Maybe it’s hyperbole, but we are slowly moving toward another heyday of cinema. As storytelling evolves and cinema technology advances, the films we watch are just getting better and better. With daring and bold risks being made, movies aren’t just for entertainment; they’ve become teaching tools. Over the past 9 years, Hollywood and beyond have given us groundbreaking and mind-blowing offerings that have cemented themselves in movie history. We’re here to celebrate ten of the very best.
Compiling the ten titles was no easy feat. In fact, there are certainly many movies that could be argued in. The ten movies here provide a vast variety of genres, styles, and movie-makers. Some have earned immense praise, while others have been greatly rewarded. From genre-shifting horror films to an international film that put foreign-language films on the map. From stories of family to tales of romance. These ten movies have had us talking well after the credits rolled.
Back in the ‘80s, we watched Tom Cruise dance in his skivvies to “Old Time Rock and Roll” by Bob Seger in Risky Business. In 2023, Barry Keoghan took it a step further— dancing naked to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor.” Just like in the ‘80s, the moment got us talking, with all eyes on the dark comedy thriller Saltburn. Written, directed, and produced by Emerald Fennell, Saltburn follows Oliver Quick (Keoghan), an awkward Oxford University student who becomes dangerously obsessed with his wealthy and charismatic classmate, Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at his family’s sprawling, eccentric estate, where Oliver’s initial infatuation spirals into a deeply manipulative and sinister plot to integrate himself into their lavish life. A masterful exploration of obsession, class divides, and greed, the film subverts the traditional “have-not” trope for a thoroughly entertaining romp.
Saltburn is a brazen, visually striking psychosexual thriller that masterfully captures its themes through a provocative, campy narrative that keeps its viewers enthralled from beginning to end. Fennell’s script is a scathing satire that toys with the audience’s sympathies. Why? Because Saltburn is an extraordinary character exploration. Oliver is a stunning anti-hero, one that’s only revealed as a late-game twist. His fixation with the Catton family leads him to systematically eliminate everyone in his way in a calculated, years-long pursuit to inherit the family’s vast generational wealth due to his psychological decline. He is not an impoverished, tragic figure; Oliver actually comes from a stable, middle-class background. From top to bottom, the ensemble is dynamic, with strong performances from Keoghan, Elordi, Rosamund Pike, and Alison Oliver. A truly audacious film, we’re living in a time in which every subsequent film will try to become the next Saltburn.
The power of music in film was on full display in the romantic sports drama Challengers. Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes, Challengers tells the story of an intense 13-year love triangle between a former tennis prodigy, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), and two low-circuit players, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor). Through the story of a real-time high-stakes, low-tier Challenger tournament, the film explores deeper themes of control, ambition, and the psychology of competition in a sexy, provocative film. Anything but a straightforward film, Challengers uses tennis as a metaphorical backdrop, with points, volleys, and rallies reflecting the shifting dynamics of a complex love triangle.
Challengers soars thanks to the dynamic and chemistry of the primary trio. Their performance was so ingrained in pop culture, it was a rare Halloween season in which a couple of costumes required a third. Zendaya anchored the film, bringing newfound maturity that had evolved since her previous projects. Faist and O’Connor delivered stellar, emotionally complex performances, keeping the audience hooked on the characters’ mutual dependencies, rivalries, and deeply intertwined love-hate relationships. Guadagnino’s visual storytelling was simply captivating. He pushed the visual envelope by capturing the sport in exciting, unconventional ways. Every bead of sweat is captured. Every grunt and racket hit is heard. Then, pair it with an adrenaline-inducing score composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and its literal perfection. The pulsating industrial-electronic soundtrack kicks into high gear, amplifying both the on-court action and romantic tension. It’s perhaps the most egregious error to have been left off the Oscar nomination list. Though some believe that Zendaya’s Dune co-star’s sports film is better, the truth is, Challengers is the best sports film in recent memory.
Sometimes simplicity reaps the best rewards. That’s exactly what happened with the tender coming-of-age drama Aftersun. Written and directed by Charlotte Wells, the film is loosely based on Wells’ childhood. It tells the story of an 11-year-old girl named Sophie (Frankie Corio) on a summer vacation in Turkey with her loving but secretly depressed 31-year-old father, Calum (Paul Mescal). As an adult, Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) pieces together home video footage and memories to understand the father she lost, realizing he was silently battling suicidal ideation during the trip. Operating in a fragmented narrative that captures the unreliability of memory and the tragedy of loving someone you cannot save, the sun-drenched story is anything but bright; Aftersun is a deeply resonant portrayal of a universal experience some might be fearful of bringing to light.
