My Top 25 Movies of the 2010's

               It's hard, so very hard, to believe it, but the 2010's are now definitely behind us, and a new decade has begun. For now, we can only hope that this coming decade brings better news for the planet and humanity than the last decade, but if there's one aspect of human development that did not suffer the past ten years, it was at the movies. This was a decade that, the best efforts of the Academy to pretend otherwise notwithstanding, was simply bursting with new talents and visionaries.

               Making this list was a painful process. There were so many good movies that came out, and so many I personally adored, that I ended up making a 25 Best list and STILL had to cut out reams of excellent, inspiring films from consideration. So bear in mind throughout this exercise in insanity that absence from this list is in no way shade- there are literally dozens upon dozens of other movies others are naming in their decade lists that I wholly agree with, but just couldn't squeeze onto mine. This is an entirely personal list, the movies that meant the most to me as an individual, meaning that many of the choices here are highly unusual and incredibly idiosyncratic, especially where the particular order is concerned.

               This will be a long process, trying to go back through 10 years' worth of heady emotions, so I won't dally any longer. I will, however, take a brief moment for a few honorable mentions, specifically for my two favorite film trilogies of the decade. These were both cases where I love all three films nearly equally, and singling out a single film from any of them and sacrificing two additional spots on my main list proved just too hard. Instead, the collective trilogies take the place of what would otherwise be a robust "Honorable Mentions" category.

Honorable Mention #1: How To Train Your Dragon

               How fitting indeed that this particular series effectively encompasses the entire decade on its own; the first HHTYD caught us all unawares in March 2010, a year filled to the brim with amazing, groundbreaking films; the sequel was released in the summer of 2014, almost exactly halfway through the decade; and finally, in February 2019, The Hidden World closed things out. This amazing timing allows the films, when compared side-by-side, to serve as a fascinating time capsule for how CGI animation and the use of 3D improved in scope, size, and ambition over the past ten years. Each film got more detailed, more technically proficient, without ever overshadowing what came before.

               In addition to its beauty and technical effectiveness (many still rank the flying sequences in the first film as some of the best use of 3-D ever), the films committed to taking characters and a premise that, on its face, did not provide much fodder for a good story. In lesser hands, these films would never have been able to give us the sort of emotional narrative experience capable of making us care about characters with bizarro names like "Hiccup" and "Toothless." Thankfully, they put just the right people in charge, and the result is a series of films that don't just sit idle, each installment nothing more than rehash of what came before. Each one builds off what the characters learned in the last one and provide new challenges, new questions, new worries they have to grow to meet. I've written before how much I admire the degree to which the films center around the main characters losing something precious, yet still having to find a way forward, and I still harbor hope I can return to this subject in detail later on. For now, let me just say that if you are still sleeping on these movies (and so many still are), don't.

Honorable Mention #2: John Wick

               We have definitely not seen the last of "Meester Weeck," but for now, this is a trilogy, and by God is it so much fun. From its satire-level beginning (a man's dog is killed by some jerk, so he destroys the entire Russian mafia out of spite), these films have provided a masterclass in building a whole new imaginary world from the ground up. With so many other franchises and studios flaining at recreating the lightning-in-a-bottle that was the MCU, the creators of John Wick carved out a path all their own, leaving the rest of us gasping in their wake. They are brutal and bloody films, so if you are not on board with hard-core action, then these films are not for you. For those of us who get that little adrenaline boost when an astounding physical feat is performaned before us, there was little else the past decade to beat these films.

               And now, on to the main show!

25. Brooklyn (2015, John Crowley)

               This was the one where Saoirse Ronan stole my heart, and she still refuses to give it back. Plus, as a movie about taking a chance and moving to another country and another continent, where both joys and pains aplenty are to be found, hit me on an intensely personal level. It takes quite a lot for a movie to get me crying on a first viewing (usually it takes at least three), but this one had me bawling by the time Ronan's final monologue wrapped up.

24. Swiss Army Man (2016, "The Daniels")

               Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano team up for one of the strangest and most in-your-face-bizarre films I've ever seen. Grossout body humor abounds, but beneath the literally corpse-like exterior lies a beating heart of gold, where a lost soul finds a way back to human contact and feeling they thought was lost to them forever. If you can commit to this film, I guarantee you will never forget it for as long as you live.

23. Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Mallick)

               Much like 2001, a film that defies genre, that defies description, that manages to feel so specific with its own characters and stories, and yet somehow achieves a blinding sense of universality. This is what happens when an artist is able to glimpse the geuinely divine and provide us a window into the entirety of existence. Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, and Jessica Chastain are all giving career-best performances, and Mallick's ethereal, emotive sensibilities reach audiovisual heights that no other film of his has yet managed to recreate, though The New World and A Hidden Life come the closest.

22. The Big Short (2015, Adam McKay)

               The blisteringly, painfully funny adaptation of Michael Lewis' book of the same name that comes closer than any other effort before or since to allow the layman to grasp the skullfuckery that brought about the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, one that our society and politics are still unable to shake off. It is a wild, seat-of-the-pants experience, both infuriating in its implications while still being one of the funniest, most quotable movies to come out this decade. Too few people saw this movie, fewer understood, and we are on the precipice of repeating the same mistakes now. As always, history repeats itself first as a tragedy, then as a farce, then as Ryan Gosling looking straight at us and explaining just how jacked to the tits he is.

21. Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater)

               Richard Linklater has long made it his business to take concepts that have never been tried before and, somehow, finding the best way to turn them into cinematic gold. He did it with Waking Life, he's doing it with the Before series, and he pulled it off with Boyhood, an unparalleled, literally-years-in-the-making homage to nothing more than life, in all its disconnected weirdness. In many ways, this film is something of a spiritual balance to Tree of Life, with Linklater as grounded and down-to-earth in his style as Mallick is drawn to the heavens in his.

20. True Grit (2010, The Coen Brothers)

               I'm honestly not much for Westerns, at all, having seen next to none in my life. Very little of the aesthetic or the sorts of characters that inhabit those worlds appeals to me. Plus there's, you know, the fact that this particular part of cinematic history has often been especially racist. I would also not fight anyone who left this film off a list of the truly great Coen flicks: Fargo, it is not.

               And yet. And yet. I can't explain why, but I can't get this movie out of my head. It's one of the films of the decade I've rewatched the most. Why is that? Is it the fact that it features one of Jeff Bridges' finest performances, plus has one of the best breakout child performances of all time? Is it the masterful, endlessly-subtle score? The fact that it sticks to the book's downplayed, depressing ending? The insanely good characterization of the gang of villains, even though they barely get more than a few scenes? The absolute perfection of the final shootout? Bear Guy?

               Whatever it is, I know it won't be too long before I find my way back to this one, as inexplicable as it may be. It has, after all, taken my teeth.

19. Cabin in the Woods (2011, Drew Goddard)

               Rarely has a movie succeeded so throughly at not only skewering its own genre, but also ending up being a spot-perfect meta-commentary on the nature and limitations of creating art in our world. This is a criminally underrated screenwriting masterclass in subverting expectations, all the way up to the absolutely insane explosion of violence, betrayal, and revelation at the very end. It's a must-see for anyone even remotely interested in horror movies, as it is packed to the gills with references to the films it's parodying, but it's also a cuttingly funny comedy about filmmaking-as-horror reduced to a cut-and-paste game by schlubby middlemen. Above that, though, is the incredible way the film succeeds to working as a meta-commentary for the art of storytelling in just about any form, and how this most human and most powerful of art forms is often hamstrung by societal expectations of what makes for a "proper" story, in ways that both hurt the art form, and ourselves.

18. Parasite (2019, Bong Joon-Ho)

               Praise be to God, for the first in an age, the Oscar for Best Picture went to the actual best picture to qualify. Bong Joon-Ho has been a familiar name to internationally-minded cinephiles for years, but it was so satisfying to see him finally break through into popular awareness in a huge way. Parasite is a film very much of and for our current age of Gilded Era politics and economics, where the weathy can do what they want and the rest of us can get fucked, and could not have been more timely. However, it's also just such a damn joyride of note-perfect visual storytelling, with cutting music, crisp editing, and a banger screenplay, that it will endure as a universal masterpiece. The best movies, like all best stories, carry a lot of the times that produced them, but also rise enough above them to endure. And Parasite will endure for a very, very long time.

17. Taste of Cement (2018, Ziad Kalthoum)

               A visual poem of a film, one with sparse commentary from its unnamed narrator, whose images indelibly bore into the viewer and make you feel like you are in the middle of a warzone yourself. Though the men seen on a construction site are not in immediate physical danger, the placing of the camera makes clear their continued alienation and isolation from the world around them, while at night, images on the news bring back the still-unprocessed memories of the pain and destruction that caused them to flee their homes in the first place. Few films so simple in purpose and execution reach such powerful heights.

16. ParaNorman (2012, Chris Butler, Sam Fell)

               One of the best animated films ever made, this movie synthesizes what makes Laika great in a way that only Kubo and the Two Strings has otherwise managed to achieve. A clever play on the concept of a cursed zombie apocalypse, as well as a hilarious riff on the witch-oriented tourism market of Salem, Massachusetts, this is a movie bursting with heart, as its loner and oddball characters struggle to find the covered-up truth of why, exactly, the zombie curse exists and what the titular Norman, with his strange and largely unappreciated powers, should do about it. It is a groundbreaking achievement in animation, it's funny and touching and gets you thinking, and it still hasn't gotten its popular due. This is the one that should have landed Laika their Oscar.

15. The Death of Stalin (2018, Armando Iannuci)

               Maybe not the absolute best comedy of the decade, but a deeply personal favorite of mine, this film is a who's who of aging, character-actor Demigods who team up to portray the collective heads of the Soviet Union at the time of Statin's death. Bumbling, unorganized, and in so many ways every bit as trapped by the authoritarian strictures around them that, in theory, should give them the power and freedom that their subjects lack, we watch these bozos try to figure out what in Stalin's name should happen to the Soviet Union following the big man's undignified passing. So much of the comedy gains its heft from the absurdity inherent in any authoritarian system, where survival often requires one to look at a blue sky and proclaim it red. And in a big plus, the plot is historically accurate to a rather astonishing degree.

14. Jupiter's Moon (2017, Kornel Mundruczo)

               It's true- a Hungarian tackling the complex dynamics of the current European refugee crisis made one of the best Superman movies of all time. Although, given that Superman's own origin story effectively has him arrive on Earth as a refugee as well, perhaps that shouldn't be that surprising. Combining potent topical sociopolitical themes with a sense of mysticism sorely lacking in most "real" movies today, the very fact of flight in this movie seems like less of a physical power and more of a reflection on how nearly all of us have lost the capacity (or, perhaps, the desire) to just look up and wonder at something beyond our comprehension. For all its basis in the sordid underground world of criminal Budapest, this is a profoundly spiritual film about human nature that can leave you grappling with quite a lot once the credits role.

