10 Great Movies of the 2020s

I haven't watched Barbie or Oppenheimer and probably never will

“I do not have […] a favorite scene from The Godfather because I’ve never watched it and I probably never will”, says director and actress Kit Zauhar.

Well, I have watched The Godfather, many years ago.

But when I was recently staring at a PDF of the Sight and Sound poll with the “250 Greatest Films of All Time”, I realized I hadn’t even watched a fifth of them.

At first, I felt ashamed about these huge gaps in my knowledge of cinema history. I even planned to watch more of these movies over the next weeks.

Looking closer, I felt I just couldn’t be bothered to sit through many of them. It just didn’t feel like they were still relevant to me.

This is why I was happy to read Zauhar’s quote above.

To be clear, I’m not saying The Godfather is a bad movie and it’s not relevant anymore. I’m just saying if it doesn’t speak to you, that’s totally fine as well.

I do subscribe to the idea of a ‘canon’ in general. As a society, it gives us a cultural point of reference to relate to.

At the same time, we’re living in an era of endless ‘content’ at our disposal. As our time on this earth is limited, we need to be selective about what we engage with.

That goes for supposed classics as much as for contemporary works.

I haven’t watched Barbie or Oppenheimer and probably never will.

Find 10 of my favourites from the last couple of years below.¹

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