MIFF: Duelling masters at my MIFF Astor debut

Asghar Farhadi and Hirokazu Kore-eda have a shared lineage in my personal film history as well as my personal MIFF history.

Both had a film in the early part of last decade that bowled me over, the first I had seen by the director in each case. For Farhadi, it was A Separation, my #1 of 2011. For Kore-eda, it was Like Father, Like Son, my #2 of 2014 (though its release year was 2013 in Japan). 

Both then popped up regularly at MIFF, each time feeling like a slam dunk in terms of films I wanted to be sure I got on my schedule. In the case of Farhadi, that meant seeing The Salesman in 2016 and Everybody Knows in 2018. With Kore-eda, I saw After the Storm in 2016, Shoplifters in 2018 and Monster in 2023. And in each case, only one of their films I saw was not in the very upper reaches of my list that year, as Everybody Knows was my #3 of 2018, and Shoplifters and Monster finished #11 and #4 of their respective years.

If Kore-eda got ahead of Farhadi, it's only because Kore-eda is prolific and Farhadi is not, though Farhadi is also from a country that punishes filmmakers for defying the government. In fact, MIFF in 2016 and 2018 both featured a film from each director. I'm not going to say they synched up like women spending a lot of time together and getting on the same cycles for their period, but if you want to say that, I won't disagree with you.

When I heard both directors were again having a film in 2026, I knew I had to get tickets for both. And when I learned both films were playing on the same day, a plan started to take shape.

And when I learned both films were playing, six hours apart, at the Astor Theatre on Saturday, August 8th, a plan really started to take shape.

You see, this would be my first time attending the Astor as part of MIFF. About damn time, I'd say.

The Astor Theatre is an old single-screen movie house in South Yarra with a ton of history. I don't see a lot of movies there, in part because it specializes in repertory screenings, in part because it does not take my critics card, and in part because of its location (more on that in a moment). But it's the place I saw The Hateful Eight in its properly projected 70 mm format, and I've seen a few repertory titles there as well. It's the kind of place you feel like it's a treat to attend.

The reason I don't go to its MIFF showings? Well, it's not in the CBD.

The benefit most MIFF venues have -- outside of the regional Victoria screenings -- is that you can ping pong between a half-dozen different theaters in Melbourne's central business district. If you are trying to go to two back to back, you need at most about 25 minutes to hoof it between the theaters, even if it's between the IMAX at the Melbourne Museum (where I saw I Saw the TV Glow a few years ago) and ACMI, which are probably the two venues most distant from each other.

You can't hoof it to the Astor at all. South Yarra is at best a train ride from the CBD, and enough of a train ride that you couldn't make it there after another movie in the CBD unless you had at least an hour between the two showings. Not that it would take you an hour, necessarily, just that you'd want to allow that much time to make sure nothing went wrong. After all, mechanized transport is outside of your control the way travelling on foot is not. You wouldn't feel good planning a night around it, in any case.

But two showings on a Saturday, when the CBD doesn't even need to enter to it? Now that was something I could go for.

Kore-eda's Sheep in the Box was playing at noon, and Farhadi's Parallel Tales was playing at 6. So all I had to do was leave my house around 11 to make sure I had plenty of time to get there, and then bring some stuff with me to kill the 3+ hours between the two movies. And because South Yarra and neighboring St. Kilda are nice places to spend an afternoon, it sounded quite nice to just make a day of it -- unlike the night before, when my MIFF downtime was more nebulous and unsatisfying.

So I found parking more easily than I thought, though only between movies could I confirm that I had, indeed, parked legally, and that there wasn't a ticket waiting for me. I know the general rule of thumb is that if you can't see a street sign that speaks to how long you can park, you can park there forever, but my spot was only a few blocks from the Astor, so it seemed too good to be true.

My first impression of the Astor, which I had not attended in any form (could it be?) for almost ten years, is that it was an heir apparent to the Comedy Theatre (which no longer shows MIFF movies) in terms of the comfort of the seats. Which is to say, no comfort at all. Like that other theater, the Astor seems to have most of its original fixtures, including hard wrought-iron seats with cushions that hardly meet the definition. The bigger problem, for a tall guy like me, was that there was no good place between the seats in the row in front to wedge my foot, which I often need to do during a movie. Suffice it to say that I learned my lesson in the first movie, and in the second one, opted for a chair that had no row in front of it, and plenty of room to stretch my legs.

And so started Sheep in the Box, which was, sadly, firmly in the lower half of the nine Kore-eda films I've seen. 

The director is known as a humanistic director of realistic family dramas, which places him as an heir to Ozu, though I don't know if that thought is original to me. In saying that, I forget that one of the first films he ever made, After Life, was about a posthumous bureaucratic waystation, making it not realistic in the slightest. However, let's just say that all his other films I've seen are safely within the bounds of the realism of our present day world.

Sheep in the Box deviates from that in that it is set in the near future, where drone delivery has become common, and refrigerators try to keep you to your diet. And unfortunately, its actual subject is derivative in a way a film by Kore-eda rarely is. 

