2019 in animation was not as strong as in past years.  There is absolutely no Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse here.  Still, there were several that were pretty decent.

I actually skipped several animated films this year that I thought might be on that worst list, so there are not very many to make up the three that I listed.  I skipped animated movies such as Angry Birds 2, Ugly Dolls, Arctic Dogs etc.

Previous Winners: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, Coco, Moana, Inside Out, Big Hero 6, Flashpoint, Paranorman, Winnie the Pooh

Best Animated Movie of the Year

#1.  Klaus.  A surprise pick from Netflix.  A great new version of the Santa Claus story.  Features J.K. Simmons as Klaus.

#2.  How to Train Your Dragon 3: Hidden World

#3.  Spies in Disguise

#4.  Toy Story 4

#5.  The Reign of Superman

Worst Animated Movie of 2019

#1.  Playmobil: The Movie.  A poor man’s Lego Movie, Playmobil: The Movie was one of the all-time flops.

#2.  The Addams Family

#3.  Wonder Park

#4.  Secret Life of Pets 2

Getting into the top of the decade.  Interestingly enough, a few of the films from 2019 on this list may be in a slightly different order than they will be in the final Best of list of the year.  Don’t @ me about it.

#30-16

#30.  Wonder Woman.  DC really needed this one and Diana delivered.  Sure I thought the CGI finale of the film was not as great as the rest of the movie, but there is no denying that the No Man’s Land sequence was some of the best movie making in all of comic book movie history.

#29.  Doctor Sleep.  A sort of sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep was a great horror film with a great performance from Ewan McGregor as a grown up version of Danny Torrence.  There is a lot of great mythology in here too.

#28.  Captain America: First Avenger.  Cap’s origin.  It is where we first realize that Chris Evans, a strange choice to play Steve Rogers, was the perfect choice to play Steve Rogers.  A WWII story with a cool appearance from the Red Skull.  This one is better than it gets credit for.

#27.  Warrior.  I had not seen this one until this very year and that was a travesty.  This film is emotional, powerful and thrilling.  You can’t help but root for Joel Edgerton as he makes his unlikely way through the UFC tournament for an eventual showdown with his brother Tom Hardy.  Amazing stuff.

#26.  Captain Phillips.  Tom Hanks brings his powerhouse work to this true story of a man whose ship is taken over by Somali pirates.  The ending scenes with Tom Hanks is perhaps the greatest acting he has ever done in his storied career.

#25.  Edge of Tomorrow.  If you dismissed this as Tom Cruise in a Groundhog Day rip off, you are missing out on one of the most original, inventive and exciting movies of the decade.  Cruise, who starts off going against type which was a welcome change, and Emily Blunt are great together.  This is a film that suffered from poor promotion and a terrible trailer.

#24.  Deadpool.  Ryan Reynolds never let this one go and, after some footage leaked online and the fans went nuts, Deadpool became a thing.  And it was a massive hit.  Arguably, Deadpool contains the best love story of any super hero movie and it is hilarious.

#23.  Knives Out.  Rian Johnson created this murder mystery and it was so much fun.  The fantastic ensemble cast brought their best game.  Knives Out was creative and kept you on the edge of the seat, even when you thought you knew what had happened.

#22.  Avengers: Age of Ultron.  A movie that receives a lot of displeasure from fans because it was not up to the level of the original Avengers.  I maintain that Age of Ultron is still an amazing movie that deserves its place on this list.  There were tons of nitpicks on this one, but nothing there, to me, hurts the film.

#21.  Cabin in the Woods.  A brilliant horror movie that really messes with the horror tropes in a creative and original manner.  It is a movie that explains why characters in horror movies do so many stupid things.  And it is epic.  Great work from director/writer Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon.  Also brings us a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth.

#20.  The Muppets.  A wonderful trip down the road of nostalgia with Muppet fan Jason Segel.  The Muppets return to form here with an attempt to save the Muppet Theater from the evil Tex Richman.  Man or a Muppet is one of the best songs in Muppet movies.

#19.  Jojo Rabbit.  Taika Waititi’s wonderful comedy about a boy in Nazi Germany and his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler.  The film features some of the best performances of the year and such humanity.  It is a spoof, until it isn’t any more.  One of 2019’s best movies.

#18.  Won’t You Be My Neighbor?  The best documentary I have seen and the one that has affected me more than any other.  I sobbed in my car on the way home.  I’m still not sure why, but this doc on the life of Fred Rogers was something that hit my buttons.   It was absolutely robbed of an Oscar nomination.  One of the biggest travesties in Oscar history.

#17.  Black Panther.  The story of T’Challa, King of Wakanda, was a cultural significance and a massive hit.  It is socially relevant and provided countless children a role model on the screen that looked like them.  Plus, the movie was great.

#16.  Spider-Man: Homecoming.  One of the best Spider-Man movies ever done and finally we have a Spider-Man that everyone can get behind. Tom Holland is the perfect Spider-Man and the perfect Peter Parker.  Then, we get a totally intense and frightening Vulture in the person of Michael Keaton.  That scene in the car with Peter and Toomes was as tense as any scene that year.

#30-16

The worst movies of 2010-2019 continues…

#30.  Zoolander 2.  Holy cow was this a trainwreck. People hold the original in a high regard, but this is nearly universally disliked.  Probably another sequel too late for the making.

#29.  The Brothers Grimsby.  Poop jokes.  Vomit jokes.  And a ridiculous plot, characters and story.  Worst of all…not funny.

#28.  A Million Ways to Die in the West.  Seth MacFarlane has done some really funny things over the years.  This ain’t one of ’em.  A Western movie spoof that just did not work for me.

Education stereotypes running wild

#27.  Fist Fight.  Another one of those stupid comedies (using the term loosely) based in a school that is so unrealistic that it loses me immediately.  The filmmakers here clearly hate teachers and the school system with their display of the school.

#26.  The Snowman.  One of the Spider-man 3 winners, I was looking forward to The Snowman.  Trailers made it look fantastic.  Unfortunately, it was no where near entertaining.  I had the killer picked out immediately.  Michael Fassbender looked depressed.  It was a horrible time at the theater.

Which of these is this picture from?

#25.  Immortals.  A Greek sword & sandal “epic” starring Henry Cavill and Mickey Rourke.  The story was dull.  The CGI was atrocious.  It was just a terrible movie.

#24.  Gods of Egypt.  Gerard Butler played “Egyptian” God Set.  I know that when I see Gerard Butler, I think Egyptian.  Why cannot Hollywood give us a good sword and sandal epic?

#23.  Nine Lives.  Yes, Kevin Spacey is turned into a cat. I know there are lots of people who wish Kevin Spacey would be turned into something, but  a cat may not be their first choice.  Inane film.

She-Hulk????

#22.  The Host.  A young adult book series based movie that came out after the success of Twilight.  Same author by the way and it featured a younger Saoirse Ronan whose future was much brighter than this sci-fi turd.

#21.  Transporter: Refueled.  Another in a franchise that should have gone away.  I remember almost nothing about this movie except for the fact that I wished it did not get made.  It was the #1 on my list of worst in 2015.

#20.  The Collection.  A horror story where a killer named The Collector kills people for the sake of gore and shock value…not for story.

If only I could have had a blindfold too

#19.  50 Shades of Grey.  It it the original in the series where we meet these characters for the first time.  50 Shades started as Twilight fan fiction and that is what the film feels like.  It is not even that sexy.  Pretty sure this is the worst trilogy of the decade.

#18.  Robin Hood.  Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx waste their significant talents in this attempt to once again make Robin Hood relevant.  It failed miserably and was one of the winners of the John Carter Memorial Award in 2018.

