Look, making a Best of Decade list is an impossibility. As the 2010s come to a close, we’ve been agonizing over this (long-delayed) list for half a year now and even had to take a break and put it away this summer when things got too contentious and overwhelming. And then there’s the notion of resonance and what really lasts and is released too late (Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is phenomenal, for example, but it’s not even released yet, and it’s just going to have to sit this one out).

Continue reading The 100 Best Films Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

Generally speaking, if you’ve seen one “greatest films of all time” list, you’ve seen them all, with the top choices usually containing some configuration of “Citizen Kane,” “The Godfather,” and “Vertigo.” History tends to solidify critical consensus which makes a list of more contemporary movies all the more interesting. With less time and perspective to weigh in, one could argue that a list of the 100 Greatest Films Of The 21st Century, as recently put together by BBC Culture, rides a bit more on gut instinct and personal favorites.

Continue reading BBC’s 100 Greatest Films Of The 21st Century List Includes ‘Tree Of Life,’ ‘Mulholland Drive,’ ‘The Dark Knight,’ More at The Playlist.

We’re in the heart of the summer movie season, and that means theaters are mostly catering to things with superheroes or orcs or angry birds or more superheroes or ninja turtles. And that’s all well and good, but it can leave a film fan with a broader, more varied appetite a little starved, particularly when it comes to foreign-language fare.

READ MORE: The 50 Best Animated Films Of The 21st Century So Far

While there’s plenty of great arthouse and indie films in release (go see “The Lobster” and “Love & Friendship,” people!), there are relatively few truly tantalizing subtitled films on offer.

Continue reading The 50 Best Foreign Language Movies Of the 21st Century So Far at The Playlist.

Iranian cinema has come a long way in the past several years, thanks to the decades-long success of directors like Abbas Kiarostami (whom Jean-Luc Godard has high praise for) and Academy Award-winning Asghar Farhadi. The director is back Cannes Film Festival, with his newest, “The Salesman,” screening today, but it was 2011’s “A Separation” that first put him on the international circuit.

Continue reading Exploring Man-Made Divide In Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’ at The Playlist.

As the dust cleared from our Best of 2014 features, 2015 previews and awards season coverage, we realized something terrifying: we’re now halfway through the current decade. Five years have passed since the 2010s began, we’re all sixty months (or sixty two?) older, and literally thousands of movies have hit theaters in that time.

So what better time to take stock of the decade thus far? Box-office returns might have been dominated by superheroes, ice princesses and dystopian teen-on-teen murder, but once you look outside the multiplex (or even, very occasionally, within it), it’s clear that cinema is as healthy as it’s ever been, with everyone from A-list auteurs to foreign-language first-timers delivering stunning, boundary-pushing work.

Continue reading The 50 Best Films Of The Decade So Far at The Playlist.