The film is basically Steven Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence, if it was made by a Japanese director who liked realistic modern-day films that are humanistic at their core. It imagines a company that can make replacements for your loved ones, specifically your children, should they die prematurely, and it invites all the familiar questions of whether an AI can have a soul and the capacity to love -- and whether we have the capacity to love it in return.

I'm not going to say this film is clumsy, nor that it isn't mildly touching in spots. But my concern was that Kore-eda doesn't do enough with the ideas that I personally first remember thinking about in AI, especially given that the 25 years since AI have featured a lot of other variations on that theme, particularly in the last five years. Nearly every director is freaking out about AI these days, and I guess I just don't feel like Kore-eda has ever, in his career, done what "nearly every director" is likely to do. He brings his own touch to it, to be sure, but it wasn't enough for me, and the film went on for 20 minutes longer than I thought it should.

After checking to be sure I didn't get a parking ticket -- and that was just for my ease of mind, since I wouldn't have bothered to move it once I'd already gotten the ticket -- I continued walking in that direction to St. Kilda, which took another 30 minutes or so of walking. Which was good, because I needed to get my steps in for the day.

I got to a cafe just as it was about to close, but not before they made me a flat white and an almond croissant. (They didn't make the croissant fresh. They already had it.) I noodled around on my computer while enjoying these, and would have liked to linger longer, except that people want to get out of there ASAP when they close their cafe for the day. They didn't rush me, but I rushed myself.

So then I spent another hour-and-a-half on the beach. This was really nice, as I set myself up at a picnic table for a restaurant that was closed, meaning they weren't using it. They didn't rope off their seating area, so I didn't feel like I was trespassing or anything. And I took my shoes off and kneaded my feet in the sand, which added to a sense of relaxation. I caught up on more computer stuff, including writing part of yesterday's post about my first night of MIFF. Sooner than I imagined, it was time to get back, especially if I wanted to grab a kebab on my way back for my dinner.

I again arrived in plenty of time and even ran into someone I knew in the lobby of the Astor. I caught up with him a little bit about film and MIFF in general, though I then extricated myself, because he was with a friend and I didn't want to be a third wheel. 

Farhadi's Parallel Tales, like Sheep in the Box, was a bit of a deviation for the director. We say we want our favorite directors to expand their repertoire and not limit themselves, but do we really? I'm not so sure.

At its core, the film still has the sort of "he said she said" social dynamics of what I have often referred to as the domestic thrillers he makes, whose conflicts arise from semantics and misunderstandings. That's there in this film, but it's a bit more high concept, which I didn't think suited him as well. And sadly, the film, set in Paris, contains zero Iranian content. 

I thought the first character we meet, played by Adam Bessa, might be Iranian by heritage, but IMDB says nothing about that. He's "just" a Frenchman, it would appear. And we know the others are French, because they are played by such French legends as Vincent Cassel, Isabelle Huppert and (in just one scene) Catherine Deneuve. 

It's not the first time Farhadi has made films outside Iran, though The Past at least contained Iranian characters. Everybody Knows does not contain any Iranian characters and is set in Spain, but in that case, I don't know, it just worked for me. (I'm sure Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz had something to do with that.)

This one? I missed the Iranian connection for sure. It felt like "just" a French film, which was not what I was looking for.

And the meta story worked for me only sporadically as well. Without going into too much of a synopsis, let's just say Huppert plays an aging writer whose publisher (Deneuve) tells her her books are old-fashioned and won't sell. So she essentially throws out her current manuscript, which is a love triangle based on what she imagines is happening in an apartment across the way in which the two men and one woman produce foley work for films. Adam, the character played by the aforementioned Adam Bassa, is an ex-con who has been hired to be sort of an assistant to the aging writer, and he essentially fishes the manuscript out of the trash and passes it off as his own. He uses it has an excuse to meet the female foley artist, who has caught his fancy, and a "life imitates art" situation arises out of her imagined story in the manuscript and the actual reality of the three foley artists.

Parallel Tales deserves more than that quick synopsis if we want to pull apart everything it's doing, but I've got to be honest with you: I've got to go make dinner.

Suffice it to say that although the film grew on me as it went, and I found there to be some interesting elements in how the story wraps up, before then I did not get enough of a sense of what makes this distinctly an Asghar Farhadi film. Like, I wouldn't say I was surprised if you told me he'd directed it, but that certain something that has allowed almost all of his films to profoundly impact me -- save the aforementioned The Salesman -- just wasn't present here in the quantity I wanted it to be.

Okay, I now have almost a week off from MIFF before I return for another double feature next Friday. Back to our regular programming for a few days. 

Other directors whose names are (or should be) adjectives

When David Lynch passed earlier this year, I described him as the man whose name became an adjective. That was suggesting a sort of exclusivity that may not actually exist. Lynch may have been on the leading edge of that trend, but there are plenty of other directors whose names we use that way -- or might, based on a couple criteria:

1) They have something very distinctive about the sorts of movies they make in either approach or subject matter, which might lead us to name drop them when we see another movie with those characteristics by some other director;

2) They have to be well enough known that you recognize their name when you weren't necessarily expecting it to come up, and when that name is turned into an adjective;

3) Their name can actually be turned into an adjective with reasonable ease.