Aftersun is a masterpiece of perspective. The audience sees the story through Sophie’s eyes. Sophie may not grasp what her father is going through, but like a puzzle, the bits and pieces that are presented, it all comes together. The home video footage represents the grounded, objective reality of the vacation, capturing surface-level joy, love, and lightheartedness. As Sophie reimagines these scenes, they operate as retrospective attempts to imagine the pain her father hid from her at the time. And it’s all brought out through immense control through Mescal’s excruciatingly raw performance. Aftersun proved that Mescal was well on his way to becoming one of cinema’s most sought-after stars. The amount of vulnerability he brought to the screen was enough to rip your heart right out.
Wells weaves a rich tapestry through every sense. You may not be able to smell the sunscreen, feel the sand on your toes, or taste the Turkish resort offerings, Wells’ ability to evoke those senses is just as strong as what you can tangibly see and hear. It’s a beautifully written and strongly paced film that subtly gets you by the end. Successful ambiguous endings are a dime a dozen, but in this case, it’s just how this story should end. Even the title has a heartbreaking metaphorical connection, as “aftersun” is lotion applied to soothe and heal skin after it has been painfully burned by the sun. The film itself is the emotional “aftersun” for Sophie. Aftersun may not be a big blockbuster, but its impact is just as lasting.
There was a strong debate over whether the animated slot should go to Encanto or Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Both films were incredibly important to diverse stories and visibility, but Encanto was an expectedly great Disney film. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse defied the odds as a sublime animated and superhero film. Based on the Marvel Comics character, the newfound animated classic follows Brooklyn teen Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he gains superpowers and becomes the new Spider-Man. When a supervillain accidentally opens portals to parallel universes, Miles must team up with five alternate-dimension Spider-Heroes—Peter B. Parker(Jake Johnson), Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney)—to defeat the Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) and save all realities. Offering a new take on a classic character, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse revolutionized modern animation with emotional depth and visual innovations.
3-D and computer-generated animation were all the rage in the 21st century, but the way this film tackled action was unfounded. It not only embraced its comic book origins but also blended traditional 2D comic book techniques with cutting-edge CGI, allowing each frame to look like a living comic. Adding a new spin on Spider-Man via Miles Morales and handling the multiverse trope with ease, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse provided a vibrant, hilarious, and emotionally resonant team-up. The film’s ultimate message was that anyone can wear the mask— and it was more than proven. The film was richly inclusive. Miles sought a hero who looked like him. Now he became that for young Afro-Latino viewers. The movie balances epic, dimension-hopping stakes with deeply intimate human struggles surrounding family, growing up, and wrestling with expectations. There’s a reason why the film launched its own franchise to rival the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Once upon a time, Jordan Peele was a rising comic making a name for himself on MAD TV. Then, alongside his co-star Keegan-Michael Key, they formed a formidable comedy duo with their own self-titled series. It seemed that this would be his career niche. Then, Peele shocked the world, hopping behind the camera, proving not only could he act, but he could also write and direct. In turn, he reshaped the horror genre forever with the groundbreaking psychological horror thriller Get Out. The thriller follows Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), a Black man who travels with his girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), to spend the weekend with her parents, Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener). While Rose claims her parents are not racist, Chris immediately notices subtle, uncomfortable microaggressions and eerily submissive behavior of the family’s Black domestic workers, Georgina (Betty Gabriel) and Walter (Marcus Henderson). He soon uncovers a horrifying, racist conspiracy that her family is part of a cult that transplants the brains and consciousness of wealthy white individuals into the bodies of young Black people, leaving the original hosts helplessly trapped in the Sunken Place. Chris must escape before he’s next. Get Out reinvents the established tropes by fusing psychological terror with sharp social commentary.
Get Out is a subversive masterpiece. It explores the insidious realities of passive racism. Rather than relying on an overt villain, Get Out highlights how the elite, virtue-signaling liberals and their microaggressions might be the most terrifying antagonists. Everything that Peele includes in the film is intentional. He externalizes real-world dread of systemic injustice, putting the audience directly into action. It creates a claustrophobic atmosphere despite the vastness of the Armitage estate. Peele brilliantly balances nail-biting suspense with, albeit, brief moments of levity and dark humor. These crucial breathers are important because the intensity hits harder when it comes, often when you least expect it. Thanks to Get Out, Peele has established himself as one of the greats of the decade, leaving fans eager to see what he has up his sleeve next.
