Your Top 10 Movies of 2010 (Any Year)

There's usually a thread like this for games around this time, and it's always one of the best Gaming Discussion reads of the year. Throwing newly discovered classics into the ring with contemporary favorites is interesting with any form of entertainment. So let's do it with this one! I'm curious to see what everyone watched to fill the void of quality new releases, especially with the Netflix Instant Watch library as deep as it is.

Rules: Just list the best ten movies you watched for the first time in 2010 with a little blurb about why you liked them. No need to rank them against each other, but feel free to do so if you want. Putting the release dates next to the titles is strongly encouraged.

PROTIP: Your complete Netflix Instant Watch and Shipping histories are available under the "Your Account" tab. Handy!


10. Black Swan (2010)
Either an interesting (if loose) take on Swan Lake, or a story about jus' a couple'a crazy gals gittin' inta trouble depending on whether you buckle your own seatbelt or if the state pays someone to do it for you. Not one of Aronofsky's best films, but certainly one of 2010's. The fragile mental state degenerating under pressure seems to be Aronofsky's favorite chord to strum, and it's one I'm not tired of hearing.


9. Moon (2009)
My surprise of the year; by far good enough for me to sign up for Duncan Jones' next flick on his name alone. This goes to show that CG is no substitute for sets and props. Real stuff taking up real space in a scene is irreplaceable. Moon looks a hundred times better than Avatar on probably 1/100th the budget. I have TNL to thank for recommending this one en masse. Thanks!


8. Eraserhead (1976)
Why not?


7. In The Mood For Love (2000)
Already beat off to this one all over the I Just Watched Thread. I could literally feel the longing between the characters in my gut. The sexual tension turned my stomach the same way great suspense and horror movies do. i still have to see Chunking Express.


6. Peeping Tom (1960)
None of Powell's movies particularly impressed me before this. My new favorite conventional serial killer movie of all time. If there is a single movie on my list that I can see absolutely everyone on TNL liking, it's this one.


5. The Lives of Others (2006)
What the hell could've ousted Pan's Labyrinth for the Oscar in the Best Foreign Film of 2006 category? This, and it wholly deserved it. Very compelling stuff about the Stasi - East Germany's secret police before the collapse of the Berlin Wall - monitoring a couple of suspected West German sympathizers. Some of the best suspense this side of Hitchcock.


4. Sin Nombre (2009)
A TNL Movie Club entry. Realist cinema at its best. Of my three friends whom I forced to see this, I asked, "Which character deserves the most sympathy?" I got three different answers. I've seen Sin Nombre three times now, and I've come up with three different answers myself.


3. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Visual poetry. From Cocteau's essay in the DVD booklet, "The poet Paul Eluard says that to understand my film version of Beauty and the Beast, you must love your dog more than your car." No one is going to do any better than that. Strongly recommended for, well, the kind of postas who have probably already seen it: SSJN, Mr-K, Doc Holiday, Compass, squall_vb, Finch, Frogacuda, arjue, D_N_G, etc. Still on IW.


2. The Third Man (1949)
The deeper the list, the less adequate I am to describe the entries. Probably the only movie I've seen where the main character has no more than, what, fifteen minutes of screentime? Every single scene is because of him, almost every line of dialogue is about him, and he's almost never there. By the time you actually see Orson Welles, you forget he's even in the movie. The studio must have had a fit over that.


1. M (1931)
The best movie I watched this year, maybe the best movie I've watched period. I saw it in the spring and have seen it maybe 4 times since. There are just so many lenses you can bring to it: What is it saying say about punitive violence and the death penalty? What is it saying about anarchy? What is it saying about the culpability of clinically insane criminals? About parenting? About childhood? About sexual deviance? About justice?

M is Fritz Lang's best movie. Even better than that one joint about the robot.

I'm game. While I do not have Netflix I do get movies from those usual places.

10. Salt - Started off awesome. Great premise and over-the-top action ... like way beyond belief. Then, the film slowly degrades into a typical Hollywood ass-tastic film. They decide that to be a slick filmmaker we'll keep making Salt switch sides. Ghey. By the end, you wanna punch the director.


9. The Expendables - Brainless awesome. The first half of the film is okay. It's very basic in creating an origin for everyone, okay I lied. Its horrible in telling a tale. The best part was the end when the shit goes down and things go BOOM.
Also: Terry Crews shotgun was epic.


8. Paths of Glory - From the TNL club. Anthony's pick was stellar. Loved every minute of it. Great storytelling, Great cinematography, and awesome acting. The courtroom scene was as freaking good as "A Few Good Men".


7. Fistful of Dynamite - SSJN's pick for the movie club. Another awesome pick.
I enjoyed this tremendously. I felt joy when the two gunned down the Nazi's and felt sadness, when the people were discovered in the cave. So good. James Coburn was great.


6. Death Rides a Horse - I think this was a Doc pick. A second awesome Western. This one takes a higher billing, because it was more classically told (imo).
Also: Lee Van Cleef was a badass and was in this film.


5. Tekken - brainless fun. The action is actually well filmed and choreographed. The other thing is even though the story is flimsy, the acting is darn good. And Kelly Overton ... whoa.


4. Justice League: Crisis of Two Earths - Okay, so this was a cartoon. Yet, how it was told was extrodinary. Give this one a shot, even if you don't know all the characters. James Wood's was awesome in this.


3. Batman: Under the Red Hood - Yo. This movie was BADASS. Freaking awesome stuff. The Joker was never more awesome than in this movie. Just sucks Mark Hamill didn't reprise his role as The Joker. The replacement was great though.


2. Knight and Day - I went into this expecting a shitfest and came out entertained. Cruise I think is reinventing himself. He was funny and Cameron Diaz was amazing as a girl who has no idea what the hell she's doing.



1. A-Team - Like I said in the "I just watched" thread. This movie surprised me. I LOVED the old TV show and I think they captured the best moments of the TV show. I think Liam Neeson played an incredible Hannibal. Bradley Cooper was Face(nice cameo btw). I liked that it was an origin story and told HOW the A-Team ...
a) Came to be, as far as how they all became friends.
b) what they did to be "accused of a crime they didn't commit".

Loved every second of this film.

*terrible quality, but epic scene.

I support Justice League: Crisis of Two Earths and Batman: Under the Red Hood, the new DC animated movies are just phenominal.

Have you seen Superman/Batman Apocalypse?

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Originally Posted by Opaque

I support Justice League: Crisis of Two Earths and Batman: Under the Red Hood, the new DC animated movies are just phenominal.

Have you seen Superman/Batman Apocalypse?

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Yes ... wasn't too impressed.

Knight and Day was the second best movie you saw in all of 2010?

Really?

Maybe there were a lot of tits in it.


Or babies. He also likes babies.

I'll edit in expanded why's later, I guess?

Things I think I saw in the year 2010:

Secret of Kells - Beautiful sountrack, wonderful stylized drawings, fantastic production values; makes me want to move to Ireland to make cartoons. Bad timing, maybe...? Ireland is not doing so hot at the moment.
Micmacs- Jean-Pierre Jeunet makes fun movies!
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World- <3
Nosferatu (1922)- Why so much dirt, Nossy?
Let Me In- Competent remake, curious why it needed to exist though.
Tron Legacy- Lessened by the scrubbing out of all the Möbius designs, and more of a remake than a sequel. Really pretty though!
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)- Fantastic. There's a fox in it.
Le Samouraï (1967)- Classy.
Predators - What a silly-ass movie. Fun way to spend an afternoon though!
MATANGO: Attack of the Mushroom People (1963) - It may have all been a bad trip, but... MAYBE NOT.


I dunno man I don't think I really saw that many new-for-2010 movies this last year.

Interesting list, ARBM. I've only seen Moon (great), Eraserhead (not so great), and Sin Nombre (very good). I'll check some of the others out.

I just did a quick glance through my rental history and the only movies I gave five stars to this year were:

Good Dick
Triangle
King of California
Gran Torino
Evangelion 1.11

All 2008+ I believe. I don't watch too much older stuff. Everyone's familiar with the latter three, and I've evangelized both Good Dick and Triangle on here in the past, both of which are available on IW in HD.

[edit]: er, I guess Triangle isn't.

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

Maybe there were a lot of tits in it.


