The best films and directors of the decade, according to the Letterboxd community. As the 2010s stumble to a close, we release a collection of lists celebrating the best films and directors of the decade, and reveal your most underrated and overlooked gems.
When Parasite overtook The Godfather this past November to become the highest-rated film of all time on Letterboxd, it was also confirmation of what we’ve been noticing since we launched the service in 2011: that the 2010s have ushered in a new golden era of filmmaking. Alongside the rise in blockbuster franchises, the film world has seen new innovations in genre films, financing models and talent pathways, helping a new generation of indie filmmakers to get traction in the competitive and unpredictable feature film scene.
And while the industry continues to reckon with upheavals in the studio system and theatrical landscape, the upside is that cinephiles have more and more platforms through which we can find and share new discoveries, back-catalog classics and obscure treasures. Indeed, our own recently launched partnership with JustWatch is helping many of you more easily track down and watch old favorites and recent releases. (JustWatch keeps track of streaming data for 38 countries and rising, and in the US alone, it monitors well over 100 services.)
In the spirit of discovery, and ahead of our 2019 Year in Review (coming in early January) we’ve run the numbers on the past decade of movies. Read on for the results—you have a couple of days left to squeeze some of them into your year’s viewing, in order to influence your 2019 and decade stats! (By the way, if you’re a Pro or Patron member, and you have best-of-decade lists for this or any other decade, you can now tag them so they appear on your all-time stats page. Use this format: top2010s, top1980s etc. We’ve also extended support for all-time top lists past the previous maximum of ten.)
The Top 20 Uncut Gems of the 2010s
Each fortnight, we run a Showdown where you get to pick your favorite films for a given theme. For the final Showdown of 2019—and the decade—we asked you to list your favorite ‘uncut gems’ of the 2010s—the overlooked, under-seen, not-loved-enough movies that you think more people need to know about.
It’s been the most popular Showdown ever, with pages and pages and pages of lists worth exploring in their entirety. We added up the most-mentioned films, removed those that had been watched by more than 15,000 members (per the specific rules of this challenge) and arrived at a final top 20, with Alex Ross Perry’s messy rock drama Her Smell taking the top spot (read our write-up about the Elisabeth Moss-starring film here). It’s quite an international list, with six women directors (Josephine Decker, Agnieszka Smoczyńska, Kelly Reichhardt, Hélène Cattet, Cristina Gallego and Mélanie Laurent), two Ciro Guerra films from Colombia, and a film from the Safdie brothers, the directors behind Uncut Gems, which has an impressive 4.3 average on Letterboxd right now.
The Top 250 Narrative Feature Films of the 2010s
Parasite, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Portrait of a Lady on Fire topped the highest-rated 250 narrative feature films of the 2010s. The busiest directors on this list were Denis Villeneuve and Taika Waititi, with five films each. Hirokazu Kore-eda, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino and Lee Chang-dong all feature with three films each.
The Top 100 Directors of the 2010s
We set out to find the narrative feature film directors whose work in the 2010s, as ranked by the Letterboxd community, combined with their overall placing on our Top 250 of the 2010s list, signified their excellence in the directing field. After some data-heavy research, backed by a solid methodology, one name emerged at the top: Denis Villeneuve. Taika Waititi and Lee Chang-dong round out the top three.
Interestingly, only two Best Director Oscar winners from the 2010s made the list: Damien Chazelle and Alejandro González Iñárritu. The most prolific directors on the list are Hong Sang-soo (14 films) and Sion Sono (11 films).
The 100 Most Popular Films of the 2010s
This list is determined by the films that have the most activity across our community, including watches, reviews, comments, list additions and more. Get Out topped this list, with Avengers: Infinity War and La La Land close behind.
This is a heavily US-based list, with very few films made outside the US and only two made primarily in non-English languages: Parasite and Roma. Christopher Nolan is tied for first place with the Russo brothers in terms of having the highest number of films on the list, at four each.
The Top 50 Most Obsessively Rewatched Films of the 2010s
By “obsessive” we mean total watches from all members who logged a film five or more times. The top three are: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Infinity War and La La Land. The Marvel Cinematic Universe accounts for a full 20 percent of the list (including the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Spider-Man: Homecoming, but not including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). The Star Wars franchise has six films on the list.
The Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, are the MVPs of this list, with four MCU directing credits. Jon Favreau is represented all over the list as a director (Elf), a writer and a producer. And, of course, the late Stan Lee is credited across the MCU. We made an accompanying list for those who have Paddington obsessions.