It's that last one that helps us narrow down our list a bit. You might think that a particular movie bears the traits of a film made by Francis Ford Coppola, for example -- though Coppola has made different enough movies that he might actually fail the first test -- but "Coppolaian" or "Coppolan" just do not work as adjectives. They don't pass the sniff test. Quentin Tarantino has the same problem, though I'd argue you might break the rules a little bit and come up with a word like "Tarantonian" just to get around it. (And I think maybe some actually have. In fact, I think I have used that word before.)

On Wednesday night I watched a movie by a director who definitely does qualify in at least two of the three respects -- to be honest, I didn't think of the one I've listed as #2 until after I started writing -- which was the inspiration for this post. And after talking about him, I'll get into some others that I think we either use or should use. 

The movie was Fireworks Wednesday, the oldest movie I've seen in the directing career of Iranian master Asghar Farhadi, and seventh overall that I've seen. I've seen the last seven now -- in reverse order, that's A Hero, Everybody Knows, The Salesman, The Past, A Separation, About Elly and Fireworks Wednesday, taking us back to 2006 -- leaving only two other features I haven't seen: Beautiful City (2004) and Dancing in the Dust (2003). 

I wasn't sure at what point he found his particular voice, which I will expound on in a moment, so I thought this film from 19 years ago might be in the vein of other Iranian masters whose names you would know, like Jafar Panahi and Abbas Kiarostami, though both of those directors have films that are replete with formal challenges, while Farhadi's are not. Or maybe I just thought it would be more like the most common form of Iranian film, by any director, that we saw in this period, in which children were often the stars as a way of avoiding the scorn and potential censorship and/or retribution of the government. 

Nope. Even in Fireworks Wednesday, Farhadi was making intricate social dramas that play more like mysteries, where semantic disagreements and misunderstandings among characters lead to escalating consequences that result in (usually minor) tragedies for everyone involved. Simply put, this was Farhadi's dominant mode in all the movies listed above that I've seen -- you might say it was his only mode if that didn't sound like a criticism. With a filmmaker like Farhadi, we cherish each new instance of this and would not ask him to vary up his style in the slightest. 

So I think "Farhadian" is an adjective that should definitely enter our vernacular among cinephiles ... and even more so if there were a significant number of other directors making films like the films he makes. (Though it's possible that only in cinephile circles would his name be recognized completely out of context ... which is why I said I'm not sure if he meets criterion #2.)

Who else we got?

1) Hitchcockian - Films like this feature clever narrative suspense, interesting camera tricks, ordinary people out of their depth and possibly a cameo by the director. 

2) Spielbergian - Films like this feature a sense of childhood wonder, often set in and around suburbia, which is endangered by the mysteries of our world (or others), often supernatural in nature. 

3) Andersonian - Films like this feature a quirky ensemble of characters, often against lovingly fussy sets and backdrops, usually involving some sort of Russian nesting doll narrative structure. (Note: There is a slight risk of confusing Wes and Paul Thomas, but context should usually help sort that out -- and it also means Paul Thomas has to give up his claim to having an adjectival name, because he is just not as distinctive in style as Wes.)

4) Scorsesian - Films like this are epic in length, showcase audacious camera technique, use classic rock in memorable ways, and contain organizational infrastructures that either are, or resemble, organized crime.

5) Kaufmanian - Films like this involve a no-confidence schlub as a protagonist and likely a deconstruction of the ordinary rules of filmmaking and/or narrative structure, with an emphasis on the self. 

6) Gondrian - Films like this feature a lot of DIY technique involving construction paper or the equivalent, and often a bit of dream logic.

7) Fincherian - Films like this involve sleek camerawork and editing, and look into the darker parts of our souls. 

8) Hughesian - Films like this involve teenagers coming of age in situations usually involving high comedy (context helps for this one). 

9) Von Trierian - Films like this involve masochism and possibly mild to heavy misogyny. 

10) Shyamalanian - Films like this feature a labored twist, a high concept, some amount of horror ... and possibly a cameo by the director. 

I could keep going, but the adjectives might get more obscure and ten is a good place to stop. 

I'd like to include someone like Robert Altman for his very distinctive style and subject matter, and "Altmanian" does sort of work as an adjective ... but I just don't think I could ever see myself using it. You just know if it works or if it does not work. I think "Burtonian" has the same problem. (Which is probably why I didn't think of this post idea a few nights earlier, when I rewatched Edward Scissorhands for the first time in a quarter century.)

I also thought of Orson Welles, and "Wellesian" certainly does work ... but I don't know that I could focus in on a signature Welles style that would warrant the use of the adjective.

In fact we may have more examples of directors (or directing duos) with distinctive styles who don't work than who do. "Bergmanian" and "Coenian" also don't work, though we would absolutely want to use those adjectives if we could. Single-syllable last names often don't work. Just try "Croweian" or "Leeian" and you will see what I'm talking about. Then again, David Lynch has a one-syllable last name. Or, had. 