13. Thor: Ragnarok (2017, Taika Waititi)

               With one exception, Marvel movies are at their best when they are fun, breezy, and hilarious, and Thor: Ragnarok by New Zealand wunderkind (and newly-minted Oscar-winner!!!!) Taika Waititi is the funniest of them all. Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston perfect both their own characterizations of Thor and Loki and the nuclear-charisma-fueled dynamic between them, Mark Ruffalo turns in one of his best performances to date, Cate Blanchett makes a statement as a fantastic villain in a franchise sorely lacking in that department, Tessa Thompson stakes her claim to being one of the best supporting characters in the entire MCU, and, you guys, Jeff Freaking Goldblum. It would be more than enough if the movie were simply content to remain one of the best comedies of the decade, but Waititi is too smart for that. Somehow, he goes the extra mile, and if you scratch just below the film's jaunty surface, there is a world of meta-commentary on the colonialism and how whitewashing and deliberate forgetting of the past makes it all the easier for a society to set itself up for later collapse.

12. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010, Edgar Wright)

               Edgar Wright can do just about anything, including taking a then-unfinished graphic novel series about a deadbeat hipster and morphing it into the best video game movie to ever hit the big screen. Yes, better than all other video game movies based on actual video games.

               If there's one thing Wright has down pat better than just about any other director in the biz, it's his sense for how to fuse sharp writing, quick editing, spot-on sound design, and just the right turn of the camera to create a humor and feel that create a whole new argument in favor of the existence of cinema. The thousand sound cues combined with sudden lighting shifts or various visual effects that pepper this film just aren't possible in any other medium, and without them this wouldn't be half the film that it is. Plus, the multi-layered video-game setup notwithstanding, the fluid motion to the action and the way the humans act just might give this film a claim to also being the best live-action version of Japanese anime yet made.

               The cast is game too, with a staggering mix of young talent filling out the screen, including the glorious big-screen reunion of Michael Cera with his one, true love, Mae Whitman. Plus, now that I think about it, Chris Evans' turn as the asshole of assholes in Knives Out shouldn't have surprised people as much as it did. We all praised him for showing a new side to his acting when, in reality, all he did was resurrect Lucas Lee.

11. A Silent Voice (2016, Naoko Yamada)

               Directly dealing with both physical disability and epidemics of schoolyard bullying are huge taboos within Japanese society, so it's pretty astonishing to not only see an incredible manga series come out treating both with remarkable empathy, but to also see said manga expertly adapted into an animated film that carries that same profound emotional depth. This story weaves together the many, endlessly complicated ways that bullying, disability, and social restrictions can create threads of hatred, pain, and anger that reverberate for years, leaving a widening circle of casualties in their wake. The sound design of this film is a true wonder, a delicate use of the very concept of hearing to reflect on the many ways, including non-physical ones, people can be deaf to the world and people around them.

10. Black Panther (2018, Ryan Coogler)

               Following on the heels of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Thor: Ragnarok, both of which redefined the capacity for superhero movies to be vehicles of excellent comedy, one of the best rising filmmakers in the game proceeded to redefine the genre's ability to provide serious emotional and sociopolitical catharsis in the guise of the classic hero's journey. From the movie's full-on embrace of the color and vibrance of the African diaspora, to its phenomenal, empowered female characters, its all-time-great score, and its dynamite cast (highlighting, of course, by Michael B. Jordan), this movie takes the tried-and-true formula of past fantasy stories and hits every single note pretty much perfectly. This was the first of the current generation of comic book movies to really prove what amazing heights these stories can reach, if the people making them are committed enough.

9. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, The Coen Brothers)

               Like all the very best movies the Coens make, the first time I saw this film in theaters I wasn't entirely sure what to think; at their best, the Coens are able to twist away from or avoid any sort of predictability, so that the end result is never what you first thought it would be. What that makes Inside Llewyn Davis is a perfect example of this, a sublime creation that takes us through the partially-self-inflicted travails of a musician with a penchant for being in just the wrong place at just the wrong time.

               Does this film take place over a single day? A week? A looped eternity? Llewyn himself sure doesn't seem to know. It was this role that put Oscar Isaac firmly on my radar, and so far it remains one of his absolute best (and, funnily enough, it was also my first exposure to Adam Driver). Amazing production design, seductive cinematography, an achingly haunting soundtrack, and one of the decade's best screenplays; this is not just one of the best movies of the decade, I feel confident it will stand the test of time as one of the best films the Coens have ever made.

8. The Social Network (2010, David Fincher)

               My, how the wheels of time have turned over the narrative around this one. The Social Network was a major success from the start, one of 2010's most heralded films and the winner of multiple Oscars. Pretty soon, though, a sort of backlash began to form around the many ways the film plays it loose with the facts around Facebook's actual founding (which, to be fair, it does). Pretty soon, a fair number of people assumed that the dystopian, cynical tone of the film surrounding the rise of social media in general and Facebook and Zuckerberg in particular was, on the whole, a bit much. Yes, it's a gripping, slick thriller of a film, but Zuckerberg and his ilk surely can't be that bad, right?

               Whelp.....turns out, yes! Turns out, Fincher might have even gone too soft on the Tech Bros! As engaging and challening as this film was to experience when it first came out- and as much as the sheer filmmaking technique on display still holds up- on a deeper, meta level, it's truly terrifying to revisit it now, in light of years of Trump depravations, Zuckerberg's open pandering to the worst elements of the far right, and Facebook as a whole basically allowing itself to be turned into a nuclear weapon aimed against democracy, human rights, and basic moral decency. We remain stuck in a world created, defined, and more or less run by angsty, immature, man-boys who never got over the women brave enough to say to their face what they are. And so much of it is packed into the frames of this film, in details both large and small, even though the events depicted took place over a decade before the 2016 election. This is one of the best films of the century, but it's one hell of a depressing time capsule.

7. Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017, Rian Johnson)

               Ah, if only this had been the final film. Star Wars fandom was, quite simply, not ready for Rian Johnson, but he came and gave us a masterpiece anyway. Like The Empire Strikes Back, this one is going to endure and get its due from enough people, but it still blows that Disney was not able to just stick with this film and defend it.

               While there is so much I love about this film, especially the powerfully subtle ways Finn and Po undergo major character shifts by the end, far and away my favorite scenes are everything between Rey and Luke. I was more psyched to see Luke Skywalker again than for anything else going into this new trilogy, and while the radically different approach Johnson took jarred me to my core, I realized more and more that that made his approach all the more meaningful. We never remember the art that gives us exactly what we expected and wanted. We remember that which shakes us, which forces us to confront something elemental about ourselves or others, that which makes us think. Sure, I love Luke Skywalker Badass Knight as much as anyone, but I have the old books for that, and they aren't going anywhere. This movie gave me something deeper and more permanent; resolve to move forward into the uncertainty of the future.

6. Moonrise Kingdom (2012, Wes Anderson)

               While Grand Budapest Hotel, as excellent as it was, was the film that finally brought Wes Anderson major awards success, as far as I'm concerned nothing else he's yet made can touch the bizarre, sad, and poingant story of two children, both on the cusp of growing up, carrying out one last insane adventure to a place that will soon be lost forever, only to live on in memories. With its razor-sharp screenplay, typically Andersonian crisp-to-a-fault cinematography and editing, and one of the most stacked casts I've ever seen, this is a transportive film from start to finish, one that never fails to absolutely hypnotize me.

               Plus, this was the movie that introduced Lucas Hedges to the world, and that, my friends, is the definition of an Absolute Good.

5. Silence (2016, Martin Scorcese)

               This might be my most deeply personal selection on this list. I know there are many who argue that not only is this film not among Scorcese's best- in this decade alone, that honor is mostly given to either The Irishman or The Wolf of Wall Street- there are those who argue it isn't even that good, period.

               I can understand those arguments. And I, too, would not place this atop a ranking of Scorcese's key filmography. But I also can't deny that this film speaks to something profound within myself. It undoubtedly has to do with the fact that I was raised Catholic, was baptized and confirmed, and am even in the Knights of Columbus. It probably has more to do with the fact that my Catholicism has grown and changed and morphed into something unrecognizable over the years; the common term most would use for me is "lapsed." It is true that the form of my spirituality and my religion is ever-shifting, that I viscerally oppose the worst teachings and practices of the Church on Earth. It is also true that I struggle as painfully with the silence of God in this world as the film's main character. Maybe God does see him, and there is a meaning to the suffering he witnesses and himself endures. Maybe he doesn't, and he is simply insane, a victim of his own arrogance. Either way, he can't know. All he can do is endure. And all faith can do is endure, exist, even in a world that would deny its relevance.

4. Cloud Atlas (2012, Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis)

               This movie blew me away the very first time I saw it, and it's blown me away every time I've seen it since then. This movie is, quite simply, a miracle. There are many who deride it, who hate it, who think it's stupid. There are also many people who paid money to see the Transformers movies.

               The whole team behind this film committed from start to finish to not only embracing the mythical reincarnation within the world of David Mitchell's book, but enhancing it in ways only film can do, using CGI, makeup, and a top-level cast to throw us through centuries time and space. The major climaxes towards the end are a masterclass in effective cross-cutting, allowing us to move back and forth between several major events at once without ever losing sight of the bigger picture. The whole thing should have spun off its axle right at the start, but it didn't, and the end result never ceases to astound me.

3. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, George Miller)

               WITNESS MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

               Few films surprised us as gloriously as this one did in 2015, when it tore into theaters on decked-out motorbikes, shredded the fourth wall, and blared its flame-spewing guitar riffs right into our faces, in all its orange-hued glory. Right in the middle of the glut of comic book movies, rebooks, relaunches, and remakes, where it seems studios wanted to do nothing but ape each other down to the pits of hell, George Miller reminded us of the singular power that one wildly imaginative film can contain. His was a true property relaunch, one that used the name and trappings of its predecessors but expanded on it, using modern filmmaking technology to not merely repeat the past, but to recreate it entirely. The end result is a stunning example of visual storytelling and staggering cinematic technique, a 21st-century opera. Every shot, every cut, every musical cue, is absolutely perfect, from start to finish. Even half a decade later, this movie still stares daggers at the competition out of its rear-view mirror, kicking up sand as it tears down the road, all the while repeating a single word;

               "Mediocre!"

2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018, Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, and Rodney Rothman)

               Much like Black Panther, this movie isn't great because it somehow rewrites the whole rulebook on superhero/coming-of-age heroism, but rather because of how it reaffirms why said rulebook has persisted throughout pretty much all of human history. When done right and with conviction, this is the sort of tale that will endure for as long as storytelling itself does. That the tale of growth our main character undergoes can be conveyed with something as simple as an untied shoe is a testament to how on-point every single person working on this film was. Every conceivable emotion, from gut-ripping laughs to tear-jerking moments of catharsis, is packed into this movie's running time, and it's all accompanied by amazing music, slick and entertaining action beats, a climax to beat them all, and, most importantly for me, groundbreaking animation to top the whole sundae off. We should all be as courageous in taking that leap of faith in our daily lives as this movie is.

1. The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013, Isao Takahata)

               Some works of art, be they music, paintings, sculptures, novels, films, or whatever else, cut straight to the core of what it means to exist, what it means to be human. Some reach such astounding heights, and seem to just waltz into our world fully-formed from some higher plane, it's hard to imagine they were crafted by mortal hands. Some art can't be fully described. It can only be experienced and held in wonder. The Tale of Princess Kaguya, the last-ever movie made by Isao Takahata, is one such work of art.