#17.  Jexi.  One of this year’s worst movies, Jexi is the story of a man and his cell phone.  Jexi is the “Siri” of this universe on steroids.  A poor man’s “Her”

#16.  Hangover II.  I enjoyed the first Hangover.  Little did I know that they were making the same damn movie in Hangover II, only placing it in a different country.  Hangover II took a huge plummet from where it was and turned the whole series into a joke. And one that was no longer funny.

Music is a vital component to the movie going experience, whether it be the main song or the music in the background.  Music gives you the proper feels for a scene and lives in your head from then on.

There may not have been as many original songs this year, but there are some very quality ones.

Shout out to Jennifer Hudson for her stunning performance of Memory in Cats.  If only she did not look as she did it the theater.  Her voice is amazing and I look forward to her as Aretha Franklin in 2020.

Original song

#5.  The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy (Toy Story 4)

#4.  Catchy Song (The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part)

#3.  Speechless (Aladdin)

#2. The Dead Don’t Die (The Dead Don’t Die)

#1.  Lost in the Woods (Frozen II)

This may not be the flashiest of the songs from Frozen II, but I have no doubt that this is the best one.  This was my favorite moment in the movie and I have it on my phone.  Jonathan Groff sings this brilliantly and the Weezer version is okay too.

Scores

#5.  Last Black Man in San Francisco- Emile Mosseri and Joe Talbot

#4.  Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker- John Williams

#3. Us- Michael Abels

#2.  Avengers: Endgame- Alan Silvestri

#1.  Joker- Hildur Guðnadóttir

Pop culture today is Geek Culture and most of the biggest stories affect the Geek community and the culture.  So the Top 15 Biggest Geek Stories of 2019 cover lots of ground.

#15.  Storm Area 51.  This came up online as a meme about midway through the year with a large number online supporting the idea.  Fortunately, when it came to the actual event, a small number of people showed basically as a whim and we avoided the trouble that was certainly coming.

#14.  Big Bang Theory ends.  After 12 seasons and 279 episodes, CBS’ The Big Bang Theory ended its run by giving Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler their much deserved Nobel Prize.

#13.  AEW.  The WWE got some real competition in 2019 with the arrival and birth of AEW.  Backed by billionaire Tony Khan, AEW came from the minds of Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks and provides another area fro wrestlers to work.  There was immediately a new wrestling “War” as AEW started on Wednesday nights spurring the WWE to counter-program its NXT against it.

#12.  Royal Baby- Archie.  The first-born son of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, Archie immediately became the 7th in line of succession for the throne of England.

#11.  Watchmen.  The HBO series created remarkable buzz as everyone loved each week’s episode. The series, written by Damon Lindelof, took the premise of the iconic graphic novel and moved it forward into the future to tell the story of racial tensions and divide among Americans.  Genius level work.

#10.  Star Wars ends the Skywalker Saga.  Episode IX was released to the common middling response to anything these days named Star Wars that does not feature Baby Yoda.  The film was very divisive with some believing it was a great finale to the Skywalker saga while others thinking that it was a gigantic mess.

#9.  WWE video game glitches.  The new WWE video game, WWE 2K20, had a ton of glitches and bugs when released, causing fans to complain about it not being ready for release.  There are some real funny ones, including when Charlotte went for the figure-8.

#8.  Greta Thunberg.  A 16-year old Swedish environmentalist, Greta created a huge stir on the world stage when she spoke at the UN Climate Action Summit.  She was named Time’s Person of the Year for 2019 and she was Tweeted at by the President of the USA, Donald Trump, but not in a positive way.

#7.  Joker/Captain Marvel pass $1B at box office.  Despite calls and protests against both film online, DC Movies Joker and Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel both passed one billion dollars world wide in 2019. It goes to show that the vocal minority on the Internet is just that, a minority.

#6.  Impeached.  Although I try to remain outside of the political realm here, you cannot ignore the fact that Donald Trump became only the third US president to ever be impeached.  Political junkies all over the internet and the media will be debating the importance or lack thereof well into 2020.

