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80) THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a movie that I consider to be criminally underrated. A lot of complaints I seemed to see for this one centered around comparing it to the book that I never read or the 2009 Swedish adaptation that I never watched, so I had no basis for comparison going into this one. I just watched this one for what it was, and I thought it was an exceptional mystery movie. The movie has legendary director David Fincher at the helm, and an amazing performance from Rooney Mara as the hacker Lisbeth Salander. I definitely recommend this one if you’re into mystery movies.

79) IT (2017)

It was one of the big surprise hits of 2017 for me. I really didn’t have much affinity for It going into this one, because I never read the book and never really cared much for the 90s adaptation. However, this remake really nailed the story and told it in an interesting way. While the original story switches back and forth between showing its cast of characters as kids and adults, this movie smartly puts the focus purely on the kids, with the adults’ story being saved for the slightly inferior second movie. The cast of kids is what makes this movie as enjoyable as it is, and I really ended up getting attached to the characters in a way I didn’t think I would. The scares are also top-notch, and Bill Skarsgard does a great job as Pennywise, so all-around this was a horror hit that I wasn’t expecting.

78) PUSS IN BOOTS (2011)

I don’t want to act like Puss in Boots is any kind of masterpiece, but the movie honestly impressed me in a way I wasn’t expecting. I thought that this spin-off from Shrek was just going to be a simple, cheap cash grab, but I felt that the people behind this went above and beyond to deliver a movie that was way more enjoyable than I ever thought it would be. I don’t think it’s anything truly exceptional, but I think it’s way better than it has any right being for what it is.


77) TED (2012)

Most people, myself included, probably already had their minds made up about Ted before it even came out. I have been an unapologetic fan of Seth MacFarlane’s work for over 15 years now, but I understand that some people simply don’t like his brand of comedy. However, I will still maintain that his feature-film directorial debut, Ted, is a hilarious movie, with a surprising amount of heart. Some people won’t be able to watch a movie about a crass talking teddy bear, and I understand that, but I personally think that this movie is super funny.

76) SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)

Everyone was so excited to see Spider-Man finally join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, and so Homecoming was the character’s first solo movie in the MCU. I was really excited to see what they would do with the character, and I wasn’t disappointed. Tom Holland really brings the character to life in a fun way, and it was so nice to see the character back in the hands of the studio that created him.

75) HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (2010)

If you love comedy and have not seen Hot Tub Time Machine, then you’ve done yourself a great disservice. I’ll be the first to admit that I thought this movie looked stupid as hell when trailers came out for it, but the movie is surprisingly hilarious. It’s all about four friends who get into a hot tub that takes them back to the 1980s, where they get to re-experience moments from their youth and “fix” the mistakes of their past. This movie features a really great cast that give such funny deliveries for some really good jokes. Give this one a chance if you like comedy.

74) YOU’RE NEXT (2013)

I mentioned during the Lights Out entry that part of what made it so great was its simplicity, and I feel the same way about You’re Next. This was a horror movie that had such a simple concept, featuring a family that comes under attack during a house party. However, the twist here is that one of the people in the house actually has a secret talent for fighting back, and so a war is waged between the predators and the prey. This isn’t so much a “scary” horror movie as it is an exciting/thrilling one, but regardless, this is one of my favorite small-scale horror movies of the 2010s.

73) GET HIM TO THE GREEK (2010)

Get Him to the Greek was a weird, kinda-sequel/kinda-spin-off to 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which, for the record, if I were making a top 100 list of 2000s movies, would EASILY make the cut), which is all about a record company intern who is given the job of getting rockstar Aldous Snow to his concert. The result is a movie full of crazy antics, and one that’s just simply entertaining. The movie has great comedic performances from Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, some really funny songs, and a surprising show-stealing performance from P. Diddy. This is a comedy that seems to have been forgotten, but it’s still worth the watch.

72) THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015)

Quentin Tarantino is one of my favorite directors of all-time, which is a testament to the fact that even the worst of his three movies released in the 2010s still made my top 100 list. While the movie isn’t quite the same caliber as other Tarantino classics, what The Hateful Eight does have is a stellar cast, an amazing soundtrack, some great writing, and a very well-executed single-location style. The movie is all about eight strangers that are stuck together in a cabin during a snowstorm, and tensions arise throughout. This is definitely worth watching.

71) KNIVES OUT (2019)

After some awful missteps like 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, Knives Out came along in 2019 and breathed some new life into the murder mystery genre. This is one of the freshest, most entertaining murder mysteries I’ve seen in a long time. What is so unique about Knives Out is that it turns the whole idea of the murder mystery on its head by actually showing us what happened pretty early in the movie. It’s not like there’s no mystery after this, but the movie goes in wildly different directions than you’d expect. Still, the main things that are fun about murder mysteries are the cast of characters and the mystery itself, and Knives Out definitely excels at both of these things.

