The last ten years (plus one) have been very exciting as cinematic boundaries were often moved, Oscar records were broken, and the landscape of cinema changed with the wider resurrection of 70mm film and the awakening of streaming. Without further ado, here are the eight most perfect movies of the last 11 years, ranked by their impact, general critical consensus, and perhaps a touch of personal preference.
8
‘The Batman’ (2022)
The Batman is an incredible neo-noir action film that has taken everyone by surprise. It’s only surpassed by the secrecy and magnitude of its still-in-production sequel, but we mustn’t forget it’s a film that carries its own weight. While the long runtime may have deferred some people from undertaking the feat of watching this DC Comics-based film, the runtime is barely felt throughout; there are true moments of filmmaking ingeniosity, including the stunning cinematography and skilled editing. The performances are strong, heavy, and felt throughout, with particular praise to Colin Farrell, who still manages to give Oz Cobb, aka The Penguin, a massive personality underneath a ton of prosthetics and makeup.
The Batman focuses on the vigilante’s detective side a lot more than his physical heroics; Bruce Wayne/Batman is portrayed by Robert Pattinson, and he finds himself at a crossroads in Gotham: protect the innocent or persecute the corrupt? The Riddler (Paul Dano) does him the service of the latter by targeting seemingly random officials and leaving messages for the Batman throughout. The film describes Gotham as a seedy urban landscape filled with reprehensible people—and at the same time, as a place full of innocent folks falling victim to the minority of those sitting greedily in their local government. Whether or not there is a sequel, The Batman is perfect as a standalone film, too; you don’t have to be a fan of comics or superhero stories to enjoy the film, which is probably the best part of all. It explains and introduces its characters with clarity, paving the way for how we see vigilante-themed cinema.
7
‘Midsommar’ (2019)
Many would deem Ari Aster‘s feature film debut, Hereditary, a better film, but Midsommar is a perfect sophomore feature for this horror director and one of the most perfect films of the decade. It’s been a wonderful decade for horror; one of the greatest directors of our time, Robert Eggers, has been especially dominant in the horror-fantasy landscape, and filmmakers like Coralie Fargeat, Danny and Michael Philippou, and Damian McCarthy have helped re-establish horror as a sentimental genre. Any true fan of horror understands that the scary stuff is rooted in trauma, social conditioning, and pain, and so presenting themes of loss and grief through horror isn’t anything new. Like a Newton’s cradle that stopped moving back and forth, Aster pulled the first ball and gave that sentimentally scary machine momentum to keep going once again.
Midsommar follows Dani (Florence Pugh), a young woman who loses her entire family in a tragic murder-suicide. Dani has been dating Christian (Jack Reynor) for a while, but their relationship has grown cold, and her grief seems to take them further apart. When their friend, a native Swede named Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), invites Dani, Christian, and their two friends Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter) to a traditional week-long celebration of midsummer in his ancestral commune named Hårga, they all agree to go. Dani becomes the first to realize that the Hårga have different, pagan-like customs and feels compelled to run and give in at the same time. Many call Midsommar a breakup movie, and it technically is; however, it’s a cathartic release of grief in the same sense, and though it does get downright unsettling, it’s a folk horror that feels deeply human.
6
‘Sentimental Value’ (2025)
Joachim Trier has an interesting ability to depict life with a lightness behind its inherent heaviness. No matter how long you watch or what is on-screen, there’s a sense of final optimism in his stories; themes like depression, generational trauma, grief, and avoidance are quite common for the director, but while you watch his protagonists, you get the uncanny sense that despite all the tragedy, things can end up well. With every unspoken word or a spoken cry for help, you feel seen by Trier’s films, especially if you’ve ever felt like one of the people in them. Sentimental Value won the Oscar for Best International Feature at this year’s Oscars, but its running for Best Picture overall was a genuinely justified nomination. Sentimental Value feels like you are truly watching three generations of the same family trying to resolve their shared trauma.
Sentimental Value follows the eldest daughter in her family, actress Nora (Renate Reinsve), whose film director father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård) reappears in her and her little sister Agnes’ (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) lives after their mother’s death. Agnes lives with her husband and son in their childhood home, which has been in Gustav’s family for generations, and when they all find themselves under the same roof again, their memories intertwine with the trauma of each of their upbringings. It’s an incredibly moving film full of life; Reinsve brings to life a hurt woman who is still a little girl inside, while Skarsgård hits all the right notes as a father trying to mend his poor past. If you haven’t seen it, you simply must.
5
‘Aftersun’ (2022)
Speaking of father-daughter relationships, a film that must never be forgotten is Charlotte Wells‘ Aftersun. If there has ever been a feature capable of making you stop everything and have a good cry during the end credits, it is this one. While it celebrates the relationship of a teen girl and her young father, it also honors her memory of him that has undoubtedly grown into a trauma she can’t easily put behind her. Aftersun was apparently based on Wells’ life and relationship with her own father, allowing the director to resolve her trauma in some way; most of her work is based on some form of healing or opening of deep-seated grief. This film was Paul Mescal‘s breakthrough into the world and his first Oscar nomination; it was well-deserved because he is raw and vulnerable in it.
Aftersun follows 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) during the time she went on a holiday to Turkey with her 30-year-old father, Calum (Mescal). She records a big portion of the holiday on her camera, remembering how things really were in between; Calum seems loving but like a capacity to be fully present is missing. The film shows Sophie’s perspective and her making friends and being a child on holiday—as she should—but it often switches to Calum, who is pondering, changes his mind frequently, and wonders about life past thirty. Aftersun is a touching slow-burn that will undoubtedly make you emotional, at least; it’s beautifully made, obviously with lots of love and care for the protagonists, differentiating itself from a standard family drama in more ways than one.
