As we draw near the end of the decade, I’ve been looking back at the past ten years of cinema and gathering my thoughts on each film released within each of them. In the leadup to my Best Films of the 2010’s list, I will also be sharing a Top 10 for every year this decade that I didn’t get a chance to before starting this blog. So here are my top 10 films of 2014!
2010|2011|2012|2013|2014|2015|2016|2017|2018|2019
Honorable Mentions: Force Majeure, The Babadook, Foxcatcher, Selma, The Grand Budapest Hotel
2014 is an odd case scenario for cinema. It doesn’t have that many films I really enjoyed (none of these will sniff my Best of the Decade list), but the ones I liked, I loved. You can expect most of this top 10 to appear highly on my decade rankings when the time comes. That isn’t to say the other films were bad; they just didn’t connect with me like years past and future did.
10. Fury
If nothing else, this is one of the most realistic war movies of the decade. It does not glamorize combat in any way; our protagonist is a scared little boy and we never forget that. It reminds us that war was filled with frightened teenagers way out of their depth, forced to perform unconscionable acts like cleaning skull fragments off a tank and shooting other teenagers in the face. It also captures the camaraderie of war well, as men from all walks of life forced to work together form an unbreakable bond and would do anything to protect one another. Throw in a fantastic Brad Pitt performance (and a great Shia Labeouf one in the middle of his public meltdown!) and this is an experience that stuck with me long after.
9. Boyhood
Many argue to this day that this was the deserving Best Picture winner of 2014 and one of the finer films of the past half-century, and while I’d contend with both of those arguments, this is still a special experience and a phenomenal feat of filmmaking. While the prolonged filming period is seen as a gimmick, it is an immersive technique that helps to sell the film’s themes of growing up and coming into one’s own as an adult. For a film that was basically written as it went along, it’s remarkably consistent and well-paced with compelling themes and throughlines linking the disparate timelines. For all of this film’s warts, it is truly one of a kind and worthy of praise for the sheer ambition that is unmatched in cinema to-date. We’ll have to wait until 2040 to see anything like it again, when Linklater completes his rumored 20-year project with Beanie Feldstein!
8. What We Do in the Shadows
What a great decade Taika Waititi has had! From his humble beginnings in New Zealand, he has since broken out into commercial (Thor: Ragnarok) and critical (Jojo Rabbit) success stateside. But this little mockumentary-style comedy following a group of vampires has stuck with me more than many of his more well-regarded features. It brilliantly deconstructs horror tropes for humorous purposes, with a lovable cast of characters and endlessly-witty sequences making full use of the potential in both the horror and documentary genres. Despite such a simple premise, the execution is flawless and makes this a surprisingly-memorable watch that I’m always willing to recommend to people, even my non-film-loving friends.
7. Edge of Tomorrow
This is the kind of box office performance that makes me lose faith in the human race. Why is it that every Tom Cruise-led action flick makes hundreds of millions of dollars, EXCEPT the very best one?! Why this movie flopped is beyond me, because it has everything: a killer premise, two hot A-list stars, and fantastic writing that sustains the intrigue beyond the first few moments. For such a unique subject matter to be executed so perfectly and maintain suspense and drama for two full hours is practically impossible nowadays. Yeah, the climax is a bit campy and off-the-rails, but everything else about this film is just about flawless and a fantastic watch. This is the movie I point to whenever I hear people complain that Hollywood doesn’t make original blockbusters anymore. Why should they bother if nobody pays to see them? You all brought this upon yourself by ignoring gems like this one when they were in theaters.
6. Interstellar
I love Christopher Nolan as much as the next guy in the under-30 white male demographic, but I’m not among those who tout this as a masterpiece. It’s a heavily flawed film: at once both overlong and too thin on emotional development. It tries to shoehorn in a central message of “love transcends time and space” that still feels corny to this day. And yet, with every rewatch of this film, these problems fade away in favor of the stunning visuals and compelling central plot. That docking scene will stick with me for years to come, and I’ll never forget the feeling of sitting in that theater gripping my armrests as I watched it unfold for the first time. We should applaud original big-budget features like this and accept them for all their warts, knowing that we will see far less of them in the future as Hollywood gravitates toward the familiar (sequels, reboots, and more). You’re our only hope, Obi-Wan Nolani! (I’ll see myself out.)
