The 250 highest-rated narrative feature films of the 2010s, according to the Letterboxd community (as at 1 January 2020).
To be included, films had to be narrative, 60 minutes or longer, have a 1,000-view minimum, and have had a US theatrical or streaming release between 1/1/2010 and 12/31/2019 (with some leeway for films that had no US distribution). We have allowed TV movies, but not direct-to-video. We’ve made a special exclusion to a few titles with illegitimate ratings (i.e. films that share titles with popular TV shows including Stranger Things, Community and The Crown).
The following eligible films, which were released in their home countries in 2019, won’t have US releases until 2020 and are therefore ineligible (we’re looking at…
The 250 highest-rated narrative feature films of the 2010s, according to the Letterboxd community (as at 1 January 2020).
To be included, films had to be narrative, 60 minutes or longer, have a 1,000-view minimum, and have had a US theatrical or streaming release between 1/1/2010 and 12/31/2019 (with some leeway for films that had no US distribution). We have allowed TV movies, but not direct-to-video. We’ve made a special exclusion to a few titles with illegitimate ratings (i.e. films that share titles with popular TV shows including Stranger Things, Community and The Crown).
The following eligible films, which were released in their home countries in 2019, won’t have US releases until 2020 and are therefore ineligible (we’re looking at amending this rule in the future): Bacurau, System Crasher, And Then We Danced, Bait, Vitalina Varela, Two Blue Stripes, So Long, My Son, Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 and Sorry We Missed You.
Statistics of Interest:
The busiest directors on this list were Denis Villeneuve and Taika Waititi, with five films each (one of Taika’s was co-directed with Jemaine Clement). With three films each are Hirokazu Kore-eda, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Lee Chang-dong, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
The 21 women directors on the list are Greta Gerwig and Naoko Yamada (twice each), Anna Muylaert, Lulu Wang, Nadine Labaki, Olivia Wilde, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Ronit Elkabetz, Dee Rees, Nora Twomey, Alma Har’el, Rebecca Sugar, Chloé Zhao, Jennifer Fox, Yoon Ga-eun, Alice Rohrwacher, Lynne Ramsay, Cristina Gallego, Nakamura Shouko, Dorota Kobiela, and Maren Ade.
Number of films from this list that appear on our other Top 2010s lists:
Animated Movies: 30
Directed by Women: 20
International Feature Films: 123 (including animated films)
Directorial Debuts: 48
There are some ranking discrepancies between these lists due to the varying dates of publication—we’ll update all lists early in the new year to correct any omissions (such as Love Exposure and Secret Sunshine from the International Feature list).
2017 had the highest number of entries (33) in the list, with 2019 close behind (31).
Best film by year (based on US release):
2010: Love Exposure
2011: A Separation
2012: It’s Such a Beautiful Day
2013: Short Term 12
2014: Whiplash
2015: Mad Max: Fury Road
2016: The Handmaiden
2017: Coco
2018: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2019: Parasite
Letterboxd Community Award Best Picture winners
1st Annual Awards (2014): Her—#43
2nd: Boyhood—unranked
3rd: Mad Max: Fury Road—#17
4th: La La Land—#107
5th: Call Me By Your Name—#24
6th: Roma—#27
Number of films on the overall Letterboxd Top 250: 29
Additional credit to Devin Dulany who has been maintaining an unofficial top 100 films of the 2010s list weekly for the past three years.