4
‘Sinners’ (2025)
Sinners is the new record-setting film, celebrating 16 Oscar nominations, which is the most of any film (14 had been the norm so far). Ryan Coogler‘s fifth film is also his fifth collaboration with Michael B. Jordan—ahem, Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan—and with composer Ludwig Göransson. The trio has always been good, but it seems their friendship has left the biggest impact on Sinners, which has slowly turned into a movie of a grand, symbolic, and beautiful relevance. The storyline feels reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn, which Coogler cited as an inspiration, but Sinners dedicates its entire runtime to understanding the context of the villains, making the protagonists people worth defending and cheering for, and weaving tradition, heritage, culture, and social history within the narrative.
Elevated from a simple vampire slasher, Sinners carries the symbol of a musician whose musical skill can bridge the gap between the spirit world and the world of the living; that musician is young Sammie (Miles Caton), the son of a preacher who deems his blues singing sinful. Sammie is cousins with the Smokestack twins (both played by Jordan), who return to their Mississippi hometown from Chicago, ready to open a juke joint for the locals. In a whole different place, sinister spirits gather as Irish vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell) turns a pair of Klan members into vampires, hears Sammie’s song from afar, and takes his thralls to him, hoping to feed. Sinners is an encapsulating experience that will not leave you behind for a while, and you will feel compelled, even invited in, to rewatch the film again and again.
3
‘Arrival’ (2016)
Arrival is, and I can’t say this enough, one of the most beautiful films ever made. Its use of science fiction to tell the story of fate and choice is an ingenious way to make the science feel closer and the fiction less fictional; Denis Villeneuve cements himself as a director to watch, although we already knew how brilliant he was thanks to Incendies, Prisoners, and Sicario. Arrival was based on the novella Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, and it asks several questions throughout the film, one being is language or mathematics the universal language? and the other, more relevant one, if you knew how your life evolves from here on out, would you still make the same choices? It’s not just about those emotionally resonant themes either; Arrival is its own form of love letter to language, communication, and understanding.
Arrival is set in modern times, when twelve oval-shaped black alien ships appear across Earth, just hovering and neither making contact nor threats. Linguistics expert Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is hired by the US Military outpost in Montana, where a spaceship hovers, together with physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), and their task is to understand the spaceship. They enter it and find octopus-like creatures sending them signals like octopuses squirting ink, but the signals take the shapes of symbols and Louise and Ian realize it’s the aliens’ language. Arrival takes the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, which is the theory that language can affect a person’s worldview or cognition, placing it within the context of love and loss. I get emotional just writing about it because you can only imagine where the story can go; if you’re also a language enthusiast or a graduated linguist (ahem), Arrival will scratch a particular itch because it treats linguistics like the miracle that it is.
2
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road is the greatest action film of the 21st century, and while this is highly subjective, critics and audiences haven’t shied away from giving George Miller‘s film this flattering title. Fury Road also still makes the cutaway, as it’s been exactly 11 years since it came out—I remember watching its premiere at the cinema so vividly that there’s no way a decade has passed. This is another testament to its enduring appeal—over ten years later, we still talk about and honor Fury Road as the best among the best. Achieved through mostly practical effects, location shoots, and an arduous editing process, Fury Road had actually been in the making since 1987, going through some seriously lengthy development hell. And yet, it seems like it came at the right time, providing Miller with enough technological and practical freedom in filmmaking to bring his vision to perfection.
Fury Road is set in the apocalyptic wasteland where water is a scarce commodity. One warlord, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), holds monopoly over a massive water source, hoarding it for himself and his children; to avoid defective inheritors, Joe keeps a group of young, healthy women as his brides, forcing them to give birth to his successors. The War Rig driver, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), decides to escape Joe’s tyrannical hands and brings the brides along with her. She is aided by Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), Joe’s prisoner and a man with no land or home; what follows is a tireless, action-packed pursuit across the wasteland, showing us bravery in the face of danger. If you believe in freedom enough, you’ll understand it’s worth going through hell and back for it—Fury Road writes that message out like a line in the sand.
1
‘Parasite’ (2019)
Parasite wasn’t just the first-ever Best Picture winner from South Korea, but also the first-ever non-English-speaking Best Picture winner, which was also accompanied by Best International Feature, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. That means that Parasite is literally the perfect package of a film, coming from the mind of a modern filmmaking genius, Bong Joon-ho. To some people, the Oscars aren’t the true measure of quality (which is understandable), but so many stacked accolades send a signal—a signal that this is a film to pay attention to; as director Bong said, to paraphrase, getting over the three-inch barrier of subtitles should be a priority if you truly wish to open your heart to cinema’s greats. Fun fact: the house that is heavily featured in Parasite isn’t real; it was built for the purpose of filming, and the levels it occupies were intentionally designed by Bong and production designer Lee Ha-jun to achieve a linear yet contrasting narrative structure.
Parasite follows the poor Kim family, who live in a subterranean apartment, mooch the neighbors’ Wi-Fi, and leave their windows open when a fumigator comes so they can “get free disinfection.” The Kims find themselves in a scheme where they infiltrate the lives of the wealthy Park family, mostly through their well-intentioned but snobbish and out-of-touch matriarch. The Kims and the Parks are depicted as a contrast between class structures in Korea, but also as a result of the imposed class structure; their behavior isn’t always inherent, with a lot of it coming from years of living within the system. Parasite will make you laugh, maybe even shed a short tear or two; it’s also terrifying in small doses, becoming a proper psychological thriller as it moves forward. A masterpiece that will not be so easily forgotten. In fact, let me go watch it again.