Overall I guess it is a select group that meet all three criteria, possibly not including the actual inspiration for the post. So while in many cases, we might still be inclined to make the comparison when writing about film, but we are more likely to have to use the more ungainly phrasing "it resembles the films of Joel and Ethan Coen" than that it is "Coenian."

Performers and directors of the decade

Do I really need to do two follow-up posts to my best of the decade post?

Duh.

But this is the last, I promise.

As I was going through my list of 87 movies identified for further reconsideration for my best of the decade (82 of which I ultimately watched), I noticed both actors and directors appearing multiple times across the films. That naturally got the wheels spinning for me to honor them separately, hence this post.

I won't write an additional post this time explaining how I did it, but will give you a little bit on that right here.

For starters, I want to explain that this is not some be-all, end-all examination of who were the "best" actors or actresses (or directors) this past decade. That kind of thing might involve tallying Oscar nominations and the like, and that might be an interesting separate exercise, but that's not what I'm doing today. The honors in this post are based only on which movies I liked the best, so they ignore what I might have thought were great performances in mediocre movies. It seemed like the most effective way to filter and manage a post like this, while also keeping it very subjective to my own tastes.

And yet, there is also a non-subjective element to it. Unlike my "three who had a good year" segments in my year-end wrap-up posts, the methodology I'm using does not allow me to choose one person over another based on more nebulous, slippery criteria. I'm going by sheer number of appearances in my favorite films here, with a little wiggle room based on ties and factors like whether the person's work contributed significantly to my affection for the film. So if a dominant percentage of the actors who recurred in my favorite films are of a particular racial composition -- er, white -- then that isn't the result of a specific choice made by me in January of 2020. It's what the numbers bore out over time. And, I suppose, the cumulative effect of a number of small, individual choices. Hey, what can I say, I watched what I watched and I loved what I loved.

I'll also say that either actors or directors who did good work in 2019 are slightly disadvantaged by my system. If 2019 were a year in the middle of the decade rather than at the end, I'd have longer to figure out if those films were going to endure with me, and I would have reconsidered more of them, possibly even some that landed outside my top ten. I think that's just kind of inevitable with years at the end of the decade. Sorry 2019.

So director was pretty straightforward, as each film has only one of them, or at most two. (Okay, okay, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has three.) I put the 87 films in a spreadsheet, slapped the director's name(s) next to each, and sorted by the second column, thereby figuring out who appeared the most. Done and done. As there were only seven directors who had more than one film appear, I had to go outside the 87 in support of the director who appeared as a third honorable mention, but that seemed fair.

Actors were a bit more tricky. I also used a spreadsheet, and I went through the films listing every actor who was either of note or who had any likelihood of appearing in another of my films. For example, I didn't get too hung up on the cast of Tanna (though I did list the two leads) because I knew it was just academic to include them. This meant that some actors got credit for only a very small role in some of their films, but I did my best to account for that as well in breaking ties. In the end, I identified 278 (!) different actors across the 87 films, 240 of whom appeared in only one film.

Tedious. Exhaustive. That's me.

It may go without saying, but if it doesn't, I'll say it now. I didn't penalize anyone for appearing in/making bad films. You could have spent the entire decade making shithouse movies, but if you made two or three that I really loved, you were in. I did decide to mention the moves that may have detracted from their clean records, as you will see, and may have used them once or twice to break a tie. But I was by no means consistent about that.

Okay! Here we go.

Actresses of the decade

1. Emily Blunt 
Considered from the 87: Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Looper (2012), Sicario (2015), Your Sister's Sister (2012)
It was easy enough to award Blunt the accompanying art to this post, as she was the only performer to appear in four films from the original list of 87*. (See all the way at the bottom of this post for explanation of asterisk.) In a weird and surprising phenomenon, though, none of those films appeared in either my top 25 or my honorable mentions. Your Sister's Sister, my #2 of 2012, came closest. That does nothing to tarnish the way Blunt announced herself this decade, becoming one of the most capable A-list stars who you also never worried about in terms of her craft. She mostly played tough, as we would expect from female characters written really carefully nowadays, but I may have found the vulnerability she displayed in Sister to be some of her most affecting work this decade. I find it hard to believe that this talented actress has never earned an Oscar nomination (she was robbed for Sicario), and I hope to see that change in the coming years. Interestingly, her "imperial period" (to borrow a phrase usually reserved for music artists) occurred entirely within a four year span from 2012 to 2015, when all four of the above movies were released. But that's not to say she didn't do good work elsewhere in the decade, as you will see below.
Other notable works this decade: The Five-Year Engagement (2012) (really liked it), Mary Poppins Returns (2018) (liked it), A Quiet Place (2018) (really liked it)
Possible detractors: The Girl on the Train (2016) (didn't like it), Into the Woods (2014) (hated it)

