The MoFo Top 100 of the 2010s Countdown

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Headline: "Parasite destroys the competition! Hater comments to follow. 'It's too popular to be that good,' some say. 'Mainstream = gross,' say the same people. Full story to follow. Stop."

2. Parasite (2019)
3. The Act of Killing (2012)
4. Holy Motors (2012)
6. Shoplifters (2018)
8. Under the Skin (2014)
9. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
11. The Master (2012)
12. Joker (2019)
13. The Tree of Life (2011)
14. The Turin Horse (2011)
16. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
17. Birdman (2014)
18. What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
19. It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
21. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
22. Moonlight (2016)
__________________
"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."



I have no idea how many times I've seen Mad Max: Fury Road now and I have loved every second of it every time I've watched it. I love the adrenaline rush, I love the sets, I love the costumes, I love the cars, I love how hot Tom Hardy is, and I love the ridiculousness of it all. There was no way it was going to miss my ballot or fall anywhere outside my personal top ten. I had it at #5. Really disappointed it missed the number one spot.

I've seen Parasite twice. I think it's funny, surprising, and really well made, but I don't love it and it was never a contender for my ballot.

Seen: 61/100

My Most Recent Review for Mad Max: Fury Road:


Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
(Rewatch)

This movie is f***ing nuts and I love every crazy-ass, high-octane, adrenaline-soaked minute of it. This to me is the perfect action movie. I've seen complaints from people around the web saying that this movie is ridiculous, that it's just one long chase with no real story, that it's not Max's movie, that there's not much depth to the characters, that the dialogue is too sparse, but to me these things are the film's strengths. And I say that as someone who normally needs a good story and characters I can invest in, but those things are not and never have been why I watch Mad Max movies. I grew up watching The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome and the ridiculousness of them is why I loved them and Fury Road takes all the best aspects of the franchise and cranks them up to the max. Charlize Theron makes a great bad ass bitch, Tom Hardy is one sexy motherf***er, those crazy-ass cars, crazy-ass characters, and crazy-ass costumes are a hell of a lot of fun, the dialogue that it does have cracks me up, and there's just enough development to its protagonists that I want them to succeed and feel a little pang of grief when one is lost. There is absolutely nothing about this movie that I would change. Not one damn thing.

My Most Recent Review for Parasite:


Parasite (Gisaengchung) (Bong Joon Ho, 2019)
(Rewatch)

I remember when this first came out, I saw it pop up over and over again around MoFo - pretty much universally accompanied by four and five popcorn box ratings. But, for whatever reason, I never felt any desire to watch it. Then the awards season came and went and I still felt no desire. Finally, about a year and half ago, I gave it a shot but, despite having seen so much praise for it, I had no idea what it was about or what sort of movie it was.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the amount of humor it contains and by the violence of its ending. It features some pretty strong performances and a really engaging story. I was impressed. I didn't love it, but I felt it held the promise of improving on rewatch. Now that the rewatch has happened, I have to say that promise was unfulfilled. I still like it, I still think it's a very good movie, but I still don't love it. Not even close. And because I don't love it, I will not be voting for it.




I've tried 6 or 7 times to watch Mad Max Fury Road. But can't get past the 30 minute mark. It's way too fast paced for me. Just endless noise and motion and action. It must have something about it though as most people love it. I Can't stand it.

Parasite ! Wow. So great to see a film not in the English language so high. I didn't think there would be any in the top 10. Me of little faith. For what it's worth I like Parasite but don't love it. It's not even Bong Joon Ho's best film let alone the best film from South Korea. I had a different South Korean film at the top of my list.

Very few of my films made the list. I think it was 8 or 9. Here goes:

1. Poetry (2010)
2. Incendies (2010)
3. The Lighthouse (2019)
4. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
5. Mommy (2014)
6. Hard to Be a God (2013)
7. Long Day's Journey into Night (2018)
8. The Handmaiden (2016)
9. Ida (2013)
10. Shoplifters (2018)
11. Embrace of the Serpent (2015)
12. Blue Valentine (2010)
13. An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)
14. The Painted Bird (2019)
15. Amour (2012)
16. The Rider (2018)
17. The Turin Horse (2011)
18. The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012)
19. The Wild Pear Tree (2018)
20. Happy as Lazzaro (2018)
21. The Skin I Live In (2011)
22. Climax (2018)
23. The Square (2017)
24. We the Animals (2018)
25. Corn Island (2014)



Such a great job Spelling Error. Can’t wait to listen to the podcast.

Good job on the list mofos. Today wasn’t a surprise but you all had me guessing and second guessing myself right up to #3. Really enjoyed this and can’t wait till the next one.