#5.  Spider-man tug of war.  About midway through the year, Sony and Disney announced that they were unable to come to an agreement over the rights to Spider-man and that the Web-Head would be leaving the MCU.  The public outcry was loud and, after Tom Holland called Bob Iger, a compromise was found to keep Spidey where he belongs.

#4.  Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola “trash” Marvel Studios.  It was the story that wouldn’t go away.  Scorsese made some comments about Marvel Studios not being cinema and how it is compared to an amusement park ride.  Though his comments were not that bad when read in context, the Internet exploded.  Then, when Coppola threw in his two cents about Marvel being “despicable” everything only got worse.  It seems like everything has finally started to calm down.  *Terry Gilliam-hold my beer*

#3.  Disney + launches.  The streaming service Disney + launched to great success on Nov. 12th as Disney says they had 10 million subscribers after the first day of launch.  Featuring such fun shows as The Mandalorian and The World According to Jeff Goldblum, a ton f Disney movies, and with the upcoming Marvel series, Disney + looks to be solid well into the future.

#2.  Game of Thrones ends.  The finale of HBO’s classic show Game of Thrones took place this year and, unfortunately, much of the final season, including the finale, was not what the public was hoping for.  The finale was disliked by many of its longtime viewers and continued that toxic environment that has become social media online.

#1.  Avengers: Endgame passes Avatar.  Yes, they had to re-release it right near the end of its run with some additional footage added in a post credit scene, but Avengers: Endgame was still a massive win.  It was able to overtake Avatar as the most money worldwide for any movie ever (without inflation).  Endgame made an insane $350 million domestic opening weekend, totally crushing the previous record set the year before by Infinity War.  It also made over $1 Billion dollars worldwide in the opening weekend.  It ended its theatrical run at $2,797,800,564, compared to Avatar’s $2,789,958,507.

We once again will have the specialty award to honor those members of the Expendables cast and their acting prowess in other films.

Best Expendable Supporting Actor:  Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator: Dark Fate).   Arnold returned to the Terminator franchise (again) and killed off poor John Connor.  Then he went off and got into a relationship.  Arnold continued to show his skill at being an emotion-less cyborg.

Expendable Match of the Year:  Ronda Rousey competing at Wrestlemania 35 in the main event.  Yes, Ronda lost that match, but you cannot argue that she was in the main event of Wrestlemania.  It was the first female main event of Wrestlemania ever and she shared the match with Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch.

Best Expendable Actor in a Lead Role:  Jason Statham (Hobbs & Shaw).  Jason Statham and The Rock had great chemistry together in the last Fast & Furious film (I don’t recall the number…9,maybe?) and that lead to a spin off for their characters.  The film was fun and as ridiculous as any F&F movie.  The film made a lot of money because of Statham and Johnson.

Best Expendable Actor in a Return Role:  Bruce Willis (Glass).  Bruce returned to the role of David Dunn this year in Glass, a film I liked but many people thought underperformed.

Best Expendable in a Rom-Com: Liam Hemsworth (Isn’t It Romantic).  A surprisingly funny film with a good comedic turn from Liam.

Best Expendable Cameo:  Harrison Ford (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker).  This is a shoo in since he already took home the Stan Lee Cameo of the Year Award.

This award is brand new this year. 

I wonder….

Is the title of this award…a SPOILER?

Yup.

Winner of the first ever Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award is….

Avengers: Endgame!

Of course.

I mean… duh.  It is literally the name of the brand new award.

And this is reasonable too.  There were so many great moments in the film.  Robert Downey Jr throughout.  Chris Evans and his story wrap-up for Cap.  How about Chris Hemsworth’s amazing portrayal of a Norse God fighting depression/PTSD?  Scarlett Johansson and her sacrifice.  Jeremy Renner was strong in all his scenes.  Karen Gillian gets overlooked a lot but she brought so much depth to Nebula.  Paul Rudd showed all kind of range, from comedic to downright frightened.  Gwyneth Paltrow’s good bye to Tony Stark was note perfect.  There were so many actors in this ensemble yet they all seemed to have their moments.  Especially the OG Avengers.