2. Zoe Kazan
Considered from the 87: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), Meek's Cutoff (2011), Ruby Sparks (2012)
It may be surprising to see Kazan on this list, especially at #2, but she makes it on quality rather than quantity. Kazan was not in a lot of movies this decade compared to some of her peers -- she also spent some time writing -- but whenever she did appear on screen, she was great. I'm glad to have this opportunity to throw some love to my #1 of 2012, which was the only #1 I left off my top 25 (it was an honorable mention). As both writer and star of Ruby Sparks, Kazan is perhaps more responsible than anyone else for the success of that movie, a sly attack on the lazy screenwriting trope of the manic pixie dream girl. Contrary to what you might think, that was not a role she herself played very often, as her two other choices I considered are oddly similar, both involving characters on long and fateful wagon train trips across country. She may have been a part of the ensemble in Meek's Cutoff, but she carried the brunt of the effectiveness of the best segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which I was also sorry I could not give any more love before now.
Other notable works this decade: The Big Sick (2017) (liked it), What If (2013) (really liked it)
Possible detractors: The Pretty One (2013) (didn't like it)

3. Scarlett Johansson
Considered for the 87: Isle of Dogs (2018), Under the Skin (2014)
In the end, I really only considered one film where Johansson plays a major role, Under the Skin, in which she is pretty much the entire thing. Her role in Isle of Dogs, kind of a random choice to consider as it was only my #15 of 2018, couldn't really be said to move the needle in that giant ensemble cast. But that doesn't tell the true story of Johansson's decade, one in which I twice named her as one of three "who had a good year" (let's forget the once she was named to "three who had a bad year"). Scarlett Johansson was all over this decade, doing increasingly interesting and increasingly more realistic work as the 2010s went on. We always knew she could play a fembot -- that's pretty much the role in Under the Skin -- but her Oscar nomination for Marriage Story was based purely on her ability to portray an actual person. So when looking to why Scarlett Johansson makes this list, we may have to look more to the films down below this text than those above it.
Other notable works this decade: Avengers: Endgame (2019) (loved it), Captain America: Civil War (2016) (loved it), Her (2013) (really liked it), Jojo Rabbit (2019) (loved it), Marriage Story (2019) (really liked it)
Possible detractors: Ghost in the Shell (2017) (didn't like it), Rough Night (2017) (didn't like it)

4. Nicole Kidman
Considered from the 87: The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), Rabbit Hole (2010)
I may have really fallen in love with the acting skills of Nicole Kidman last decade, after following the rest of the world and pretty much snubbing her for the first 10-15 years of her career. But she came on strong at the start of the 2010s by giving perhaps my favorite naturalistic performance of the decade in Rabbit Hole. That didn't mean she couldn't still groove to the kind of weirdness she found with Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut or with Jonathan Glazer in Birth. She teamed up with Yorgos Lanthimos for The Killing of a Sacred Deer and played a perfect type of sultry ice princess (if you'll go with me on that possibility) who isn't quite knowable. Kidman likes to work so her choices haven't always worked for me (Just Go With It, anyone?), but she has continued raising the bar throughout the decade, perhaps most notably in places I have yet to see her (Big Little Lies). My kinship with her is such that I feel defensive on her behalf when people snipe at her about plastic surgery or whatever other things they think she's guilty of. If Kidman really is worried about her age, she needn't be. At 52, she still looks great, but that doesn't matter, because those skills translate at any age.
Other notable works from decade: The Beguiled (2017) (loved it), The Family Fang (2015) (really liked it), Lion (2016) (loved it), The Paperboy (2012) (liked it)
Possible detractors: Just Go With It (2011) (didn't like it)

5. Jennifer Lawrence 
Considered from the 87: mother! (2017), Winter's Bone (2010)

It’s hard to believe that Jennifer Lawrence is someone we have known for only ten years, as her entire known career falls within this past decade. Winter’s Bone may not have actually been her first professional work, but it was the first time most people had ever seen her – unless you watched (ahem) The Bill Engvall Show. She went on to be nominated for four Oscars over the course of the next decade, winning one. Lawrence’s toughness and girl-next-door authenticity were both on display in Winter’s Bone, but my favorite performance she gave this decade might be the one where she had her bearings the least. Darren Aronofsky’s mother! subjects her to nearly von Trierian levels of sadism in a story about how a young bride’s life is falling apart after her famous older husband starts losing interest in her, which is only one of a kajillion interpretations of the film. There’s no other way to interpret the performance of Lawrence than brilliant as she looks on in horror at the social contract exploding around her, and her house becoming the site of nothing less than biblical apocalypse. It’s sad to me that Lawrence has taken a step back from the spotlight as I am interested every time I see her name attached to a project. 

