Earlier this month we published our list of the Top 20 Films of 2019 as ranked by Flickchart’s users. The end of the year was also the end of the first full decade since Flickchart launched in 2009. For the first time, we can look back on a decade that was ranked in real time by our users.

Remember, these are the aggregate results of millions of rankings by individual users. The global Flickchart is constantly changing, and this list is only accurate at the time it was published.

Unsurprisingly, the 2010s was the decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the world’s mightiest franchise comprising a full quarter of this list. Nevertheless, there are plenty of other, original options here, too. Here are the Top 2o Films of 2010-2019, as ranked on Flickchart.

20. Ex Machina (2015)

Alicia Vikander and Domhnall Gleeson

• Directed by Alex Garland

• Global Rank: #381

Leave it to three-time Danny Boyle collaborator Alex Garland to make his directorial debut with one of the most challenging science fiction films of the past decade. Even stacked against the merits of a screenwriting career that includes such sci-fi credits as 28 Days Later… and Sunshine, it seems Garland was saving the best of himself for his directing career, as evidenced by 2018’s Annihilation (which also belongs in this top 20) and our current subject, 2015’s Ex Machina. Much like Oscar Isaac does with Domhnall Gleeson in the film, Garland defies you not to feel for, and even fall for, his A.I. creation, Ava (a breakthrough performance by Alicia Vikander). But is she the sympathetic “person” she seems to be? Are we merely projecting our own selves—or our own desires—onto her? Even writing this, I can’t help but call Ava “she” rather than “it.” Ex Machina forces us to face our own humanity, as creatures both emotional and logical, in the face the artificial intelligence we create. There are no easy answers, but as we head ever deeper into the 21st century, the questions only become more immediate. – Tom Kapr

19. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Tony Revolori and Saoirse Ronan

• Directed by Wes Anderson

• Global Rank: #379

In a way, The Grand Budapest Hotel isn’t very different from many of the other films Wes Anderson had been releasing at approximately three-year intervals for the better part of 20 years – but don’t tell him that, as he seriously chafes at that reductive take on his work. That take can also be compliment, though, as Anderson consistently turns out high-quality films with great casts and a diorama-style production design that is catnip to his fans. All of his trademark features may be just a bit more superlative in Budapest, which also has a Russian nesting doll-style story structure to ornately complicate the degree of difficulty. The film makes its mark through great comedic performances (Ralph Fiennes in particular), beautiful sets and camera work, plus a few things we don’t necessarily always get from Anderson: a cheeky dash of vulgarity, plus real-world life and death stakes involving Europe in the era of World War II. The end result is not just a bon-bon, but something with actual meat and a deceptive amount of protein. Flickcharters were eating giant forkfuls of it as they dueled The Grand Budapest Hotel into the top 20 of the decade. – Derek Armstrong

18. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Cate Blanchett as Hela

• Directed by Taika Waititi

• Global Rank: #377

On the surface, it seems obvious what Marvel did with Thor: Ragnarok; Guardians of the Galaxy was a success, so they took its humorous aesthetic, colorful cinematography, and production design and applied it to their stuffiest hero when he headed out into space.

Thing is, it worked. Through no fault of Chris Hemsworth’s, Thor had previously been the most boring Avenger. With Ragnarok, director Taika Waititi turned the humor up to 11, and despite truly apocalyptic stakes for Asgard, the movie was a blast from start to finish. A lot rides on Hemsworth’s great performance, but toss in some inspired Hulk bits for Mark Ruffalo, a dash of Jeff Goldblum, one of Marvel’s most menacing villains in Cate Blanchett, and the revelation that is new Hollywood It Girl, Tessa Thompson, and you’ve got what is quite simply one of the most fun movies in the MCU.

And I didn’t even mention Korg! Waititi himself in CGI rock-monster disguise is one of the decade’s greatest side characters. – Nigel Druitt

17. Logan (2017)

Hugh Jackman as Logan

• Directed by James Mangold

• Global Rank: #372

Hugh Jackman’s run as Marvel’s belligerent mutant brawler, Wolverine, spanned not just last decade, but the decade prior. 17 years and 9 films (including cameos); that’s not quite as much time on screen as Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, but Logan’s been around longer, and he paved the way. It wasn’t always easy: 2000’s X-Men may have kick-started the modern spate of superhero extravaganzas, but 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine certainly represents one of its lowest points, even as the Marvel Cinematic Universe was on the rise.