               Its grace, its quiet self-assuredness, its subtle yet limitless aesthetic beauty, left me in awe the first time I saw it in theaters. It overwhelmed me and left me gasping for breath; even over a half-hour later, on the train home, my eyes were still tearing up. It won't do much good for me to rehash the details of the film or of my many thoughts on its style, tone, and thematic elements, especially since I have already done so on this same site (and at great length) not just once, but twice. I can only, once again, express the depth of my gratitude for having been able to have the experience of seeing this movie on this big screen. It is for heights like these that I go to the movies. And I will continue to seek them out, for as long as I may live.

-Noah Franc

My Top Ten Films of 2019

               And now, the last chapter. With all awards, yes, even the (amazingly good this time!) Oscars accounted for and my Top Score list out, here it is. My final take on the films of 2019.

               It was a year that, a few exceptions aside, felt rather empty and slow until the very end, when a crush of amazing films all came out at once. Still, this year it was a rather easy and straightforward process for me to make this list. As always, the ranking are my own and purely subjective, so absence from this list in no way means I didn't like whatever movie you now hate me for not granting a top spot to. Let's get to it!

Honorable Mentions: Tell Me Who I Am (documentary), The Irishman, 1917, I Lost My Body, Boy Soldiers: The Secret War in Okinawa (documentary), A Hidden Life

10. How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Dean DeBlois)

               Last chance for me to get this franchise on a Top Ten list, and I ain't wasting it. All things considered, the first film probably remains the best on an individual level, but the degree to which this final installment committed in following through on not ending with easy solutions, or things turning out the way the heroes hoped, can only be lauded. There is always new life and new love, but growing up in this world involves risk, and risk can't always be faced without losing something one holds dear, and can never really have back again. Never before has the story of a boy and his dragon been told so truly and honestly.

9. Us (Jordan Peele)

               Peele's follow-up to his Oscar-winning debut Get Out might not be on quite the same epic level- though to be honest, that's par for the course when directors try to follow a career-defining masterpiece- but Us is still a challenging, unique use of the horror genre to force the audience to question the complicated interactions between race, class, and personal trauma in American society. All while finding yet more ways to make shots of nothing more than a person's eyes genuinely horrifying. Lupita Nyong'o adds another masterful double-lead performance to her resume, further establishing herself as one of the most insanely capable actresses in the business today. I could watch these two team up forever.

8. John Wick 3- Parabellum (Chad Stahelski)

               The John Wick franchise continues to be an insanely fun, no-holds-barred reinvention of the 80's genre of Unstoppable Action Demigods. Keanu Reeves and his crew have managed to not only reestablish himself as a star presence in the world, but to also provide some of the most gripping, astounding, and influential action sequences in the game this side of the superhero arena. Each film finds more ways to leave action fans like myself gaping in awe and wondering, "Who the hell thought THAT up?" It's silly, it's so over-the-top, and I am so here for it.

7. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)

               Rian Johnson not only did not let the utterly depressing level of hate The Last Jedi received get to him, he came right back out of the gate swinging with his next film. Knives Out is a broad riff on classic sleuth films, right down to gloriously pompous closing-in shots of the master detective readying his next monologue, and yet it keeps finding new ways to twist things just enough to go places you don't quite expect. The writing and filmmaking are sharp as, well, knives, and the entire cast is game, especially the lovely Ana de Armas, plus Chris Evans doing a far, far better job of casting off his Avengers persona than Robert Downey Jr.

6. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

               Noah Baumbach uses his own personal history to help fuel arguably the best film he's yet made, headlined by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson giving some of the best performances they've yet achieved, and supported by a rock-solid supporting cast, especially the Oscar-winning Laura Dern. Loaded with filmmaking choices, writing, and nuanced bits of acting that fill out the screen with a wealth of detail about two mostly-sympathetic people utterly failing to bring their lives back together- plus one of the year's best scores- you can't help but get swept up by the emotions driving the story to its painful (though not hopeless) end.

5. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

               Greta Gerwig continues to amaze, and Saoirse Ronan continues to refuse to give me my heart back. I've still not read the original novel, nor have I seen any of the other classic adaptations, so I came into this film entirely new, and it swept me right off my feet, as if I, too, were dancing with Jo and Laurie on a darkened porch in the middle of a party. This film is imbibed with a love of the drive and passion that leads people to create, and, most crucially, allows space for both the disappointment and the elation that the process of creating and trying to find success brings. It is a tender and loving story of people, trying to live and thrive amidst disappointment and struggle, and I simply adored it.

4. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers)

               Hark, those who may enter here, for toxic men we are, and toxic men we is! This most twisted and deranged film of the year, featuring a dynamite duo of Pattinson and Dafoe, can be interpreted on so many levels, a whole treatise could be written on how the film manages to work in themes of mental illness, repressed sexuality, restrictive and nonsensical social mores, toxic masculinity, and even Greek mythology into one incredible filmgoing experience. Brilliantly shot in a square frame, using black-and-white imagery and featuring meticulously researched dialogue, this film works as a period piece, as a blackbox character drama, and as a Lovecraftian Fantasy/Horror mashup all at once. Let no one dare question the quality of this film's lobster.

3. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma)

               This is one of those rare films that is simply perfect- every piece of dialogue, every shot, the framing of every scene, how lighting and music are used, how themes of fear, longing, and loss are woven into every bit of the film's fabric- all of it fits seamlessly together into the whole. Masterfully paced, directed, and acted, this is a French lesbian love story that puts male-gaze-oriented films like Blue Is The Warmest Color to absolute shame. Not that the film is modest- not at all- but the more downplayed way it paints the growing emotional (and eventually, physical) passion of its heroines is all the more potently erotic as a result. After seeing this, I knew I would never be able to listen to Vivaldi the same way again.

2. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

               Ah what joy, when the top Oscars actually go to one of the year's best and most ambitious films! For one glorious year, justice reigned, for Parasite truly is one of the year's absolute best, a cinematic tour de force that swings wildly from genre to genre and tone to tone without ever losing control of itself. Beyond its qualifications as an excellent film, impeachable as they are, the movie also has an awful lot of sociopolitical commentary packed into it, a direct challenge to notions of capitalistic meritocracy that suffuse every frame, especially in its bonkers second half.

1. Jupiter's Moon (Kornel Mundruczo)

               I still can't believe it, but somehow, a Hungarian director following up a film about a literal dog uprising with one about a Syrian refugee ended up making possibly the best Superman film yet made. Combining hard-core, ground-level commentary on the plight of refugees and discrimination within modern Europe with flights of visual fantasy, there is no other film that uses the both the concept of flying and literal flight quite like this. This film has only gotten extremely limited distribution and so far, almost no one has seen it, which is a crying shame, because, like Parasite, this is one of those gems everyone needs to experience.

-Noah Franc

My Top Film Scores of 2019

               At long last, it is time; as much fun as I have piecing together my Top Ten Best Films list each year, I get just as much joy out of revisiting the best in new music from the year, since film music continues to be one of the most underappreciated plaes for original music these days. For my money, these were the films that had the most memorable musical contributions that not only made their respective films better, but stand out on their own as amazing artistic creations in their own right.  Let's begin.

8. 1917 (Thomas Newman)

               Much like the film itself, the score for 1917 really kicks into high gear when the main characters embark on their mission and enter the utter hellscape of No Man's Land. The entire sequence of them picking their way, step by excruciating step, through wave after wave of death and destruction, was made all the more intense by the music laying on an extra layer of unease and dread about what lay around every corner.

7. The Lighthouse (Mark Korven)

               What a wild, strange, bizarro, and much-needed descent into toxic, masculine madness this film was, and the booming, bleary score underlying it perfected the atmosphere. The pounding sounds of the lighthouse itself are worked into the music, boring it into out heads just as much as it bores into the detiorating mind of Robert Pattinson.

6. Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (John Williams)

               Alright, we all know that TROS dropped so many balls under its own feet, it slipped hard enough to fly off into the sun, Team Rocket style. However, if one part of the film never hit a wrong note (literally!), it was- what else?- John Williams giving us the very final chapter in what is not only one of the defining works of his career, but one of the best collections of music ever written. The entire Star Wars discography, every blessed bar of it, is and shall remain untouchable.

5. I Lost My Body (Dan Levy)

               This amazing and wholle unique film (available on Netflix, so no excuses!) is a prime example of the incredible range of stories animation is able to tell. The music, a bizarre, synthetic, creation, mimics the strange vibes of the strange story, providing the perfect accompaniment.

4. Marriage Story (Randy Newman)

               The two opening sequences of this film, parellel internal reflection of two people about to get divorced about what they originally loved about the other, showcase their respective themes for the film to come. In so many ways, it's like a reversal of the famous Up opening; rich, beautiful music overlaying a montage of a married life. Except here, it's merely the prelude to a very chaotic coming apart.

3. Parasite (Jung Jae-il)

               Parasite was just about perfect in every conceivable way, and its amazing score is no exception. Like the film itself, there's not much I can say about it except, if you haven't experienced it yet for yourself, then it's time to treat yo' self.

                                    

2. Little Women (Alexandre Desplat)

               Desplat has consistently turned in some of the best scores in film the past few years, and his work on Little Women is no exception. It has the feel of a classical hollywood soundtrack, with its broad, sweeping orchestral sound. It has an energy and a jump and a joi de vivre to it, not unlike the irrepressible souls of the titular women we see grow up over the course of the film. Little Women as a whole was another soaring height in the careers of Greta Gerwig and her cast, and the same can be said for Desplat and his music.

1. How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World (John Powell)

               Last time around to give this franchise the praise it's long deserved, particularly the singularly astounding music provided to each film by John Powell. Listening to each film's score makes me think of times and places lost to history, tinted nostalgic memories that call to me, but that can never be fully re-created. At its height, this is that rare breed of music that makes me physically feel like I am soaring over the clouds, though my feet be firmly on the ground. The movies themselves are fun and funny, but Powell's is on another level entirely. This is the sort of artistic creation human yearning is made of.

-Noah Franc

Star Wars, Episodes I through IX: The Definitive Ranking

               Well, TROS is out, and I've finally had enough time to digest the many, mostly sad feelings I had about it. I wrote in my first review of TFA, way back when it came out, that I held many reservations about the capacity of a Disney-driven new trilogy to break new ground in the Star Wars universe, especially after it proved so eager to drop the old EU like a sack of hot potatoes. And in the end, while TFA still holds up fine and TLJ has a permament place among my all-time favorite movies, many of my concerns proved prescient. After Rian Johnson left the franchise (in my own words) "freer than it's ever been going forward," the Disney Lords just couldn't let a good thing be, and I, like most, found TROS unable to bear the very, very heavy loads placed upon it.

               The good thing, as always, is that Star Wars is so large, so inimitably vast, that the good always finds a way to separate itself from the bad and endure regardless. And now that we have three whole trilogies to contemplate and compare before us, spanning over four decades of cinematic history, it's time to take stock of all that has come before. Here is, for the sake of posterity, Noah Franc's official ranking of all nine of the official Star Wars movies.  Beware, spoilers abound!  

