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20) CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the second movie in the Captain America trilogy, and followed up Captain America: The First Avenger, which was good, but not amazing. That’s why The Winter Soldier blew me away when I first saw it. This is a totally different kind of movie, and it’s nothing short of fantastic. It takes the tone of a spy espionage movie, and it’s one of the best in the genre. The fight choreography is also one of the best I’ve seen, and never stopped impressing me. The Winter Soldier is one of those movies that transcends being “just a superhero movie” and is instead just a generally great movie.

19) AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019)

Where Avengers: Infinity War was the “part 1” of an epic culmination of Marvel movies, Avengers: Endgame was the even more impressive “part 2.” Endgame picks up after the shocking ending of Infinity War, and features our heroes at their lowest. The reason why Endgame has managed to secure such a high spot on this list is because I’ve never seen another movie like it. Endgame is the culmination of 21 movies that came before it, and it manages to tie together everything in a brilliantly perfect way. I’ve never seen a movie that has this kind of scale before, and definitely not one that pulls off its execution so well.

18) LOGAN (2017)

One of the really weird things about me is that even though I’m a huge fan of superhero movies, I’ve never actually been that big of a fan of X-Men. I’ve just never found them to be that interesting, and the sub-par movie franchise has never really helped raise that interest. That is, until Logan came out. Being the third movie of the Wolverine sub-series, I never expected to like this movie as much as I did. However, what Logan delivers is one of the best self-contained stories I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie. There are brilliantly explored relationships between characters here, a well-written journey, some really brutal action, and a very fitting send-off to Hugh Jackman, who had played the character for over 15 years.

17) THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (2017)

Speaking of movies that completely exceeded my expectations, we have The Lego Batman Movie. Look, I’m still as shocked as anyone that The Lego Batman Movie is as good as it is, since it really doesn’t seem like it would be anything special on the surface. However, just like some other movies I’ve mentioned on this list, The Lego Batman Movie is pure joy the entire way through. I had so much fun with this movie, and I just had a smile on my face the entire time. I know it might seem like a weak justification, but that really is the whole reason why I love The Lego Batman Movie as much as I do. It just makes me incredibly happy.

16) BRIDESMAIDS (2011)

Okay, so I also never expected to like Bridesmaids as much as I did. When I first saw trailers for the movie, I thought it looked like a total chick flick, and not something that would ever be up my alley. But then I saw the movie, and it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. If nothing else, this is definitely one of the best all-female casts I’ve ever seen, but I think it deserves more respect than that. Like I said, what initially seems like a movie purely aimed at women is actually just a genuinely funny movie, with some really clever jokes and fantastic deliveries from the actresses involved. You should definitely watch this if you like comedy.

15) DOCTOR SLEEP (2019)

Doctor Sleep seemed to just come and go in 2019 without anyone going to see it, which I think is a huge shame because of how good it is. Doctor Sleep is the sequel to The Shining, which I’ve gone on record as saying is my favorite horror movie of all-time. When you hold something on that high of a pedestal, it’s pretty much impossible for a sequel to even come close to being as good. That’s exactly why Doctor Sleep blew me away as much as it did. Being the rare sequel that I absolutely loved for taking a total departure from the original, Doctor Sleep had its own original story to tell, and it does so in an amazing way. This is my favorite horror movie of the 2010s, and I think that way too many people overlooked this one.

14) SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (2019)

While Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 remains my favorite superhero movie of all time, Spider-Man: Far From Home actually delivers everything I possibly want out of a Spider-Man movie. For many people, it’s probably a joke that this movie is this high on the list, but being such a huge fan of Spider-Man from such a young age, I can’t understate the importance of how special this movie was for me. I’ve always wanted to see Mysterio as a villain in a Spider-Man movie, and Far From Home delivers this and so much more. If Spider-Man 2 didn’t exist, this would be the quintessential Spider-Man story for me.

13) SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018)

While Far From Home may have been a personal joy for me, I still can’t in good conscience say that it’s a better movie than Into the Spider-Verse. Both are special for different reasons, of course, but Into the Spider-Verse has the most impressive animation I’ve ever seen in a movie, and I’m not being hyperbolic about that. The movie captures the comic book style perfectly, and provides such a colorful and dazzling movie over the course of its 2 hour runtime. While the story is also really amazing in its own right, the animation is the real selling point here, and so for that alone it’s one of the best movies of the 2010s for me.