There were some other great ensemble casts this year too.

Runners-Up:  Knives Out, The Favorite, Parasite, Hotel Mumbai, Good Boys, Kid Who Would Be King, Bombshell, Little Women, Ready or Not, The Dead Don’t Die.

I actually have not seen as many documentaries of the past years and, honestly, there has not been that dominant documentary around.  Still, here are the list of 10.

#10.  Jawline.  On Netflix, the tale of 16-year-old Austyn Tester trying to become a celebrity on YouTube.  Interesting look.

#9.  Fire in Paradise.  The doc about the fire in the California city named Paradise.  It was intense and tough to watch, but it was too short.

#8.  Western Stars.  Bruce Springsteen in a barn singing his new album.  Solid work, but I did not know any of the songs.  Loved his cover of Rhinestone Cowboy.

#7.  Apollo 11.  The story of the first expedition to land on the moon featuring unaired footage and the actual news coverage.

#6.  Never Surrender.  Screen Junkies create a documentary all about the making of Galaxy Quest, the classic 90s comedy/spoof starring Tim Allen and Alan Rickman.

#5.  They Shall Not Grow Old.  A look at the soldiers of World War I through old BBC footage that Peter Jackson used technology to update the footage.

#4.  Biggest Little Farm.  An intense story of how a little farm begins and survives outside of Los Angeles.  I never thought this could be as exciting as it was.

#3.  Ask Dr. Ruth.  A documentary all about Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the noted sex therapist.  Entertaining and vital.

#2.  Amazing Grace.  A remarkable film with the performance of Aretha Franklin recording her Amazing Grace album live at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1972.  The Queen of Soul brings it.

#1.  Leaving Neverland.  The six hour documentary on the Michael Jackson child sexual abuse case was devastating, painful to watch and heartbreaking.  Listening to the stories of Jackson’s alleged victims was incredibly horrific and the interviews with the families involved made you angry and wondering what these people were thinking.

#50-31

Continuing with the listing of the worst movies of the decade, in my humble opinion.  Disagree?  Please.  Just stay civil.

#50.  Fifty Shades Freed.  The conclusion of perhaps the worst trilogy ever.  Fifty Shades Freed was the best of the three films.The other two are still to come.

Why does his stomach look like that?

#49.  The Legend of Hercules.  Kellan Lutz appears as the son of Zeus and a mortal woman.  That probably is all you need to know.

#48.  Pixels.  An Adam Sandler film, which is also probably all I need to say.  However, this one could have been better.  The film boasted a bunch of classic video game characters used horribly. Kevin James was the President which is nearly as odd as Donald Trump.

#47.  I, Frankenstein.  Another one that I had high hopes for only for them to be dashed.  Aaron Eckhart was the iconic monster who had to wind up in the middle of a war between gargoyles and demons.  Yeah, I’m not sure why either.

#46.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Long Haul.  I had liked the earlier films in this franchise and then this came along.  One of the worst films of that year, Long Haul took the immature humor to a different level.  The recasting of the roles did not help this either.

#45.  Action Point.  Johnny Knoxville running a run-down amusement park where safety is only a minor concern.  Many of the Jackass type stunts were done here too.  They aren’t funny here either.

Hey, it’s Kevin Nash!

#44.  Magic Mike XXL.  The only movie on this list that I actually walked on out.  It is this low because it is unfair to criticize it without having seen the end.  Still, I hated what I did see.  Perhaps the females in the crowd disagreed with me.

#43.  The Emoji Movie.  How are you going to make a movie starring emojis?  And how is Patrick Stewart voicing the poop emoji?  Why am I thinking about this one?

#42.  Clash of the Titans.  a huge disappointment because I loved the original from the 1970s.  Sure it was before CGI and you could tell, but it was such fun.  This one was terrible CGI too, but much more boring.