70) THE TOWN (2010)

I’ll be honest, I don’t actually remember The Town all that well. I remember really liking it when I saw it, but it’s also been over 9 years since I’ve seen it. The movie was notable for being directed by Ben Affleck (being the second movie he directed), as well as starring him. I tend to love heist movies, so I complete ate this movie up when it came out. I haven’t really revisited it since I saw it, but I definitely remember it being good enough that I can still recommend checking it out.

69) FREE SOLO (2018)

Free Solo is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in years. It’s all about Alex Honnold, who is a “free solo” rock climber, meaning that he rock climbs without any equipment. This is obviously as dangerous as it sounds, and Free Solo manages to capture that danger on film. Not only does it delve into Alex’s psyche, which is just as fascinating, but it delivers some beautiful shots of Alex traversing the most dangerous free solo climb he’s ever attempted. I had the fortune of seeing this movie in IMAX, and it only added to the experience of being scared out of my mind, holding my breath as I hoped to see Alex make his insane climb.

68) MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL (2011)

The first three movies in the Mission: Impossible franchise were a bit of a mixed bag, which is why it was so impressive when the fourth movie, Ghost Protocol, came along and reinvented the series. This movie delivered such a fresh sense of style and action into the franchise, and really helped get it into a groove that the two sequels that followed continued the tone of. Ghost Protocol still has some of the most impressive set-pieces of the whole series, the most notable involving Ethan Hunt scaling a building. In my mind, Ghost Protocol is the entry that really solidified Mission: Impossible as one of the formidable modern action franchises.

67) THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (2014)

This one involves a bit of a slight bias on my part, since I am a massive fan of author John Green, who wrote the book that this movie is based on. I have read all of John Green’s books, and watch/listen to many of his YouTube/podcast projects, so I was really excited to see this movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars when it came out. This movie version is when of the best and most faithful adaptations of a book I’ve seen, and it delivered all of the heartwarming and heartbreaking moments that the book had to offer.

66) THE CONJURING (2013)

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I saw the trailer for The Conjuring. I’ve always been a fan of horror movies, but it’s hard for one of them to actually scare me. But when I first saw the trailer for The Conjuring, it looked like a genuinely terrifying movie. For the most part, the movie does deliver on the tone that the trailer set, and so The Conjuring went down as one of my favorite horror movies of the 2010s.

65) PACIFIC RIM (2013)

I’ve never been the biggest fan of kaiju films, but even Pacific Rim managed to capture my attention. I thought this Guillermo del Toro original looked like a really unique movie in the genre, and the end result was nothing short of exciting. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the kind of movie that I’ve wanted to watch over and over again, but it was definitely a great movie to watch once. There’s some really great performances and giant monster battles in this one, so this was definitely one of the standouts in the genre for this decade.

64) THE BIG SICK (2017)

The Big Sick has something that a lot of comedies forget to include: heart. The best stories often come from intimate places, and so Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon decided to write a movie based on the origins of their relationship. The two faced some significant hurdles in the beginning, including Kumail not being permitted to freely choose his own spouse due to his Pakistani parents’ cultural traditions, and Emily undergoing a major sickness. The two tell a story here that feels really personal, and it makes for a comedy that really hits the mark.

63) KICK-ASS (2010)

Coming out right before superhero movies really started to take off and come out with insane frequency, Kick-Ass was a really unique movie in the genre, and one that caught me off guard when I first saw it. The movie is all about a high school kid named Dave who decides to become a superhero and fight crime, even though he has no real powers or training. The results are often disastrous, which is part of what makes this movie as funny as it is. Inevitably, Dave gets himself wrapped up in a really crazy situation, and so he must rise to the occasion to become the hero he’s always wanted to be. This is a really fun and subversive take on a genre that has since become pretty saturated, so I think it’s still worth the watch.

62) FROZEN (2013)

Okay, Frozen is a movie that I don’t need to say much about, because this movie went on to become one of the biggest and most recognized movies of the decade. Most people have either seen it or at least have an opinion on it, so the only thing I want to say about it for this list is that despite it inevitably being a bit overrated due to its massive popularity, I’ll still defend the movie. Is it my favorite Disney movie ever? No, not even close. But Frozen is still a really amazing movie, and for that it deserves a spot on my list.

61) HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 (2010)

I used to be such a big Harry Potter fan before the franchise started to get run into the ground and ruined by its once-great author, but that will never change the fact that this movie series was amazing, and chances are that most (if not all) of them would be on this list if it was a best of the 2000s list. Deathly Hallows Part 1 isn’t my favorite of the movies because it does unfortunately suffer from some of the typical pitfalls you would expect from a “part 1” movie, but it’s still an essential and great part of an amazing franchise.

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