100 Best Movies of 2010 Ranked by Tomatometer
The latest: David O. Russell’s The Fighter, starring mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, celebrates 15 years! While Bale took home the Academy Award for his supporting role in the boxing film, Melissa Leo was honored with Best Supporting Actress. Both actors were praised by critics, who said their performances were “the very definition of a masterclass in acting.”
2010 included unforgettable award-winning movies, iconic animation, visual effects delights, gritty action, and unconventional comedy in its motion picture roster. The list of 100 best movies of 2010 are ranked by Tomatometer, including Certified Fresh movies, Fresh movies with at least 20 reviews and a 60%+ Popcornmeter, and audience picks: Rotten movies with 60%+ Popcornmeter score and 20,000+ user reviews! This means that, unfortunately, some popular movies like The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, TRON: Legacy, and Jackass 3D won’t make the cut. (Tyler Lorenz)
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(Photo by Universal/ Courtesy Everett Collection. DESPICABLE ME.)
The King’s Speech, a biopic of King George VI, had an outstanding year at the 83rd Academy Awards, garnering 3 wins for Best Picture, Best Directing (Tom Hooper), and Best Lead Actor (Colin Firth). The film was lauded by multiple speech organizations for addressing the social stigma of speech impediments, and the challenges and expectations associated with overcoming them. Natalie Portman’s performance in Darren Aronofsky’s psychological ballet thriller Black Swan earned her a Best Lead Actress award. Portman trained for six months with a New York City Ballet alum to achieve the appropriate physique and technique for her role.
David O. Russell’s MMA drama The Fighter grabbed two Oscars this season: Best Supporting Actor for Christian Bale, and Best Supporting Actress for Melissa Leo. Christian Bale would go on to be nominated for three more Acting Oscars for American Hustle (2014), The Big Short (2016), and Vice (2019). Melissa Leo was nominated one time previously, for Best Lead Actress in Frozen River (2009).
Aaron Sorkin won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network. The dramatized history of the founding of Facebook was based on Ben Mezrich’s book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal”. The Social Network also won Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score for the composition by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails fame.
A few more Oscar winners of note: Christopher Nolan’s Inception won Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland won Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design, while Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman took home Best Makeup. And, Pixar’s Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature Film, as well as Best Original Song for “We Belong Together” by Randy Newman.
While Toy Story 3 was the awards season darling in 2010, it was flanked by several other beloved animated pictures. DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon introduced us to our human and dragon hero duo, Hiccup and Toothless, and their adventures defending the Isle of Berk. The original movie would receive two sequel movies and several streaming television spinoffs.
Walt Disney Animation Studios through their hat into the ring with a CGI adaption of the Rapunzel fairy tale in Tangled. It was the 8th highest grossing film of the year worldwide and received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song via Alan Menken’s “I See the Light”.
Animation studio Illumination burst onto the scene in a big way with Despicable Me. The movie introduced us to Gru, his three adoptive daughters Margo, Edith, and Agnes, and… The Minions. And pop culture will never be the same. The 2010 picture is followed by three mainline sequels and two Minions spinoff films.
Finally, perhaps more of a cult favorite in comparison to its animation peers, DreamWorks’s Megamind enjoyed its own share of success, landing #17 at the box office this year. It received respectable reviews from critics and found its own fandom in the youth of 2010.
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(Photo by Paramount/ Courtesy Everett Collection. TRUE GRIT.)
With so many high-rated animated films and Oscar winners securing space on the list, let’s talk about the blockbuster films of the year: heavy-hitters in both the box office and reviews. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 kicked off the grand finale for the iconic wizarding saga. It landed #3 at the worldwide box office this year, while Part 2 would go on to take #1 at the box office a year later. Iron Man 2 premiered in 2010 with much anticipation from fans following the success of the first Iron Man film two years earlier. It introduced Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes as Tony Stark’s super-suited partner War Machine, and its post-credits scene heralded the arrival of the mighty Thor in 2011, with a tease of his hammer Mjolnir buried in a crater in New Mexico.
Taking the action to slightly more realistic proportions is 2010’s The Karate Kid. A tangential sequel to the original 1984 film starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita, in this film teenager Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) moves from Detroit to Beijing, where he learns self-defense kung fu from Mr. Han (Jackie Chan). Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan returned in Karate Kid: Legends, a sequel in which the two masters converge to mentor a new disciple.
