Image via Complex
Defining a decade can be tricky, especially in an era where the last thing entertainment companies want to do is make less. Peak Content is the name of the game, and with everything from Disney’s Marvel Studios making serious bank from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, Netflix throwing all kinds of bags to lure the biggest and best directors to their streaming platform, and new TV shows springing up every week, it’s easy to get lost in this sea of limited series, blockbuster films, and everything in between.
Even still, it’s easy to find your way. When it comes to themes of innovation, moving the goal post, and progression within the industry, there is a clear-cut group of actors, writers, directors, brands, and executives who have led the pack. Creatives that either bucked trends to create a brighter future or set the trends that the rest of the industry followed. Creatives that dominated the box office or ascended to the heights of the AWARDS SZN circuit on a consistent basis. The best of the best, along with the figures who are paving the way for the future.
In looking at this collection of names, we had to figure out a number of things: How did the actions of these individuals impact their respective fields? If they act, how large did their presence loom over the zeitgeist of the decade? What did their actions mean for their peers and how they operated—and will operate in the future? Were they best in show? These attributes and accolades, alongside the overall quality and consistency of their work in their respective fields this decade, were huge factors in our selections.
When looking back at the 2010s, these are without a doubt the men and women who helped shape one of the most challenging and exciting decades in film and television. Here are the creatives who defined the 2010s.
A24
Definitive Works: Moonlight, Spring Breakers, Room, Ladybird
When you think of independent film, you think of A24. It’s hard to believe that the premiere indie film distribution company has only been around for seven years, as it has been so instrumental in shaping the films, artists, and style of the indie world in the 2010s.
From its first slate of films, released in 2013, founders Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges made a lasting impact on the indie world. In that first batch were Spring Breakers, Bling Ring, and The Spectacular Now, films that announced A24’s brand that is at once prestigious and beautiful and edgy and raw. Their brand, ultimately, is art.
In the intervening years, A24 has figured out how to make big returns on their investments and compete for Academy Awards, all while maintaining and elevating that quality control. A list of the company’s best films reads like a rundown of the defining films of the millennial generation. They include Obvious Child (2014), Ex Machina (2015), Moonlight (2016), Ladybird (2017), The Florida Project (2017), Good Time (2017), and First Reformed (2018). And, in truth, another writer could pick out another half-dozen films that would feel equally defining from the rest of their catalog.
This year, A24 will have at least five films in awards season contention, as The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Farewell, The Lighthouse, Waves, and The Souvenir have all received glowing reviews and the accompanying buzz you need to turn that into nominations. Last year, the company pulled in 25 total Oscar nods. In 2017, Moonlight won Best Picture. In 2016, Brie Larson won Best Actress for A24’s Room.
Perhaps more importantly, A24 has permeated the collective consciousness of film lovers. Though they distribute all kinds of films, there is a type of film: a dramedy that invariably features the protagonist leaning out of their car and looking up at the blue sky as beautiful music swells and they consider how they are going to pay their bills, that will define this decade in retrospect. This marquee type of A24 film embodies the social and political realities of the decade: they are diverse, they look unflinchingly at injustice, and they laugh in the face of the hard realities of this political and economic moment in American life.
Just as Miramax defined the sensibility of the 90s with gritty, masculine, outside the box fare like Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Trainspotting, and Sling Blade, A24’s elegiac, beautifully shot, diverse, politically aware offerings have helped define the sensibility of a generation. —Brenden Gallagher
Kenya Barris
Definitive Works: black-ish, Girls Trip, grown-ish
While many of the decade’s television game-changers worked in cable and streaming, Kenya Barris redefined network television comedy in what might be the twilight of its history.
Barris’ best-known television effort is black-ish, the long-running ABC comedy that is still anchoring the network’s Tuesday night schedule in its sixth season. The series, a sitcom that follows the exploits of a black family led by Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross, proved to be one of the few network hits in a decade that saw the continued decline of traditional TV programming.
Black-ish quickly established itself as a vital outlet for exploring issues important to black families in America. Notably, Barris was never afraid to push the limits of what Disney-owned ABC would allow him to tackle. Under his watch, the series took on hot-button issues with gusto, while never reeking of ripped-from-the-headlines thirst. One episode that dealt directly with Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem and the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, remains in the Disney vault. The true influence of Blackish is still being felt, but to date, we can count two spinoffs (mixed-ish and grown-ish) and a number of similar series like Fresh Off the Boat and One Day at a Time, as owing the series a clear debt. One Day At A Time’s co-creator Norman Lear influenced Barris with his brand of politically-conscious family sitcoms in the '70s, and no Barris’ success has allowed for a resurgence of the subgenre.
Outside of black-ish, Barris amassed a number of impressive and influential feature credits as a writer and producer in the 2010s including Little, Shaft, Barbershop: The Next Cut, and Girls Trip. Girls Trip is among the most successful comedies of the decade, returning $140 million on a $20 million budget and making Tiffany Haddish into a full-fledged star. Just as black-ish made the argument for more TV programming created by and starring people of color, Girls Trip reminded Hollywood that a movie starring four black women could be box office gold.
As the decade ends, Barris is poised to extend his influence even further. He is one of a few creators to land massive overall deals at Netflix. Barris’ deal with the streamer is estimated at $100 million. No matter how the Netflix deal shakes out, Barris has established himself as one of the great chroniclers of the black experience in sitcom history. —Brenden Gallagher
David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
Definitive Works: Game of Thrones
The negative critical reception of the final season of Game of Thrones has clouded the era-defining achievement that the show truly was. Following the show’s finale, the trendy take was that Game of Thrones marked the end of watercooler TV shows. It’s far more likely that the opposite is true. Just as shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad pushed the limits of television prestige, Game of Thrones forever expanded the scope and ambition of television storytelling. If Walter White's plight in Breaking Bad signaled that television was as sophisticated as film, Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister demonstrated that TV can have the technical and logistical ambition of the biggest Hollywood movies.
There has been some serious revisionist history regarding the quality of Seasons 2-6 of the show: the reviews and fan reactions from the period offer clear proof that it was one of TV’s best shows. But, regardless of quality, the sheer nuts-and-bolts achievement of Game of Thrones marks the kind of formal shift for television that only comes along once or twice in a generation. At its best, with episodes like “Battle of the Bastards,” “Rains of Castamere,” and “The Winds of Winter,” Game of Thrones brought a level of spectacle to television that had never been seen before. It is difficult to comprehend sheer scope of the series, though statistical bites like the fact the one battle scene took 55 days to shoot or that the series would often have three complete separate units filming at once, begin to get at just how impressive a feat Game of Thrones really was.
The vast majority of Game of Thrones copycats are doomed to fail. Half-baked fantasy series are flooding the airwaves trying to be the “next Game of Thrones,” just like a batch of shows billed themselves as the “next Mad Men” or the “next Girls.” Those flash in the pan efforts don’t really matter. Game of Thrones’ legacy isn’t about a particular kind of show, it is about proving that the possibilities of TV are truly endless. It is odd that there has been so much debate about the capability and vision of Benioff and Weiss in the months following the show’s end. The fact of the matter is that they were at the helm of the most ambitious television project in history. And it was really good, too. —Brenden Gallagher
Greg Berlanti
Definitive Works: Arrow, Riverdale, You
How does Greg Berlanti sleep? That’s the question I keep returning to as I look over some of his production output from just this decade and see just how absurdly stacked it is: Political Animals, Arrow, The Flash, Blindspot, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Riverdale, Black Lightning, You, God Friended Me, All American, Titans, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Doom Patrol, and Batwoman. Are you exhausted yet?
