The Top Tens

The Top 10s of 2014

Boyhood sits alone at the top of the list – nothing else comes close – and then The Grand Budapest Hotel, another big gap and then the rest of the list. Guardians of the Galaxy, in case you were wondering, is sitting there at #21 just a hair away from the Top Twenty.

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The Top Ten Lists: There’s Boyhood and Then the Rest of the List

First, there’s Boyhood – still and probably forever – at the top of the chart. In other news, The Lego Movie and Leviathan both crack the top 20.

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The Top Ten Lists: And Boyhood Stands Alone

Two Days, One Night and Only Lovers Left Alive move into the Top 20, displacing Interstellar and The Lego Movie. And Boyhood stays alone at the top.

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The Top Ten Lists: The Lists Keep Coming

It’s still early, but Boyhood has a pretty commanding lead so far. The Lego Movie is falling back a little, and Foxcatcher, Ida and Citizenfour have made the top 20. Stay tuned!

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The Critics Top Tens of 2014: The First Lists

With the lists just starting to come in, Boyhood sits alone at the top of the chart.

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The Top Tens of 2013: 155 Lists and Counting

With 231 films on the list, 12 Years a Slave, Inside Llewyn Davis and Gravity continue to hold the top three spots. The Act of Killing has broken into the top five, and Lone Survivor makes its debut on the scoreboard.

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The Top Ten Lists: 2013

With more than 70 lists, there are 146 films on the scorecard. There’s a lot of agreement in the top spots, with Gravity still leading the lists, but a few are climbing the chart. Dallas Buyers Club and Short Term 12 break the top 20.

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The Top Ten Lists of 2013: 60 and Counting

With sixty lists counted, Gravity now sits at the top of the list. American Hustle has moved into the top five, and Leviathan has jumped onto the list at #15.

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The Top Tens of 2013: The Big Scoreboard

The first of the Top Ten lists are in and counted. 12 Years a Slave, Gravity and Inside Llewyn Davis lead the chart by a wide margin. But there are still a lot of lists yet to be tallied.

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The 2012 Top Tens: Updated

Another 30 lists … and the top 10 remain the same. A little bit of a shuffle in the next ten, with Looper and Skyfall moving up the chart. The next update may find The Grey stepping forward to take the #20 spot from The Sessions, but Zero Dark Thirty seems safe at the top.

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Critics Top Tens Update

The first 100 lists and Zero Dark Thirty leads the Top Tens by a significant margin. Further down the list, The Dark Knight Rises and The Sessions move into the Top 20, and The Master makes a leap forward. Still lots more lists to come …

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2012 Top Tens: The First of the Lists

As the first lists roll in, Zero Dark Thirty and Amour lead the chart. With just 21 lists, there are more than 85 movies mentioned so far… seems to be a lot of love to go around.

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Critics Top Ten List 2012: David Edelstein, New York

David Edelstein, New York 1. Zero Dark Thirty 2. Lincoln 3. Amour 4. The Gatekeepers 5. The Deep Blue Sea 6. Life of Pi 7. How to Survive a Plague and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry 8. Pitch Perfect 9. Oslo, August 31st 10. Friends With Kids

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Critics Top Ten List 2012: Richard Corliss, TIME

Richard Corliss, TIME 1. Amour 2. Beasts of the Southern Wild 3. Life of Pi 4. Anna Karenina 5. The Dark Knight Rises 6. Zero Dark Thirty 7. Dark Horse 8. Dragon 9. Frankenweenie 10. Invisible War

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Critics Top Ten List 2012: John Waters, ARTFORUM

John Waters, ARTFORUM 1  The Deep Blue Sea 2 Paradise: Faith 3 Paradise: Love 4 Amour 5 Killer Joe 6 Beasts of the Southern Wild 7 Compliance 8 Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present 9 Beloved 10 The Imposter  

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The Top Tens of 2011: 210 Lists And Counting

The top 20 stay the top 20, but Drive has moved around The Artist into the third position. The Tree of Life is too far out in front to chase, but overtaking The Descendants may still be possible.

See the individual Top Ten lists here.

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The Top Tens: Updated December 30

164 lists, 220 films, and The Tree of Life continues to sit on the top of the
scoreboard. As new lists come in, The Artist is closing in on the The Descendants and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is making a play for the top ten .. stay tuned.

See the individual Top Ten lists here.

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The Top Tens of 2011: December 27

With over 100 top ten lists in, Tree of Life and The Descendants are firmly at the top of the scoreboard, while Drive makes a play for the number three spot.

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The Top Tens of 2011: December 23

Still a lot of lists to go, but it’s still Clooney and Pitt at the top of the chart, with The Tree of Life edging out The Descendants. The girls aren’t far behind, though – Bridesmaids and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are quickly catching up.

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2011 Top Tens: The First of the Lists

As the first of the Top Ten Lists start to roll in, George Clooney and Brad Pitt top the leaderboard with The Decendants and The Tree of Life. With Moneyball in the fifth spot, Pitt has two horses in the race. Only 14 lists so far .. a couple of hundred yet to go.

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Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon