A lot can change in a decade — it’s certainly evident how I have changed if you take a gander at the preamble to my top 10 list of 2011. As a society, I don’t think we do a good job of walking the tightrope between acknowledging our prior reactions to things as a reflection of a given moment in time … and allowing ourselves the grace to understand what opinions may have shifted upon growth, reflection, or the sheer passage of time.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to kick off what I’d love to become a new yearly tradition of revisiting my top 10 list from 10 years prior. The idea is not to say that certain opinions were “wrong” and others are “right.” It’s to recognize the original ranking as a snapshot of myself at 19 and to the circumstances surrounding how I understood cinema and culture in 2011.
The list I present now takes into account how these movies have held up beyond instant reactions, though I did manage to see a few of my selections at least twice — a habit I still try to uphold to this day. Maybe the decade since their release has borne out their wisdom, maybe later works by the same talent cast their previous efforts in a different light, or maybe something just inexplicably lodged itself in my brain in ways I could not predict at the time.
(Also, there’s simply no way to see all the significant works released within a calendar year — sometimes it takes me a bit to catch up with everything! Two movies I’ve now ranked in my top 10 list were simply not available for me to see in the year 2011.)
Without further ado, a look back at 2011 — a movie year that seemed somewhat disappointing at the time but now looks like quite a cinematic cornucopia.
WHAT FELL OFF THE LIST
The Beaver (#10) — This is not just off the list for the Mel Gibson of it all, mind you, because those demons were circling the corpse of a movie that was practically dead on arrival in summer 2011. The meta-element of Gibson needing a surrogate to work through feelings of shame and regret was never what drew me to the film anyway; it was the teen angst and dissatisfaction expressed by Anton Yelchin (RIP) and Jennifer Lawrence. Every once in a while, I find myself drawn to watching clips of her equally dispiriting and empowering commencement speech. But I recognize now that the resonance I found in it was largely circumstantial given that I wandered into a weekday matinee the week of my own high school graduation.
In a Better World (#9) — I had a viscerally powerful reaction to Susanne Bier’s Oscar-winning drama at the time as it portrayed characters striving for harmony and reconciliation across any number of settings. I’m sure it’s still a nice movie, but the melodramatic spike of emotion wore off quite quickly after 2011. I can’t say I’d given this movie much thought at all since that time.
Life in a Day (#8) — A perfectly nice and unexpected documentary that uses the global reach of YouTube to get a kaleidoscopic view of life on earth in July 2010. Not that we were still utopic about the Internet in 2011, but the kumbaya “we’re all connected” angle seems hopelessly naive a decade later following all the havoc wreaked by these platforms.
The Help (#6) — No, we haven’t canceled The Help. The performances are strong and deep, particularly from those who were Oscar-nominated (Davis, Spencer, and Chastain). They were so strong, in fact, that they blinded many people — myself included — to the flaws in the story’s framing. We can point out where it falls short without invalidating the brilliant acting.
HONORABLE MENTION
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
2011 ranking: #5
Look, the final Harry Potter did what it had to do. Deathly Hallows, Part 2 brought a decade-long saga to a satisfying and deeply emotional close. Seeing this movie about a month before leaving for college felt like a bookend to childhood more than my graduation, if I’m being honest. But I can’t say I’m compelled to go revisit the tying of loose ends. What makes it work so well is exactly what counts against it a decade later, when the franchise entry I’m clamoring to rewatch is Prisoner of Azkaban (the indisputable best, don’t @ me).
Some other fantastic movies that fell just short of inclusion here (listed alphabetically): The Arbor, Margaret, Moneyball, Source Code, Tomboy.
A REVISED TOP 10 LIST
#10 — Midnight in Paris
2011 ranking: #3 (down 7)
Look, Midnight in Paris changed my life. It awakened the burning desire to travel to Europe — France especially — and set in motion my decision to apply for a student program at the Cannes Film Festival. I had just been accepted in December 2011, aware that it was a big deal but unaware of how much it would change my life. I think my more measured take on the film now is an oddly fitting tribute to the maturity of moving on from nostalgic thinking (or anti-nostalgic thinking). Woody Allen basically made an MCU for the Lost Generation of ‘20s Paris, full of name-checking and Easter eggs for English lit majors. There are times it plays a bit like a feature-length SNL sketch, but I can’t deny that there’s real magic in the way the film captures the mental aphrodisiac that is the Parisian streets.
Available for free with ads on IMDb TV via Amazon, and to rent from various digital providers.
#9 — Weekend
2011 ranking: not ranked
I didn’t catch up with Andrew Haigh’s Weekend until 2012, though I’m not sure it would have made my list had I seen it in time. (My original review was an enthusiastic B+.) This quiet romance between two men sorting out all sorts of feelings — sexual, societal, interpersonal — presents itself rather unassumingly. Yet the effortlessness with which it conjures intimacy keeps this movie always lingering in my mind. How Haigh gets such vulnerability out of male characters without any situation or sentiment feeling contrived still astounds me. Not to flatten what the film means for gay cinema, but this is a must-watch for people of all stripes and sexualities.
Available on the Criterion Channel, and to rent from various digital providers.
#8 — A Separation
2011 ranking: not ranked
More to come on Farhadi in 2022, as he’ll have a new film dropping on Amazon Prime Video (and I got to interview him ever so briefly about it). A Separation had not opened outside of NY/LA in 2011, and I didn’t even get a chance to see it until *after* it had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film thanks to the abysmally slow platform release. I fully believe future generations will look at Farhadi as the Chekov or Ibsen of our times, a cinematic savant for creating moral dramas that fully capture the complexities of contemporary life. One of the main reasons A Separation isn’t even higher is because I think he’s continued to sharpen his skills in the four movies he’s made since. (And that’s a good thing!)
Available to rent from various digital providers.
#7 — Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
2011 ranking: not ranked
This is my platonic ideal of an action movie. My family went to see this together in IMAX on New Year’s Eve in 2011, just after I’d published my top 10. What a fool I was! Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol is undeniably the best and most thrilling entry in the series, perfecting the balance of set pieces and story like none other. Watching Tom Cruise scale the Burj Khalifa on the giant screen took my breath away, sure. But what’s remarkable is that I still get the same adrenaline high from watching it on exponentially smaller screens. I will watch this movie on a plane. I will watch this movie when it’s on cable TV. I will watch it when it gets added to a streaming platform. I don’t say that about many movies in this genre, which usually feel disposable as soon as you’re done getting that quick hit. Not this one.
Available to rent from various digital providers (and on Amazon Prime Video again on January 1).
#6 — The Tree of Life
2011 ranking: not ranked
Yes, the languorous Sean Penn sections of this movie are pretty terrible, and Terrence Malick could sorely use an editor sometimes. But when The Tree of Life hits, it HITS. I let my complaints outweigh my praise in 2011, but I now respect that there are moments of transcendence achieved in this sprawling existential and ontological tale that are simply unrivaled. If you have any doubt, simply watch any snippets that use the Malickian style as a shorthand for philosophical ponderousness … and dare to feel anything. Especially during the film’s central coming-of-age section set in mid-century Texas, The Tree of Life stirs parts of me where I did not know any cinematic instrument could reach.
Available to rent from various digital providers.
#5 — Win Win
2011 ranking: #1 (down 4)
In 2011, I craved a movie that seemed to meet the moment of the Great Recession, and Win Win fit the bill. This was also likely the beneficiary of low expectations when I saw it in March 2011, as are many movies I see outside the traditional awards corridor. It’s only natural that the timeliness has worn off this morality play of working-class morass, but we may be a little too early for the timelessness to kick in. I’ve revisited a few times over the last decade and still find this to be among the very best versions of this type of story there is — writer/director Tom McCarthy is absolutely one of the undersung greats at work right now.
Available to rent from various digital providers.
#4 — Shame
2011 ranking: #2 (down 2)
Given a historically weak Best Actor field, it’s still a bit startling to think that the Oscars snubbed Michael Fassbender’s physically grueling and committed work as a sex addict in Shame. For me, it’s easily among the best performances of the 2010s and the undeniable revelation of a master craftsman at work. His body — all of it — bears the tremendous responsibility of hammering home the film’s thematic thrust of sexual saturation and addiction. I still maintain that Steve McQueen’s film is prescient in ways we are still not ready to accept. Yet I have wondered in the years since its release if Shame is simply too grim and punishing for its own good. I don’t need movies about self-destructive characters to make me feel nice and fuzzy inside, but perhaps the film’s insistence on portraying sexuality’s dark side sands down the nuances some. Perhaps I’ll revisit again soon, but the unyielding misery does not exactly entice me back in.
Available to rent from various digital providers.
#3 — Young Adult
2011 ranking: #7 (up 4)
Even six months out of high school, I knew Young Adult was perceptive about people’s inability to change after adolescence. But I was unaware of just how incisive Jason Reitman’s direction and Diablo Cody’s script were. Ten years on, I am nothing short of stunned at how traumas real and exaggerated inflicted in one’s teenage years imprint themselves on the soul. This darkly comedic inversion of the My Best Friend’s Wedding-style rom-com dares us not to root for a homewrecking protagonist — or stare at our unflattering reflection in the mirror if we identify with the pithy plight of Charlize Theron’s Mavis Gary. There’s not a misjudged moment anywhere in Young Adult, from the story’s recognition of the limited range of motion available to the characters down to the note-perfect contortions of Theron’s calculating visage.
Available on Showtime Anytime, and to rent from various digital providers.
#2 — Martha Marcy May Marlene
2011 ranking: #4 (up 2)
I’m good on new cult content so long as I can continue watching Martha Marcy May Marlene. A recent revisit (on 35mm at New York’s Metrograph) underscored just how masterfully every edit, every image, and every sound cue contributes to creating a slippery liminal state for Elizabeth Olsen’s Martha as she escapes a mysterious and menacing new religious movement. It’s two hours of pure suspended reality in a state of persistent confusion and burgeoning terror. I once thought it was wild that this movie was the feature debut for both writer/director Sean Durkin and Elizabeth Olsen. But now I’m convinced that the movie only casts the spell it does because neither gets too self-conscious nor academic about their new endeavor.
Available to rent from various digital providers.
#1 — We Need to Talk About Kevin
2011 ranking: unranked
It certainly seems that the movies that make an impression on you from ages, oh, 17-21 transform you in ways that are tougher to replicate as you get older. Sitting in the theater watching Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin was like getting struck by a bolt of lightning. Her expressionistic treatment of Tilda Swinton’s “mother of a monster” archetype felt as if someone was speaking to me in a new language … yet one I could instinctually comprehend without needing translation. Color, sound, feeling — everything just clicked into place. This is the kind of movie that teaches you how to watch it as you go along, never holding your hand as if to infantilize you but instead empowering you to understand and process what you’re watching. I feel as if Lynne Ramsay has ruined so many other movies for me by showing that there’s a way to tackle such thorny topics as nature vs. nature in the case of a violent youth; there is a way to be diligent in exploring an issue without ever veering into didacticism.
Available on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.
Check your inboxes on New Year’s Eve for another yearly top 10 list … this time for 2021! Have a few finishing touches and final catch-ups between now and then, though.
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall