As 2020’s cinematic releases continue to be pushed back into 2021, I thought now would be a good time to take a retrospective look back at my 50 favourite films from the last decade, in case anyone’s looking for some inspiration of what to watch.

To prevent the Top Fifty from becoming completely swamped with (let’s be honest) Marvel films, I’ve introduced the rule that only one film from a franchise can appear in the Top Fifty (subject to a few special cases). I should also stress that these are my favourite Top Fifty films from the 2010s, not necessarily the “best” (whatever that means).

I’ve already covered numbers 50 to 41, 40 to 31, 30 to 21 and 20 to 11 in my rundown – but now it’s finally time for my Top Ten Films of the 2010s:

10) Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014): This film came out of nowhere, and absolutely blew me away. Taron Egerton was a revelation (and I’m so glad he’s gone on to do other interesting projects and hasn’t been typecast by this role), ably bringing credibility to both sides of Eggsy’s character – and it was also great fun to see Colin Firth emerge as a very unlikely action hero. The villains didn’t disappoint either, with Samuel L. Jackson clearly having a great time sending up the archetypal evil mastermind, and Sofia Boutella making a big impression as a Bond-esque hench-person. While I also loved the 2017 sequel The Golden Circle, and can’t wait for next year’s prequel The King’s Man as well as the proposed conclusion to the original trilogy – so far, the first outing represents the high point in the series for sheer originality and unpredictability.

9) Knives Out (2019): I’m not even a massive fan of the whodunit genre, but Knives Out is an absolute joy from beginning to end. Serving as both a tribute to, and a reinvention of, the genre, it’s at times funny and tongue-in-cheek while at other times tense and twisty – but the clever script is always entertaining. The all-star cast is great fun, really throwing themselves into the larger-than-life characters, and the murder mystery itself is ingenious & intellectually satisfying. I can’t wait for the next “Benoit Blanc Mystery” to hit the big screen.

8) Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018): When it came out in 2015, I thought there was certainly an argument to be made that Rogue Nation was the best Mission: Impossible film – but when Fallout came out in 2018, it ended that argument once and for all. There aren’t many film series that can say that their sixth instalment is their best yet, but Mission: Impossible can. Not only does Fallout take the series’ practical stunts and fight choreography to the next level, but the plot and character work doesn’t disappoint either. The cast is universally excellent, and there’s a real sense of tension and foreboding throughout the film – viewed as a two-parter with Rogue Nation, Fallout really is one of the best action blockbusters of the decade (and I can’t wait for the two-part Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 to appear in my Top Fifty films of the 2020s…).

7) Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016): I know this is a divisive film, with some people hating it, and others (very aggressively) defending it online. All I can say is that, despite its flaws, it’s a film that I love and that I revisit often (especially the 3-hour Director’s Cut, which explains a lot of the “plot-holes” created when the studio insisted that the length of the theatrical release be cut down). Personally, I loved that the world in this film reacted in a (depressingly) believable way to the appearance of Superman – greeting the ultimate “immigrant” with suspicion and fear, rather than trust and adulation. I loved that Batman in this film personified (to quote Alfred) “the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel”, and I loved how Luthor personified those who use that feeling of powerlessness to their own advantage (bearing in mind that this film came out in the same year that another, non-fictional, billionaire did just that to win a presidential election). All that, and this film also features the debut of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, whose solo film should arguably share this 7th place position, as these are the two top films from the DCEU franchise.

6) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013): I feel like, five years after the series ended, people may have forgotten just how powerful The Hunger Games story actually was. When the first film came out, it had some very emotional opening sequences (the “tribute ceremony”, in particular) and it also didn’t sugar coat the horrific violence that children were expected to inflict on other children in the name of “peace” – but I still wondered where the story could go from there. But by the end of the series, it had delivered some very poignant messages about the corrupting influence of power, the repercussions of violence, and the moral costs of an ends-justify-the-means mentality. But it was the second chapter, Catching Fire, that for me really opened my eyes to the potential of this series. After the first film, I was wondering how you stretch the original concept into a trilogy, but the first 20 minutes of Catching Fire did an excellent job of illustrating the wider consequences of Katniss’ actions in the first film. I also loved how it didn’t shy away from her PTSD after the events of the first film – instead it became something which informs her actions and attitude throughout the second film. The series as a whole was phenomenally well done, carried by the talents of a huge cast of Oscar winners, with Jennifer Lawrence front and centre. A blockbuster franchise will a real message, about a totalitarian dystopian future with a kernel of hope at its centre, this was a strangely prophetic way to start the decade.

5) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014): This is really my proxy for the entire MCU series – or at least the non-Avengers MCU films (see below…). Look – I could have picked any of Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, Civil War, Captain Marvel, Ragnarok, Iron Man 3, or Homecoming as my favourite (non-Avengers) MCU film, but I followed my heart and went with The Winter Soldier. This was more of a 70’s-esque conspiracy thriller than a traditional “super hero” movie, and it was all the better for it. It established Steve Rogers as my favourite MCU character, it fleshed out Natasha Romanov in a fascinating way, it introduced Sam Wilson into the MCU, while also pulling the rug from under us with the revelations about HYDRA and SHIELD. The cameo from Hayley Atwell really brought home Steve’s man-out-of-time isolation, which made the bond between him and Bucky all the more poignant and understandable. It was the first MCU film created by the dream team of writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors Joe and Anthony Russo, and so laid much of the groundwork for everything that followed in Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame.

4) Kick-Ass (2010): I was not expecting much from Kick-Ass when I first heard about it, but I thought it might be a fun spoof of the superhero genre, so I went to check it out. What I saw was like nothing I’d seen before – a comedy that skewered the superhero tropes, while at the same time delivering an emotional and visceral comic-book movie in its own right. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was incredible as the central everyman figure (director Matthew Vaughn has an uncanny ability for spotting talent, and effectively gave Daniel Craig, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Taron Egerton and Charlie Cox their first leading-man action roles), but it’s the father/daughter relationship between Nicolas Cage’s “Big Daddy” and Chloë Grace Moretz’s “Hit-Girl” that steals the show, managing to be both sweet and tender, and deeply disturbing and maladjusted at the same time. The writing team of Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman had an incredible run of great screenplays (including 2007’s excellent, and underrated, Stardust), but Kick-Ass is their best work of the 2010s, seamlessly combining laugh-out-loud humour, action sequences with gloriously OTT hyper-violence, and grounded moments of emotional impact – a balancing act which the 2013 sequel (noticeably not written and directed by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman) sadly failed to replicate. As such, the proposed trilogy now seems highly unlikely to materialise – but that doesn’t stop the first film from being a thoroughly satisfying standalone watch.

3) Interstellar (2014): This is it – my favourite “non-franchise” film of the decade. I’ve long been a fan of Christopher Nolan’s films (Inception and The Dark Knight Rises have already appeared in my Top Fifty of the 2010s, and The Prestige, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight would surely have appeared in a list of my favourite movies of the previous decade), but Interstellar is my favourite of his (non-Batman) films. As a lifelong fan of sci-fi, and as someone who’s in awe of the accomplishments of the world’s various space programmes, this film ticked all my boxes, combining fascinating astrophysics concepts like the warping of time around black holes, with an inspiring tribute to the brave pioneers who have already led our species beyond the limits of our single planet. Perhaps more than any other of Nolan’s films, it combines an intellectually satisfying and inventive plot (involving higher dimensions and the perception of linear time) with an emotionally impactful personal story. It’s been said that Interstellar is Nolan’s tribute to his own daughter (who cameos in the film), and for me, it’s certainly true that the heart of the film is the father/daughter relationship between Cooper and Murph, even after they’re separated by the vast distances of space and time. There are scenes in Interstellar that move me to tears every time I watch the film, which is not bad for a director who is often accused of making “emotionless” films. But even if the emotional moments don’t hit home in the way they do for me, the sci-fi tale of a desperate space exploration mission to save a blinkered human race by escaping from a dying Earth is more than enough to justify a place in my Top Ten.

2) Avengers: Infinity War (2018): As I mentioned above, I have “cheated” slightly, because I’ve treated the Avengers-based MCU films as a separate franchise from the rest of the MCU films. This was partly because it seemed unfair to only allow one MCU film into my Top Fifty (under the one-film-per-franchise rule) when there are some many great MCU films to choose from – but it was also partly because the Avengers films are something different from “normal” superhero or comic-book films. Never before had characters from completely different films been interwoven into a “crossover” film like they were in the first Avengers movie, and from there things just got bigger and even more ambitious. The two-part story in Infinity War and Endgame is the culmination of an unprecedented 22-movie, 11-year story arc, and rightly deserves a place in cinematic history. Of the two films, Endgame arguably packs the bigger emotional punches (which is perhaps only right for the final chapter), but Infinity War is just a non-stop rollercoaster ride, which somehow manages to give every main character a moment to shine, and then provides the biggest cinematic cliff-hanger since The Empire Strikes Back. If Phase 4 of the MCU can continue with this level of quality, we’re in for an exciting few years…

1) Logan (2017): But my Film of the Decade for the 2010s has to be Hugh Jackman’s swansong as Wolverine in Logan. After playing the character for 19 years across nine films, Jackman somehow finds a way to bring something completely new to the character, as does Patrick Stewart to his role as Charles Xavier. This is not a family friendly film by any stretch – it’s violent, brutal and bleak, but all the more powerful for it. Jackman gives a career best performance here, and if there wasn’t such snobbery about “comic book movies”, he would have been just as deserving of an Oscar nomination as Clint Eastwood and Mickey Rourke were for Unforgiven and The Wrestler. Patrick Stewart also gives a heart-breaking performance as his character slowly loses his mind, while Dafne Keen (who was only 11 years old at the time) was a revelation, especially given how much she has to convey through her non-verbal performance. This visceral character-driven drama is the perfect send-off for Jackman and Logan, and is my favourite film of the decade.

So there you have it – my full Top Fifty films for the 2010s. There are plenty of fantastic films and enjoyable franchises that didn’t quite make the cut (some of which are objectively great, some of which are guilty pleasures) – but you have to draw the line somewhere!