It feels like just yesterday we were embarking on the 2010s and here we are ready to leave them behind. But what a wonderful, weird and downright fascinating decade it has been. From everything from sports to politics to music to movies, it truly has been 10 years to remember. For me, the last 10 years have been full of huge milestones. In fact, even as I type this, my wife and I are in the hospital waiting for our second child to make her grand entrance. It truly has been a wild decade.

And so with this great decade of film coming to a close, I wanted to take a look back and share my 26 favorite films of the last decade. These are my personal favorites; the films that I found myself wanting to revisit again and again throughout the decade and ones that I see myself watching and sharing with others for years to come.

Okay let’s get started:

26. LA LA LAND

Let it be known from henceforth and forever, this sweeping decree: If you cast Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone opposite each other in a film, I will consider that cheating because those two have an on-screen chemistry that knows no bounds. After seeing Whiplash, and it instantly became one of my biggest surprise hits of 2014, I was extremely excited to see what Damien Chazelle had in store with his follow-up, La La Land. I loved every performance in the film and every single song is filled with so much love and admiration for jazz, it’s nearly impossible not to be caught up in the film’s joy. For some I’ve talked to, the film’s ending was a downer and one they couldn’t get on board with. But for me, the film’s final 15 minutes is what made it a bonafide classic.

25. WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

Taika Waititi is a revelation and one of the best products of the 2010s. What We Do In the Shadows is his vampire mock-doc team-up with Flight of the Conchords (New Zealand’s fourth most famous folk parody duo) alum Jemaine Clement is so side-splittingly funny that there were a couple of scenes where I had to pause the movie so that I didn’t miss the next joke. The film follows a group of vampires living in the modern age as they go about their regular vampire business looking for human familiars, getting into fights with the local werewolves and just generally bickering over who hasn’t done the dishes for the last five years. It’s perfectly deadpan and was the perfect antidote for a post-Twilight world. If you didn’t catch this movie during Halloween, fear not–it’s perfect for viewing nearly any time of year.

24. INCEPTION

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy is great–but the real benefit of his Batman films was that it turned Nolan from someone who had put out some pretty solid stuff into a director that studios would just hand over money to in order to create his passion projects. Inception is an absolute beast of a film and one that gets better with each watch. It’s stunning in how well Nolan makes everything work, even as we go further and further down the dream rabbit hole. Better than even all of this is the endless debate that it spawned: is Cobb dreaming or is everything real? The best part: it doesn’t matter, because the film backs up both theories without even conflicting with itself. Truly we were blessed with Inception.

23. KNIVES OUT

In 5 years, if I had to do this list again, I imagine that Knives Out would be further up on the list, but I can confidently say, having only seen the film once, that it truly is an excellent piece of filmmaking. Rian Johnson is a stellar genre director that knows exactly how to subvert your expectations and keep you guessing right up until the very end. About 30 minutes into Knives Out I thought to myself, “where in the world is this movie going to go now??” but Johnson keeps the pieces moving and keeps the wheels turning. Then partner that with excellent performances, particularly from Daniel Craig, and you have a whodunnit that is a ton of fun.

22. INTERSTELLAR

Christopher Nolan isn’t necessarily the best when it comes to emotional filmmaking. He has his moments, and most of those come by way of an actor taking the reigns of the scene and really killing it (see: Michael Caine’s “I failed you” monologue from The Dark Knight Rises), but Interstellar is an anomaly. There’s something incredibly powerful about Nolan really buckling in and making love a central theme of a film that follows astronauts into outer space as they travel through black holes and using that to say that love is the thing that connects us no matter how many trillions of miles apart we are. Nolan pulls an outstanding performance from a McConaissance-high Matthew McConaughey and supports him with a great cast of actors. Interstellar contains some of my favorite camerawork from any Nolan film, as well as possibly my favorite Zimmer score (second only to perhaps The Lion King) and it’s probably the Nolan film I understand the least–but it’s just another reason why I keep coming back.

21. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

I love Martin Scorsese. He is one of my favorite filmmakers and the man has stirred quite the pot with his recent discussion around what is and isn’t “cinema”. But let me tell you this: The Wolf of Wall Street? That is cinema. Scorsese’s film follows Jordan Belfort on a sex, alcohol and drug-filled quest to get as rich as possible, no matter who he has to screw along the way. DiCaprio gives a career-best performance and Jonah Hill backs him up with an equally fantastic job. “Wolf” is funny, outlandish, psychotic, infuriating and downright good! It’s Scorsese taking a step away from the mobsters of yesteryear to show us the mobsters that are lying, cheating and stealing from us all.

20. HER

Someone needs to ask Spike Jonze which stock he thinks is going to pop in 5 years because his near-future love story is already something that we are starting to see take place. Her, the story of a lonely man who falls in love with his phone operating system, feels more and more prophetic every year as more and more people continue to isolate themselves with smartphones and AirPods, closing themselves off to all around them. Her has one of the weirdest premises of the decade, but it’s so well-crafted by Jonze and so well-acted by both Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johanssen, that you instantly buy-in. It’s a prophetic story of loneliness, love, and belonging.

19. THE LEGO MOVIE

Admit it. You didn’t think The LEGO Movie was going to be as good as it was, and neither did I. I went in as a LEGO fan and was blown away by the level of craftsmanship involved. The LEGO Movie follows Emmett–a boring nobody who does the same thing every single day, listens to the same song, drinks the same coffee and watches the same show, but ends up accidentally becoming “The Special”. But along the way, Emmett discovers that everyone can be “The Special” because the power of imagination and creativity are what make each of us special. Not only is the film’s central message powerful and beautiful, but it is one of the funniest movies of the decade.

18. DRIVE

A love letter to grindhouse car movies, Drive is Andrew Winding Refn’s gorgeous 2011 film that follows Ryan Gosling as a stuntman moonlighting as a getaway driver. Armed with driving gloves, insane driving skills and maybe the coolest jacket in movie history, Gosling’s unnamed driver finds himself pulled into multiple jobs with various results. In addition to some of the sharpest looking camerawork that an action movie saw this decade, Drive also boasts an incredible soundtrack, highlighted by the Kavinsky superhit, Nightcall. It is brutal, bloody, sleek, stylish, and most importantly a dang good film.

17. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

The 2010s really put Spider-Man through the ringer, didn’t it? This decade gave us Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, but none of these Spider-Men came close to Miles Morales. Into the Spider-Verse moves away from Parker as the central character and focuses on Morales, a young student who is bitten by a spider, discovers he has powers, yada yada yada. But beyond providing more big-screen representation for people of color, Spider-Verse is a vibrant, funny and well-spun comic book story that injects the Spider-Man filmography with new life.

16. POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING

There are plenty of good musical parody films out there. But what The Lonely Island does that sets them apart with Popstar is that not only is the movie side-splittingly funny with its commentary on pop stars and the music industry in general, but the music is SO. DANG. GOOD! The beats on nearly every song absolutely bang and the lyrics are some of the funniest that The Lonely Island has ever put out. Whether he is comparing his sexual escapades to the United States’ decimation of Osama bin Laden, skewering wishy-washy celebrity support for oppressed groups or just delivering bangers with “I’m So Humble”, Popstar delivers and just gets better every time.

15. LADY BIRD

Greta Gerwig is one of those people that I want to experience everything she touches. She is incredible in Frances Ha (which just barely did not make this list) and I was very excited to hear about her solo directorial debut. Lady Bird is a beautiful film about growing up and learning to love the places you leave behind. Lady Bird feels particular personal to me, as Greta, Lady Bird and I all grew up in Sacramento, CA–a place that you resent until you leave. Saoirse Ronan delivers a stunning performance as Lady Bird with grace, flair and humor and it also has Timothee Chalamet, so how can you NOT love it?

14. THE INTERVIEW

Hey! HEY!! Remember this is MY list! In all honesty, The Interview is probably my favorite comedy of the last 20 years, partly because it’s so good, but also because its production story is so insane. Who could forget the holiday season of 2015 when North Korea hacked Sony Pictures, released internal emails, and then threatened to attack movie theaters showing The Interview? The film follows Dave Skylark (flawlessly played by James Franco), who, after discovering that his nightly entertainment gossip TV show has a massive fan in North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, is hired by the CIA to assassinate him during a special interview. But as Skylark gets closer and closer to offing Kim, he starts to find himself becoming closer to him, making his mission difficult to complete. It’s a ridiculous premise but one of the most entertaining films of the decade…for my money.

13. STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

I’ll start by saying this. The fact that this film even exists deserves a spot on this list. I, myself, am a massive Star Wars fan. From books to comics, video games and RPGs, I do it all (minus the action figures–I swore to myself never to get into that part). So in 2012 when it was announced that Disney purchased Lucasfilm and was developing a new Star Wars trilogy I about fell out of the plasma donation bed I was laying in. The Force Awakens had two major hurdles to overcome: one, it needed to set up the handoff from one generation to the next, and two, it needed to feel like Star Wars. Director JJ Abrams hit both on the head, brought back familiar faces, set up new characters worth a damn, and delivered the most crowd-pleasing film of 2015 and one of my favorite movies of the decade.

12. GONE GIRL

Is this Fincher’s most underrated movie? Gone Girl was a movie that caught me so incredibly off guard. I went in not knowing that the movie was fiction (it is rooted in the Scott Peterson murder frenzy of the early 2000s) and thought that it was based on a true story. The movie features career-best performances from both Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike and is so well-crafted by David Fincher that had he not also made maybe the best movies of the last decade, this would be his best film since Zodiac. If you haven’t seen Gone Girl, go in with as little information as possible and buckle up for a wild ride.

11. THE WITCH

One of the biggest blessings of the 2010s was the renaissance of the horror genre from a bunch of arthouse filmmakers. One of the most astounding achievements of this bunch was Robert Eggers’ The Witch–a film so terrifying and claustrophobic that my wife (who was my fiancee at the time) actually got up and left. The Witch examines the oppression of puritanism, particularly on women, in early colonial America and the way that extreme adherence to religion led to pandemonium and fear around witchcraft. Eggers used actual diary entries to piece together his story and the film has some of the most chilling moments I’ve experienced in any horror movie.

10. PARASITE

Parasite is the best movie of 2019 and should be on just about every Top 10 list for the decade. Bong Joon-Ho is one of our best directors period, but his skill with social commentary is unmatched. He is stellar at making all of his movies a horror film of sorts and Parasite is no different. Looking at the disparity between social classes, the film is beautifully directed, funny, emotional and just downright excellent. It’s a film where every time you expect it to zig, it zags and I could have watched another 2 hours no problem.

9. PADDINGTON 2

In a time where so much vitriol is being spewed from every direction, sometimes we need to remember the importance of being polite. And who would have thought that the best teacher of such a lesson would be the little bear from Darkest Peru–Paddington Bear. 2015’s Paddington was a pleasant surprise and a film that I cherish, but the 2017 sequel was so beautiful, so touching, and so heartfelt, it’s a film impossible not to fall in love with. Ben Whishaw is so charming as Paddington and the prison sequences with Brendan Gleeson are overflowing witch charm. But maybe one of the best scenes in the entire film is a final musical number from Hugh Grant, whose villainous turn in Paddington 2 is maybe the best thing he’s ever done.

8. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES

Okay, I’m cheating here. But I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Tom Cruise is our greatest living movie star and the Mission: Impossible franchise proves it. In fact, Mission: Impossible is the best franchise, after Star Wars, this decade. Ghost Protocol took the Mission: Impossible movies, injected them with new life and said, “What if we market these movies around a massive stunt?” In Ghost Protocol it was Tom Cruise scaling the Burj Khalifa, Rogue Nation was Cruise riding a plane during takeoff and a high-speed motorcycle chase, and in Fallout, it was the HALO jump and helicopter chase. These movies are action film spectacles and they have maintained a level of quality (minus M:I-2) that really is impressive for a franchise over 20 years old.

7. MIDSOMMAR

In this decade, only one movie left me so shaken and nearly physically unable to move that I didn’t even realize that I had stayed through the entire final credits. In fact, I think only one movie ever has done that to me and it was 2019’s Midsommar. Led by the incredible Florence Pugh, Midsommar follows a group of college students into a commune in Northern Sweden for the Midsommar Festival. Director Ari Aster calls this “a breakup movie” and he’s not wrong, as the film watches the main character struggle with a dead-end relationship and sees a fiery final scene that will leave your jaw on the floor.

