The Best Movies of 2010
This year will not be remembered as a vintage one for movies, but it was better than most people will ever know. Unless you were in the privileged position to see movies at film festivals around the world, you’d have no idea how many good movies never see the light of day in U.S. theaters. Here are 10 superior 2010 films.
When Malik (Tahar Rahim), a Frenchman of Arab descent, enters prison, he is an illiterate 19-year-old enigma, beginning a six-year sentence for a crime he claims he didn’t commit. When he emerges, at the end of Jacques Audiard’s astonishing saga, he has transformed himself into a sage and cunning criminal: he’s taught himself to read, to murder, and to navigate the kill-or-be-killed rules of prison life. Though Malik commits terrible acts, he remains a fascinating and sympathetic figure, a pure and model product of his savage environment. Niels Arestrup gives a haunting performance as the brutal Corsican prison lord who takes Malik under his wing. Audiard (Read My Lips) has never made a bad film, but here he rises to a new level. A Prophet ranks with the great prison movies of all time.
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