#41.  A Good Day to Die Hard.  Die Hard is one of the best action movies ever made.  This is the fifth movie in the franchise and it took John McClane to Russia to be with his son, played by Jai Courtney.  Absolutely horrendous.  The only thing hard about this one was watching it.

#40.  Anchorman 2.  I am not a fan of the original, and I dislike Will Farrell, so I was not the target audience for this long overdue sequel.  Even big fans of the original agreed that this one was lacking.

#39.  Underworld:  Awakenings.  Nearly walked out on this one and only stayed because I had gotten into it free because another film I was scheduled to watch did not work.  I stuck this one out, but regretted my choice in attending this.

#38.  Sucker Punch.  Just a horrible Zack Snyder film with a group of women in a fantasy dream world.  Loud.  Ugly.  Vicious.  More like a video game than a story.

#37.  Dumb and Dumber To.  Another sequel that waited too long to be made.  Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reunite for this tragically unfunny film.  All the best scenes were in the trailer.  Not very many to choose from.

#36.  Vacation.  A remake of the classic comedy, this new Vacation had nothing going for it except for a funny bit from Chris Hemsworth.  The rest of the movie was juvenile and filed with drug, poop and vomit jokes.

Is Mortdecai watching some of these movies?  What is with that expression?

#35.  Mortdecai.  Johnny Depp’s low point?  Perhaps, but this weirdo detective was not charming or funny.  It was just mean-spirited and unfunny.

#34.  Assassin’s Creed.  this film, starring Michael Fassbender, was such a disappointment because some believed it would be the film to break that video game curse.  It wasn’t.  It was just too stupid.

Do you think Maggie Grace is missing LOST by now?

#33.  Taken 2.  The first Taken was so great.  Liam Neeson as a father with a particular set of skills in search of his daughter and kicking ass along the way.  That was epic.  This?  Huge drop off.

#32.  Death of a Nation.  Dinesh D’Souza and his attack piece on Barack Obama by using historical inaccuracies.  This was prior to Dinesh D’Souza and his jail time (pardoned by D. Trump).  Can’t imagine how anyone could buy the garbage this guy is peddling.

#31.  Hot Pursuit.  It is Reese Witherspoon and Sophia Vergara in a buddy comedy (using that word – comedy-  sparingly).  Hot Pursuit is about as mind-numbingly dumb as you can get and even the charismatic leads cannot help this flop.

#50-31

We have cracked into the Top 50 of the decade 2010-2019.  Again, this is my opinion and only my opinion.  Disagree?  That’s great.  I am sure you will.

Let’s continue…

#50.  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.  This is a ballsy film.  It is more of a war epic than other Star Wars movies and it gives us a group of cool new character that are doomed from the start.  Plus, the film follows through with the finale.  I respect that.  It would have been easy to not kill them all and make up some excuse about where they were during the original trilogy, but they did not do that.

#49.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  This was an unexpected pleasure.  After the failed reboot of the franchise with the Mark Wahlberg film in the 90s, I had very low expectations for this, but James Franco and the rest brought Caesar to life and made me care about them.

#48.  Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.  My favorite of the Mission Impossible series, it featured the always crazy Tom Cruise hanging himself off of a gigantic building.  We also had a good use of Jeremy Renner.

#47.  Birdman.  Michael Keaton playing a washed actor who gave up the role of a super hero, Birdman, years prior.  Hm.  Sounds familiar.  Great acting in this film, not only by Keaton, but by Edward Norton and Emma Stone as well.

#46.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two.  The only Harry Potter movie to make this list, Deathly Hallows successfully brought the Harry Potter franchise to a close near the beginning of the decade.  The kid movie franchise had moved into a full dark and dramatic action movie.

#45.  Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  Everyone was remarkably happy to have Star Wars back again, with another chance after the prequels.  Sure The Force Awakens had several similar beats to the original Star Wars: A New Hope, but who cared?  It brought that feeling of nostalgia back to a galaxy far, far away.