6. HEREDITARY

I said it when I saw it the first time and after two more viewings it still holds true: Hereditary is the scariest movie I have ever seen. Now while that point might be subjective, Ari Aster’s family drama about loss and what we pass down to the generations after us is a visceral movie experience. It has the most frightening, bone-chilling five minutes of filmmaking that I have ever witnessed and a performance from Toni Collette that demands the Academy to be investigated for denying her a nomination.

5. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

As a longtime Quentin Tarantino superfan, I had been looking forward to the release of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood since The Hateful Eight released. It was one of my most anticipated movies of 2019 and when I saw it, I knew that I liked it but not quite how much. On second viewing, however, it instantly became one of my favorite movies of 2019. I love the relationship between Cliff (Brad Pitt) and Rick (Leonardo DiCaprio), and the subtle ways that the film shows just how strong their bond is. It’s a movie that I haven’t stopped thinking about since seeing it this summer. It’s a beautiful ode to the moviemaking days of yesteryear and the way the sun sets on all of our times in the spotlight.

4. GET OUT

“Hey, you know that goofy guy from that comedy duo on Comedy Central? What about a horror movie, directed by him, about a young black man meeting his girlfriend’s casually racist family?” If that was the only thing you knew about Jordan Peele’s masterpiece balancing act of tension, suspense, and social commentary, you’d think you were just going to see a Look Who’s Coming to Dinner? remake with a little added flavor. But with Get Out, Peele takes the familiar setup and flips it three times over on its head and delivers a film with one of the most iconic scenes of the decade (tea, anyone?) and sets up layer upon layer of symbolic imagery of racism in America. It’s a movie that we will be talking about for decades to come.

3. THE SOCIAL NETWORK

If you ask me what the BEST movie of the decade is, I wouldn’t even flinch to say The Social Network. Not only is it David Fincher’s best work of his career, but it’s the most 2010s movie imaginable. A movie about Facebook? But The Social Network is more than just a movie about Facebook. It’s a movie about narcissism and greed and anger and loneliness and what one incel can do with a stolen idea and a ton of coding skills. It features the best score of the decade, arguably the best direction of the decade, career-best Jesse Eisenberg, career-best Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer PLAYING BOTH WINKLEVOSS TWINS! People, this movie is incredible and if it’s been nearly a decade since you’ve seen it, it’s time to revisit this masterpiece.

2. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Ah yes. The movie that my father said was like “running a rusty bike chain through my skull”. Oh, to be so wrong. Fury Road has absolutely NO business being as good as it is, and yet, here it is, the best action movie of all time. Aside from the best-edited action sequences ever, what makes Fury Road so good is that it’s not even about Max. Sure, he’s in the movie, but this is Furiosa’s (Charlize Theron) story and Max is just living in it. It’s such a kickass movie about female liberation, but it’s never heavy-handed. Max is never incompetent, the women characters are strong in their own right, the villainous Immorten Joe is truly terrifying, and this movie has a blind madman strung up absolutely slaying on an electric guitar to lead Joe’s forces into battle. This movie rules.

1. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

This is my list. And my favorite movie of the decade is The Last Jedi and it took me all of 2 seconds to know that this movie was going to take the #1 spot. For my money, The Last Jedi does everything that I want in a Star Wars movie. It puts the characters into situations where they learn and grow, making them better versions of themselves for the next movie. It gives us great battle or fight sequences (the throne room fight is an all-timer). And most important of all, it expands the Star Wars Universe, giving it the opportunity to be more than it was previous to this movie. 

Rian Johnson took the impossible task of taking the characters, mysteries, and plotlines of The Force Awakens and carrying them over into part 2 of the trilogy. Yes, some of those are abandoned, but to the trilogy’s overall benefit. Johnson smartly got rid of Snoke and Phasma but made their demises push forward the far more important story arcs of Kylo Ren and Finn, respectively. Some may take issue with Luke’s portrayal in The Last Jedi. For me, it not only made Luke Skywalker a far more interesting character, but it has become the most important character arc for me as a person–the idea that failure is just an obstacle and how we overcome that failure is what makes us powerful.

What a decade for movies. How many of these movies make your Top 25 list of the decade? Let us know! We look forward to more great movies going into the next decade and can only hope it can top this one!