Other notable works this decade: American Hustle (liked it), The Hunger Games (2012) (really liked it), Silver Linings Playbook (2012) (loved it), X-Men: First Class (2011) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: Joy (2015) (didn't like it), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) (hated it)

Honorable mentions

1. Rooney Mara

Considered from the 87: A Ghost Story (2017), The Social Network (2010)

Other notable works this decade: Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) (liked it), Carol (2015) (liked it), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) (really liked it), Her (really liked it), Side Effects (2013) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: Mary Magdalene (2018) (didn't like it), Pan (2015) (hated it)

2. Emma Stone

Considered from the 87: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), La La Land (2016)

Other notable works this decade: Battle of the Sexes (2017) (really liked it), Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) (loved it), Easy A (2010) (really liked it), The Favourite (2018) (really liked it), The Help (2011) (liked it), Magic in the Moonlight (2014) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: Aloha (2015) (didn't like it), Irrational Man (2015) (hated it), Movie 43 (2013) (hated it), Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) (didn't like it)

3. Kristen Wiig

Considered from the 87: mother! (2017), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), The Skeleton Twins (2014)

Other notable works this decade: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013) (really liked it), Bridesmaids (2011) (loved it), Date Night (2010) (really liked it), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) (loved it), Ghostbusters (2016) (liked it), Her (2013) (really liked it), How to Train Your Dragon (2010) (really liked it), The Martian (2015) (really liked it), Masterminds (2016) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: Hateship, Loveship (2013) (didn't like it), Nasty Baby (2015) (hated it), Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) (didn't like it)  

Actors of the decade

1. Ethan Hawke
Considered from the 87: Before Midnight (2013), Boyhood (2014), First Reformed (2018)

It was a pretty straightforward choice to select Hawke as my #1 for the decade, as he appeared in three films I considered, all of which made either my top 25 or my honorable mentions. He has Richard Linklater to thank for two of those, and as you saw in yesterday’s post, Before Midnight was the “first alternate,” in other words, the last movie to get knocked out of my top 25. But as much as I appreciate the lived-in naturalism of the performances Hawke gives for Linklater, his collaborator for more than 20 years now, I think my favorite Hawke performance of the decade was the slightly more stylized one he gave for Paul Schrader in First Reformed. That’s not to say his portrayal of Ernst Toller is not naturalistic, but it’s a kind of heightened naturalism consistent with Schrader’s willingness to stray from realism when it suits him. I was really hoping Hawke would get Oscar nominated for that performance, which would have been only his third, but at least many other critics groups recognized his work. Hawke has been a consummate professional throughout his 35-year career and I know he’s always interested in breaking the boundaries of narrative cinema. It’s why I’m always interested in seeing his name attached to a new project. 

Other notable works this decade: Daybreakers (2010) (really liked it), Maggie's Plan (2015) (really liked it), Predestination (2014) (liked it), Sinister (2012) (really liked it), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: The Purge (2013) (hated it), Regression (2017) (didn't like it)

2. James Franco

Considered from the 87: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), 127 Hours (2010), Spring Breakers (2013)

James Franco is not a good guy, but hey, I don’t make the rules. Okay, I do make the rules, but I’m happy to include Franco based on the way his performance dominated (in a good way) two of my favorite movies of the decade. You can’t imagine either 127 Hours or Spring Breakers with any other actor, not because another actor could not do it – okay, I don’t know that another actor could do Alien – but because he put such a stamp on those roles that they don’t deserve to be in anyone else’s hands. The thing that blows my mind most about Alien is not that he preens like a gangsta, it’s that he’s actually a scared little boy preening like a gangsta, which most actors would not have thought to bring to that role. 127 Hours features a guy who is scared in a different way and is nearly being driven out of his mind from hunger and exhaustion, which Franco expresses perfectly. He’s not hugely important one way or another to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs so that’s just gravy. The much-deserved shaming of Franco in the latter half of this decade was disappointing to me not because I feel an inherent warmth toward the man, but because it means that going forward, he won’t likely get the same opportunities to give us more performances like these. 

Other notable works this decade: Date Night (2010) (really liked it), The Disaster Artist (2017) (really liked it), Howl (2010) (really liked it), The Interview (2014) (loved it), Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) (loved it), This is the End (2013) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) (didn't like it), Why Him? (2016) (hated it)

3. Adam Driver 
Considered from the 87: BlacKkKlansman (2018), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Lincoln (2012), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Adam Driver may be the most interesting case on this whole list as he packed a decade’s worth of good performances into essentially a half-decade. Okay, Inside Llewyn Davis isn’t the second half of the decade, but I love his performance as Al Cody more in retrospect than I really recognized it at the time. (“Outer … SPACE!”) Speaking of outer space, it was when he emerged as Kylo Ren in 2015 that I started to appreciate the things that had eluded me about Driver when I first encountered him on Girls (the few episodes I watched). Three excellent turns as the unhinged spawn of Han and Leia really sold me on his innate skills that go well beyond his kind of mumblecore beginnings. This is the way Hayden Christensen wished he could have played Anakin Skywalker. Then my Driver lovefest was bolstered by his work with Spike Lee in BlacKkKlansman, in which he has to act the part of a guy who’s acting a part, which is no mean feat. At decade’s end I feel like I want Adam Driver to be in every new movie that gets made, and the rest of the world is catching up to me as he has now been nominated for Oscars in consecutive years.
Other notable works this decade: Frances Ha (2012) (loved it), J. Edgar (2011) (really liked it), Marriage Story (2019) (really liked it), Paterson (2016) (loved it), Silence (2016) (liked it), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) (really liked it), While We're Young (2014) (liked it)
Possible detractors: The Dead Don't Die (2019) (hated it), The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2019) (didn't like it)