9- Episode II: Attack of the Clones

               Yep, it's still as bad as we all remember. As someone who ended up seeing this one a lot as a kid, there are many small things around the edges of the film that I will always have a soft spot for- Christopher Lee is never boring to watch- but there is simply no getting over the movie's severe writing and story issues, coupled with a suffering main cast that at no point looks like they are having fun with any of this. The prequel trilogy were the films that (unjustly!) soured me for a very long time on Natalie Portman- it took half a decade, plus Black Swan, to finally jolt me back to my senses- and this film's entire middle act represents the nadir of her performance and the terrible writing she was saddled with. Bad writing, bad acting, horribly aged effects, this is arguably the one main Star Wars film with almost no rewatch value.

               Except for Christopher Lee and Yoda going at it with lightsabers; I will always be there for that.

8- Episode I: The Phantom Menace

               Time and hindsight have allowed many of us to mellow out and realize that the first of the prequels was neither The Worst Thing In History, nor even the worst Star Wars movie. If nothing else, it has plenty of fun stuff in the production design, Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan is easily the most solid bit of casting in the entire prequel trilogy, and John Williams' score, though universally excellent in every Star Wars film, might just be at its best here.

               Buuuut it is still pretty bad, with a lot of terrible dialogue, uneven narrative structure, and poor casting that drags it all down pretty far into the gutter. Jar-Jar remains one of the strangest and most inexplicable creative choices in all of Lucas' career, although the toxic shit the actor was subjected to as a result is beyond excuse. It unfortunately sets a lot of the narrative stumbling blocks in place that would hamper the later film's ability to effectively tell the tragic story of Anakin Skywalker and his fall from grace.

               All that said, there is a fascinating alternate universe where just a few different choices in how this first film was structured would have made worlds of difference and may have even made the prequels pretty great. For a glimpse into what might have been, I highly recommend Belated Media's amazing series, What If The Star Wars Prequels Were Good?. I don't agree with every suggestion he makes, but the results he arrives at are pretty amazing, and would undoubtedly have made for far more challenging, memorable, and maybe even great films than the ones we ultimately got. They are absolutely worth your time.

7- Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

               Here, too, I can envision many scenarios where just a few better, more daring creative leaps could have made this last film far more palatable to me than it was. It is, certainly, far more competently made than the prequels from a purely technical standpoint, it has plenty of individually excellent scenes, and despite plenty of rough screenwriting, the chemistry between the leads still shines in a way that of the cast in the prequels never did, espeically where Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are concerned.

               Alas, the story ultimately veered far too far into forbidden lands trying to appease the absolute worst corners of the Star Wars fandom. A nonensicle shoehorning-in of Palpatine into a narrative that at no point needed him is never explained or handled in a way that makes a lick of sense. Force powers, though always fuzzy enough to be fitted to your story as needed, are stretched to places they never should have gone. The pacing is relentless, refusing to let up even at places where letting us breath and sink into the world a bit more would have done us good.

               For me, though, the absolute greatest sin this film commits is one of cowardice, in giving in to the worst impulses of fandom in ways that drag down and ruin the potential Rian Johnson practicaly gifted Abrams on a silver platter. The backwards-bending reveal of Rey as a "Palpatine" is neither fulfilling for her character, nor does it make any sort of in-universe logic, and is the worst sort of instinct in fantasy worlds where everyone of consequence, even in an entire galaxy to play with, must still somehow be connected with each other. Oscar Isaac has become extremely clear that he saw Poe as bisexual, and that fear from the studio executives was what prevented that promise, yearned for by so many fans, from being fully utilized. The effort at clearly making all main characters straight while tossing another stupid cameo bone to the LGBTQ community by Disney is, at this point, frankly sickening.

               The worst example, in my book, is the in-film disappearance of Rose, who has only a handful of scenes and makes no major contribution to the plot whatsoever. After Kelly Marie Tran proved one of the most delightful parts of one of the best Star Wars films ever, and after her reward for such great work was to be harassed off social media by MAGA trolls, making her just as central to the final film should have been a no-brainer. Instead, like with that fucking Ghostbusters reboot, the studio opted to "listen to the fans" instead of taking a stand of consequence.

               What a damn shame.

6- Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

               Though it still has much of the same problems that laid its predecessors low, and features some of the dumbest moments in the entire prequels trilogy, ROTS still, somehow, manages to rise above itself. It is a mess on so many levels, but 'tis a gloriously campy mess. It is, by far, the best of the prequels, and still has plenty nostalgic rewatch value. This happened to be the first Star Wars movie I ever saw on the big screen, and it left a powerful impression on me, one that later awareness of the film's problems could never wholly dent. Lucas always had an ability, at his best, to provide images that can stick in the mind for a lifetime, and he recaptures just enough of that magic in the last Star Wars film he ever ended up making.

               Unlike the two other prequels, where the action beats usually ended up being dreary, CGI-laden messes, a lot of the fights in ROTS are coherent and thrilling enough to still be fun to watch, despite a lot of the effects being dated. While the lightsaber battle to end TPM is rightfully regarded as a classic, the lightsaber combat reaches a peak here that would not be matched until the magnificent throne room sequence in TLJ. For all the problems with Hayden Christensen's performance and the bad writing that plagued both his character and Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan (McGregor also hits his best moments in this movie), once the film has all the pieces in place for their climactic clash at the end, set in a brutal battlefield of lava and machines, the result is truly spectacular.

5- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

               Though it is definitely the weakest of the original trilogy, and people's mileage regarding the Ewoks tends to vary widely, ROTJ is still a classic that holds up very well. The speeder chase and nearly everything in the final throne room sequence- not to mention the film's opening act in Jabba the Hutt's hellish lair- are some of the most iconic parts of the entire Star Wars canon, old and new. Though we had gotten glimpses of the Emperor in TESB, it was here where we finally met Ian McDiarmid in all his glory, and villains were never quite the same again.

               What really sets this film as the demarcation line between the really good Star Wars movies from the "just okay" or downright bad ones, though, is the core cast. A strong central cast with fun banter and tangible chemistry is, TROS notwithstanding, invariably part of any great Star Wars movie, and it is the biggest and clearest deficiency in the prequels compared to both the earlier and later trilogy. Personal favorite example of this; Carrie Fisher getting to pull a little role reversal on Han's famous "I know" line from the previous film, the sort of tiny detail that is easy to miss, but makes all the difference in making these performances truly iconic.

4- Episode VII: The Force Awakens

               The degree to which this film relies on rehashing of many of the same threats and plot threads of the original trilogy, while not nearly as egregious as TROS, still rankles me enough to keep me from considering this one to be truly great. That said, the energy and passion that the actors bring to their roles is undeniable. It is just too much fun to watch these people interact with each other, especially the ways that Rey bounces off Harrison Ford and Finn and Poe form a powerful friendship (that should have been more, but alas...). Kylo Ren makes his entry into the Star Wars universe, a character torn between destinies that Adam Driver never fails to play the hell out of, even when the writing in this and TROS leaves him a little short.

               One thing I especially appreciated about the newer trilogy was how its production design gave a sense of size and scale that the original trilogy didn't have the capacity to create. Shots of the ruins of Walkers, or Star Destroyers, or the wreckage of the Death Star have an immense hugeness to them that add a grandiosity to the world these characters inhabit. Rey's introductory sequence has a lot of this, a quiet, aesthetic embrace of the surroundings that, in the best Star Wars material, makes everything feel real and lived-in.

3- Episode IV: A New Hope

               Four decades on, and the magic that suffuses the first Star Wars movie, the one that changed everything, is still undeniable. Other films have since surpassed it; we've gotten better writing, better acting, better effects, and more thrilling images since then, and there are moments where the acting feels more stilted than it does later in the original trilogy, like the actors were still in the process of breaking in the roles that would go on to define their careers.

               And yet. And yet. That opening in medias res fight sequence in space, with the first-ever reveal of Darth Vader and our introduction to Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia. Luke staring into the double sunset. Obi-Wan's quiet description of the old, fallen world of the jedi. The cantina. The Falcon. The entire escape effort to save Leia, ending with the first-ever lightsaber fight in history. That indelible final space battle around the Death Star. All immortal moments of cinematic magic that will endure for as long as movies endure.

               This movie is so filled with the sort of things that make movies wonderous acts of imagination that it's hard to even try counting them all. Other movies have been bigger, flashier, and in many ways, just plain better. But A New Hope is the giant on whose shoulders they built their empire, and nothing can ever take that away from it.

2- Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

               Honestly, picking between either this or the next one as the "best" film in the Star Wars is a matter of personal taste. It can go either way and I will not argue with anyone who would switch them. Ultimately, I gave nostalgia the edge here, so TLJ comes in at number #2.

               This is the sort of film with so many layers to its screenplay and how its plot is constructed that I can imagine revisiting it endlessly throughout my life, and always finding something new to pick up on and savor. Rey, Finn, and Poe each have strong beginning and end points within the film that both build on what we already knew about them from TFA, but also provide clear moments of growth and change for them all; Finn, finally deciding to not run and embracing the moniker "rebel scum," something he spent two full films denying; Poe, having had one trigger-happy idea after another bite him in the ass, finally realizing what Leia was trying to tell him the whole time and calling for a retreat; Rey, seeing how futile her notions about Kylo Ren being "saveable" were, turning away from him and flying off in the Falcon.

               And let's not forget Mark Hamill, who gives just about the greatest return performance that has even been given in a sunset role. Here, too, the movie jumps into real, meaty, metaphysical stuff about what Luke Skywalker has come to mean for both the people of the Star Wars universe and us as fans. Luke has fallen far, but still has enough grace and strength left to realize that, yes, we can place too many expectations on our heroes, but that there is still meaning in someone standing up as a symbol for something greater than themselves. Luke's final moments, as well as the film's final, stunning scene, will be with me for as long as I live.

1- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

               For many, this was the film that made Star Wars truly great, that made due on the promising start of A New Hope and really set off imaginations across the globe. Everything all the other great Star Wars movies does, this one does better. It's effects and battle sequences hold up remarkably well, particularly a concluding lightsaber fight that, for my money, remains the most emotionally tense saber duel we've ever gotten on the big screen. The main cast is fully into their respective roles, we finally get a sense of the power and terror of the Emperor, Billy Dee Williams makes his entrance, and, of course, there will always be Yoda.

               Like LTJ, this remains either best or second-best because of how it feels the most like its own, special thing, not too beholden to what came before to strike out in ways that challenge the viewer. Both end on spectacular final shots, with much having been lost but the hopeful suggestion that things will go on and that good can still find a way, even in the face of endless adversity. No other Star Wars movie has ever hit on just that right balance, though I certainly hope it could, one day, happen again.

               Ultimately, as with all great storytelling worlds, even the worst of these films can never fully dim the unending supernova that is Star Wars. I love this universe so much and I would never give it up for the world. I am all for a good long break from the movies, but I know I can never stay away for too long. None of us can.

-Noah Franc