It’s telling that it took a full 17 years for Wolverine to be TRULY realized on screen, and in a film where the “Wolverine” name is almost entirely eschewed, no less. Let’s face it: an angry man with knives on his hands is begging for some R-rated bloodshed. And while there are some instances in which I personally think it leaned too hard into the R, Logan, as the denouement for a character beloved by more than one generation of filmgoers, really sticks the emotional landing. Simply knowing that Jackman was laying down his claws after this one lent extra weight to the proceedings. It’s no wonder that Logan is not just the highest-ranked X-Men movie of the last decade, but of the franchise’s entire run. – Nigel Druitt

16. Get Out (2017)

Daniel Kaluuya as Chris

• Directed by Jordan Peele

• Global Rank: #361

This is the movie that turned a sketch comedian into one of the most lauded horror directors working today. Is it horror? I’m baffled that anyone would say no. What is more horrifying than having your very self stolen? To find oneself in the Sunken Place, and to have another person stuffed inside your head, controlling your body? To be fully aware but unable to act, forever a prisoner behind your own eyes? It is a horror that reaches into the subconscious of our darker dreams. Get Out uses this hook to explore a lot of racial identity issues, and I presume to think that from an African-American perspective, Jordan Peele’s fantastic concoction hits even harder. The implications of it, no matter one’s ethnic identity, are deeply unsettling. Get Out is a truly American horror. – Tom Kapr

15. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) face off.

• Directed by J.J. Abrams

• Global Rank: #354

By decade’s end, the Team J.J. vs. Team Rian debates had engulfed the discussion of the 2010s revival of Star Wars. It’s easy to forget, then, that we were more or less unified in our praise for J.J. Abrams when he released 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as evidenced by it being the only Star Wars movie in Flickchart’s top 20 of the decade. It may have been more fan service than a bold new vision for the franchise, but what strong fan service it was, providing us glimpses of our most cherished Star Wars characters and tropes while adding to those lists. There may be no greater measure of the success of The Force Awakens than the iconic characters it added to the Star Wars universe, from the series’ first prominent female would-be Jedi (Daisy Ridley’s Rey) to the series’ first real co-lead of color (John Boyega’s Finn). That Finn also represented the saga’s first reformed stormtrooper points to the ways Abrams and company were not just rehashing the old, but giving us contemplative new ways of engaging with George Lucas’s world. The movie also introduced a character that was what Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker was always meant to be: Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), an alternately masked and unmasked youth who pouts and unnerves in equal measure. Oh, and he just so happens to be Han and Leia’s son. The intermingling of the new and old was what thrilled us, and even though this movie contained “yet another Death Star” and “yet another desert planet,” most of us really responded to the balance. What with all the talk about bringing balance to the force, an even split between new and old seems the most apt thing imaginable. – Derek Armstrong

14. Her (2013)

Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore

• Directed by Spike Jonze

• Global Rank: #348

In a list dominated by blockbusters, it is a welcome surprise that a film like Spike Jonze’s Her ranks so highly. This quirky, near-future story manages to do something most sci-fi struggles with: offer a potent commentary on technology and its social effects while also delivering a heart-warming tale of humanity. Led by a fantastic performance from Joaquin Phoenix (how many times did we say that this decade?), his nerdy character’s love story with a Scarlet Johannsson-voiced AI program offers a sophisticated commentary on the nature of love and being. There’s a warmth to it that can have you heaving with emotion in a way most sci-fi neglects to attempt. Jonze’s fantastic production design cements a sense of reality; the costuming and small cultural details are weird enough to be different and futuristic while still feeling firmly connected to our world today. As AI in real life continues to develop, Her’s take on the technology will remain a relevant take on the way we interact with it. – Connor Adamson

13. Arrival (2016)

Amy Adams as Louise Banks

• Directed by Denis Villeneuve

• Global Rank: #347

The 2010s were a good decade for science fiction, between the boom of superhero blockbusters and “artier” pieces like Arrival getting attention from the Oscars. Sometimes it feels like alien invasion films recycle the same angles over and over, and then along comes Denis Villeneuve making some stunning decisions to show us an extraterrestrial lifeform that feels truly alien, like nothing we’ve encountered before on the big screen. It spends most of its time not in big exciting battles or tours of alien spaceships, but in the puzzling out of the alien language. Villeneuve brings us into Amy Adams’ character’s linguist brain and allows us to work out the puzzle alongside her. It’s a move that could be incredibly tedious but is somehow riveting. The film’s slow, cautious tone allows ample space for it to wax philosophical, and as it explores questions of humanity and memory and motherhood and loss, it ultimately becomes a story of hope and acceptance on not only a global but a universal level. It’s a movie that will stay with me (and clearly other Flickchart users) for years. – Hannah Keefer

