The 10 Best Movies of the Last 10 Years

Of all the platitudes about art, the one I’m most skeptical of is “they don’t make ’em like they used to.”

On some level, they don’t. Movies used to be silent; they used to be black and white; they used to be recorded and then projected on strips of celluloid film. None of that is true anymore. They don’t make anything like they used to; not cars, not Coca-Cola, and not movies.

But when people say “they don’t make ’em like they used to,” they don’t mean technologically. They’re talking about quality, and insisting in some mythic past that Hollywood produced one hit after another. That’s simply inaccurate. There were great films in past, and there are great films today.

Sure, there are more superhero films than ever before, and occasionally the glut of big budget, CGI-drenched blockbusters gets a little tiresome. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t great movies out there. If anything, there are more great movies — and more places to watch great movies — than ever before.

To prove it, here is a short list of ten absolute masterpieces released in just the last ten years. There are no qualifications or asterisks necessary for any of these; every single one is a five-star modern classic. Some are made by the studios and major directors who have been working for decades; others are independents and early works by emerging filmmakers who are just getting their start. They show that the movies are alive and well. If they didn’t used to make them like this, we’re actually better for it.