Page 45 - Esquire - USA (Winter 2020)

BIG EGOS, MOONLIGHT, AND LOBSTERS, OH MY

THE 10 BEST MOVIES OF THE DECADE BY CHRIS NASHAWATY

The film is more than just
a cautionary tale about Call Me
the toll of pursuing perfection. by Your
It electrifies you with every Name
note of its beat.

6. ONCE UPON
A TIME . . . IN
HOLLYWOOD 2019

What at first appears to
be another one of Quentin 8. THE
Tarantino’s B-movie-mad HANDMAIDEN
pastiches winds up becoming 2016
something far more profound,
as a fading tough-guy actor Park Chan-wook, the
(Leonardo DiCaprio) and Korean auteur behind Oldboy,
his Sancho Panza stuntman slipped from his genre
sidekick (Brad Pitt) reckon shackles with this historical
with the death of the romance that thrums with
1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK 2010 California dream, daring to giddy kinkiness. As twisty as
imagine: What if it didn’t a ’40s noir and as wildly sexy
David Fincher’s origin story of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have to all go up in smoke as an ’80s erotic thriller, The
on a certain fateful evening Handmaiden is one of those
is Citizen Kane for the Internet age. Fueled by Jesse Eisenberg’s in August 1969? imports that zig and zag so
creepy, rat-a-tat delivery of Aaron Sorkin’s arias of dialogue, The deliriously that you’re left
Social Network is the movie of our new millennium—a chilling punch-drunk as you struggle
7. THE LOBSTER to remember your safe word.
portrait of a ruthless young egomaniac who somehow managed to 2015
connect the world and end up as the loneliest man on the planet.

9. MOONLIGHT
There are certain films
that are so bizarre that they 2016
derby is all fireball climax.
2. BEFORE Part retina-scorching 5. WHIPLASH defy easy explanation. Then
MIDNIGHT 2013 Tex Avery cartoon, part 2014 there’s Yorgos Lanthimos’s Barry Jenkins’s Best
Hieronymous Bosch Kafkaesque satire about Picture winner is a meditation
romantic conformity—and
Eighteen years after their hellscape, Fury Road is, hands Damien Chazelle’s crustaceans. Colin Farrell on identity that asks what it
fluky first encounter on a down, the most adrenalized psychologically harrowing stars as a lonely heart who means to be a black man who’s
Vienna-bound train in Before 120 minutes of cinema of masterpiece signaled the has 45 days to find a suitable gay. In the past, Moonlight
Sunrise, Julie Delpy’s Celine the decade—of any decade. arrival of a filmmaker who was partner or else he’ll be turned might have fallen through the
and Ethan Hawke’s Jesse as much of a live-wire prodigy into an animal of his choice. art-house cracks, but this
are vacationing in Greece and as its cocky protagonist: The Lobster is a freaky, story of one man’s journey
grappling with a fairy-tale 4. CALL ME BY Miles Teller’s laser-focused, existential rabbit hole that from boyhood to adulthood
romance that’s under siege YOUR NAME 2017 is so transcendent, it couldn’t
bleeding-palmed jazz feels utterly original in our age
from the daily grind of drummer, Andrew Neiman. of numbing sequels. be denied.
reality. Before Midnight is Luca Guadagnino’s queer
Richard Linklater’s most coming-of-age story is a
intimate, mature, and honest lyrical half-remembered 10. PADDINGTON 2
film. A love letter to love 2017
that’s heartbreaking...and a beautifully erotic spell.
ultimately hopeful. Set during a summer of
Yes, a sequel about a talking
bear is one of the best movies
3. MAD MAX: countryside, it traces the of the decade. The plot—
FURY ROAD 2015 Paddington tries to recover
a precocious 17-year-old a purloined pop-up book—is
Most modern action (Timothée Chalamet) and as slight as a marmalade finger
flicks build up to their sandwich. But thanks to its
fireball climax. But George (Armie Hammer). That it diorama sets, it feels like the
Miller’s gloriously gonzo best Wes Anderson movie that
postapocalyptic demolition Moonlight Anderson never made.