Let me offer some more context: For the 2018 television year, Berlanti and his Warner Bros.-based production company, Greg Berlanti Productions. had a record-breaking 14 series. In 2019, he topped his own number with 18 across five different networks: NBC, CBS, Fox, Netflix, and the DC Universe streaming service. If there’s any sort of genre television show that you like, there’s a solid chance that Berlanti is involved.
In the same way that Kevin Feige seems to have a sixth sense for what audiences want, no matter how obscure or unconventional the premise, Berlanti has adopted that same philosophy for television; that parallel is especially easy to make since both men are shepherds of two successful superhero properties, albeit aiming to do vastly different things. Yet in the same way that DC hasn’t quite been able to crack their movies in the same way that Marvel has, the latter would kill to have their television shows be as successful as the Berlanti-verse has been.
That success is something the producer hasn’t taken for granted, instead leveraging it to ensure that more inclusive stories are being told. His directorial feature, Love, Simon, was the first major studio film to focus entirely on a gay teen romance. He cast the first transgender superhero with Nicole Maines on Supergirl and brought Kathy Kane’s lesbian Batwoman to The CW, too. And that activism stretches back to his days as a writer on Dawson’s Creek, where he fought to have the show make history with the first kiss between two men. The industry has certainly come a long way since then, but there are still miles to go. Yet Berlanti has proven over the course of this decade, he’s most likely the man to make it happen. And it doesn’t look like he's keen on stopping any time soon. —William Goodman
Ryan Coogler
Definitive Works: Black Panther, Fruitvale Station, Creed
It’s insane to think that Ryan Coogler’s only been directing for the last decade. It’s even more astonishing that he did more short films (six) than his three dynamic feature-length films: Fruitvale Station (2013), Creed (2015), and 2018’s Black Panther. Moving from strength to strength on each release, he’s proven to be one of the most exciting directors to hit Hollywood in recent memory.
It’s been an inspiring run for the gifted visionary. He didn’t see himself going down this path initially; he was playing ball, and ended up falling in love with making films. Like other directors on this list, one of Coogler’s strengths was how he gave African American moviegoers a mirror of ourselves. Fruitvale helped many understand (and mourn) the life of abrupt death of Oscar Grant; Creed not only revitalized the Rocky franchise, but was a great example of rebooting classics that can then live their own lives. Black Panther was his Super Bowl; Coogler was able to take the African king of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and pen a love letter to Africa wrapped in an intriguing James Bond-esque remix of the superhero genre. To great success, too; Black Panther's reported $1.3 billion haul at the box office broke the record for highest-grossing film by a Black director, as well as being the second-highest grossing film in 2018. All based on a character a number of casual superhero stans might not necessarily have been up on.
Coogler’s carving out his legacy in front of our eyes. He’s helped establish Michael B. Jordan that the world seems to want but Hollywood hasn’t seemed to crack (yet). He’s unafraid to tell Black stories his way; not too many can breathe life into Philly the way he did with Creed after Sylvester Stallone and company helped establish the city for the nation decades prior. For many of us, who’ve never been to Africa, the way he incorporated African culture in a big-budget Marvel film? Coogler’s an anomaly and a damn fine director. One has to imagine how the next ten years will shape up if he’s able to continue putting on for his people in his own unique way. —khal
Leonardo DiCaprio
Definitive Works: Inception, Django Unchained, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Adapt or die seemed to be the theme for Hollywood this past decade, and nobody side stepped extinction with as big of a glow up as Leonardo DiCaprio. On paper, DiCaprio’s drawing power should’ve long since fizzled, with him shirking every trend that dictated the industry through the twenty-tens. Maybe that’s why he continues to be an exception to the rules though: he doesn’t follow them.