The Top 100 Documentary & Non-Fiction Films of the 2010s
O.J.: Made in America is the top non-fiction title of the 2010s, while For Sama is the top feature-length documentary. The MVP of documentary directors is American great Frederick Wiseman, who has three films in the list. Joshua Oppenheimer, Agnès Varda, Steve James, Adam Curtis, Asif Kapadia, Petra Costa and the filmmaking duo Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin all have two films apiece. 24 women directors feature in the list, across 26 films.
The Top 100 International Films of the 2010s
An incredibly strong list, this was topped—of course—by Parasite, with Portrait of a Lady on Fire and The Handmaiden completing the top three. There were some notable exclusions on this list, due to not having a US release date until 2020. They are: Bacurau, System Crasher, And Then We Danced, Vitalina Varela and Two Blue Stripes. Maybe we’ll see them in our 2020 round-up.
The Top 100 Animated Feature Films of the 2010s
This is a Japan-heavy list, with more than 35 films in the top 100. The US follows with 26 films, including the first-placed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Don Hertzfeldt’s It’s Such a Beautiful Day is at number two and Lee Unkrich’s Coco takes third place.
The Top 100 Women-Directed Feature Films of the 2010s
A truly international cross-section of feature films is represented in this list, which is topped by Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, one of three by the director to appear in the list. Greta Gerwig has an impressive two films in the top ten. Other directors to appear twice are: Kathryn Bigelow, Dee Rees, Lynne Ramsey, Marielle Heller, Andrea Arnold, Maren Ade, Juliana Rojas, Zoya Akhtar, Meghna Gulzar, Nadine Labaki, Kelly Reichhardt and Naoko Ogigami. More recent films feature heavily, with 22 from 2017 versus just one from 2013.
The Top 50 Directorial Debuts of the 2010s
We looked for the highest-rated feature film debuts by directors who had not helmed a film solo prior. We included directing partnerships where part of the collaborative team had not made a feature before; that’s why Peter Ramsey is in the mix alongside feature newcomers Rodney Rothman and Bob Persichetti, taking the top spot for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Rounding out the top three are Don Hertzfeldt and Jordan Peele.
A full quarter of this list is comprised of women directors: Lulu Wang, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Olivia Wilde, Dee Rees, Nora Twomey, Alma Har'el, Rebecca Sugar, Yoon Ga-Eun, Jennifer Fox, Shouko Nakamura, Dorota Kobiela and Naoko Yamada.
The Top 50 Comedy Specials of the 2010s
John Mulaney topped this list, with four specials included, and a fifth likely to make the list by year’s end. Fun fact: twelve of these were from 2017, which is double the next most represented year (six are from 2018). Un-fun fact: only five comedy women here.
The Top 50 Limited or Miniseries of the 2010s
David Lynch’s Twin Peaks took the top spot, closely followed by Craig Mazin’s Chernobyl, and When They See Us, Ava DuVernay’s dramatic series about the Central Park 5.
The Top 50 Horror Films of the 2010s
We made room for a single genre list, and horror was it—you’ll note we’ve erred on the generous side with what might be considered a horror film (so, yes, there are comedy horrors and psychological thrillers included). Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse swept in late in the decade to take the top spot, while Get Out and What We Do in the Shadows also ranked highly.
The 50 Most Divisive Films of the 2010s
These were the 50 most divisive feature films, concert movies, comedy specials and other curiosities of the 2010s. These are the titles from the 2010s that had the widest spread of ratings (note: this list has been updated using a more appropriate methodology and higher minimum viewer count since this post was published).
That’s all, folks. Huge thanks to Jack for compiling the lion’s share of these lists. We’ll see you in 2020 with our 2019 Year in Review. (All the decade best-of list rankings are provisional and will be finalized after 31 December.)
축하해요 to Bong Joon-ho and the Parasite crew on taking the highest-rated spot in our 2019 Year in Review. Congratulations also to Anthony and Joe Russo and the entire Marvel team on Avengers: Endgame finishing the year as the Most Popular film.
“I find it beautiful that people would express their feelings and put their heart and their mind into cinema” —Céline Sciamma on Letterboxd reactions to Portrait of Lady on Fire.
The Letterboxd Year in Review is presented by NEON.
