After plenty of time spent overthinking this, I figured I just needed to call it good so it actually gets done before it’s time to start on the list for the next decade. Added factors to consider when doing a best-of-the-decade list versus a best-of-the-year list are rewatchability and legacy. I did make a point to rewatch more than half of my contenders (and all of the top 9) to see how well they held up after a second viewing.
Ultimately, I decided to rank these not based on the “best,” or even necessarily my favorite, but those I would most passionately advocate for and suggest to others with similar taste. So there a few that I acknowledge likely aren’t best-of-the-decade caliber, but I felt they were underrated enough that I wanted to champion them. My plan here is to quote the original annual list of mine that they initially appeared on with perhaps a brief comment on how I view the film now. I won’t worry about honorable mentions as you can see my individual annuals lists for other films that were in consideration. There are also five movies that leapfrogged other movies from my original lists, including the first three I’ll talk about (18-20).
So, let’s get started.
20. Phoenix (2015)
“This is a German film I hadn’t even heard of until right before I watched it. It starts with a solid and intriguing premise: a Holocaust survivor immediately after the war undergoes facial reconstruction surgery due to wounds suffered in the concentration camps. She seeks out her husband who doesn’t recognize her and thinks she’s dead. She’s too scared to just come right out and tell him who she is as she’s self-conscious of her altered appearance. He spots her and, due to her resemblance to his wife, recruits her to help him claim her inheritance. So the bulk of the movie is him grooming her to act like… her, while she tries to discover if her husband truly loved her or if he was perhaps the one who betrayed her to the Nazis. And, if that’s not solid enough, it has one of the best endings of any film I have ever seen. Check this one out!”
This film never left my mind and held up to a rewatch. I’d move it from #6 to #3 on my 2015 list.
19. Chef (2014)
“While it may be unambitious and feel a tad amateurish (let’s call it ‘unpolished’), Chef is bold and uncompromising in its simplicity. It serves as Jon Favreau’s love letter to food and family. There are extended scenes of food preparation that would have been cut from most movies, but they work beautifully here. If you’re looking for that ‘feel good movie of the year,’ this is it.”
I hadn’t seen it since the theater in 2014 and I loved it even more the second time around. I would retroactively move it from #5 to #2 on my 2014 list. A great change of pace for Favreau who, while he began his career with small films like this (Swingers), has lived more recently in the blockbuster world of Marvel movies and “live-action” Disney remakes (The Jungle Book and The Lion King). He’s also the creator of the hit Disney+ show The Mandalorian. Far from a household name, Favreau is quietly having an historic career in Hollywood.
18. Frances Ha (2013)
This is the only film on my best-of-the-decade list that was only an honorable mention for me the year it came out, but it lingered more in mind than most other movies over the past decade. Placing it in here also ties into my working theory that Greta Gerwig is a bonafide genius still just at the beginning of a great career. Before Lady Bird and Little Women, she co-wrote and starred in this small black and white film set in New York. She plays the titular, struggling Frances who I would describe as a sort of manic pacifist. She’s irresponsible and all over the place while being mostly understated. It’s a quirky character who feels 100% genuine. Mark my words, by the time we’re putting together the best films of the 2020s, we’ll be including an Oscar-winning Greta Gerwig film.
17. La La Land (2016)
“This does appear to be the hands-down favorite to win best picture at this point and it’s completely deserved. The only chink in its armor being the lack of a SAG cast nomination (Braveheart was the last best pic winner without one), but it’s basically a two-person show and Gosling and Stone are each nominated on their own. I’m reminded of when Billy Crystal joked at the Oscars five years ago that The Artist had the unfair advantage of being a really fun movie that everyone liked. That’s La La Land. I had an ear-to-ear grin for virtually the entire runtime. I never really liked musicals growing up, but have warmed somewhat to them recently. I need to rewatch Chicago, because I really didn’t like it at the time. But I think the bigger difference is whether the music is just the medium of the story or whether the movie actually EARNS the music. In Chicago, the music is separate from the story being told, but in La La Land the music is a natural extension of the story. No, it’s not as organic as it is in Sing Street, but it still belongs. I’m a bit wary that I’d just rank it here for myself so that I’d see the anticipated best picture winner, but it’s delightful and really is the movie from this year that you most need to see. It’s just what movies are supposed to be–fun and entertaining–yet still avoids being exactly what you think it’s going to be. It’s likely the only movie from this year that will still be a household name in twenty years.”