The action gets grittier in 2010. Perhaps most appropriately in the Coen brothers’ True Grit. In this grim Western, at 14-year-old girl seeks the help of a U.S. Marshal to track and kill the outlaw who murdered her father. The film received glowing reviews and 10 Oscar nominations, but unfortunately took home no gold. In the gruesome samurai action drama 13 Assassins directed by Takashi Miike, a team of assassins plot to overthrow a lord who seeks to consolidate power within the Shogunate. It received the Best Film award at the Yokohama Film Festival. While beloved by genre film fans, the film and its director are known for their extreme portrayals of violence and sex. Viewer discretion advised!
In the tense crime thriller The Town, Ben Affleck plays a bank robber who falls in love with a victim after a heist. Their mission to rob Fenway Park in Boston is compromised when his partners begin to doubt his allegiance to them. Ben Affleck received positive reviews for both his acting and directing in this tense, well-written drama. It was named one of the Top Ten Films of 2010 by the National Board of Review.
In Point Blank, a hospital worker is caught in a desperate situation when gangsters kidnap his wife and command him to kill one of his patients. Things become even more difficult when he becomes caught between his blackmailers and the police pursuing him. The film’s popularity lead to it being remade in South Korea, Bangladesh, the United States, and India.
In Red, Bruce Willis puts his action hero persona back on as a retired CIA black ops agent who gets his team back together to stop an assassin coming after him. It received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and a sequel, Red 2, in 2013.
Danny Trejo shines in the cartoonishly violent and sexy action extravaganza Machete. Directed by Robert Rodriguez of Spy Kids, Sin City, and El Mariachi fame, Machete was developed off a fake trailer featured in Grindhouse (2007). Machete’s popularity would earn it a sequel called Machete Kills in 2013.
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(Photo by Pixar/ Courtesy Everett Collection. TOY STORY 3.)
If some of the action movies in 2010 were quirky, the comedies were quirkier. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a favorite of comic book nerds everywhere. Based on the graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley and directed by Edgar Wright, this zany action-VFX-romantic comedy cyclone sees Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) face down his dream girl Ramona Flowers’s seven evil exes to win the right to date her. The film features an all-star ensemble cast including Kieran Culkin, Brie Larson, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, and many more. Most of that cast would reunite in 2023 to reprise their roles in a popular animated series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
In the same comic vein, Kick-Ass hit theaters this year. Based on the 2008 graphic novel of the same name, Kick-Ass stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz as ordinary young people who take justice into their own hands as vigilantes dressed as superheroes. It’s blend of action and humor secured it a sequel, Kick-Ass 2, in 2013.
Tucker and Dave vs. Evil turned the horror comedy genre on its ear by making its alleged “killers” the protagonists. Tucker and Dale (played by Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk) are two kindhearted hillbillies who find themselves in quandary when a group of vacationing college students mistake them for murderers, leading to their own reckless behavior and undoing. Much more than just a silly premise, this movie won the Audience Award at SXSW Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.
The Trip, starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon is a refreshingly unique movie about friendship, peppered with witty observational humor that only Coogan and Brydon are capable of. The two comedians’ charms drew three sequels: The Trip to Italy (2014), The Trip to Spain (2017), and The Trip to Greece (2020).
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(Photo by wb/ Courtesy Everett Collection. INCEPTION.)
Let’s talk coming-of-age movies: Easy A, starring Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, and Amanda Bynes, is a modern teen rom-com take on the classic novel “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. When Olive Penderghast (Stone) lies to her friend about losing her virginity, she becomes stigmatized by her high school classmates. Upon learning she can use this false rumor for her own gain, she allows boys in her class to claim they slept with her, in exchange for gift cards, leading to plenty of comedy and social enlightenment. Emma Stone won Best Comedic Performance at the MTV Movie Awards and Choice Movie Actress: Romantic Comedy at the Teen Choice Awards, perhaps heralding the Oscar accolades she would earn later in her career.
Winter’s Bone is a less conventional coming-of-age film. Ree Dolly (played by Jennifer Lawrence) is a teen girl who must track down her father in the Ozarks to save her family from poverty. Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for this role. The film also won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
A lesser known gem of a coming-of-age movie is The Myth of the American Sleepover. Four teens seek out love and adventure on the last week of summer vacation. Its director, David Robert Mitchell, would go on to direct the horror cult favorite It Follows and the mystery thriller Under the Silver Lake.