5. Gone Girl
This isn’t one of David Fincher’s more acclaimed films, and it may not be his most visually-ambitious, but I was drawn into this film’s web nonetheless. It’s a scintillating mystery with a lot to say about modern-day relationships that left me thinking for weeks after viewing it for the first time. For a first-time screenwriter (and a novelist no less), Gillian Flynn manages to craft an incredibly fascinating story with a complex view of how we change ourselves in relationships and the resentment that can ensue. It’s not perfect by a long shot; it’s about 15 minutes too long and Neil Patrick Harris is horribly miscast. But it’s still a well-written, compelling, and resonant good time that has still remained on my mind five years after release.
4. Birdman
In the age of superhero action-extravaganzas, here we have the antidote: Alejandro Iñárritu’s part-satire, part-black comedy about an ex-superhero star trying to take a prestige turn into theater. Birdman was making fun of superhero flicks before Deadpool made it cool! I especially love the one-take shooting style of the film, which mirrors the film’s theater background and ambitions while lending credibility to the characters’ desires to be taken seriously. What better way than to have their actors wow us with their intricately-choreographed and rehearsed performances? The film also reflects on the relationship between artist and critic, as well as artist and audience, a split-desire manifested clearly in the protagonist’s crisis over whether he even wants to appease one side or the other. This is definitely one of the the weirdest Oscar winners of the decade, and all the better for it: we need more unique, offbeat stories with something to say at the forefront of film discourse these days.
3. A Most Violent Year
This a dry, procedural crime drama with sparse action sequences and many scenes of just characters in rooms talking to one another. But somehow it’s incredibly tense and features some of my favorite characters of the decade. J.C. Chandor has a knack for crafting fantastic, complex characters, and this film is no different. Oscar Isaac gives possibly his best performance ever as Abel Morales, the man of principles who refuses to stoop to illicit means of growing his business in an era where that is the norm. We don’t need flashy action scenes or grandiose set pieces to feel the tension at the center of this film: the pressures on this moralistic man to abandon his convictions and fight fire with fire. We want him to succeed, but to succeed his way, and that’s a testament to how a strong character setup can carry a film when not much else is happening.
2. Nightcrawler
I’ll never forgive the Academy for snubbing Jake Gyllenhaal and his haunting performance as grifter Lou Bloom in Nightcrawler. Manic, ruthless, and ambitious to a fault, Lou took me on a journey that I’ll never forget through the seedy underbelly of L.A. video stringers. I’m a sucker for thrillers, so when a movie is able to thrill me AND make relevant social commentary at once, it’s immediately something special. The critique of modern-day news fear-mongering makes you question who the real villain is: Lou or the people enabling him to do what he does. Dan Gilroy’s script is easily the best original screenplay I’ve read all decade; it reads like a Cormac McCarthy novel, with visceral imagery and sparse punctuation that leaves you breathless. The dialogue is sharp and brisk, balancing wit and humor to characterize our heroes and villains and everyone in-between. I loved everything about the character dynamics, with Lou shifting between power-drunk (lording over Rick) and power-thirsty (trying to win over Nina and the network execs). What a wild and rewarding experience this film was.
1. Whiplash
No movie this year (or this decade, for that matter) has floored me quite like Whiplash did. Damien Chazelle’s masterclass in building tension was nothing short of a revelatory experience. My one regret in life is not going to see this film in theaters, but even just watching it on a boring old flatscreen at home, I was on the edge of my seat for the entire runtime. I suspect that this movie will be studied and remembered for decades to come. The acting is first-class; Miles Teller gives his best performance to date while J.K. Simmons turns in probably the best acting performance of the entire decade. And the story underneath it all is just as powerful as the execution: a tad simplistic for some people’s tastes, but ultra-streamlined and laser-focused on its themes. For a film to both enthrall me AND keep me thinking about its messages years after the fact is no easy feat! So many things have to go right for a film to work while one false note could derail the whole thing, yet Whiplash is the rare film where nothing goes wrong. It’s a perfect movie, and you can expect it to appear VERY highly on my best of the decade list.
Thanks for reading! Check back soon as I fill out the rest of the decade with my Top 10 lists this month, leading up to my Top 100 Films of the Decade ranking! Check out the home page for more Top 10’s, reviews, and film musings…I’m willing to bet you’ll find something you like!
-Austin Daniel
Scriptophile 