12) 50/50 (2011)

A rare word you’ll ever hear to describe a movie about cancer is “funny,” but 50/50 manages to do that in a way that doesn’t feel offensive. It’s inspired by a true story, where a 27-year-old named Adam learns that he has cancer, and deals with all of the struggles that come with this. A big part of the comedy aspect here is the relationship that Adam has with his best friend Kyle, who ends up making the movie a lot more lighthearted. Despite all of this, 50/50 never shies away from the sad stuff either though. There are plenty of really depressing emotional punches, and so it’s the blend of comedy and sadness that makes the movie so special. There were literally points in the movie where I started laughing through my tears. This is probably my favorite cancer movie ever.

11) TOY STORY 4 (2019)

I was extremely skeptical about Toy Story 4 when it was first announced. I was in the camp that thought it was an insult that the movie was ever going to even be made, since the original three Toy Story movies are my favorite animated trilogy of movies, ever. I think all three are perfect movies, and Toy Story 3 ended the story in such a perfect way, that I thought it was sacreligious to make a fourth one and tarnish that ending. Toy Story 4 made me feel like a fool for ever feeling this way, though, and made me realize that this was a movie that I never knew I needed to happen. Toy Story 4 is just as good as the three movies that came before it, and gives us a different ending that feels just as fitting. I’m not only glad to be wrong about this movie, I’m glad I got to revisit this world one more time with characters that I absolutely love.

10) WILD (2014)

I consider Wild to be the most underrated movie on this list, hands down. Inspired by a true story, the movie is about Cheryl, a woman who has recently suffered a personal tragedy and goes on an 1100-mile solo hike to recover from her tragedy and find the remnants of her soul in the process. This movie brings me to tears, and is one of the most inspirational stories I’ve ever seen. I love this movie more than I can describe, and I think it’s a shame that not that many people seem to share this sentiment, because it’s such a beautiful film.

9) DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

All three of Quentin Tarantino’s movies from the 2010s made it onto my list, but Django Unchained is hands-down the best of them. This is such an epic movie about a former slave who takes revenge on his slavemasters and sets out to rescue his wife from a wicked plantation owner. Everything about this movie is absolutely perfect. The characters are extremely cool, the dialogue is so well-written, and the movie just instills this feeling in you of wanting Django to succeed in his mission. This movie is an absolute masterpiece.

8) THE AVENGERS (2012)

While this movie is on a smaller scale than Infinity War/Endgame, the first Avengers movie was the most excited I was for a movie this whole decade. I actually saw this movie in theaters three times. There have been much bigger team-ups since then, sure, but nothing like this had ever done before The Avengers. We had been getting solo movies for the team members since Iron Man in 2008, and this was finally a movie where we would get to see the heroes team up. The interplay between characters was incredible, and such a cool novelty at the time. It may not hold up as well after all of the movies that followed it (I haven’t rewatched it in a long time now), but it blew me away when I first saw it.

7) CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016)

My favorite superhero movie of the decade has got to be Captain America: Civil War. If The Avengers was amazing for bringing its heroes together in a way we’ve never seen before, Civil War was amazing for tearing them apart and having some of our favorite heroes fight each other on-screen. I couldn’t believe we ever got a movie like this, but it’s the most fun I’ve had with a superhero movie this whole decade. This has since become my favorite movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and one of the best superhero movies of all-time.

6) MOTHER! (2017)

Mother might be my most polarizing favorite movie on this list, because it received very mixed reactions when it came out. Some people absolutely hated it, while others…like myself, thought it was nothing short of a masterpiece. I’ll admit that it definitely helps to know what the movie is actually about before going into it, otherwise it’ll seem like utter nonsense. The whole movie is actually a giant metaphor about the relationship between God and Mother Nature, and how that relationship was tested once God brought humans into the world. This is represented by a couple who have uninvited guests start coming into their home. This is one of the best examples of an allegory I’ve ever seen in a film. This is a movie that may not be for everyone, but I found it to be extremely profound, and it challenges the viewer in a way that all amazing art does.