Or babies. He also likes babies.

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It has neither. It's filled to the brim with genericality and ridiculosity.

Knight and Day #2 on my shit list.

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Originally Posted by Compass

Knight and Day was the second best movie you saw in all of 2010?

Really?

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I'll explain so even a bitch can understand.

I don't go to movies. I torrent them.

That's even more disturbing.
It wasn't the cost of the movie ticket that made that movie suck...
And if you steal every movie, then cost of entry shouldn't be a factor anyway.
Steal better stuff.

1.)District 9
2.)2010
3.)Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
4.)Absolon
5.)Zebraman
6.)District 13

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Originally Posted by Advocate

I don't go to movies. I torrent them.

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That makes it worse.

Endless possibilities out there, all for free, and you liked that movie better than anything else but A-Team.

Can I count the four part She-Ra episode as a movie?

Did you watch them in a row?

No real order except for #1.

Millennium Actress - This was the only Satoski Kon film I'd not seen until last year. In some ways, it's his best....but I think you can say that about everything he made.
In Bruges - Best crime caper I'd seen in a while.
Blood Creek - I expected this to suck, but it turned out to be a rather enjoyable horror film, starring a Nazi undead sorcerer.
Splice - I can sort of forgive the ending when the first half was so interesting.
Them - Ignore the hugely inferior US remake ("The Strangers") and watch this, the original French film.
Timecrimes - Time stops for no one. Even Hector Tres.
Triangle - Another time-thriller which was also much better than I anticipated.
Ingluorious Basterds - Tarantino's best since Pulp Fiction.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Once again, I had no idea what to expect and ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
and my favorite of 2010:
Valhalla Rising - It's slow and somewhat awkward, and I found it totally hypnotic.

I can't recall every good movie I saw but these came to mind, mostly stuff from recent years and not in any order. I didn't watch many old movies last year.

City of God (2002)
The Fall (2006) - Like The Cell, it has amazing dream cinematography. The kid's adorable, too. And I normally hate kids.
Apocalypto (2006) - Gibson may be a douche but this was brilliant.
Moon (2009) - The world needs more sci-fi like this.
2LDK (2003)
Inside (2007) - Genuinely disturbing and entertaining.
Antichrist (2009) - Also genuinely disturbing and entertaining.
Burn After Reading (2008) - One of the Coen bros better comedies.
Triangle (2009) - see BioMechanic's comment
In Bruges (2008)- see BioMechanic's comment

2LDK is so good.

I can't remember the movies I saw because my brain is filled with actuarial mathematics and beer. But, I did really like In Bruges too. Didn't care for Burn After Reading.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me

5. The Lives of Others (2006)
What the hell could've ousted Pan's Labyrinth for the Oscar in the Best Foreign Film of 2006 category? This, and it wholly deserved it. Very compelling stuff about the Stasi - East Germany's secret police before the collapse of the Berlin Wall - monitoring a couple of suspected West German sympathizers. Some of the best suspense this side of Hitchcock.

---

I saw this a couple years ago, but yea, I had the same reaction. PL was an internets darling and nobody had heard of this. Much hand-wringing ensued. Pan's Labryinth was a good film but The Lives of Others is an all-time great. It's just an amazing, beautiful film.

1) Enter the Void


2) Possession (shit trailer)


3) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me


4) Winters Bone


5) Angst


6) Near Dark


7) Scott Pilgrim


8) Trash Humpers


9) Felidae (Fan made, all i could find)


10) Ebola Syndrome



I really wish I kept a list of all the shit I watched so I could do this better. There is no way that this list is final. This year I'm going for 365 movies and I'm keeping a list of it all so my top ten list for this year should be more interesting.

I sadly saw the lives of others too early to put on my list.

I didn't really like PL much at all though.

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Originally Posted by Compass

It's filled to the brim with genericality and ridiculosity.

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So it is awesome then.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

Burn After Reading (2008) - One of the Coen bros better comedies.

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I'm curious if you've not seen many Coens movies. My impression of it was that it was extremely derivative of their other movies, almost imitating themselves, and while I might have liked it if I hadn't seen all their prior movies, I was bored with it in the same way I've grown bored of Tim Burton movies or Wes Anderson.