Rarely are sequels better than the original, but Denis Villeneuve shook his fist to that premise. Bringing Frank Herbert‘s epic novel to life, Dune: Part Two continues the story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he integrates with the Fremen on the desert planet Arrakis. While his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), leans on religious prophecies to elevate her son to legendary status, he struggles to prevent the catastrophic holy war he foresees. He leads a warpath of revenge against the conspirators, House Harkonnen, who destroyed his family, ultimately forcing him to choose between the love of his life, Chani (Zendaya), and the fate of the universe. A breathtaking exploration of Herbert’s vast universe, Dune: Part Two extraordinarily builds upon the first film through emotional weight and exceptional character development. Dune: Part Two transcends the standard sci-fi film with its deeply tragic, epic story.
Those familiar with the books or the original 1984 David Lynch film know where Paul is heading. The sequel sets him up beautifully for his tragic fall. Chalamet matures into the role, brilliantly balancing Paul’s transition from a hesitant, honorable young man finding his footing to a menacing, conflicted religious leader who believes his ways are gospel. The entire ensemble of returning and new faces elevates the product to its fullest potential. Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and Christopher Walken help raise the stakes, giving the story more oomph than its predecessor. Dune: Part One was a pretty film. Almost like a big-budget screensaver. Dune: Part Two is simply unmatched visually. Cinematographer Greig Fraser worked jointly with Villeneuve to craft a rich, sandy sepia-toned terrain where the sandworm becomes a wondrous beast for Paul to ride. Contrast it with the black-and-white gladiatorial arena on Gidei Prime, and the Dune universe becomes even further realized immersive land. Add in a pulsating score by Hans Zimmer, and Dune: Part Two becomes a masterpiece in sound. If Dune: Part One is the appetizer and the upcoming Dune: Part Three is dessert, Dune: Part Two is the most delicious entrée you can imagine.
It might be hyperbolizing things a bit, but Everything Everywhere All At Once may be the most important film made in the last nine years. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the genre-blending absurdist dramedy proved that anything is possible with heart and passion. The film follows Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), an exhausted Chinese-American immigrant mother who struggles to keep her laundromat afloat. Meanwhile, she must fight to save her marriage to her sweet husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), and further fracture her relationship with her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). While being audited by a strict IRS inspector named Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), Evelyn is swept into an epic, dimension-hopping adventure. A prime example of how to craft a manageable multiverse story, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a brilliant exploration of nihilism, generational trauma, the freedom to choose, love, and family. But perhaps most importantly, Everything Everywhere All At Once is an example of how powerful visibility and representation in new genres can be in the mainstream.
Incorporating several genres including surreal comedy, science fiction, fantasy, martial arts, and animation, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a sweeping, entertaining epic with immense humor, heart, and hope. Arguing that nothing else matters except our own free will and the family around us, the film forces us to ask the “what if?” question we ask ourselves far too often. We may not have the opportunity to travel through dimensions, but watching Evelyn embark on a journey in which the what-ifs allow her to appreciate life in the present is more than just a happy moral. It’s a reminder to slow down. At the heart of the film is an emotional story about the immigrant experience, middle-aged regret, and the delicate relationship between generations. Through absurd laughter and tear-jerking emotional growth, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a movie that sticks with you. And not just because you bore witness to Curtis having hot dog fingers in perhaps her most outlandish costume to date. Even with a complex narrative, the film’s editing is sublime, providing seamless transitions between the universes without compromising the storytelling. The film is literally everything, and yet it worked. Everything Everywhere All At Once is proof that independent projects can not only enter the mainstream but also become bigger and better than the blockbusters we’re told to watch.
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
One day, when we reflect on the 21st century in cinema, we’ll likely point toward Christopher Nolan as the greatest visionary of the century. Nolan not only has the ability to transcend dramas, but everything he touches seems to turn to gold. Rather than take a biopic and do what an ordinary writer and director might do, he took a prolific man’s life and made it an extraordinary epic, forcing audiences to question everything they thought they knew. Oppenheimer chronicles the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the theoretical physicist known as “the father of the atomic bomb.” The film follows his leadership on the Manhattan Project during World War II, his moral struggles over creating a weapon of mass destruction, and the political fallout he faced during the Red Scare. Expertly told through breathtaking visual storytelling and a masterclass in auditory soundscapes, Oppenheimer emerged as one of the greatest biopics of all time.
