Below are the movies released since 2009 that I “loved.” I don’t mean to say I think these are the “best” movies of each year; they’re merely the ones I most enjoyed each year.
2015
- Inside Out (Pete Docter)
2014
- Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
- Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
- Gone Girl (David Fincher)
- The One I Love (Charlie McDowell)
- Two Days, One Night (Dardenne brothers)
- Noah (Darren Aronofsky)
- Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller)
- Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
- Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)
- A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor)
- Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)
- Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman)
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)
- Frank (Lenny Abrahamson)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (Bryan Singer)
- Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako)
- 22 Jump Street (Phil Lord, Christopher Miller)
2013
- Her (Spike Jonze)
- Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)
- Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée)
- Blue is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)
- Short Term 12 (Destin Cretton)
- American Hustle (David O. Russell)
- 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
- Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
- Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
- Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve)
- Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass)
- Upstream Color (Shane Carruth)
- Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
- Nymphomaniac (Lars von Trier)
- The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
- Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener)
- All is Lost (J. C. Chandor)
- Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier)
- The Spectacular Now (James Ponsoldt)
- Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg)
- We Are the Best! (Lukas Moodysson)
2012
- Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
- Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
- The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg)
- Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)
- Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
- Looper (Rian Johnson)
- Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
- Mud (Jeff Nichols)
- Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard)
- Haywire (Steven Soderbergh)
- Chronicle (Josh Trank)
- 21 Jump Street (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller)
2011
- The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
- A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
- The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
- Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)
- Pariah (Dee Rees)
- The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
- Oslo, August 31 (Joachim Trier)
- Margin Call (J.C. Chandor)
- Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
- Contagion (Steven Soderbergh)
- Kung Fu Panda 2 (Jennifer Yuh Nelson)
- In the Family (Patrick Wang)
- Hanna (Joe Wright)
2010
- Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
- Somewhere (Sofia Coppola)
- The Social Network (David Fincher)
- Incendies (Denis Villeneuve)
- Inception (Chris Nolan)
- The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)
- Another Year (Mike Leigh)
- Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik)
- The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
- How to Train Your Dragon (Dean Deblois)
- Megamind (Tom McGrath)
2009
- Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)
- Dogtooth (Giorgos Lanthimos)
- The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
- District 9 (Neill Blomkamp)
- A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
- Avatar (James Cameron)
- Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
- Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
- Up (Pete Docter, Bob Peterson)
- In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
- Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)
- Coraline (Henry Selick)
- 500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb)
- Watchmen (Zack Snyder)