41 Best Movies & Shows Released in 2010 (Page 2)

A young girl is looking for her father while struggling to care for her family. The film is bleak and slow but great performances from the cast, especially the lead, will keep you engaged throughout. The story has a very real, raw, and natural feeling to it, so natural in fact that at times, you will forget it is a movie. And in many ways, it feels that Winter's Bone is to Jennifer Lawrence what The Believer was to Ryan Gosling, as her performance is nothing short of perfect.

Genre: Drama, Mystery

Actor: Ashlee Thompson, Casey MacLaren, Dale Dickey, Garret Dillahunt, Isaiah Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Kevin Breznahan, Lauren Sweetser, Ronnie Hall, Shelley Waggener, Sheryl Lee, Tate Taylor

Director: Debra Granik

Rating: R

This is a very nice movie about a lovely older couple named Tom and Gerri. It follows their lives for an entire year, as they work at their jobs, invite friends over for dinner, and work in their garden. They live modest but fulfilling lives, and they seem mostly happy and very much in love, a rarity in the movies. This probably sounds horribly boring to most people, but since Mike Leigh is the director, the film is instead a touching and realistic portrayal of love and how people spend their time together. We should all be so lucky as to live a life as charmed as the central couple in this film.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Badi Uzzaman, Ben Roberts, David Bradley, David Hobbs, Edna Doré, Eileen Davies, Gary Powell, Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent, Karina Fernandez, Lesley Manville, Martin Savage, Mary Jo Randle, Meneka Das, Michele Austin, Oliver Maltman, Peter Wight, Phil Davis, Ralph Ineson, Ruth Sheen, Stuart McQuarrie

Director: Mike Leigh

Rating: PG-13

In this 3D documentary, Werner Herzog takes a dive into the Chauvet Cave in Southern France. From archaeology and anthropology to master perfumery, scientists across disciplines have studied the cave with a palpable enthusiasm—making their best guesses about each cave drawing, based on the data that can be collected without destroying the site. It’s fascinating to hear how they hypothesize where they can find new entrances, or how prehistoric humans could have made music. Cave of Forgotten Dreams turns a regular documentary into a profound meditation about the human soul, creation, and human history. Herzog compiles clips of his interviews with the scientists alongside footage of the cave itself and his own narration, and mixes it with an ethereal score to turn this exploration into a religious epiphany.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Actor: Charles Fathy, Dominique Baffier, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog

Director: Werner Herzog

Rating: G

Filmed as a “found footage” of a Norwegian college film crew investigating local poachers, this movie really surprised me. To be fair, I didn’t really know what to expect. But I definitely didn’t expect to like this movie as much as I did. The pacing is on point. The suspense hits you at just the right times. There are a few drops of humour trickled throughout to keep a smile on your face. And that’s how my face stayed when the credits rolled.

Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror

Actor: André Øvredal, Anton Yelchin, Eirik Bech, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Hans Morten Hansen, Inge Erik Henjesand, Johanna Mørck, Johanna Mørck, Kelsey Grammer, Knut Nærum, Knut Nærum, Lexi Medrano, Otto Jespersen, Robert Stoltenberg, Tomas Alf Larsen, TomTom Jorgensen, Torunn Lødemel Stokkeland, Urmila Berg-Domaas

Director: André Øvredal, André Øvredal

Rating: PG-13

Stressed by adolescence, 16-year-old Craig Gilner checks himself into a mental-health clinic. Unfortunately, the youth wing is closed, so he must spend his mandated five-day stay with adults. One of them, Bobby, quickly becomes his mentor -- and him his protege, while Craig finds himself drawn to a fellow teen, Noelle, who just may be the cure he needs to forget an unrequited crush. Starring Keir Gilchrist and Zack Galifianakis, It's kind of a Funny Story is based on a novel of the same name.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Aasif Mandvi, Adrian Martinez, Alan Aisenberg, Ato Blankson-Wood, Bernard White, Billy McFadden, Dana DeVestern, Daniel London, Emma Roberts, Jared Goldstein, Jeremy Davies, Jim Gaffigan, Karen Chilton, Keir Gilchrist, Lauren Graham, Leo Allen, Lou Myers, Macintyre Dixon, Matthew Maher, Molly Hager, Morgan Murphy, Roddy Skeaping, Rosalyn Coleman, Stewart Steinberg, Thomas Mann, Viola Davis, Zach Galifianakis, Zoë Kravitz, Zoe Kravitz

Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

Rating: PG-13

Arrietty may not be as epic as other Ghibli movies, both in the literal and figurative sense, but its tiny world is so richly detailed that you could spend hours studying a single frame of the film. In Arrietty’s lovely house-underneath-a-house, stamps are hung on the walls like paintings, a flowerpot serves as the hearth, a tea canister is a cabinet, an olive a chair, a sewing pin a sword, a clothespin a hair tie, and so on. The possibilities are endless, but the film tries to exhaust them as much as it can. This alone makes Arrietty a delightful watch, but the simple story at the heart of it—one of survival, empathy, and faith—elevates into a timeless classic.

Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy

Actor: Amy Poehler, Bridgit Mendler, Carol Burnett, David Henrie, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Keiko Takeshita, Kirin Kiki, Mirai Shida, Moises Arias, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Shinichi Hatori, Shinobu Otake, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Tomokazu Miura, Will Arnett

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi

Rating: G

A dark and sophisticated slow-burning drama, Never Let Me Go is adapted from the highly acclaimed novel of the same name by Japanese-born British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield as boarding school raised teenagers eager to explore the outside world when they learn a secret that will threaten their very existence. Anything more is a spoiler, watch it.

Genre: Drama, Romance, Science Fiction

Actor: Amy Lennox, Andrea Riseborough, Andrew Garfield, Anna Maria Everett, Carey Mulligan, Charles Cork, Charlie Rowe, Charlotte Rampling, Chidi Chickwe, Damien Thomas, David Sterne, Domhnall Gleeson, Ella Purnell, Fidelis Morgan, Hannah Sharp, Huggy Leaver, Isobel Meikle-Small, Izzy Meikle-Small, John Gillespie, Kate Bowes Renna, Kate Sissons, Keira Knightley, Luke Bryant, Lydia Wilson, Monica Dolan, Nathalie Richard, Sally Hawkins

Director: Mark Romanek

Rating: R

A cracking cast including Guy Pearce and Joel Edgerton elevate this dark and gripping Australian crime drama, which was received with glowing reviews from critics but was sadly forgotten with time.

Breakout star James Frecheville plays J, a teenager who goes to live with his grandmother, the head of a Melbourne crime organization. As the heat closes in and things go awry, J finds himself caught between his family and a detective who wants to save him.

Jacki Weaver is outstanding as the conniving grandma and the film put Ben Mendelsohn on the road to Hollywood stardom. Animal Kingdom is a superior crime saga with plenty of emotional depth to match the tense drama.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Andy McPhee, Anna Lise Phillips, Anthony Hayes, Ben Mendelsohn, Bert LaBonté, Brenda Palmer, Chris Weir, Christina Azucena, Clayton Jacobson, Dan Wyllie, David Michôd, Dom Phelan, Guy Pearce, Jack Heanly, Jacki Weaver, Jacqueline Brennan, James Frecheville, James Saunders, Joel Edgerton, Josh Helman, Justin Rosniak, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Laura Wheelwright, Luke Ford, Michael Vice, Mirrah Foulkes, Sullivan Stapleton, Susan Prior, Tim Phillipps

Director: David Michôd

Rating: R

Even for the greatest, things can change enough that what was once popular is now ignored, what was once appreciated is now neglected, and things eventually lose their spark. Originally written by iconic French filmmaker Jacques Tati for one of his daughters, the screenplay for The Illusionist landed in the hands of Sylvain Chomet, who turned Tati’s live-action script into a devastating animated father-daughter drama, where the titular Tatischeff meets Alice, whose childlike belief sparks inspiration again in his own art, whether it be straightforward vaudeville acts or advertisements he resorts to in order to sustain their living. While the hand-drawn animation enables the physical comedy, it does conceal the tragic reality behind Tati’s script, but even as it does so, it somehow mirrors how both Tati and Chomet’s genre created magic, however ephemeral it may be.

Genre: Animation, Drama

Actor: Didier Gustin, Eilidh Rankin, Jacques Tati, Jean-Claude Donda, Jil Aigrot

Director: Sylvain Chomet

Rating: PG