In 2016, BBC asked 177 different film critics from around the world to list their ten greatest movies of the 21st century. They then compiled a list of the top 100. Third on the list was Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 masterpiece There Will Be Blood.
Read MorePerhaps no filmmaker has been more challenging to serious Christian cinephiles than Martin Scorsese.
Read MoreIt might seem odd to select the 2016 horror film, The Witch, as a film for a series on spiritually significant films from the past two decades. Perhaps to your surprise (and mine), The Witch is one of the most layered and complex theological explorations to come out in recent memory—alongside the usual suspects of Silence, First Reformed, and A Hidden Life.
Read Moreby Nathan Robertson
Reverend Toller often quotes Thomas Merton, battling between this seemingly contradictory struggle of hope and despair. First Reformed is visually mesmerizing, forcing the viewer to soak in everything on the screen. Hawke is a subtle but powerful force to be reckoned with, giving a performance that should be remembered. But more than that, First Reformed is a carefully weaved warning for Christians to stop trying to create their own form of convenient Christianity.
Read Moreby Mitch Wiley
Perhaps no director had a better meteoric rise in the 2010s decade than Denis Villeneuve. The French-Canadian director exploded with hits like Prisoners, Sicario, Best Picture-nominee Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049. All are critically well-received, and most made quite a bit of money. Blade Runner 2049 while not a runaway box-office smash, will likely follow the footsteps of its 1982 predecessor and increase in admiration over time. The box-office success will likely continue as 2020’s Dune remake (fingers crossed on a 2020 release) is one of the biggest and most anticipated upcoming releases of the calendar year. Villeneuve’s decade-long run did not start in 2013 with Prisoners and A24’s Enemy, but in 2010 with the lesser-known Arabic/French film, Incendies.
Read Moreby Nathan Robertson
Paul Thomas Anderson himself has said that The Master is his favorite among the films he’s made (others include Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, and most recently Phantom Thread).
Read Moreby Mitch Wiley
“What’s going on?”
This phrase is uttered what seems like countless times, mostly by the film’s protagonist, Larry Gopnik. Larry is a private school physics professor in 1967 Minnesota. It’s also a line likely uttered by the viewer at various points in the film. A Serious Man is a special film for me, one that has undergone a personal “critical re-evaluation.” Movies are fluid, more alchemy than mathematics, to borrow a phrase from a friend. Many films demand repeat viewings in order to catch up to their wavelength, pace, meaning, or depth. My initial viewing of A Serious Man left me frustrated by the lack of resolution and an abundance of lingering questions. “What’s going on?”
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