Issue 78: Best of the Decade Archives

If this is a list, let it be a syllabus, a series of entry points joined by common questions: What does it look and sound like to understand your life, previously envisioned as exclusively “ahead,” as incrementally, but increasingly, behind? What can a moment of emotional accuracy accomplish? What imperative pleasures does meticulousness afford?

Imperfect Mortal Beings

Kelsey Ford·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

Mike Mills' Beginners and 20th Century Women are both deeply personal and generous films, acknowledging how impossible it is to ever truly know one’s parent or child.

The Avalanche

Fran Hoepfner·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

In late 2014, I walked into a movie theater at 9 in the morning to watch Force Majeure at a film festival in Belgium, running on a combination of jetleg and a strong Americano. The movie’s subtitles were in French only, and mon français est bon mais pas super. Still, I sat enrapt, dumbfounded and aghast.

Sleeping with Other People (2015) | IFC Films

Modern Love

Robert Selth·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

Sleeping with Other People marries the sexual frankness of 21st-century rom-coms to the wry, literate wit of classic Nora Ephron—and the human honesty of great movies in all eras.

On the Limits of Irony: Thoughts on Rick Alverson’s The Comedy

Will Bryan·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

Rick Alverson's 2012 film The Comedy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a piece of filmmaking that critiques the very game it plays.

To the Very End

Calvin McMillin·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

As I watched Twin Peaks: The Return each week, I couldn’t help but recall the words of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky: “The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.”

The Immigrant (2013) | The Weinstein Company

Sin and Redemption in The Immigrant

Morgan Leigh Davies·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

The fundamental ethos of Catholicism in its purest form is the animating idea of The Immigrant. Its philosophical approach transcends the specific particulars of the Church, instead acquiring an operatic, metaphorical scale.

The Middle Distance

Joel Blackledge·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

David Robert Mitchell's It Follows makes paranoid subjects of us all.

Dumb Capitalism: The Righteous Grifts of Nathan For You

Ethan Warren·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

How a Comedy Central docuseries hosted by an unassuming weirdo rode a tidal wave of scams straight into the pantheon of the decade’s strangest and most significant art.

The Florida Project | art by Tony Stella

The Florida Project and Disney’s Broken Circle

Jackson Bentele·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

Sean Baker's The Florida Project is among the most memorable and powerful Disney—or, at least, Disney-adjacent—films of the 21st century.

The Best Films of the Decade

Bright Wall/Dark Room·

Issue 78: Best of the Decade

The Bright Wall/Dark Room editors share their favorite films from the past ten years.