Top 10 movies of decade
The past 10 years have been a turbulent time in Hollywood. Superhero movies and blockbusting franchises have dominated the box office, 3D has once again risen and fallen, and global streaming services have threatened to change where and how we watch films. In New Zealand, we’ve seen cinema ticket prices inflate then deflate, our biggest homegrown success ever (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) and an increase in theatres offering ‘‘luxury experiences’’.
And, with Tinseltown readjusting its agenda (and scripts) in the wake of #Metoo, Amazon and Netflix taking control of traditional awards-season fare and Disney (thanks to its acquisition of Fox) now pretty much running everything else, the next decade promises potentially even more upheaval.
However, as 2019 comes to a close, now’s the time to look back at the movies that shaped the decade. Here are 10 movies that lingered.
Before Midnight (2013)
While remaining true to the contemporary, realistic dialogue, weighty themes and meditative mood that marked the original Before Sunrise as one of the most memorable small movies of the 1990s, writer-director Richard Linklater and his two co-writing stars (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) also ensured its concerns grew up along with its original Generation X audience.
Delving into more dramatic depths than previously, in this third instalment, Hawke and Delpy deliver two terrific performances as moods quickly change from playful to prickly and potentially poisonous.
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Yes, I know it barely made its US$130 million budget back and the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer’s adaptation of David Mitchell’s 2004 book was polarising to say the least, but there was something truly magical about the scale and ambition of this sweeping saga that’s set in six different eras.
Where else can you see Hugh Grant play a cannibal, Jim Broadbent a Korean musician and Tom Hanks a murderous 19th-century doctor?
A Ghost Story (2017)
David Lowery’s meditative romantic drama was as bewildering as it was beguiling.
What other recent movie dared to place Oscar’s then reigning best actor winner under a sheet for most of the running time, or spend five minutes watching a terrific young Hollywood actress devour a family-sized pie?
And yet, somehow, for all that craziness it still left a good chunk of cinemagoers haunted by it for days. A slow-burning study of grief and despair.
Gravity (2013)
Such a simple premise, such an effective execution.
Alfonso Cuaron’s two-stars-in-space (Sandra Bullock, George Clooney) dazzled with its amazing imagery (3D was never more immersive) and ability to wring maximum emotion out of every scene, as Bullock’s emotionally and physically broken astronaut battles to stay alive and somehow make it back home.
Stephen Price’s score was also stirring and chilling in equal measure.
The Handmaiden (2016)
Memoirs of a Geisha this wasn’t.
Fans of Korean director Park Chan-wook had some idea of what to expect from this unlikely adaptation of Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel
Fingersmith.
From Old Boy to Lady Vengeance and Stoker, Chan-wook has created blood-soaked and sensual tales of revenge that boast imagery that sears into your memory. If the plot was filled with salacious moments and head-spinning changes in direction, then the true delights of The Handmaiden were in the details.
Inside Out (2015)
While there’s a lot to be said for the decade’s Toy
Story bookends and Frozen adventures, this was the animated adventure that gave me the most feels. Inspired by watching his own daughter go through turbulent changes, writer-director Pete Docter created a sensitive, side-splitting and simply stunning comedy-drama that just happens to be animated.
As entertaining for adults as it was for their progeny, amid all its visual flair and verbal hilarity, Pixar ultimately reminded us that in every life, a little rain must fall.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
From the opening scenes of operatic-scored heart surgery to its heart-wrenching denouement, Yorgos Lanthimos’ (The Lobster) thriller was one of the most unnerving slices of cinema in years.
And yet, bizarrely, it also possessed a thick streak of black comedy coursing through its dramatic veins. Perfectly paced, the Greek director’s screenplay slowly unveils its mysteries before daring to make the audience almost complicit in the terrible conundrum facing cardiac surgeon Dr Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell). Surgically precise and gleefully messy.
Melancholia (2011)
The end of the world never looked more haunting or beautiful than in Lars Von Trier’s operatic science-fiction thriller. Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg play sisters whose troubled relationship decays even further as a planet called
Melancholia heads on a collision course with Earth. It made great use of Wagner’s Tristan und
Isolde to score our planet’s final moments.
Under the Skin (2013)
This creepy and compelling low-fi, sci-fi formed part of The Year of Scarlett Johansson. She plays a mysterious woman trawling the streets and isolated scenic sights of Scotland looking for male specimens of the Celtic race.
What could have been simply an arthouse version of Species or The Terminator was elevated by liquid and luscious visuals, a slowly unfolding mystery and the hypnotic power of Mica Levi’s score and Johansson herself.
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
A Kiwi comedy in which a documentary crew follow the misadventures of three Wellingtonbased vampiric flatmates: Viago (Taika Waititi), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), and Vladislav (Jemaine Clement). Filled with memorable scenes, clever characters and endlessly quotable dialogue, Waititi and Clement’s film eventually fulfilled its destiny of becoming a cult classic.