12. The Social Network (2010)

Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg

• Directed by David Fincher

• Global Rank: #326

Released at the midpoint of the 20 years that have elapsed so far this century, The Social Network is a document about an extraordinary sea change in recent history that actually looks forward more than it looks back. In 2010, the world was already dominated by Facebook, the social media platform that Mark Zuckerberg had invented (or stole, if you believe the Winklevai) less than a decade earlier. Facebook may no longer be cool among the young ones, but the other services it gave birth to or bought now run all of our lives, regardless of age. David Fincher’s well-oiled cinematic masterpiece examines the influence of the service by looking deep into the eyes of its semi-sociopathic mastermind. Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg is a shockingly cutthroat young man who develops an elaborate way to dress his own wounds, wounds that have developed from his fears of exclusion and missing out. So while his Zuckerberg is awful, he’s also relatable, a consummate figure of our times. Assisted by the indelible electronic score of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (with a little Edvard Grieg thrown in for good measure), Fincher overwhelms with the extent to which he has mastered the craft of filmmaking, without once being too showy for his own good. He has a uniquely-calibrated understanding of the mechanisms of making movies, and when he says that there is only one right place to put the camera in any scene, The Social Network is a key example. – Derek Armstrong

11. Drive (2011)

Ryan Gosling as the Driver

• Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

• Global Rank: #323

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn prefers the “less is more” approach to filmmaking, allowing the atmosphere of his movies to tell the story as much as the script. No example is more apparent than 2011’s Drive, which remains Refn’s best work to this day. Many audiences were surprised upon the movie’s initial release, as the trailers seemed to imply an action-packed affair, but what we were treated to instead was much more rewarding. The movie has a pensive yet inexorable lead in Ryan Gosling, who works as a getaway driver-for-hire, as we learn in one of the most memorable opening sequences of the century. Rather than continually raising the stakes à la The Fast and the Furious franchise, Drive chooses to focus on the banal life of the nameless protagonist who has clearly become hardened by a troubled past (it’s up to you to fill in the blanks). Mechanic by day, loner by night. Just when you thought the driver has become nearly inhuman, he begins to dote on his vulnerable neighbor (Carey Mulligan) and her child. Just when you thought the return of her husband (Oscar Isaac) from jail would stir a commotion, expectations are again subverted when the husband offers the driver a key role in a lucrative heist. Possibly the best twist of all is Refn’s choice to cast notable funny-guy Albert Brooks as the villain. Round out the cast with Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, and Ron Perlman, and you get a delicious assortment of talent from start to finish. Drive represents one of the best examples of how to let contemplative moments tell a story, with long takes focusing on raw emotion complemented by a sorrowful pop-synth soundtrack setting as bleak a mood as anything by Paul Thomas Anderson. Drive takes what could have been another mindless blockbuster and shapes it into something that feels, more than anything, real. – Kyle Larkin

10. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Ana de Armas and Ryan Gosling

• Directed by Denis Villeneuve

• Global Rank: #313

Blade Runner 2049 is a sequel that was worth waiting for – 35 years elapsed from the release of the original film,  Blade Runner (1982). It is a remarkable achievement to follow a seminal film with anything resembling the quality of the first (something that doesn’t get easier the more time has passed; another pair of films that come to mind: The Hustler [1961] and The Color of Money [1986]). Ridley Scott fashioned the 1982 neo-noir from the bones of a short story by Philip K. Dick. It was a slowly-paced character study featuring humanoid robots, and the movie struggled to find an immediate audience despite fantastic production design of a dystopian future Los Angeles. Eventually, it gained a cult following and became appreciated more and more as a neo-noir classic. The new film honors the original by exploring similar themes while updating them for viewers in a new century. The characters and plot are also connected in meaningful ways. But perhaps the most important way in which the films are connected is the visual language: director Denis Villenueve and cinematographer Roger Deakins take their cues from the original and expand on them while maintaining the palette and shadows that underscored the gritty original. Ultimately, the film does stand on its own, but it owes much to the original Blade Runner, and both owe much to the silent masterpiece Metropolis (1927). The questions at the heart of all three films: What makes us human? What makes a machine? How can we tell the difference? – Ben Shoemaker

9. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Josh Brolin as Thanos

• Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo

• Global Rank: #249

If Iron Man was the film that made the MCU possible, and The Avengers was the film that showed a shared universe could truly work, then Infinity War is the film that signified it was all worth it in the end. As pop culture has shown us time and time again, a great set-up does not equate a great payoff. All of these years of setting up the coming of Thanos would mean nothing if Avengers: Infinity War was a jumbled unsatisfying mess. Au contraire! Infinity War is perhaps the most perfectly comic book film ever made. Reveling in creative comic book battles, the cast of 20 or more big personalities is well balanced to create the type of character interactions we’ve dreamed about since the beginning. That all of various plot points and interactions fit together into one film that is coherent, entertaining, and even, dare I say, emotionally resonant is a miracle in of itself. It shows that the Russos have helped make the blockbuster everything it could be. With the intimidating and powerful presence of Josh Brolin’s Thanos, we are given another great film villain for all-time, with the character’s potent one-liners and merciless philosophy on how to ensure the universe’s survival forever etched into pop culture. With an ending snap that left most breathless, Marvel cemented its dominance in the 2010s. – Connor Adamson

8. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (2018)

Spider-heroes assemble.

• Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman

• Global Rank: #248

While some may think it premature for Into the Spider-Verse to rank this high already, it’s a testament to how well this unique take on the Spider-Man mythos has been received. With a visually distinct and artistic animation style, the film cleverly plays with the tropes of Spider-Man and superheroes as a whole, nudging at the audience about the role superheroes have taken in pop culture while writing out a new story and character. In many ways, none of the themes this touches upon are new or unique to superhero films or cinema. Yet the directors and writers give the entire film a strong sense of identity and character. The characters are very well-written and stand out among the glut of heroes. Plus, the film is just fun. With plenty of funny jokes and quips, and psychedelic action sequences, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse embraces a somewhat meta-mentality while still celebrating everything that makes Spider-Man great. It’s very much a film of its decade and a fitting entry in the top half of this list. – Connor Adamson

7. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

L-R: Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana and Vin Diesel

• Directed by James Gunn

• Global Rank: #240

Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk: four superheroes whom Marvel Studios felt had enough name recognition to successfully kick-start a carefully-planned cinematic universe. And boy did it ever work, as 2012’s The Avengers became the third highest-grossing film at the time. So studio president Kevin Feige and crew decided to make a gamble and bet not only on testing the market for a new space adventure, but also combining a pack of heroes who, let’s be honest, were known by very few at the time. In hindsight the gamble doesn’t seem risky because the Guardians have become household names, but aside from Star Wars, wacky space adventures had tended to flop (James Cameron’s Avatar was also an exception). Put it this way: the team is lead by a space-faring human with no powers (played by Chris Pratt, who was mostly known for comedic television roles at the time); Zoe Saldana from Avatar is playing another differently-colored alien; there’s a war-hungry alien played by wrestler Dave Bautista; there’s a talking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper, and a freaking tree with powers that only says three words, voiced beautifully by Vin Diesel. This movie could easily have gone the way of Jupiter Ascending or Valerian and become a punchline, but up-and-coming director James Gunn found the perfect formula to not only capture audiences, but also propel these oddball heroes to Avengers-level popularity. Defying odds and setting the stage for future lesser-known heroes, Guardians of the Galaxy was able to make a balanced demographic of moviegoers care about one of the strangest assemblies the cinema has ever seen. It became the third highest-grossing MCU movie upon release and set the stage for a space trilogy no one could have predicted ten years ago, as well as confirming that it was okay for Marvel to get weird. At this point, it’s not outlandish to expect Guardians 3 to earn over billion dollars in 2021. And to that I say: “I am Groot.” – Kyle Larkin

6. The Avengers (2012)

L-R: Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr.

• Directed by Joss Whedon

• Global Rank: #233

Fast-forward eight years, and now almost every franchise — from competitor DC Comics to Universal Monsters, of all things — is trying their hand at weaving their own “cinematic universe.” Even the trilogy-bound Star Wars is threatening to head in that kind of direction in the wake of less-than-resounding praise for The Rise of Skywalker.

But in 2012, nobody had attempted what Marvel had done. No one asked whether they should, but The Avengers was exactly the film to prove that they COULD. This first film to bear the “Avengers” moniker is really still the best. Even as the casts get bigger and the stakes get higher, and Avengers: Endgame brings it all to a close with competency, it’s the original — with its smaller, more manageable cast of heroes — that builds the team dynamic and plays all of the stars off each other in exactly the right ways, and gives everybody their moment to shine.