So, yeah, obviously I didn’t see the upset by Moonlight coming, not to mention the minor debacle of La La Land getting announced as the best picture winner only to have it retracted when the mistake was realized. I still thoroughly enjoyed this on the rewatch, but I do think I overestimated its relevance longterm.
16. Leave No Trace (2018)
“This is a film that gets the viewer to ask a lot of questions and is pretty stingy with the answers, but I think they’re there. We meet a father and his teenage daughter living in the woods–only the woods are Forest Park in Portland, Oregon (a park so large it really is a forest). They get busted when a jogger sees the daughter and are brought in by social services. The daughter insists they aren’t homeless–they live in the woods; that’s their home. She proves she’s ahead of grade level from a school standpoint so they don’t separate her from her dad. They are set up in a small house, but the dad just can’t handle being in society. What it boils down to is this: he’s a former marine with PTSD and, though they never explicitly say it, the only thing keeping him from killing himself is living in the woods away from the world. So the major conflict in the movie becomes the daughter who loves her dad (mom died when she was a baby) but wants to live a normal life, socializing, etc. The thought I couldn’t help having was the extent to which the dad is a victim. We send soldiers into action and don’t get them the help they need when they get back. We, as a society, did this to him and those like him. It’s a slow-paced, heartfelt story with great performances by the two leads. Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma, Hell or High Water) plays the dad.”
I didn’t rewatch this one as it was only about a year ago that I watched it in the first place. I didn’t mention that the daughter is played by Thomasin McKenzie who also stars in Jo Jo Rabbit. Both performances highlight her soft-spokenness, but she has a stunning presence on screen and I’d be interested to see her challenged more in the future.
15. Roma (2018)
“So, I get that this movie is not for everyone. It’s not really even something that I’d typically be excited about. It’s slow to the point that many people have told me just how boring they find it. Even I got frustrated with the degree to which is took its time. It ends on a powerful emotional note and by the time it was over I just kinda nodded and thought it was pretty solid. But I couldn’t shake it. Instead of fading from memory, Roma actually made more of an impression as the days passed. So, I say this fully acknowledging it comes from a place of film snobbery: Roma is one of greatest works of film art ever created. It will be studied and revered a hundred years from now along with Citizen Kane, The Seventh Seal, Metropolis, etc. So, if you fell asleep during it, I get it, but also know that this is what those voting for it to win all these awards are recognizing. It is a stunning and instantly timeless work of art.”
Parasite finally got over the hump this year by becoming the first-ever foreign language film to win best picture, but Roma very nearly did it just the year before. I stand by my initial review. Not one of my favorites, but it’s an important film.
14. Parasite (2019)
“This film is all about people who aren’t whom they seem to be. We, as the audience, think we’re in on it at first as we follow a down-on-their-luck family lying their way into various jobs working for a wealthy family, all while pretending not to know each other. Then, halfway through, we realize the movie itself isn’t what it appears to be. What began as a lighthearted tale of wondering whether or not our charming scamps would be discovered, turns on a dime into a tense thriller. The brilliance of it is that it works seamlessly. Thematically the film deals with (if perhaps a bit heavy-handedly) the dichotomy of rich vs poor, and whether or not people get what they deserve. There’s plenty of buzz that this could become the first ever foreign language film to win the Oscar for best picture. I could live with that.”
It did, it did, it did win best picture! I feel I’m more excited for its historic win than I am for the movie itself, but it’s really good.
