ICS's Best Films of the Decade (2010s)

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Of all the masterful films in the ICS Best of Decade list, two 2011 releases stood head and shoulders above the rest in the voters’ current mindset: Kenneth Lonergan’s uniquely structured Margaret and Terrence Malick’s metaphysical family drama The Tree of Life. Margaret tells the story of an awkward, passionate teenager whose feelings of guilt over a tragic bus accident propel her into moral dilemmas and a quest for justice, against the backdrop of post-9/11 New York as a metaphor for coming of age and the loss of childhood naivety. Upon its release Margaret was considered messy, sometimes brilliant, and controversial – and it has remained so, yet has only grown in stature. Conversely, Malick’s whispered evocation of nature vs. grace, The Tree of Life, was celebrated from the outset and has held up magnificently over time, the dynamics of a Texas family flowing into the natural world like a flight of birds.

While American filmmakers claimed the top two spots, the rest of our top 10 was dominated by international auteurs. Coming in third was French director Leos Carax’s surreal exploration of identity Holy Motors (ICS Best Picture for 2012), followed by Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian divorce drama A Separation (which had won ICS Best Picture for 2011 over both Malick and Lonergan). Todd Haynes’ period love story Carol, our 2015 Best Picture, ended up in 5th place for the decade, followed by Xavier Dolan’s deeply felt transgender romance Laurence Anyways, Lucrecia Martel’s colonialist satire Zama, Martin Scorsese’s haunting missionary saga Silence, the always-controversial Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno, and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s five-hour Sirkian melodrama Happy Hour.

The full ICS Best of the Decade list can be found below.

The list is 102 films because #59 Arabian Nights is considered as one entry by the ICS