The script that Nolan crafted was anything but ordinary. Rather than going through a chronological retelling, he bounces through time to offer a brilliant psychological first-person perspective. He alternates between a vibrant color sequence of the past and a black-and-white journey through the hearings. By doing this, the audience is locked into Oppenheimer’s mind. Whether he’s reflecting, remembering, or recalling his actions, the choice transports viewers into specific anxieties, complex understandings, and profound moral dread. Murphy does some of his finest work, truly making you find moments of empathy with the man who was inadvertently responsible for a wartime massacre. Alongside a dynamite cast including Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, and Rami Malek, Oppenheimer showcases the best doing their best. Oppenheimer is a work of sheer technical genius. Nolan shot down the need for CGI, using a visceral representation of spinning atoms and the other horrifying force of the Trinity Test. Speaking of, the sound design may be the greatest in cinema history. The soundscape shifts abruptly from music to deafening, rumbling roars to complete and utter silence upon the start of the Trinity Test. By literally removing all semblance of sound, it immerses the audience into that moment in terrifying fashion. Oppenheimer may forever be tied to Barbie for its iconic double feature, but it remains a masterpiece in its own right.
After helping to bring voice and visibility to Black stories in the superhero world with Black Panther, Ryan Coogler did the same with the instant horror classic, Sinners. Set in 1932 in the Jim Crow-era South, twin brothers Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore (Michael B. Jordan) return to the Mississippi Delta to escape their criminal past in Chicago. They invest money to open a juke joint. However, the opening night takes a dark turn when their younger cousin, Sammie (Miles Caton), draws the attention of a mysterious, supernatural threat: a clan of vampires that violently attacks and infects the community. A fast-paced creature feature that uses vampirism as a brilliant allegory for cultural issues, Sinners blends historical trauma, the power of music, and the intensity of an action-horror story into an original, emotionally resonant blockbuster.
Anyone who believes that Sinners is merely a simple vampire story was clearly not paying close enough attention. Coogler uses that as a hook to draw attention to broader themes. Cultural appropriation arrives through the vampires’ desire to consume and steal the young musician’s talent, mirroring the extraction of Black art without honoring the individuals who created it. Set during a devastating period in American history, Coogler uses the physical and spiritual struggles of the Black community, who are under continual threat from segregation. Most importantly, music is a weapon of defense. It’s a means of communal resilience. It’s also a generational celebration. The genre-bending storytelling is seamless, thanks in part to Jordan’s award-winning performance. He brings the Smokestack twins to life with ease, anchoring the emotional core of the story. Joined by a brilliant ensemble, including Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O’Connell, and Delroy Lindo, Sinners is the complete package.
There had been a misconception that foreign language films were only for the “cultured.” Rarely did they find their way into the mainstream. Then, the revolutionary director Bong Joon Ho brought Parasite to the world, and foreign-language films became mainstream. The award-winning Parasite became a global game-changer whose legacy still lingers today. The South Korean black comedy thriller follows the Kims, a destitute, unemployed family who scheme to infiltrate the wealthy Park family household by posing as highly qualified, unrelated professionals. What begins as a satirical heist where the Kims revel in the luxuries of the Park estate turns into a dark thriller as another secret comes to light: a hidden family living in a bunker. Parasite becomes a violent struggle to survive where the poor are pitted against the poor. A 21st-century masterpiece, Parasite meticulously balances genres while providing a sharp, universal critique of societal inequality.
Brilliantly structured without ever feeling disjointed, Parasite is a top-tier psychological thriller that keeps you on your toes. You’re eager to find out what will happen next because you simply can’t fathom what could come next. The unpredictable twists allow Parasite to evolve into a strong commentary on universal themes. Though the film is deeply rooted in South Korean culture, Bong ensures the central theme of class struggle resonates fully. Parasite explores the symbiotic yet parasitic relationship between the wealthy, who rely on the working class to function, and the poor, who fight viciously against one another to earn just a sliver of the pie of success. There are no heroes or villains in Parasite; each character is deeply flawed and complex, forcing the audience to question their own empathy. Parasite also happens to be a perfectly shot film, using visual storytelling, from the framing to the production design, to intentionally reinforce the idea of the economic divide. Parasite opened the door for future foreign language tables to have a seat at the table. And we’re all forever grateful for it.
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