#44.  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.  No way this was as entertaining as it was.  The sequel came too long after the original and lacked Robin Williams.  Still, this film had The Rock and featured a fabulous comedic performance from Jack Black.  I was sure this would be a huge failure, and I could not have been more wrong.

#43.  John Wick.  Don’t mess with John Wick’s dog or his car.  My favorite scene in this gun-fu film was when the big bad guy found out that his son had messed with John Wick’s car and the fear was real.  That gave us, the audience, the understanding that John Wick was someone not to mess with.

#42.  How to Train Your Dragon 2.  A great animated trilogy, this one had the guts to have its main hero dragon, Toothless, while under control, kill the father of Hiccup.  While that was a ballsy move, I do think that the movie shrugged it off too quickly.  However, the fact that it happened showed you how invested this film was in creating something different.

#41.  Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  Yeah, I know there is a lot of hatred for this movie, but I do not agree.  Yes, there are some really bad parts of this movie (particularly the Canto Bight sequence), but the parts of The Last Jedi that worked were some of the best Star Wars sequences ever.  And I loved the character arc given to Luke Skywalker, despite other opinions online (be nice please).

#40.  X-Men: Days of Future Past.  The adaption of one of the greatest X-Men stories to ever appear in Marvel Comics, DoFP showed us all kinds of time travel goodness and was able to give us not only the great new Xavier and Magneto (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) but also the great original Xavier and Magneto (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen).

#39.  Doctor Strange.  A great origin story for the Sorcerer Supreme of the MCU.  One of the most original films in the series, too.  I loved the ending where Strange uses his mind to defeat Dormammu instead of the typical fight.  Benedict Cumberbatch is a perfectly cast Dr. Strange.

#38.  Elvis & Nixon.  The true story (though much has been imagined) of the day when “The King” Elvis Presley went to the White House to meet with President Richard Nixon.  Michael Shannon gave us a fantastic Elvis and Kevin Spacey (though a jerk overall) was an intriguing Tricky Dick.

#37.  Searching.  Another film that I expected nothing out of only to find that it was brilliant.  John Cho plays the father of a missing girl and he is desperate to discover what had happened to her.  The gimmick was that the film showed the father only on computer screens and smartphones in his attempt to suss out what happened to his daughter.  John Cho was sensational in the role.

#36.  A Quiet Place.  There has never been a weirder theater going experience.  The theater was so enamored with the film that we were being as quiet as we could possibly be.  John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe are amazing as the family living in this horrible future where, if you make any noise, you can wind up alien food.

#35.  Skyfall.  My favorite James Bond film of the decade, Skyfall featured a smaller story from deep in the past of the character of James Bond.  Daniel Craig hit his stride as Bond and the film was helped along by the amazing theme song by Adele.  Despite the unlikeliness of the villainous plot, Skyfall is fantastic.

#34.  Ant Man.  Who thought this would be in the top 50?  Especially after the controversy with the departure from the film by director Edgar Wright.  However, Peyton Reed stepped in to the film and created a fun, exciting, smaller (avoiding the pun) heist film that was very enjoyable.

#33.  Chef.  Jon Favreau’s fun food film. After leaving his job as a chef at a prestigious LA restaurant, Favreau started a food truck business with his son and friend.  This movie is funny, heart-warming and provides us a wonderful relationship with Favreau and his son, played by Emjay Anthony.

#32.  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.  While it may not have reached the levels of the original, Guardians Vol. 2 has a ton of positives going for it, including some of the most emotional moments in the MCU.  The entire arc at the end of the film involving Yondu is simply gorgeous.  Plus, Kurt Russell as Ego the Living Planet is something we never knew we needed.

#31.  The Imposter.  A documentary about a man who claims to be the long-missing son from a family in Texas.  This story is so amazing that you cannot believe that it is true.  Heck, if it were a scripted movie, you would have a difficult time stretching reality to accept it.  But it happened.  The only problem is that there is too much of an open ending and I desperately wanted to know the answer.