unbearably tense, and relentlessly biting satire on Korean society, class and the human condition that I truly cannot wait to experience again and again. Much like Marriage Story, Parasite is a film that allows you to see both the good and evil in the two families at the center of this story, families that are beautifully brought to life via the outstanding ensemble cast at this film's center. Just a few of the standouts from this cast include Park So Dam as the daughter of the poor family, a chain-smoking document forger who poses as "Jessica the art therapist," Cho Yeo Jeong as the wife of the rich family, whose kindness and naiveté go a long way towards humanizing her family, and Song Kang Ho as the patriarch of the poor family, who is unquestionably the heart and soul of this film and who becomes the film's tragic hero by the end. And just from a cinematography and production design standpoint, this film is one of the best of the decade. The majority of it takes place in a house that was built from the ground up specifically for the film, and it very much becomes a character in the story, giving off different vibes as the film twists and turns. And I know I've already used the term "unpredictable" twice in this post, but nowhere can it be more accurately applied than to this film. I honestly had no idea where this story was going to go, and please for the love of God, do not read anything about the plot of this film before going to see it, because the best way to see it is how I first saw it: knowing as little about it as possible. This is a film that needs to be experienced in order to really understand what an absolute masterwork it is. And although I've only seen it once (so far), I personally cannot wait to see this again and again, and pick up on the little bits of social commentary I may have missed the first time. This film deserves every bit of praise and Oscar buzz it's been getting, and I sincerely hope the Academy recognizes this across the board like they did with Roma last year, because this film is truly that special.

And...#1. Little Women -- And just when I thought that no other 2019 film could ever top Parasite as my #1 of 2019, I saw Greta Gerwig's Little Women on Christmas Day with my family and it almost immediately overtook the #1 spot. Now, full disclosure: I had never read or seen any incarnation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women before walking into this movie, so I had absolutely nothing to compare this film to. But what I got out of seeing Greta Gerwig's Little Women is that it is an absolute masterpiece and the best film of 2019. It is a beautiful, brilliantly-crafted, funny, joyous, but also heartbreaking and profound film that encapsulates pretty much everything love about cinema and storytelling. The way Gerwig structures this classic story to make it a meditation on the loss of innocence and loneliness and regret is absolutely remarkable and it totally speaks to me as a young adult in a turbulent stage of life. All four of the actresses who play the March sisters are terrific and perfectly cast, but the performances of Saoirse Ronan and Florence Pugh are extraordinary and absolutely deserving of awards attention (if it were up to me, Pugh would win Best Supporting Actress because she's that good). And even the supporting performances by Timothee Chalamet (who continues to be one of the greatest actors on the face of Planet Earth) and Meryl Streep (who hasn't been this much fun to watch in anything since Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events) are excellent and helped to round out a world that I wanted to stay in long after the credits rolled. In many ways, watching this film reminded me of the first time I read L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (which still remains my favorite book of all time), and not just because of the lovely female characters and period setting, but also because of how it created a world that is both joyous and comforting while never feeling shallow or phony. Much like I tend to go back to Anne of Green Gables when I'm depressed and need something that is going to fill me with sheer, authentic joy, I can imagine myself going back to this film when I'm feeling down in the future, which is not something I can say about many other films from this decade. So yes, this is a really, deeply special film, one I cannot wait to see again (I still have only seen this once, darn it!) and one that every single person on Earth should see. This is absolutely the best film of 2019, and one of the most joyous moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had.

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And, for anyone who's curious, here's a list of 15 runners-up, i.e. films that are really good (and, in some cases, great) that just missed the cut for my top 15, listed in alphabetical order:

Abducted in Plain Sight
Dolemite Is My Name
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Ford v. Ferrari

Her Smell

The Irishman

Midsommar

1917
Pain and Glory
Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Rocketman

Toy Story 4
The Two Popes

Us

Western Stars