4. Paul Dano
Considered from the 87: Looper (2012), Meek's Cutoff (2011), Ruby Sparks (2012)

If we went back to the start of the century, Paul Dano would be even higher than this, but he doesn’t get to count movies like The Girl Next Door and There Will Be Blood for this decade. That said, the films he does get to count are quite solid, and his power coupling with Zoe Kazan (I just looked, they’re still together!) gets its second entrant on this list. Paul Dano has been kind of John Cusack’s heir apparent as the “weird looking” everyman leading man, which is appropriate as he and Cusack played the same character in Love & Mercy, a film that I could have revisited by virtue of it landing at #4 for me in 2015, but decided to rule it out from the start. He used those traits to their fullest in Ruby Sparks, but his intense desperation has been present in all of his roles this decade, from Looper to Swiss Army Man (another top ten movie I pre-emptively ruled out) to Meek’s Cutoff. He’s pursued other interests the last few years, making his feature directing debut with a film I did not like, Wildlife. Here’s hoping he gets back to what he does best.

Other notable works this decade: Love & Mercy (2015) (loved it), Okja (2017) (really liked it), Prisoners (2013) (really liked it), Swiss Army Man (2016) (loved it), 12 Years a Slave (2013) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: Cowboys & Aliens (2011) (hated it), Wildlife (2018) (as director) (didn't like it)

5. Chris Pine

Considered from the 87: Hell or High Water (2016), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Wonder Woman (2017)

Captain Kirk was the role that really put Chris Pine on the map at the end of last decade, but that isn’t even where he’s shone in this one. He really demonstrated the range of his abilities in performances both essentially Kirk-like (funny and charming, the way he is in Wonder Woman) and those that are pretty much the exact opposite of that (laconic and world-weary, the way he is in Hell or High Water). In fact, Pine is so good in Hell or High Water – though he’s not the only one – that I was kind of shocked when the movie couldn’t find its way into my top 25 of the decade, settling for an honorable mention. His role in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a lot more brief, and at first I kind of wished they’d given him Jake Johnson’s role until I saw how good Johnson was. The point is, at this point, I’ve decided beyond a shadow of a doubt who is the “best Chris” out of him, Hemsworth, Pratt and Evans. Just as he charmed the pants off of Gal Gadot, he’s charmed the pants off me, and that’s not even the only mode he has – not nearly.

Other notable works this decade: Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) (liked it), Star Trek Into Darkness (2012) (liked it), Z for Zachariah (2015) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: Into the Woods (2014) (hated it), A Wrinkle in Time (2018) (didn't like it)

Honorable mentions

1. Oscar Isaac

Considered from the 87: Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Other notable works this decade: Annihilation (2018) (really liked it), Drive (2011) (liked it), Ex Machina (2015) (loved it), A Most Violent Year (2014) (liked it), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: The Addams Family (2019) (didn't like it), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) (didn't like it)  

2. Javier Bardem

Considered from the 87: Everybody Knows (2018), mother! (2017)

Other notable works this decade: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) (liked it), Skyfall (2012) (liked it), To the Wonder (2013) (really liked it)

Possible detractors: The Counselor (2013) (didn't like it), The Last Face (2017) (hated it)

3. Mahershala Ali

Considered from the 87: Moonlight (2016), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Other notable works this decade: Green Book (2018) (liked it), Hidden Figures (2016) (liked it), The Place Beyond the Pines (2013) (liked it)

Possible detractors: Alita: Battle Angel (2019) (didn't like it)

Directors of the decade

1. Asghar Farhadi

Considered from the 87: Everybody Knows (2018), The Past (2013), A Separation (2011)

Farhadi easily wins the decade by being the only director who had three films that I considered for the decade’s best. What’s more, the fourth film he released this past decade – 2016’s The Salesman – won the best foreign language film Oscar, giving him two (along with A Separation). That I think this film is only mediocre is an indication of just how successful Farhadi has been. (Or maybe I’m still just mad at the movie for stealing the Oscar that rightfully belonged to Toni Erdmann.) When you consider that his 2009 film, About Elly, was also unearthed and made more generally available this decade, and that it is also a masterpiece, you have a truly staggering body of work to grapple with. Two other factors contribute to making these ten years all the more astonishing for Farhadi: 1) He’s an Iranian director, yet somehow avoided the type of government scrutiny that torpedoed fellow countryman Jafar Panahi, while still making films that seem pointed in their criticism of Iranian society; 2) He directed films in three different languages, those being Persian, French and Spanish. What a decade. 

Other works this decade: The Salesman (2016) (liked it)

2. Richard Linklater 

Considered from the 87: Before Midnight (2013), Boyhood (2014)

Linklater came within a hair of getting two films in my top 25, which would have made him one of only two directors to do that (see my #3), and only the third to do it in the history of these decade-end lists (Cameron Crowe had two in my top ten last decade, if you can believe it). But just because I decided Before Midnight was only my #26, it doesn’t take away from a decade of critical acclaim and exquisite invention for Linklater. It was impressive enough when he submitted his third entry in the best “aging along with the characters” series since Michael Apted’s Up movies. But then, as something of a surprise, the very next year he told everyone he’d been working on a movie for the past 12 years using the same four actors at different ages. Who does that? The answer is, the guy who last decade was experimenting with rotoscoping, which allowed him to put Waking Life on my last best of the decade list. Linklater has never been flashy with his technique (unless, of course, he’s using rotoscoping), but he has established himself as able to convey thoughtful humanism like few of his peers. He’s also great with nostalgia, as exemplified in one of the other movies below.

Other works this decade: Bernie (2011) (really liked it), Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) (really liked it), Last Flag Flying (2018) (haven't seen it), Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) (didn't like it)

3. Byron Howard 

Considered from the 87: Tangled (2010), Zootopia (2016)

Who? Exactly. And that explains why the only man to get two movies in my top 25 for the decade is only my third-best director for the decade (and why I haven't mentioned this feat in either of my previous decade-end posts). It's hard for most people, including myself, to understand exactly what role a director has in bringing an animated movie to the screen, since animation is one arena in which we don't typically think of the director as the primary auteur. In fact, the director rarely even has sole credit, and that was the case with Howard in each of his movies that made my top 25. But the fact remains that whether with Nathan Greno on Tangled or Rich Moore on Zootopia, Howard helped make two absolutely fantastic 2010s animated movies a reality. Did he tell the actors how to say their lines? Did he suggest how to "set up the camera"? To the first, probably yes; to the second, I have no idea. But without Byron Howard, I do know that it's a far less rich decade for animated movies. And hey, at the very least, we know he can hold a stuffed animal. 

Other works this decade: None

4. Barry Jenkins

Considered from the 87: If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Moonlight (2016)
I greatly regretted that I couldn’t summon more affection than I did for Moonlight. I placed it in my top ten for 2016, at #10, but I felt like there might have been films below it where my personal affection was slightly higher (sorry, Hello My Name is Doris). If the whole film remained at the high level of its first third, which showcased a director I’d never heard of (Barry Jenkins) and all that this “newcomer” possesses in terms of craft, it’d have been my #1 of that year. I did revisit Moonlight for this project to be sure I didn’t actually love it (I didn’t), but there was no artificial inflation when it came to If Beale Street Could Talk, which floored me the first time and then pushed me through the floor into the earth on the second. Here Jenkins’ skills were matched with a story that was overall more resonant with me, and it left me in a near-stupor state. Moonlight would have probably resonated with me just as much if it had kept its momentum from the Mahershala Ali-led first act, which only goes to show that not only can Barry Jenkins pick ‘em, he can film ‘em too. 

Other works this decade: None

5. Gaspar Noe

Considered from the 87: Climax (2018), Enter the Void (2010)

Gaspar Noe made three films this decade, two of which I saw twice, and I also twice watched his one movie from last decade, Irreversible. That means I was never long without the singular weirdness of this French filmmaker, who is known for putting his entire closing credits – often smashed at the screen in crazy fonts, and with strobe lights and industrial music – at the beginning of the film rather than the end. Each Noe film thereby introduces you to the fact that you’re in for a ride, and a ride is what you get. Not only is his subject matter always shocking – graphically sexual in nature when it is not graphically violent, and sometimes both at once – but he films it in a way you’ve literally never seen before. Most of Enter the Void is shot from above, from the angle of a wandering spirit flying over the city of Tokyo. In Love, you get a head-on view of a penis ejaculating. In Climax, the camera goes literally everywhere, in such a manner that the only way I could think to describe it in my review was that it seemed to be on a fishing rod dangling over its subjects. I’m not sure how Noe does what he does, but I love it. 

Other works this decade: Love (2015) (liked it)

Honorable mentions

1. Joel & Ethan Coen
Considered from the 87: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Other works this decade: Hail, Caesar! (2016) (didn't like it), True Grit (2010) (liked it)

2. Damien Chazelle
Considered from the 87: La La Land (2016), Whiplash (2014)
Other works this decade: First Man (2018) (really liked it)

3. Bong Joon-ho
Considered from the 87: Parasite (2019)
Other works this decade: Okja (2017) (really liked it), Snowpiercer (2013) (loved it)

Okay! That'll do.

Thanks for tuning in to a full week of year-end and decade-end writing. Tomorrow I will look forward to 2020 in a very explicit way by introducing you to what I'm going to be watching as a monthly series this year.

Oh, and here's that asterisk I promised you earlier:

* - I only belatedly noticed that Adam Driver also appeared in four of the 87 movies when I determined he had a small role in Lincoln. I had already written most of this post at that point, so I did not adjust my perspective mid-stream and allowed Blunt to keep the spotlight to herself.