Just watched Mad Max the one time in theater, and that viewing was a direct result of hype. I generally know if something is being praised for its wall to wall action sequences, it probably won’t be for me no matter how practical the effects, and no matter who is in it. I gave it a 3/5, so did like it more than expected. Still, not in danger of being my favorite of anything, let alone a decade worth of movies.

I think Parasite was overhyped for me. Did give it a second look recently, and liked it much more. It will definitely be in the rotation. If we redo this list in ten years, I could see it being on mine.
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Letterboxd



In case it gets lost in the shuffle, you can use the following link to get a breakdown of how your films did and, more importantly, grab bbCode to make it easy to share your ballot, even though I know a lot of you have already got it saved and ready to go:

Your Ballot Results



MoFo Reviewers

Mad Max: Fury Road

The film showcases practical special effects and proves that they can still make the same impact as the CGI-laden blockbusters. CGI was still used in the places to sharpen things up, but the majority was good old fashion stunt driving and real explosions. The Max character was the same mysterious hero as he was in The Road Warrior, and Tom Hardy did a great job. Charlize Theron was also brilliant - one of the most bad ass female characters ever! I just loved the over the top eccentricity of the film - from flamethrowing guitars to monster trucks and tribal face paint.
Read the full review here.

Parasite

Bong Joon-ho has crafted a tense thriller that clearly divides the line between wealth and poverty, but blurs the lines between the characters on either side. A father, his wife and two children con their way into the home of a wealthy family by becoming their maid, driver, tutor and instructor. It seems simple enough, but Joon-ho injects Parasite with bone chilling imagery and intense sadness that leaves you not only gripping your seat by the climax, but days after you've seen it, you'll still be talking about it. Just when you think you know where the film is going, one stormy night a knock at a door changes everything.
Read the full review here.
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IMDb
Letterboxd



Two great movies to top the collective, and I had neither on my ballot. My last unrevealed title (though I actually unofficially dropped it earlier in the countdown)...



As I mentioned back after Moonrise Kingdom’s reveal, Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016) is on my ballot. Had it towards the end, just three points, but it’s a movie I really groove to. Adam Driver is wonderfully still and confident as the title character, a man living in Paterson, New Jersey who drives a bus but whose real passion is poetry. We see the city and its people through his observant but often detached if bemused gaze, and refreshingly without a trace of misanthropy or sarcasm. He has a girlfriend (Golshifteh Farahani) and a dog and a routine, but while plot-wise there doesn’t seem to be a lot happening Paterson coalesces the small joys and coincidences and beauties all around him into his art. There are some terrific Jarmuschian vignettes along the way (love William Jackson Harper’s bit in the bar), but this is a quietly poetic film about poetry.

Jarmusch has hit some of his highest highs playing within genre, as with Dead Man, Only Lovers Left Alive (in my Top 100 for this decade), and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and he can have rare missteps there as well (The Dead Don’t Die), but Paterson is more in line with his signature classics Stranger Than Paradise, Mystery Train, and Night on Earth observing character through their personalities rather than plot. I really tuned in to its wavelength.

And that completes my ballot. Twenty of my choices made the cut.

HOLDEN PIKE’S LIST
1. La La Land (#5)
2. The Tree of Life (#10)
3. The Social Network (#7)
4. Incendies (#30)
5. Take Shelter (#67)
6. The Artist (#87)
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (#3)
8. Silence (#43)
9. Birdman (#21)
10. The Revenant (#53)
11. The Favourite (#61)
12. A Hidden Life (DNP)
13. Hunt for the Wilderpeople (DNP)
14. Nightcrawler (#55)
15. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (#72)
16. Her (#9)
17. The Wolf of Wall Street (#11)
18. Blade Runner 2049 (#8)
19. Silver Linings Playbook (#24)
20. Blue Ruin (DNP)
21. Room (#97)
22. True Grit (#40)
23. Paterson (DNP)
24. Get Out (#19)
25. Hearts Beat Loud (DNP)


I had a pair of films each from Scorsese, Iñárritu, Villeneuve, and Malick. The last ten titles I cut were Even the Rain (2010), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Act of Killing (2012), The Irishman (2019), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), A Star is Born (2018), The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), The Florida Project (2017), and Hell or High Water (2016). My choices and order shouldn't have been too much of a surprise if anybody had done some digging is I have created a published a Top 100 of the 2010s here on the site. It can be found in the lists section HERE and there is a thread HERE. I altered my Top 25 only very slightly for purposes of the ballot.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



Also, I threw together a fun little tool to streamline the post-countdown sharing process (and alleviate the post-countdown depression):

Your Ballot Results

You can do a couple of things with this:
  • See all your films and where they ranked (NOTE: does not handle tiebreakers, so it's just a general range for some). Threw in some little stats about how many made various cutoffs, and automatically calculated each person's highest and lowest-ranked entry.
  • Easily grab some bbCode you can copy and paste into a post to share your ballot.
5 out of 5 stars! Or popcorns!