Avoiding being pigeonholed into genres such as action star Dwayne Johnson, or comedy hit Kevin Hart, Leo spent the past ten years switching seamlessly between mystery thriller (Shutter Island), to big-budget sci-fi (Inception), to drama (The Wolf of Wall Street), growing his fanbase along the way. The man even managed to draw the wider world of social media into his 2016 Oscar quest with the hashtag, #LEONFORANOSCAR, for his role in the two-and-a-half-hour period biopic The Revenant. Seriously, most people won’t watch a gif if it goes over five seconds. Even still, as the industry situation continues to grow direr, and the headliners from mega franchises begin to struggle to put up numbers without their masks or lightsabers, Leo seems to be the one person who could turn it all around. This can all be boiled down to one fact, and that is, Leonardo DiCaprio is the last true movie star.
Netting over $3 billion with films, that minus his connection might have never been greenlit, proves not only his bargaining power over studios and execs, but his influence with the audience. As the chairman of Sony Pictures, Tom Rothman, put it, DiCaprio has made his name off a promise of “excellence… If he’s in it, the audience knows it’s going to be good because he’s in it.” This ability to fill seats for original content has only made his star shine brighter, bridging the gap between nostalgic cinephiles such as his Marvel bashing mentor, Martin Scorsese, and contemporary franchise fans. When asked about his collaborator’s success, the Goodfellas director gave the assurance it was no fluke: “He could have been in silent films. It's the look on his face, the look in his eyes. He doesn't have to say anything. It just reads, and you can connect with him. Not everybody is like that."
In truth, Leo is a million things to a million different people. He’s the promise of a quality product, the breath of fresh air in an increasingly generic medium, and a throwback to classic cinema all rolled into one. For my money, I think he’s a sneak peek into what’s to come this next decade, as he’s undeniably had a hand in shaping film’s development this past one. Either way, you know we’ll be watching. —Nate Houston
Lena Dunham
Definitive Works: Girls, Tiny Furniture
The most influential pop culture icons tend to be the most controversial, and Lena Dunham is one of the more profound examples of that. While Dunham’s critics have (rightfully) called out her thoughtless (and often offensive) public statements, her work continues to be celebrated for pushing boundaries and capturing the millennial psyche, to a painfully accurate degree. Whether you love them or hate them, know someone like them or are someone like them, the central characters of Dunham’s Girls are powerful because of their resonance with so many young people.
On HBO, Dunham’s impact is clear cut: she filled in a gap that was missing post-Sex and the City, and reached viewers (especially women) in a way that Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha no longer could, given the drastic technological and cultural shifts that had taken place since SATC’s finale. Offscreen, Dunham’s voice and influence have sparked numerous wide-ranging conversations about feminism, white privilege, body image, representation, nepotism, and the ever-evolving responsibilities of today’s creatives. —Carolyn Bernucca
Ava DuVernay
Definitive Works: When They See Us, Selma, 13th, A Wrinkle in Time
In an industry that typically favors fast entertainment and homogeneity, Ava DuVernay has offered a magnifying lens for audiences who are seeking something more. Whether it’s through a film that’s centered on one moment in time, like the 1965 voting rights marches in Selma, or a documentary tracing the expansive history of mass incarceration, DuVernay spent the last decade offering a reintroduction of some of the most painful yet constantly relevant chapters of America. She examines the supposedly infallible structures of law and criminal justice with characters who’ve been through literal Hell on Earth. However, it’s also through these same projects that she has also given new life to the people who deserve to been heard and seen.
“We're always hearing about representation, but inherent in the word ‘representation’ is having to assert who you are. You have to represent who you are” said Ava DuVernay in a GQ interview while promoting When They See Us, a four-part drama series on Netflix released this year. When it comes to representation, DuVernay has expanded the scope of diversity by giving a voice to the voiceless. In this case, she brought a second wave of public attention to the Central Park Five, but this time with a series that would offer them a sense of justice that escaped them both in the criminal justice system as well as media coverage.
