It never feels momentous when the year number rolls over from 4 to 5, but it is indeed the end of a half decade. (By the way: I know the whole “decades start at XYZ1 because there was no Year 0 in the Gregorian calendar” argument, and I have no use for it. A decade starts and ends when the tens digit changes.) And so I’m going to briefly look back on 5 years of film, about three of which I’ve been watching pretty closely, and select my ten favorites. Insert the normal caveat about “favorite” vs. “greatest” here.
These are sorted alphabetically, and I’ll probably change my mind on which ten to include thirty seconds after hitting “Publish.”
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023)
Are You There etc. (it’s a mouthful of a title) is warm but never too mushy, deeply humane and kind, surprisingly absent of cheap nostalgia despite being a period piece, and hugely inviting as a throwback production. Abby Ryder Forston is outstanding in the lead, and Rachel McAdams is tremendous as a mom of shifting identities. No movie this decade has made me feel more hugged than this.
Asteroid City (2023)
Probably my favorite movie of the decade so far. It’s Wes Anderson’s dark mirror, a two-track investigation into the act of creation and storytelling as a mechanism for processing the unknowable mysteries of the universe, whether they be little green men or death.
Babylon (2022)
Other than Asteroid City, I’m not sure there’s any film this decade I’ve thought more about since I watched it than Babylon, which is not to say it’s my second-favorite. It’s pretty flawed, and I gave it a softer rating than some films omitted from this list. But it’s a movie I love more and more as I look back on it, though I should probably watch it again to lock in that bump in appreciation. Damien Chazelle’s bile-soaked, anti-Singing in the Rain comedy is long and shaggy but overflowing with all sorts of feelings about the purpose of art and the cruelty of the movie-making machine. And that Hurwitz score!
Emma. (2020)
I’ve never loved (or loved looking at) a Jane Austen story more. I finally understand why her books are so relished: the wit, the heart underneath the period banter, the timeless portraits of clashing personality types, are all sharply on display. And the production is out-of-this-world attractive, with ravishing costumes and sets and direction, not to mention a terrific cast.
Falcon Lake (2022)
I’ve rhapsodized about it on Letterboxd and in my list of last year’s Oscar snubs, but Falcon Lake is a real hidden gem: murky and haunting, yet still inviting, a crossroads between a coming-of-age summer hangout and a moody ghost story. Someday I’ll rewatch and write a full review.
Flow (2024)
Some smart people I know have made the case that a few of us have gotten carried away in our Flow worship. Their loss! Flow is a film that enraptured me and touched me, a fairly simple eco-fable of a cat trying to survive a flood. The catch is that it’s completely dialogue free, letting the viewer project their own meaning onto the animal grunts and expressive faces. It’s animated mostly by one guy, and that low budget shows; it’s very video gamey and occasionally ugly, but it’s nonetheless wonderfully engaging and touching and even spiritual.
Pearl (2022)
I am already in a post-critical relationship with Pearl, the middle film in the consistently fun “X” trilogy by Ti West and my official pick for the best movie of 2022. Putatively a horror film, but mostly a showcase for Mia Goth to give the towering black comedy performance in a generation, Pearl is the sad, violent, but electrically funny story of a young woman’s life going off the rails during the 1910s flu pandemic. I’m physically incapable of pointing out the film’s flaws at this point; I see them the way I do the birthmarks on my children.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
I wonder if anyone thought “I bet, in 21 years, the sequel to the spinoff series from this film will offer one of the most profound meditations on mortality in all of children’s animation” when they saw Shrek in 2001. Regardless, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is something of a miracle; gorgeously animated, packed with fun set pieces, very funny, and a vessel for one of my favorite movie villains in years: The big D himself, the ol’ GR, disguised as a wolf.
Shithouse (2020)
My darling precious Shithouse: a post-mumblecore college party riff on Before Sunrise and made by a 22-year-old. It is deeply inviting and romantic and ruminative, as all Before Sunrise riffs should be, but it’s also a bracing take on coming-of-age tropes: of early college as a time for loneliness and regression rather than liberation (very true for me), of upside-down masculinity, of the value of precisely-measured selfishness.
The Substance (2024)
Who would have guessed that a 140-minute, two-woman Hollywood horror-satire would be the most compulsively watchable film of the year, possibly the decade. The new-age Grand Guignol master Coralie Fargeat makes every scene a maximalist master-class, building to an outrageously shocking and cathartic finale. The Substance is a reclamation of male gaze like a switchblade stab through a peephole; but more importantly, it’s phenomenal entertainment.
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One reply on “My 10 Favorite Films of the First Half of the 2020s”
Well, we’ll agree that it won’t be deserved when The Wild Robot beats Flow at the Oscars, though I’ll probably take it more readily in stride.
Gotta watch some of these movies (the only intersections on a “top five of 2020-2024 I think we have are The Substance and The Last Wish, but I’ve only seen Babylon and Asteroid City and Flow otherwise); I have no real idea how I haven’t gotten around to Emma in particular, and I’ve only set myself to catching up on Pearl in the next couple of weeks.
Definitely need to *re*watch Asteroid City, which stymied me quite a bit the first time.