The 2019 Letterboxd Year in Review is out, and, as voted by you, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women are the three highest rated films of the year, while the Russo Brothers’ Avengers: Endgame is the year’s most popular film. Feel free to dive in, then come back here for some insights and behind-the-scenes tid-bits:
The 2019 Letterboxd Year in Review
Pro tip: on devices with keyboards, we recommend navigating via the up/down arrow keys for the most satisfying experience.
Right out of the gate, we could tell Parasite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire were going to have an impact this year—we picked them in our top 10 Cannes premieres of 2019, but we couldn’t have predicted that Parasite would topple The Godfather’s long-standing position as the highest-rated film on Letterboxd. An epic achievement. As director Bong told us at TIFF when we revealed he was on track to have the highest rated film: “I’m so happy with that. All the cinephiles, the film geeks. Me, also the cinephile, so I’m very happy with that news. Thank you!”
Céline Sciamma was also touched by the attention that Letterboxd members have paid to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which had a limited US release in December and gets a wider run in February. “I’m paying a lot of attention about what’s going on around the film, what is being said,” she told us. “I’m really looking at things, so I’ve seen a lot of Letterboxd”—she sees you!—“and the fact that people who were touched by the film would take the time to write about it, I think it’s something really beautiful because, especially with this film, which is about how love is an education to art—because art consoles from love or makes us greater lovers—I find it beautiful that people would express their feelings and put their heart and their mind into cinema.”
Getting to the heart of why we created Letterboxd, Sciamma concluded: “That’s the beauty of this digital era. As a young cinephile there was no internet, and I remember writing, just only for myself in little diaries about film. And so I found it really, really important.”
The two highest-rated films of the year are both distributed in the US by NEON, who we are proud to have on board as an official presenting partner for the 2019 Year in Review. NEON’s manager of acquisitions, Mason Speta, says: “The Letterboxd community is home to the most committed and passionate cinephiles, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be recognized by the people who love movies as much as we do.”
In that same Cannes piece, we highlighted just one documentary, For Sama. The heartbreaking first-hand account of life as a young mother in Aleppo has gone on to become our Highest Rated Documentary of 2019. “It really means a lot to us,” director Waad al-Kateab told us. Her co-director Edward Watts added: “To know that it’s reaching so many people is such good news. The dream was always that the film would reach so many people and they would come in contact with this incredible story, so it’s fantastic to hear that people have seen it, and that they like it!”
The Lighthouse also appeared on our Cannes list; it finishes the year as our Highest Rated Horror (read our Q&A with writer-director Robert Eggers here). Quentin Tarantino is 2019’s Most Watched Director, after thousands of you revisited his back catalog in anticipation of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
A global scan of the 50 Highest Rated Narrative Features favors the US, with 20 films on the list, but the remaining films come from far and wide: Korea, France, China, Brazil, India, Japan, Spain, Germany, Colombia (twice), Turkey, Sweden, Romania, Italy, Mexico, Austria, Iceland, and a couple set in the Arctic Circle and outer space.
We’re very pleased to see, in the highest rated category, that two of the top three directors are women—Céline Sciamma and Greta Gerwig. The only other time a woman has featured in the top three in our history of Years in Review was in 2017, when Gerwig’s Lady Bird took the second spot. Overall, ten women directors feature on the top 50 narrative films list, down one from 2018’s record of 11. On the other hand, ten women directors feature among the 20 highest rated documentaries, with Waad al-Kateab and Beyoncé Knowles in the first and second spots. These are the ten highest rated films by women directors in 2019, and here are the 10 most popular.
Best of the decade
Also included in this year’s review is an extensive selection of 2010s best-of-decade lists, covering narrative, non-fiction, directors, directorial debuts, action/adventure, animation, sci-fi, comedy, comic/manga adaptations, horror, romance, war, mini-series, comedy specials and underrated films of the decade.
There’s so much to explore, so that’s it for now, but the goods keep coming! Look out for interviews with the directors of For Sama and Portrait of a Lady on Fire in the next few weeks. We’d love to hear your observations in the list comments, and to know what you’re anticipating most in 2020.
A few important thank yous: to NEON for partnering with us, to Joseph Qiu for 2019’s beautiful illustration, to Jack Moulton for data deep-dives and list-keeping, and to all the filmmakers for continuing to inspire us. And to all of you: thanks for another excellent year. As Céline says, art makes us greater lovers!
This one took me time to make. It is a compilation of some of the best the 2010's had to offer when it came to cinema. Hope you enjoy. THIS VIDEO IS FOR EDUC...