When looking at Ava DuVernay’s trajectory of career achievements, one can’t help but notice the timing of them. In 2012, she was the first black woman to win a Sundance Film Festival directing award for her sophomore film Middle of Nowhere. Two years later, she was the first black woman to earn a Golden Globe directing award nomination and an Oscar Best Picture nomination for Selma, her Martin Luther King Jr. biopic. In 2018, she became the first black woman to direct a movie with a production budget of $100 million-plus, with Disney’s adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time. The film industry has existed for nearly a century and it wasn’t until the past decade that DuVernay singlehandedly achieved these hallmarks. The lag and lack of inclusion in her industry is something that DuVernay has been vocal about. In addition to bringing attention for more inclusion in her industry, DuVernay has also pushed for a reexamination of “diversity” as a term. She once said that she “hate[s] that word so so much” – not for its meaning, but for its sometimes halfhearted application.
DuVernay has shown the benefits of questioning the very definitions and structures that limit us. Her work can be unflinching and stark. But through the discomfort, audiences experience moments of truth and empathy in a time when we need so much more of it. —Andie Park
Jimmy Fallon
Definitive Works: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
It’s true that in 2019, Jimmy Fallon appears to be going through the motions, mercilessly clowned for his exaggerated laughter and what appears to be a never-ending slew of made-up games he plays with his guests. But back in the earlier part of the decade, his tricks were borderline revolutionary, at least as far as late-night went. Fallon’s Tonight Show is responsible for the now-commonplace practice of optimizing late-night television for online virality, taking cues from the YouTube community and getting ahead of the shift from the television set to the computer as our main content hub. Late-night shows should be dead. Instead, they’re given new life every morning after they air, thanks to a strategy pioneered by Fallon and company. Though the segments have gotten increasingly absurd (but somehow also formulaic), Fallon’s OG clips, like his #Hashtags segment and his classroom instruments series with The Roots, started out as good, wholesome, digestible fun. Unfortunately, Fallon’s missteps over the last few years—including pal-ing around with Donald Trump prior to the 2016 election, and a general pivot from political commentary to non-confrontational fluff—as well as other late-night hosts’ implementations of his formula, have seen the vivacious host fall from late-night grace. But the fall has by no means been steep, and he remains one of the defining voices of the 20teens. —Carolyn Bernucca
Kevin Feige
Definitive Works: Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Winter Soldier
“I am inevitable.”
Sure, that quote might be attributed to Thanos, but it just as easily applies to Marvel’s Kevin Feige. For good or for ill, this decade will be defined by superhero movies—specifically Marvel Studios and their run—and Feige’s stewardship led to bringing the nerdiest of stories to the big screen. Every time you thought he was out, that a big swing like the intergalactic losers of Guardians of the Galaxy or, well, Ant-Man, wouldn’t connect, we were proven wrong. He got Spider-Man back, lost him, and then got him again. The story first started in 2008 with Iron Man came true in Avengers: Endgame, with the latter becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time. Along the way, each and every one of these movies became a Hulk-worthy smashing success at the box-office in a time where success is proving harder and harder to find. But not for Feige.
I wrote earlier this year that what Feige has done is unprecedented, a series of Herculean feats the likes of which we may never see again. Hell, the phrase “Cinematic Universe” didn’t exist before Feige. Look at studios like Warner Brothers and Universal that tried—and failed—to create intertwined franchises of their own. See how they stumbled and misstepped at every single point along the way. Whether it was rushing something out before it was ready, or just a fundamental misunderstanding about how the characters really work, there’s a secret sauce that Feige has that others just can’t seem to produce. It puts him in conversation with other greats. And while it feels hyperbolic to say that Feige is like Michael Jordan or Ali in their respective primes, but when you’re the best to do it, those are the comparisons you get, you deserve even.
Feige has earned that praise. And the crazy part is, he’s only getting started. As the future of Marvel expands to streaming and begins to fold in the Fantastic Four and X-Men franchises into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems Endgame’s end wasn’t a conclusion, but rather the start of something else. That excitement extends past Marvel too; Feige’s reign has now garnered his a shot at a world beyond his own, as he’ll soon chance to play in the galaxy of Star Wars, arguably him the go-to person to find new and exciting ways to remix and reinvent established properties—all the while staying true to what made them popular to begin with.