Or maybe it was just the Joss Whedon touch? Either way, even as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand, The Avengers is still the template for how to do a big team-up movie right. – Nigel Druitt

5. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Chris Evans as Captain America

• Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo

• Global Rank: #217

Not only was it a great decade for the MCU, it was a great decade for its two most successful directors, Joe and Anthony Russo. Rising way, way out of the obscurity of their first two features – Welcome to Collinwood (2002) and You, Me and Dupree (2006) – the Russos delivered four exceptionally well-received MCU tentpoles in the 2010s, the final two Captain America movies, and the final two Avengers movies. Their crowning achievement was Avengers: Endgame, which is a bit like the Best Picture-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; it may not actually be the best MCU movie, but its high ranking on Flickchart’s Best of the Decade list feels justified as a kind of career achievement award. (It also had the highest worldwide box office gross of all time, which is not nothing.) That’s not to say Endgame isn’t completely and totally satisfying, because it is, which is an especially astonishing outcome given how many disparate threads the Russos and producer Kevin Feige had to tie together. They do so by giving us three distinct thirds of this three-hour movie, and at this point, spoiler warnings no longer apply. The first third mourns the loss of half of the universe after Thanos’ big snap, but is not without its humor. The second involves a paradigm-busting introduction of time travel into the MCU, and is also quite fun. Then the third gives us the giant battle scene that we pretty much had to have, which may be no better than its brethren but is certainly no worse. It all ends with emotionally-potent resolutions to the storylines of several key characters, and neatly wraps up an MCU decade that forever changed the complexion of the blockbuster, and even the complexion of how we watch movies. – Derek Armstrong

4. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa

• Directed by George Miller

• Global Rank: #206

The 2010s were a decade for bringing female action heroes into the spotlight, from the big superhero outings like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel to blockbuster franchises like Star Wars to more standalone films like Hanna, Haywire, Salt, Lucy and Peppermint. Yet it was Mad Max: Fury Road — like Blade Runner 2049 and The Force Awakens, a resurrection of a long-dormant franchise — that made it seem the most effortless. Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa kicks just as much or more ass as Tom Hardy’s Max Rockatansky, and she steals the show from the title character at every turn.

And what a show to steal. Fury Road is a masterclass in action filmmaking. In what is essentially just a giant, two-hour car chase, director Frank Miller and his team create a breathtaking world from the ground up, and make their audience feel the heat, taste the sand, and smell the machine grease, stunt piece after bone-crunching stunt piece. It’s a new entry in a franchise that has lain dormant since 1985, but it feels like something entirely fresh and new, literally something you’ve never seen before. Frankly, if Miller has more sequels on his mind, they can’t come soon enough. – Nigel Druitt

3. Django Unchained (2012)

Jamie Foxx as Django

• Directed by Quentin Tarantino

• Global Rank: #204

Films that involve the institution of black slavery don’t have to be “about” slavery or even race. Death Wish involves a home invasion and a gang rape, but no one would confuse that film as being “about” the problem of male-on-female violence. Films in the “revenge” subgenre have to perform an exquisite balancing act, showing our hero’s complex moral transfiguration while still satisfyingly delivering violence, and precisely the right kind of violence, to those who deserve it. But the one thing all revenge films need is an accelerant, some wrong so monumental in its profanity that it becomes a motive with a universal adapter, giving us instant alignment with the avenger whom we will spend the rest of the running time alternately cheering and questioning. Django Unchained uses a brightly lit, unflinching, exaggerated-but-believable view of American black slavery as this accelerant, to give the audience permission to feel the kind of rage that fuels our hero. The experience is exhilarating, and, because of the quality of the performances, just the right kind of bittersweet to elevate it beyond just a shoot-em-up into an actual nutritious cinematic meal. It is a meditation maybe not on the historical horrors of slavery, but at least on the power of human determination in the face of nightmarish, systemic obstacles. – Doug Van Hollen