5) BABY DRIVER (2017)

I have the hardest time explaining what makes Baby Driver so special, but it is. It’s all about a getaway driver who’s trying to get out of the game, but finds himself unable to escape. The word that keeps coming to mind when I think about what makes Baby Driver so great is its style. It feels like a juvenile way to describe a movie, but it’s just so cool. It has a killer soundtrack, amazing action scenes, and a memorable cast of characters. It’s easily the most entertaining movie I’ve seen this decade, which puts it as high on this list as it is.

4) HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 (2011)

To understand why Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 made it into my top 5, it’s important to remember that part of the thing that quantifies our enjoyment of a movie is the emotional attachment that comes with it. Harry Potter was my absolute favorite book series as a child, and so I loved every movie adaptation that came out with it. Being the final entry in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 symbolized a final goodbye to the franchise for me, and the movie captured that finality perfectly. While J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. have since tried to dig more out of this franchise, for me this is where it all ended. I thought that this was the perfect final movie of a franchise, and it always makes me nostalgic to go back and think about the good times I’ve had with it.

3) TOY STORY 3 (2010)

Similar to having such a strong emotional attachment to Harry Potter, I had a very strong attachment to Toy Story 3 going into it. Toy Story was my favorite movie growing up, and so it was crazy to see a third movie come out more than a decade after the second one. It came out as I was getting towards the end of high school, and this is why the movie struck such a strong cord with me. Toy Story 3 is all about Andy now being old and going off to college, and needing to say goodbye and let go of his childhood toys. This obviously came out at the perfect time for me then, and so when we say goodbye to the toys at the end of the movie, I felt like I was saying goodbye to a piece of myself. This movie struck a real emotional cord with me, and it’s another really strong entry in an already amazing series.

2) EIGHTH GRADE (2018)

Coming off of the heels of Toy Story 3 here, Eighth Grade is a favorite movie of mine for the opposite reasons. Rather than going through the same emotional journey as the characters at the same time in my life, Eighth Grade brought me back to a time in my life that has long since passed. It made me remember what it was like to live through that time in my life, and it hit me harder than most movies ever have. I originally only even went to see the movie because it was the directorial debut of Bo Burnham, one of my favorite comedians ever. I expected to like the movie because of this, but I did not expect the level of quality that I ended up getting from the movie. It’s so raw, genuine, and powerful, and it resonated with me more than most movies ever have. I was not expecting the movie to be as powerful as it is, but it’s ended up being one of my favorite movies ever.

1) THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (2012)

Okay, so unless you know me personally on a deep level, The Perks of Being A Wallflower being my #1 pick for best movie of the 2010s is likely going to confuse you. Like a lot of the highest movies on this list, The Perks of Being A Wallflower is on here not because of its quality as a movie, but because of my own personal attachment to it. When I was in eighth grade, I was at a point in my life where I felt completely lost. I didn’t really have any close friends, I didn’t talk much, and I was so nervous about what would come next. Towards the end of my eighth grade year, I was talking to someone online, and they told me that I reminded them of a character from a book. So, I went out and picked up that book, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and it immediately became my favorite book of all-time. I had never felt so connected to a character, and felt that a book understood me in a way that I didn’t even understand myself. It’s rare that you find a story that you connect with so strongly that it actually feels like it was made especially for you, but that’s how I felt with The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Since then, I’ve always cherished the book, and held it in a really high regard. I was admittedly nervous when it was announced that a movie adaptation would be made of the book, because of how highly I revered it. Luckily, though, what The Perks of Being A Wallflower has going for it that very few movie adaptations do, is that the author of the book directed the movie himself. This eliminated any possibility that the filmmakers wouldn’t understand what the author intended, and made it so that the best person for the job would be bringing the story to life on-screen. The end result is that The Perks of Being A Wallflower movie is the perfect adaptation, encapsulating everything that made the book so amazing. And so, just like that, my favorite book also turned into my favorite movie. And look, I’m never going to argue with anyone that there are higher quality movies out there, but none are ever likely to mean as much to me as The Perks of Being A Wallflower does. Sorry if this choice disappoints anyone, but considering how much this movie means to me, there was no other choice for me for best movie of the decade.