All good people are asleep and dreaming.
1 The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
2 Incendies (2010)
3 Jojo Rabbit (2019)
4 Deadpool (2016)
5 Easy A (2010)
6 Wild (2014)
7 Loving (2016)
8 The Disaster Artist (2017)
9 Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)
10 The Imitation Game (2014)
11 The House That Jack Built (2018)
12 Nightcrawler (2014)
13 Wadjda (2012)
14 Frances Ha (2012)
15 The Artist (2011)
16 Capernaum (2018)
17 Saint Maud (2019)
18 Shoplifters (2018)
19 The Mustang (2019)
20 The Rider (2017)
21 Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
22 The Kid With A Bike (2011)
23 PK (2014)
24 Amour (2012)
25 Sorry We Missed You (2019)



Yep! Definitely echo the sentiments about @SpelingError. You did a great job and I look forward to listening to the podcast.
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Check out my podcast: The Movie Loot!



More random trivia:

Mad Max: Fury Road actually received the MOST first place votes (6). But it had 11 other votes in people's top ten lists, while Parasite had 17. And it was on 25 total ballots, while Parasite was on 32, IE: just shy of a third of all ballots. That was the difference.

That last fact is particularly wild: the film on the second-most ballots was Whiplash (26). A six-ballot gap is pretty huge. In the Comedies list, for example, the top two films were within one ballot of each other.

It has happened before, though: both Foreign Language and the 2000s saw a similar six-ballot gap.



1 The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
2 Incendies (2010)
3 Jojo Rabbit (2019)
4 Deadpool (2016)
5 Easy A (2010)
6 Wild (2014)
7 Loving (2016)
8 The Disaster Artist (2017)
9 Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015)
10 The Imitation Game (2014)
11 The House That Jack Built (2018)
12 Nightcrawler (2014)
13 Wadjda (2012)
14 Frances Ha (2012)
15 The Artist (2011)
16 Capernaum (2018)
17 Saint Maud (2019)
18 Shoplifters (2018)
19 The Mustang (2019)
20 The Rider (2017)
21 Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
22 The Kid With A Bike (2011)
23 PK (2014)
24 Amour (2012)
25 Sorry We Missed You (2019)
Great List. Early Chloe Zhao is amazing.



Victim of The Night
Wooley's Ballot


"You had 18 in the top 100, 15 in the top 50, 8 in the top 25, and 3 in the top ten."

  1. Black Swan (2010)
  2. Melancholia (2011)
  3. Birdman (2014)
  4. Whiplash (2014)
  5. Only God Forgives (2013)

  6. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

  7. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

  8. Parasite (2019)
  9. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
  10. The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
  11. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
  12. BlacKkKlansman (2018)

  13. Get Out (2017)
  14. The Avengers (2012)
  15. Sicario (2015)
  16. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
  17. The Lighthouse (2019)
  18. Drive (2011)
  19. Dredd (2012)
  20. Arrival (2016)
  21. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

  22. Attack the Block (2011)

  23. The Beach Bum (2019)

  24. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
  25. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)



My Full Ballot:


1. Her (Spike Jonze, 2013) #9


2. Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore, 2012) #209


3. Ernest & Celestine (Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, and Benjamin Renner, 2012) #256


4. The Broken Circle Breakdown (Felix van Groeningen, 2012) #140


5. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015) #2


6. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011) #127


7. Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019) #60


8. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) #27


9. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) #11


10. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay, 2018) #120


11. The Man from Nowhere (Jeong-beom Lee, 2010) #95


12. How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, 2010) #201


13. Rush (Ron Howard, 2013) #197


14. Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen, 2015) #59


15. Capernaum (Nadine Labaki, 2018) #174


16. Zootopia (Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush, 2016) #172


17. Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin and Christ Renaud, 2010) #146


18. The Help (Tate Taylor, 2011) #214


19. Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd, 2016) #629


20. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019) #89


21. Irrational Man (Woody Allen, 2015) #684


22. The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet, 2010) #707


23. The Raven (James McTeigue, 2012) #728


24. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017) #102


25. Kitbull (Rosana Sullivan, 2019) One-Pointer



Oh, and we should be able to apply that Ballot Results thing retroactively to any previous list (IE: the last several) that used the software. I'll have to take some time to set that up properly, but my plan is to have them work retroactively and expand them going forward with more stats and stuff.