2. Whiplash (2014)

• Directed by Damien Chazelle

• Global Rank: #160

There is a class of films which are peek into an extreme, but real, corner of the human experience. What distinguishes Whiplash from, say, Black Swan or Drumline or G.I. Jane is how it resists the temptation to focus too much on the unusual setting at the expense of the characters. We are largely spared the rehearsal and tour montages that other films would be tempted to indulge in. Instead we get deeply personal connections with all of the characters in this film, accelerated by close, crystalline, handheld cinematography and lighting that makes all of the black outfits glow. Although universally hailed as an achievement, many audience members find J.K. Simmons frothing, diabolical performance too overtly villainous to be believable. But a decent minority, people who have actually undergone the jazz conservatory experience, said he didn’t go far enough. The film’s fireworks performances sometimes threaten to overshadow its message, which… honestly, is hard to articulate in a way that doesn’t make it sound derivative of other films of its type. But somehow that doesn’t matter. This film makes an indelible mark on the audience and the culture, and maybe that mark is a scar. – Doug Van Hollen

1. Inception (2010)

Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb

• Directed by Christopher Nolan

• Global Rank: #96

While Christopher Nolan had received accolades for his heady films like Memento and The Prestige, and his reinvention of Batman, there really wasn’t any easy way to predict what Inception would be. The teaser suitably just showed Leo looking pensive and scared, and some brief, insane, gravity-defying action in a hallway, and that’s about it — other than what would become possibly the most imitated and recognizable cultural impact of the film. Yes, we’re talking about the BRROMMMMM klaxon deep brass horn that signaled to us that this film was big. Bigger than big. Gigantic. It changed movie trailers for the foreseeable future. For years, if your trailer didn’t have a few BRROMMMMMs, no one was going to go see it.

The movie itself is a puzzle within a puzzle. It famously took Nolan ten years to write the screenplay, and it shows on-screen. It takes the ridiculously difficult concept of multi-level subconsciousness and makes it cinematic. Nolan’s cinematographer Wally Pfister brought his A-game with sweeping, wide shots, meticulously crafted lighting and shot composition, and a sense of scale and place that never leaves the audience confused as to where in the stratum of dreams we’re in at any given time. Editor Lee Smith should also get his accomplishment noted for managing to keep track between so many different concurrent scenes, locations, and characters that it never becomes incomprehensible or disorienting. Wins at the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects were all easily warranted and deserved.

It’s also an adventurous crime caper with a rogue’s gallery that each bring an interesting flavor to the proceedings. The practical effect of rotating the set while keeping the camera stationary (a la 2001: A Space Odyssey) makes the aforementioned hallway fight sequence stand out as one of the most visceral and visually-compelling fight scenes in modern cinematic history. The digital effects of warping the world around the actors, or bringing to life the concepts of the deepest place in your mind, or exploding the elements of a street corner cafe all reinforced the dream-like concepts at play while simultaneously bringing us things we’ve never seen before in a movie.

Also, this highly complex film manages to completely and perfectly stick its landing, an area where other films often fail. There isn’t a single person that can watch the final shot and not immediately wonder how everything turns out. Does it matter? You’re guaranteed to have a gut feeling that things did or did not go as Leo’s character envisioned, and that springboard of a conversation about the entirety of what you just watched is an example of master storytelling at work.

If you thought Nolan’s other films were hits, then Inception was, and still is today, his out-of-the-park, game-winning home run. – Nathan Chase

Filling Out the List

Toy Story 3

Because 20 just doesn’t seem like enough titles to celebrate a great decade in film, here’s the rest of Flickchart’s current Top 40 of the 2010s:

• #21. Toy Story 3 (2010, Lee Unkrich, #382 of All Time)
• #22. The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Christopher Nolan, #392)
• #23. Interstellar (2014, Christopher Nolan, #393)
• #24. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014, Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, #420)
• #25. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013, Martin Scorsese, #432)
• #26. Moonrise Kingdom (2012, Wes Anderson, #435)
• #27. Captain America: Civil War (2016, Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, #443)
• #28. La La Land (2016, Damien Chazelle, #448)
• #29. Black Swan (2010, Darren Aronofsky, #476)
• #30. 12 Years a Slave (2013, Steve McQueen, #478)
• #31. A Separation (2011, Asghar Farhadi, #495)
• #32. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, Edgar Wright, #496)
• #33. Nightcrawler (2014, Dan Gilroy, #512)
• #34. Before Midnight (2013, Richard Linklater, #513)
• #35. The Martian (2015, Ridley Scott, #522)
• #36. Baby Driver (2017, Edgar Wright, #543)
• #37. Gone Girl (2014, David Fincher, #549)
• #38. Parasite (2019, Bong Joon-ho, #551)
• #39. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019, Quentin Tarantino, #553)
• #40. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, #554)

Want to see more? You can check out the full list (over 19,000 and counting) of the decade’s best films here. And don’t forget to keep ranking movies on Flickchart to help influence even further refinement of the global chart.