13. The Big Short (2015)
“A movie about the 2008 financial meltdown? Complete with fairly detailed explanations of the minutia of our financial system? Sounds… uh, riveting. Well, that’s exactly the genius of The Big Short. They took what sounds like a documentary which economics grad students would fall asleep to and made it compelling and entertaining. It’s fast-paced and infuriating. We follow the small groups and individuals that saw the 2008 collapse coming. In fact, they bet millions on it happening, meaning they won when everyone else lost. That bittersweet victory is portrayed just as it should be. The concern for this movie will be how well does it hold up. In 20 years, will it even make sense to those who didn’t live through the collapse and the recession that followed? At the risk of acting like the characters in the movie, I’m betting yes. Don’t be surprised if it brings home the best picture Oscar.”
So far it does hold up. I rewatched it and felt just the same as I did the first time through and probably appreciated it a little more. It’s the fourth so far that I’d move up from it’s original spot. From #3 for me in 2015 to #2.
12. BlacKkKlansman (2018)
“Perhaps the most mind-blowing bit of trivia to emerge from this year’s awards season is that Spike Lee had never before been nominated for best director at the Oscars or had a film of his nominated for best picture. His only nominations were a best original screenplay nomination for Do the Right Thing in 1989 and for the documentary 4 Little Girls in 1997 (though he did win an honorary Oscar a few years ago). BlacKkKlansman is the perfect storm of the racial issues which Lee often puts a spotlight to and a story that feels depressingly relevant today despite being set more than 40 years ago. I didn’t realize until the day after I watched it that the lead actor, John David Washington, is, in fact, Denzel Washington’s son. He plays Ron Stallworth, the first African-American on the police force in Colorado Springs. On a whim he calls the local chapter of the KKK on the phone, pretending to be a white man. This leads to a plan to infiltrate the Klan to prevent any terrorist activities they may have planned. Obviously Ron can’t show up in person, so his partner Flip, played by Adam Driver, fills in. From there the film becomes a tense, dramatic thriller infused with plenty of humor, dark as it may be. David Duke even comes to town (played by Topher Grace). After bonding with Ron on the phone, he wants to personally be there for his induction ceremony.
“The film is almost Shakespearean in how intricately all the interpersonal connections between the characters are woven together. Ron becomes romantically involved with a political activist who he doesn’t want to find out that he’s a cop. She also becomes a target of the Klan’s wrath. Meanwhile, Flip, who is Jewish, has to keep his cool while posing as a white supremacist around men who are skeptical of newcomers. All throughout Lee parallels the story to our contemporary political zeitgeist, even invoking the death of Heather Heyer at Charlottesville in 2017 at the end.
“Ultimately, I can’t properly summarize it, but it perfectly threads the needle through the criteria I mentioned at the beginning – the best, my favorite, strong emotional impact, creative, and rewatchable. At the end of the day, there was just no other movie this year that I could rank of ahead this one.”
Nothing to add, great movie.
11. The Avengers (2012)
“I keep a running list throughout the year of the best movies I see and do a sort of loose ranking on the fly. When I first placed The Avengers at the top in May I was a little embarrassed and looked forward to all the real contenders that would come along and move it down (or off) the list where it belonged. That never happened. So, part of this ranking is the fatal flaw that everything else seemed to have (even Argo failed to properly characterize the six hostages, the rescue attempt of whom was the point of the entire movie!). I was apprehensive about this project from the moment it was announced. The first Iron Man movie was the only precursor I had seen and Joss Whedon’s involvement was the only thing that really had me interested, but even then I just figured it was him finally getting a well-earned payday and that the studios would manage to water it down. Then the second trailer for The Avengers came out and I caught a glimmer of hope. I could see Whedon’s signature in it and had fantasies of these cool Marvel characters romping in a Whedon-controlled world. I broke down and watched the other Marvel movies leading into this one and went to see The Avengers with cautious optimism. It was everything I hoped it would be. It’s not The Dark Knight (in that it doesn’t take a different approach to comic book material) but it’s not trying to be. It’s pretty standard as far as structure and tone go, but he just nails it – the drama, the action, the witty interplay between diverse, well-defined characters, everything. A bit of a guilty pleasure, maybe, but it’s my favorite movie of the year.”
I still insist that this is the best MCU movie to date. With all buzz about End Game this year, I always come back to the first, full ensemble movie they put together and pulled off flawlessly. To me, everything since is just a lesser imitation of this film.
10. Jojo Rabbit (2019)
“I seriously considered putting this at my number one spot for the sheer emotional impact it had on me. Even in the parking lot afterward I was still alternating between laughing out loud and holding back tears. It’s audacious and original and in lesser hands might have fallen flat on its face. It does begin, essentially, as a comedy about Hitler Youth after all. Jojo is a ten-year-old German boy who eagerly wants to contribute to the Nazi war effort. He knows nothing but the propaganda he’s been fed his whole life. Simplified through his childhood lens, the Germans are the good guys, led by the wonderful Adolph Hitler, and Jews are inhuman monsters like those one might find under his bed at night. We even see his imaginary friend—a kind version of Hitler whom Jojo has created from all the good things he’s heard about the fuehrer.
“Despite his best his best efforts, Jojo finds he’s too kind hearted to fight against those he’s told are his enemies. He finds cruelty appalling and earns his nickname Jojo Rabbit when he refuses to kill a rabbit at a Hitler Youth camp.
“His worldview is challenged when he discovers a teenage Jewish girl hidden in the walls of his home. She doesn’t even have horns!
“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’s something you’ve never seen before. What’s not to love?”
I do feel justified in both its #2 ranking on my 2019 list and #10 here with Taika Waititi’s win for best adapted screenplay at the Oscars. The real genius appears to be the fact that the book he based the film on has no comedic element to it. He took a WWII drama and made it successfully into a heartfelt comedy. Bravo.
9. Ex Machina (2015)
“Domhnall Gleeson stars! Yes, my theme has a point! Ol’ Domhnall stars as the ‘winning’ employee at a Google-esque company who gets the opportunity to travel to the secluded home of their owner for some unknown project. It all seems simple enough and he’s excited to get started. His boss has created a cutting-edge artificially intelligent android. Domhnall’s task is to determine whether she (as the android has the face of a beautiful woman and is named Ava) could convince someone that she is self-aware or if he can see the chinks in her facade. As he proceeds with a series of interviews with Ava, it becomes clear there is a lot more going on than just testing a new robot. What is his boss’s real agenda? Why was he specifically chosen? Is Ava actually self-aware? What starts as an intellectual exercise turns into a psychological thriller with all three parties pitting one against the other. If I had to keep only one movie from 2015 and delete the rest, Ex Machina survives. As technology continues to skyrocket and become more and more integrated with our lives, it will only become more relevant.”
Note: Domhall Gleeson just happened to be in multiple good films from 2015, hence my focus on him here.
I did find Ex Machina a little more flawed in my rewatch, but it’s still a very strong film and the questions it raises should continue to be relevant in years to come.
8. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
“I said it right after I watched it and I stand by it – this is the best movie I’ve seen in at least five years. The best picture race is the tightest in years, considered to be a runoff between this, Gravity, and American Hustle, but in my opinion it isn’t even close. The intensity and despair grabs you by the throat and won’t let go. Based on the memoir of a man who was born free in the North and then kidnapped and sold into slavery. I could spend another thousand words highlighting the turmoil of an intelligent musician forced to hide his true self for fear it will get him killed, but there’s no need. The brutality of slavery has been portrayed before, though perhaps never as raw as it is here. In my opinion it should win every one of the nine Oscars it’s up for. At the Golden Globes, however, it came away with only one, though it was the one that counted – Best Picture of the Year. It could do the same next Sunday.”
So, based on the initial impact this had on me and how it stood out in my mind, I initially had this pegged for the best movie of the decade. I still teared up during the rewatch, but overall, it wasn’t quite as strong as I remembered. Everything I said the first time stands, but, as a film, its narrative is arguably weak–a bunch of bad stuff happens to this guy, but his agency has little to no effect on the story or its outcome. That said, it’s still unbelievably powerful and an important film highlighting the horrors of slavery.
7. Boyhood (2014)
“For a while, I was calling it a virtual tie between these top three, but at the end I stopped asking myself which is the best movie and asked which movie do I want to win. At that point it was no contest. Richard Linklater has been a bold, innovative filmmaker since the beginning of his career with 1991’s Slacker, a film without a protagonist and following random people around Austin, TX, almost as if the camera were the main character looking for conversations that interested it. There was 2001’s Tape, set ENTIRELY in a single hotel room with no real action other than a riveting conversation. Real life conversation and characters are Linklater’s specialty as further evidenced in his ‘Before’ trilogy which earned Linklater two Oscar nominations for screenwriting prior to Boyhood. I first heard about the project that became Boyhood over a decade ago and was in awe of the ambition knowing few in Hollywood who would have the patience or guts to tackle a project so large in scope that would likely yield so little reward. There’s a good chance the gamble will pay off in gold trophies in a couple weeks.
“Boyhood works on so many levels for so many people and has the audacity to not even really bother with a plot. As Linklater recently told Entertainment Weekly, ‘our lives don’t have plot.’ If art serves to hold up a mirror to society, Boyhood might just offer the clearest reflection to date.”
The reverse of 12 Years a Slave, this is one I kinda didn’t expect to hold up and was not particularly excited to rewatch as it’s nearly three hours long. But it worked as well as it did the first time. I was captivated and the runtime flew by. It ended up winning just one of those gold trophies for Patricia Arquette, but I think it deserved more. This film is already being forgotten and I think that’s a huge mistake.
6. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
“This is just the third movie by Martin McDonagh, the first two being In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, which are an 84 and 82%, respectively, on rottentomatoes. Like Wright and del Toro, he’s a bold director. I mean, come on, who names a movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri? In many ways it feels like a tribute to the Coen brothers, right down to casting Frances McDormand in the lead. She stars as a woman devastated over the rape and murder of her daughter who wants to know why no arrests have been made. She pays for three billboards to be put up calling out the town’s sheriff, played by Woody Harrelson, for his inaction. He and Sam Rockwell, who plays one of his deputies, are both nominated for best supporting actor. At every turn this movie plays with your expectations. McDonagh knows where you think it might go then turns the whole movie and its head. Once you realize he’s messing with you and you start to reformulate your expectations, he proves you wrong again. It’s a movie that’ll have you white-knuckled against your armrests one moment and laughing out loud the next. It challenges you the whole way as it explores right and wrong and redemption. It has a great chance to win best picture of the year and it deserves it. It sat in my number one spot for quite awhile until I saw my number one movie of the year…”
Not much to add here either. Spoiler alert: the film that review is leading up to is #1 on this list as well.
5. Sing Street (2016)
“Check this one out on Netflix when you get a chance. It didn’t earn a single Oscar nomination but is just delightful and has an impressive 96% on RottenTomatoes. Set in Dublin in the 1980s, it’s the story of a boy putting a band together to impress a girl. Directed by John Carney who gave us the film Once in 2007–one of my all-time favorites. Like Once, the music in Sing Street is part of the narrative, so if you’re not a fan of musicals, don’t feel like you need to shy away from this one. A couple of the set pieces are mesmerizing and devastating. It’s one of those inspiring movies that makes you want to get off your butt and start living your life.”
Okay, here it is, the biggest mover for me on rewatching. I’d retroactively move it from #4 to #1 on my 2016 list. This movie is criminally underrated. It’s the only film I rewatched for this list that made me say, out loud, “I f*cking love this movie.” Literally. I said that out loud by myself near the end. I get that it’s too small to be an “Oscar” movie, but it’s just unbelievably delightful and easily one of my favorite movies of the entire decade. It’s no longer streaming on Netflix, but it’s not too hard to find.
4. The Fighter (2010)
“My favorite thing about The Fighter is that they made a movie filled with conflict without making anyone the bad guy. It would have been easy to make Micky’s crack-addicted brother or controlling mother into the villain, but even at their lowest, you know they sincerely want what is best for Micky (Mark Wahlberg). In fact, most of the conflict revolves around the debates over what is best for Micky as he makes one last shot at becoming a champion boxer. Christian Bale is one of the bigger favorites of the night in the supporting actor category as Micky’s brother Dicky. Amy Adams and Melissa Leo are also up in the supporting actress category, playing Micky’s girlfriend and mother, respectively. Wahlberg was nominated four years ago himself for The Departed and doesn’t disappoint here. He’s just the straight man at the core of the story. Boxing movies are always about heart and drive, this one adds in a full measure of love and loyalty to boot.”
When I rewatched this one, it was probably the third time I had seen and I was still getting just as into it. It may not be groundbreaking, but in a world full of great boxing movies like Rocky, Cinderella Man, Raging Bull, Creed, etc., I think The Fighter tops them all.
3. Midnight in Paris (2011)
“Similar to 500 Days of Summer from a couple of years ago in that I saw this earlier in the year and kept waiting for another movie to knock it out of my number one spot, but that never happened. Another very original idea or, at least, a very original twist on what seems at first glance to be a fairly standard romantic comedy. It is a flawed movie, but it just struck the perfect cord with me. My biggest problem with it is also the biggest compliment I can pay it – it was just too darn short; 94 minutes and I wish it had gone on for four hours.”
This is probably just a guilty pleasure. Most of the characters are pretty simplistic and even some of the performances aren’t great… but this movie feels tailor-made for me – a writer on vacation in Paris travels back in time to meet other writers. Too much fun. One of my all-time favorites.
2. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
“I’ve been a fan of Quentin Tarantino since watching Pulp Fiction in the theater during high school. I was confused, but I’d never seen anything like it. I wasn’t yet the self-styled movie expert I pretend to be today, but still recognized a bold new filmmaker. Since then he’s probably only had about a 50% hit rate with me, but even his misses aren’t true misses. It’s more like I love half of his films and the other half are just okay. Tarantino’s films have the reputation of stark violence laced with clever dialogue, all tinged with a healthy dose of adrenaline. His ability to build tension in a scene is unmatched.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect with Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, but I’d argue it is both the most and least “Tarantino” movie to date. The dialogue is there from the beginning, but the tension builds far slower than anything he’s previously done. The characters get a chance to breathe and live in the beautiful world of 1969 Hollywood that Tarantino has recreated for us.
“Leonardo DiCaprio plays a TV Western star who worries he is already past his prime as he struggles to keep his insecurities hidden from the pubic. Brad Pitt is his longtime stunt double, personal assistant, and best friend. The power dynamic is clear—Pitt’s character is essentially a servant, but he has no ego about it and just enjoys his life.
“In the background of these two, we follow a young Sharon Tate, played by Margo Robbie. She’s an up-and-coming actress married to the hot shot director Roman Polanski. The film definitely plays with the audience’s expectations and knowledge of Tate’s real life murder at the hands of Charles Manson’s minions. The character of Manson even makes a brief appearance and Pitt winds up visiting the ranch where his minions are all staying.
“I’ll dance around the spoilers here and address the criticism that Tarantino disrespects the pain of the real life figures at play here. The title of the film itself suggests that we’re in a fairy tale here and the version of Tate we are given is every bit the princess—kind and innocent. In his fairy tale, Tarantino gives us a glimpse at a world that might have been, with flawed heroes who fight to do the right thing and stand up to evil.
“This was the most fun I had at the movies this year and Tarantino’s best film since Inglourious Basterds. Supposedly he only plans on making one more film. Regardless, he’s an all-time master and will be hard-pressed to go out on a higher note than this love letter to his beloved Hollywood.”
It’s so hard to tell if recency bias it as play here, but I did see this one twice in the theater and it’s great.
1. I, Tonya (2017)
“This may have been the most unexpected moviegoing experience of my lifetime. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to make time for it this Oscar season, but heard it was fun and Allison Janney is one of the favorites to win best supporting actress for it. It was one of the last movies in this write-up that I saw and as I sat enrapt throughout, it firmly entrenched itself in my number three spot. As it was ending and the credits were starting to role, it crossed my mind that it might need to be number one. I was embarrassed at the thought. Movie-nerd though I am, was I willing to put my ego aside and admit a figure-skating movie was my favorite movie of the year? As I was crying during the credits – yes, tears streaming down my face – I knew I had no choice. I said I decided that my sorting criteria was the impact the films had on me. Well, I, Tonya hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. On the surface I agree that this makes no sense. It’s a largely comedic biopic about disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding and the idiots in her life that ruined her career by attacking Nancy Kerrigan (whether or not Tonya knew about it ahead of time). But, there is so, so much more going on here.
“This film is about greatness – just the very concept of being the best in the world at something, anything. I’m not going to make any judgements or decisions about the real-life events. I’m just talking about the movie that’s given to us. For one brief, brief moment Tonya Harding was the best figure skater in the world and it was ripped away from her by the very circumstances she overcame to get there in the first place. I’ve been wracking my brain and I can’t think of a comparable figure… ever, in anything. Yes, lots of professional football players and basketball players have overcome rough childhoods to make it big and could disappear again if they fall back in with the wrong crowd, but that’s that world. Professional mens’ sports are comprised of rough-and-tumble guys many of whom had it rough growing up. But that’s not the world of figure skating. The Tonya Harding we get here grows up poor and abused, smoking and cursing just like her mother. They have no place in the prim and proper world of competitive figure skating. A judge even straight-up tells her that they don’t want her representing their sport. A tearful Tonya pleads, “why can’t it just be about the skating?” She can’t afford the fancy costumes and everything else that goes along with it. And, again, despite all that, she ever-so-briefly reached the pinnacle on the strength of her triple axels – one of the few women in the world who have ever done them in competition. Irreverent, yes, but she was just the best athlete on the ice.
“She has nothing else (except maybe the on-and-off love of her abusive husband), but she has skating. The movie constantly breaks the fourth-wall, often to humorous effect, but when she talks about becoming a villain and national laughing stock in the aftermath of the attack on Nancy Kerrigan (orchestrated by the moronic friends of her husband) she looks straight at the camera and calls out us, the audience, for becoming her abusers as well. That was a gut punch that floored me. It’s all too easy to dismiss Tonya Harding as a caricature and doing so diminishes us all. Life is far more complicated than that and she had the courage to put herself out there and keep fighting. Again, I’m speaking only about the movie, though I can’t argue that the weight of being a biopic doesn’t add to it. Allison Janney does seem poised to win for playing her abusive mother who had the foresight to see her daughter’s gift and pour what little money she had into lessons for the young girl. And, though Tonya does love skating, she grows to hate and resent her mother. Her mom argues that that was the price of greatness, which instantly reminded me of Whiplash from three years ago. JK Simmons is taking about how hard Charlie Parker’s teacher was on him and that maybe being harsh will drive some away, but those who stick it out will be the best, because they’ll work harder than anyone else. He says, “there are no two words in the English language more harmful than “good job.”‘ As a coach, I don’t want him to be right, but what if he is? I don’t know. I don’t have the answers, but greatness is out there and I have to tip my hat to those who achieve it, however fleeting it might be.”
Let me again quote that first line, “This may have been the most unexpected moviegoing experience of my lifetime.” When I sat down to rewatch this one I honestly had no idea if it would hold up and have the same impact. While it may not have carried quite the full punch that it did the first time (though I did tear up again), I appreciated the filmmaking itself even more than I did the first time. And, I have to come back to my original criteria – the film I would most passionately advocate for. This is it–an underdog of a movie about the ultimate fish-out-of-water underdog athlete.
Art is subjective and some things just speak to different people. This film just really resonates with me. I can’t explain it more than that.
That’s it, thanks for reading. Happy movie watching in the 2020s!