After months and hundreds of submissions, we finally have the films you selected as your favourite (or least favourite) of the last ten years! To kick off Films Fatale’s Decade Week (where each day we will celebrate the 2010’s best works), we wanted to involve all of our readers and present their choices first. We cannot thank you enough for the enthusiasm, and the large variety of selections that were nominated! We received enough submissions to render each winner as a small percentage of the entire amount of votes we received. You sure love your movies! Luckily, so do we.

We will highlight the top ten or five of each category, and keep these findings short and to the point. Each top result will have its percentage beside it. Any similar or same percentages were either marginally different and were rounded up (if we included all of the decimal points; it just looks sloppy), or are the results of a tie; ties resulted in the film that got selected first winning over the other film. As many submissions as we received, you can imagine how many selections didn’t make the cut. Hopefully you find your picks below!

Thank you all for your submissions. We are presenting the winners in order of how the categories will be presented during our Decade Week.

Worst Film of the Decade: Chosen by You

Suicide Squad

Oh dear. David Ayer’s misbehaved comic flick was the clear cut winner of your votes: a whopping nine percent of every single submission, to be frank. Some of you submitted this film multiple times. Maybe it was the marketing of the film, or the anticipation for the DC Extended Universe to keep growing, that made the end result so unsatisfactory for you. What we found interesting is how many of the films nominated for the worst of the decade were ones that may have been acclaimed else wise. We understand that most of you are reasonable movie goers that want to watch good films, and maybe don’t agree with the majority sometimes. That makes Suicide Squad’s crowning here make even more sense. The message was loud and clear: you fled bamboozled, as is the indication for the rest of the “winners” here.

Worst Film of the Decade
1. Suicide Squad: 9%
2. Fantastic Four: 4%
3. 50 Shades of Grey: 4%
4. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: 3%
5. Jack and Jill: 3%
6. The Last Airbender: 2.5%
7. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1: 2.5%
8. Captain Marvel: 2.5%
9. Prometheus: 2%
10. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: 2%

Best Short of the Decade: Chosen by You

Bao

Well, Disney/Pixar’s animated short Bao won by an absolute landslide (fifteen percent of all of the votes went towards Bao). This felt like a no-brainer. The film is fresh (it only came out last year). It’s dear to many of your hearts (its depiction of a divide within a family is something we have all experienced). It is a clear indication of a more progressive industry, as the film provides a voice from a Chinese-Canadian household. Lastly, it’s Disney and Pixar. They know how to churn out a powerful short. They’ve done so for years. Bao was the clear cut favourite, but let’s see what other shorts you all liked the most afterwards.

Best Short Film of the Decade
1. Bao: 15%
2. Piper: 7%
3. Skin: 6%
4. The Lady in Number 6: 6%
5. Fresh Guacamole: 5%

Best Documentary of the Decade: Chosen by You

O.J.: Made in America

ESPN’s miniseries documentary has proven time and time again how socially hypnotic the O.J. Simpson murder trial was, by spellbinding a new generation. It’s the extreme detailing of Simpson’s rise during a problematic society (riddled with racially slanted police brutality), and his fall during his arrest and subsequent legal battle. Maybe it’s the subject matter that kept you all hooked, or the current nature of viewing streamable miniseries in binged marathons that made O.J.: Made in America such a popular choice: ten percent of you selected it.

Best Documentary Feature of the Decade
1. O.J.: Made in America: 10%
2. Won’t You Be My Neighbour?: 6%
3. Faces Places: 5.5%
4. They Shall Not Grow Old: 5%
5. Blackfish: 3%

Best Performance of the Decade: Chosen by You

Joaquin Phoenix: Joker

We heard you loud and clear. Evidently, Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal as the iconic comic book antihero is still sticking with you. Considering that these polls started well before Joker even came out, it’s only telling that your submissions for this performance overtook the entire category. Perhaps as a trickle-down effect, Phoenix also came in third for his performance in The Master; maybe Joker guided you towards this other thrilling role, or it was strong enough to resonate with you for seven years. Either way, here are your top selected performances.

Best Performance of the Decade
1. Joaquin Phoenix-Joker: 6%
2. Michael Keaton-Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance): 4%
3. Joaquin Phoenix-The Master: 4%
4. Margot Robbie-I, Tonya: 3%
5. Jake Gyllenhaal-Nightcrawler: 3%
6. Rosamund Pike-Gone Girl: 3%
7. Daniel Day-Lewis-Lincoln: 3%
8. Emmanuelle Riva-Amour: 2.5%
9. Leonardo DiCaprio-The Wolf of Wall Street: 2%
10. Natalie Portman-Black Swan: 2%

Best Film of the Decade: Chosen by You

The Tree of Life

Something about Terrence Malick’s cinematic poetry convinced the majority of you readers to pick it as the best film of the last ten years. Maybe it’s the exquisite cinematography, or the emotional depiction of the struggle between nature and nurture within the course of a life (and the entirety of time). Malick’s decade defining film narrowly beat out Jordan Peele’s Get Out, with Richard Linklater’s twelve year experiment Boyhood coming in in third place. Most of the top ten here are older films, with only one film from the last two years here. The legacies of these works clearly surpassed their initial hype, as proven by your submissions.

Best Film of the Decade
1. The Tree of Life: 4%
2. Get Out: 3%
3. Boyhood: 3%
4. The Master: 3%
5. Whiplash: 2.5%
6. Moonlight: 2.5%
7. Hidden Figures: 2.5%
8. Inside Llewyn Davis: 2.5%
9. Interstellar: 2.5%
10. Avengers: Endgame: 1.5%

Thanks again for all of your submissions. Even though there isn’t another end-of-a-decade for another ten years, we would like to do a similar poll this time next year. See you then!

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Decade Week: Reader Selection Results