What are your picks for the decades best films, or scores?

Mine are...


BEST FILMS OF THE 00s:
10 ) The Incredibles
9 ) Apocalypto
8 ) The Queen
7 ) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
6 ) Defiance
5 ) Match Point
4 ) The Pianist
3 ) Black Hawk Down
2 ) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
1 ) The Passion of the Christ


BEST SCORES OF THE 00s
10 ) Gormenghast (Richard Rodney Bennett)
9 ) Keeping The Faith (Elmer Bernstein)
8 ) The New World (James Horner)
7 ) Catch Me If You Can (John Williams)
6 ) Hollow Man (Jerry Goldsmith)
5 ) Alexander (Vangelis)
4 ) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (John Williams)
3 ) Deep Blue (George Fenton)
2 ) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (John Williams)
1 ) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (John Williams)


BEST CD RELEASES / REISSUES / RERECORDINGS OF OLDER SCORES IN THIS 00s (sorry, there were so many, I had to go up to 15)...

15 ) Tron (Disney)
14 ) Saturn 3 (Intrada)
11 ) Red Dawn (Intrada)
12 ) Return of A Man Called Horse (Varese)
11 ) Fahrenheit 451 (Tribute)
10 ) Ghostbusters (Varese)
9 ) Logan's Run (FSM)
8 ) Indiana Jones Trilogy (Concord)
7 ) Heavy Metal (FSM)
6 ) Diamonds Are Forever (Capitol)
5 ) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Capitol)
3 ) Amazing Stories (Intrada)
3 ) El Cid (Tadlow)
2 ) Revolution (Varese)
1 ) Superman Blue Box (FSM)

I will give you 10 great movies and then 10 "fun" movies I loved this decade...not sure I can officially describe them as "THE best"...but they come immediately to mind.

In alphabetical order...

Andy's Top 10 of the Decade

-ALMOST FAMOUS
-APOCALYPTO
-BLACK HAWK DOWN
-500 DAYS OF SUMMER
-LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
-NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
-O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU
-PASSION OF THE CHRIST
-SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
-ZODIAC

With honorable mentions to THE QUEEN, THE PATRIOT, GANGS OF NEW YORK, THE BOURNE IDENTITY/ULTIMATUM and DISTRICT 9.

10 "Popcorn" movies (sci-fi/comedy/etc.) I loved...again in alphabetical order...

-BLADES OF GLORY
-HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE
-IRON MAN
-PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
-ROCKY BALBOA
-ROLE MODELS
-SPIDER-MAN 2
-STAR TREK
-STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH
-WEDDING CRASHERS

5 Scores I loved...

-METROPOLIS - Toshiyuki Honda
-THE NEW WORLD - Horner
-THE PATRIOT - Williams
-THE TERMINAL -Williams
-HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE/CHAMBER OF SECRETS - John Williams

Films will be difficult to compile...I'll save that for later. Here are my scores lists:

BEST OF DECADE SCORES:

10. Signs (JNH)
9. Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Desplat)
8. The Village (JNH)
7. Big Fish (Danny Elfman)
6. Road to Perdition (Thomas Newman)
5. HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban (John Williams)
4. Angels in America (Thomas Newman)
3. AI (John Williams)
2. The Terminal (John Williams)
1. LOTR Trilogy (Howard Shore)

BEST REISSUES ETC.

13. How to Steal A Million (Williams)
12. Shaft film scores, especially the first one
11. Romancing the Stone (Silvestri)
10. The Robe (Newman)
9. Blazing Saddles (Scott)
8. Blade Runner (Vangelis)
7. The Sea Hawk (Korngold)
6. Raiders Box Set (Williams...even though I complained about it)
5. Young Sherlock Holmes (Broughton)
4. Alien (Goldsmith)
3. Broadcast News (Conti)
2. Fahrenheit 451 (Herrmann)
1. Superman Box Set (Williams et al)

Flash-forward ten years!

Lets face it, this wasn’t a great decade for movies. I’m sorry say it was easy to make a Ten Best list (and a couple are, I admit, not truly great movies)…

10 ) Death Wish
9 ) How to Train Your Dragon
8 ) The Martian
7 ) The Social Network
6 ) Mad Max: Fury Road
5 ) The Book Thief
4 ) Best of Enemies (documentary)
3 ) The King’s Speech
2 ) Skyfall
1 ) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2


It was harder to narrow my “worst of” list down to just ten. I limited it to movies which got more mainstream notice (my actual #1 worst film was a sick, twisted obscure indie which was hardly seen). I actually consider 1-4 among the worst films in cinema history, and would be on my “20 Worst Films of All Time” list:

10 ) John Wick III
9 ) Alien Covenent
8 ) Black Swan
7 ) God’s Not Dead 2
6 ) The Zero Theorem
5 ) Your Highness
4 ) 7 Days in Entebbe
3 ) The Hobbit
2 ) Sucker Punch
1 ) Dunkirk

I did not see King Arthur or (the most recent) Robin Hood or the Ben-Hur remake — but I have a feeling they would probably have found a place on my Ten Worst list if I had. A couple of the MCU movies might have made the list -- but to be honest I can’t even remember anything about them!


I'd have done a Ten Best Scores list -- but there weren't enough scores which impressed me. However I did quite like these (in whole are in part):

How To Train Your Dragon (Powell)
Edge of Darkness (rejected -- Corigliano)
The Force Awakens (Williams)
The Book Thief (Williams)
War Horse (Williams)
The Amazing Spiderman (Horner)
The Last Jedi (Williams)


Worst Scores:

10 ) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (1 & 2) (Desplat)
9 ) The Martian (Gregson-Williams)
8 ) Man of Steel (Zimmer)
7 ) Inception (Zimmer)
6 ) The Ghostwriter (Desplat)
5 ) Clash of the Titans (Dwadji)
4 ) The Dark Knight Rises (Zimmer / Howard)
3 ) King Arthur (Pemberton)
2 ) 12 years A Slave (Zimmer)
1 ) Dunkirk (Zimmer)


It certainly was not like the 1980s, where you had scores like Raiders, The Final Conflict, Heavy Metal, Clash of the Titans, Heartbeeps and Body Heat in 1981 alone, or E.T., Conan The Barbarian, Poltergeist, Star Trek II, Blade Runner, Tron, The Road Warrior, Monsignor, First Blood, The Dark Crystal, etc. in 1982 alone, or Return of the Jedi, Krull, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Brainstorm, etc. in 1983, and...shall I go on?

Apart from that, John Williams did not return to score the final Harry Potter movie as he (and everyone else) hoped he would. We tragically lost James Horner, and John Barry, and this was the first decade in my lifetime in which there were no scores by John Barry, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein or Maurice Jarre.


Anyway, as for the best CD releases of older scores:

10 ) Family Plot (Varese)
9 ) The Last Valley (Quartet)
8 ) Night Crossing (intrada)
7 ) Obsession (Quartet)
6 ) Conan The Barbarian (Intrada)
5 ) Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Tadlow)
4 ) The Dove (Intrada)
3 ) Walkabout (Roundtable)
2 ) Superman (LaLa Land)
1 ) Harry Potter Archival Edition (LaLa Land)

I'm pretty good at keeping track of the soundtrack CDs I own so it wasn't too hard to put together a "best of" list for those. I've been keeping track of the movies I watch on Letterboxd for a few years but I had to go back and review what came out in the first half of the decade.

BEST MOVIES OF THE DECADE

1. Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011)
2. Silence (2016)
3. Inside Out (2015)
4. The Tree of Life (2011)
5. Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (2019)
6. The Conjuring (2013)
7. Bridge of Spies (2015)
8. True Grit (2010)
9. The Irishman (2019)
10. Toy Story 3 (2010)/Toy Story 4 (2019)

and some really good documentaries:

1. Apollo 11 (2019)
2. They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
3. Free Solo (2018)
4. Three Identical Strangers (2018)
5. Kedi (2016)

BEST NEW SCORES

sadly not much here

1. Lincoln (Williams)
2. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Kraemer)
3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Howard)
4. Solo (Powell)
5. The Adventures of Tintin (Williams)

BEST NEW RELEASES OF OLDER SCORES

On the Threshold of Space (Lyn Murray) – Intrada -- a great discovery of a movie and composer I'd never heard of before
North by Northwest (Herrmann) – Intrada -- vastly improved sound
TV Omnibus - FSM -- especially the Dave Grusin tracks
Night Crossing (Goldsmith) – Intrada
Hoosiers (Goldsmith) – Intrada
The Journey Inside (Shire) – Intrada -- another discovery of an obscure score by a composer not well represented in my collection
The Quinn Martin Collection Volume 1 – La La Land
E.T. – La La Land
Close Encounters of the Third Kind – La La Land

It was much easier to come up with favorite TV shows of the past decade. I haven't finished all of these and I've noted which seasons I liked for some shows.

Breaking Bad
Better Call Saul
Stranger Things
Fargo mainly the first season
Homeland pretty far behind on this one
The Flash mainly the first season
Parks and Recreation (began in 2009 but didn't get good until the second season)
The Good Place
Dark Matter (Canadian sci-fi show I found on Netflix. Low-budget but fun)
Kim’s Convenience (hilarious Canadian sit-com)
The Americans
Downton Abbey
Justified
Veep
Daredevil first and third seasons
American Crime Story (The O.J. Simpson season)
Twin Peaks

I had to quickly peruse other Top 10 lists to refresh my memory -- and these are NOT in a "Top 10" order per se -- but here are my quick choices (not going to bother with film scores, I can't even manage to listen to any Williams from the last decade really):

Top 10 Movies I Liked From The 2010's

THE REVENANT
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
GRAVITY
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
A QUIET PLACE
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
LAWLESS
GREEN BOOK
TRON LEGACY* (guilty pleasure pick)

10 Honorable Mentions

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE sequels (GHOST PROTOCOL most particularly)
MAD MAX FURY ROAD
CONJURING 1 & 2
FAST FIVE
KICK-ASS
BRIDGE OF SPIES
THE TOWN
ARGO
DEADPOOL 1 & 2

10 Embarrassments of the 2010's

THE COUNSELOR (RIDLEY SCOTT)
COWBOYS AND ALIENS
RAMBO: LAST BLOOD
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
ALIEN: COVENANT
GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
ROBIN HOOD (JAMIE FOXX VERSION)
THE MUMMY (2017)
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)
ROBOCOP (2014)

10 Overpraised Critical Darlings

BIRDMAN
BLACK SWAN
THE SHAPE OF WATER
GET OUT
THE ARTIST
BLACK PANTHER
LA LA LAND
ARRIVAL
SPOTLIGHT
THE MASTER

The Revenant and Captain Phillips were serious contenders for my best list. The Silver Linings Playbook was also outstanding.

Sadly it's all too easy to come up with a Worst Of list! 10 years after the last time we did this, it's even easier...

I probably should have added Noah to my worst list too!

Paul MacLean wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 10:37 am I probably should have added Noah to my worst list too!

What about MOTHER?

Edmund Kattak wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:23 pm

Paul MacLean wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 10:37 am I probably should have added Noah to my worst list too!

What about MOTHER?

Never saw that one!

That's even worse!

Paul MacLean wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:42 pm

Edmund Kattak wrote: Sat Jan 04, 2020 12:23 pm

Paul MacLean wrote: Fri Jan 03, 2020 10:37 am I probably should have added Noah to my worst list too!

What about MOTHER?

Never saw that one!

Be Thankful!