Going to have to think about my list a bit.

I think I have seen all their comedies. It's possible I liked Burn more than I would have because it had been a while since I had seen any.

Neo liked it because it inspired him to make his own fuck machine.





But he went one step further. His fuck machine allows you to play emulators.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Opaque

I support Justice League: Crisis of Two Earths and Batman: Under the Red Hood, the new DC animated movies are just phenominal.

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I've seen the Red Hood movie, and I'm trying to get through CoTE on Netflix Instant and not finding it easy. I don't think I have any interest left in any of these characters.

(Some of the fight choreography in CoTE is really great, too! It's just that it's all invincible dudes and ladies bouncing off one another, even Batman. Zero tension in the proceedings.)

(Owl Man and Woppy Wop Superman are pretty cool, though.)

The end battle is where its at.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Opaque

Did you watch them in a row?

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Yes.

1. Little Miss Sunshine - Still love it
2. True Grit (Coens version) - Amazing. Loved the original with Wayne too.
3. Tangled - Saw it with my niece and nephew. Truly great animation. Classic Disney shit.
4. Shawshank Redemption - Never fails to immerse.
5. Moon - Great sci-fi.
6. Knight & Day - Much better than I thought it would be when I was dragged to it. The climax is a bit weak but it starts off strong out the gate to get it to the end.
7. The Social Network - The story is fiction due to high volume of inaccuracies about facebook. Regardless the story is well told.
8. How to Train Your Dragon - The first dreamworks movie I didn't feel went for the easy, cheap-laughs route. A truly defined world, great characters and a moral driven story.
9. Toy Story 3 - I hope the franchise ends. A good send off.
10. Predators - Good continuation of the franchise.

Catch Me if You Can or There Will Be Blood both could probably bump Toy Story 3 or Predators off, but I wanted to keep the list somewhat relevant to 2010.

Knight and Day was the sixth best movie you saw in all of 2010?

Really?

It's Drewbacca. You really all that surprised?

I don't care if you have a hard on for it or not. Had some very good set pieces, especially at the start.

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Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name

It's Drewbacca. You really all that surprised?

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People pay me for my opinion, son.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drewbacca

I don't care blah blah blah

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http://images.rottentomatoes.com/ima...2/photo_03.jpg

Oh, I think you do.

Don't. Cameron Diaz looks like a swamp monster.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drewbacca

People pay me for my opinion, son.

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People pay for stupid shit all the time. See: Avatar's ticket sales and units sold of the Wii.

Going for 10 I can remember or recommend is going to be really stretching it, but I'll give it a go.

Greenberg (2010)- Understated and true, with a halfway decent part for a woman. The only thing that happens at the end is that you understand the character.

My Son My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009) - Werner Herzog gets shot by LA sniper during interview.

Caterpillar (2010) - One of the best anti-war movies I've seen. This movie might actually be productive to remake in Hollywood, but no chance in hell.

Brightness (1987)

La Luna (1979)

Karigurashi no Arietty (2010)

Twenty-Four Eyes/Nijushi no hitomi (1954)

Inception (2010)

Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010)

The Ghost Writer (2010)


Don't remember if I saw in 2010 or 2009: A Prophet. Was a great movie though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name

People pay for stupid shit all the time. See: Avatar's ticket sales and units sold of the Wii.

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Then why aren't they paying you.

8. Donnie Darko- Creepy and awesomely cheesy 80's soundtrack, not so sure why it's a cult classic though.
7. The Haunted World of El Super Beasto- Rob Zombie's most subtle work ever....so completely offensive and over the top in a Spumco way. The degree of excess actually keeps it entertaining.
6. District 9- Good action film, the main character's cowardly demeanor got annoying after awhile.
5. Men Who Stare At Goats- Bridges can do no wrong lately, great performances by all actually. The ending scene wasn't needed.
4. Constant Gardener
3. Iron Man 2- Did not expect much of this based on the reaction of friends who saw it in theaters. Rourke makes a great villain and Stark's return to aloof playboy is entertaining enough to discount the Dad subplot.
2. Bourne Identity- Amazing, can't wait to sit down to the next two.
1. Shawshank Redemption- :tu: