In the ninth and final chapter of this series, we look at the movies that should have won the Best Picture Oscar between 2010 and 2019.

If you thought the previous decade sucked, wait till you get a load of this one. There are usually a few pretty great titles every year, but the number of worthwhile movies just hits the skids. And with the Woke Gestapo now in charge of every aspect of entertainment, well, let’s just say you better hold on to your DVD collection

Let’s begin…

2010

Talk about Miramaxey… Okay, a pretty good movie, but one that feels like it cracked the code for winning Best Picture and wants the audience to know it has done so.

Honestly, the movie I rewatch the most often from this tepid year is Piranha 3D. Nevertheless, this Coen Brothers’ remake is pretty damn good.

See also: From Paris with Love, Kick-Ass, Harry Brown, Toy Story 3, Inception, Piranha 3D, The Last Exorcism, The Town, The Social Network…

 

2011

Hey, Hollywood: Self-involved much? I saw this once and do not remember a frame, just the mix of boredom and astonishment that it got made, much less won Best Picture.

Every movie listed below is more deserving than The Artist, but time has been especially good to Moneyball. It’s not only rewatchable, Brad Pitt delivers one helluva understated performance.

See also: Margin Call, Battle: Los Angeles, Fast Five, Midnight in Paris, Drive, Fright Night, Real Steel, The Grey, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol…

 

2012

While Ben Affleck directed a perfectly entertaining and, at times, suspenseful movie, be honest… If you were to watch it in a vacuum with no knowledge of its Best Picture win, would you believe it was even in competition? Argo is also not superior to Affleck’s The Town and Gone Baby Gone.

Director Kathryn Biglow’s masterpiece not only should’ve won all the Oscars, it is one of the best movies of the decade.

See also: The Avengers, Ted, Savages, The Dark Knight Rises, Lincoln, Django Unchained…

 

2013

Respectable, if forgettable, issue movie that added nothing new to movies about slavery, other than emotional distance…

Michael Bay’s autopsy of American consumerism, which is based on a story so batshit crazy it could only be true, is not only brilliantly funny and acted, it accomplishes one of the most difficult things a movie can: sits on the knife-edge of a darkly satiric tone and sticks the landing the whole way through.

Few things have made me laugh harder than watching the Rock grill up a pair of human hands.

See also: the Last Stand, 42, Fast & Furious 6, The Purge, World War Z, The Conjuring, Blue Jasmine, Riddick, Gravity, Captain Phillips, American Hustle, Lone Sutvivor…

 

2014

A pretentious pail of crap.

Writer and director Dan Gilroy’s wholly original look at the lengths to which an unbalanced man will go to rise to the top of a competitive vocation no one pays much attention to – the people who spend their nights racing around Los Angeles filming tragedy for the morning news – is everything I love about movies: a fascinating and unpredictable protagonist (a superb Jake Gyllenhall), a sense of place and time, and an in-depth tour of a subculture we know nothing about.

See also: American Sniper, John Wick, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Godzilla, Edge of Tomorrow, The Purge: Anarchy, The Equalizer, Get on Up, Gone Girl, Fury…

 

2015

Whatever. A perfectly good movie that could’ve easily been produced for HBO.

Insanely entertaining from top to bottom… Nothing released this year screams “Best Picture,” so let’s give it to Ridley Scott’s perfectly crafted crowd-pleaser.

See also: Furious 7, Black or White, Kingsmen, Ex Machina, Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Sicario, Creed, The Big Short…  

 

2016

I’m a firm believer that Hollywood should make movies for everyone, but I’ve never seen this one and never will. Just isn’t for me.

Director David Mackenzie, and most especially writer Taylor Sheridan, capture not only a zeitgeist but a rural American culture modern-day Hollywood knows nothing about. An exciting and thoughtful story about a pair of clever and ruthless bank robbers, not only looking for money but for payback… Sheridan has since emerged as one of the few Hollywood talents whose work is always a must-see.

See also: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sully…

 

2017

Guillermo del Toro should be a cinematographer, not a director. He’s a dreadful storyteller (his best movie by a mile is still Blade II) and one of the most overrated filmmakers in history.

Regardless, who watches The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) and fantasizes about bestiality?

This is another one I’ve never seen. Life’s too short to waste on some weirdo’s fetishes.

A miracle of a movie about forgiveness and redemption, a movie for mature adults interested in exploring the human condition and in need of a reminder that God’s salvation is right there waiting for us to grab hold of.

This beautiful story about two people accomplishing the most difficult thing a person can — overcoming the very worst in themselves — could never be produced today; this is a movie that stands for everything the fascist and unforgiving Woke Gestapo oppose.

See also: Logan, Wind River, Dunkirk, Logan Lucky, Blade Runner 2049, Brawl in Cellblock 99, The Darkest Hour; I. Tonya; Roman J. Israel, Esq….

 

2018

Driving Mister Daisy is well-scripted and acted, even moving at times, but nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times before.

My second Best Picture Oscar for writer and director Paul Schrader… This time for his heartbreaking story about the pastor of a small church (and tourist attraction) whose crisis of faith leads him to the darkest of places.

Schrader’s insight into the endlessly complicated human condition and his attempt to grasp why it is that God leaves us on our own to reconcile the horrors of the natural world with our faith come together in a shocking heart-wrencher.

Best of all, in the world of First Reformed, Schrader is the creator, and to his great credit, he leaves us on our own to ruminate on the meaning of it all.

See also: Bohemian Rhapsody, A Quiet Place, Chappaquiddick, Avengers: Infinity War, BlacKKKlansman, Peppermint, The Predator…

 

2019

Why are we awarding foreign movies Best Picture? We have a Best Foreign Film category. Anyway, another one I have no interest in watching.

Another dreadful year for Hollywood, but one where the handful of good movies are simply outstanding… Other than Endgame, there is not a title below that isn’t worthy of a Best Picture nod.

Nonetheless, Quentin Tarantino’s recreation of late-1960’s Hollywood and his reimagining of the Manson Family massacre is an all-timer and a very easy choice. Epic, transporting, wholly original, and I could spend hours watching Brad Pitt driving down the freeway with the radio cranked.

See also: Avengers: Endgame, Joker, Dragged Across Concrete, Ford v Ferrari…

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We will find out tonight which stinker no one saw wins 2020’s Best Picture…

Hope you enjoyed this series… Before I say goodbye, allow me to leave you with this one thought: I’m right about everything.

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