If the last decade is any indication, Feige will have plenty of tricks up his sleeve. I, and many others, look forward to seeing the magic trick. —William Goodman
Gillian Flynn
Definitive Works: Gone Girl, Widows, Sharp Objects
In the last decade, author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn has created some of the darkest, most disturbed works in modern pop culture. Formerly a television critic, Flynn eventually wrote thriller novels, finding massive success with her third, Gone Girl, a bestseller that made her into a household name and made husbands scared for their lives. It was later adapted into a film by David Fincher, which then lead to her foray into film and television that has solidified her as one of the most cunning minds in entertainment. Since Gone Girl, she wrote and produced HBO’s Sharp Objects (another adaptation of her own novel) and co-wrote the empowerment heist thriller Widows (directed by Steve McQueen).
All of her works center on women—usually twisted, selfish, volatile, and manipulative women. Yet they’re also the most memorable characters, leaving an indelible impression on readers and watchers’ minds. From Amy Elliot Dunne ranting about the “Cool Girl” stereotype in Gone Girl to Viola Davis playing a scorned wife turned badass criminal ringleader, Flynn has proven that women can be shown at their absolute worst yet exist as their truest selves against, and possibly in spite of, gendered expectations.
Flynn is currently resting in between the rare intersection of critical and mass acclaim. Her books have reached The New York Times’ bestseller list, her screenplays have been nominated for prestigious awards, and her television and film projects have garnered audience attention amidst a crowded climate. Anything penned by Flynn is practically guaranteed to be picked up by a production company and converted into a slick adaptation that provides some of your favorite actresses with the role of a lifetime. There is just something so irresistible about Flynn’s stories and the way they evoke the most disturbed tendencies within everyone.
Alongside her success, Flynn has also (almost inevitably) attracted a significant amount of criticism, with accusations of misogyny and claims that her portrayal of women is harmful to the cause of feminism. Objectively, her characters are flawed, self-destructive, vicious. They’re far from perfect and not acceptable to the public sphere. In a sense, her characters embody the ultimate Nasty Woman. The criticism reveals a cultural discomfort towards women who refuse to accept themselves as tailored figures, which is inaccessible to many and impossible to maintain. Flynn doesn’t depict unsavory women simply because they make for juicy fiction—they represent the expectations of womanhood set by the very people who refuse to understand it. Sometimes it’s most effective to show the most extreme consequences (murder, revenge) to get the message across. It seems that Flynn’s message is not only something that audiences not only understand but deeply crave. —Andie Park
Donald Glover
Definitive Works: Atlanta, Solo: A Star Wars Movie, The Lion King
I’d bet if asked to describe his journey through the 2010s it would be hard for Donald Glover not to talk about himself in the third person. That’s not knocking the man, or shade that his successes have made him too Hollywood for normal social constructs. Simply put, he’s had so much damn success I don’t think basic grammar is still capable of fully expressing his story.
Introed to the wider world as Troy Barnes in the series Community, Glover immediately set himself apart as something special among the loaded ensemble. His rare ability to act, do comedy, dance, and write quickly became a showcase of the series not only to viewers but to those behind the scenes as well, leading fellow castmate Yvette Nicole Brown to recall him as “The most talented person she’d ever met.” In hindsight, Glover’s branching success appears more and more inevitable the further into the series you watch, and midway through season five he finally seemed to realize it too and left the show for the next stage of his career.
Queue Childish Gambino, Donald’s rap persona which first saw success in 2011 with the release of Camp. Unwilling to compromise his personal vision and story for the hip-hop scene of the time, Gambino sought to carve an alternative path. Lyrics that captured his awkward wit and unique personality quickly endeared him to an unlikely audience. This authenticity has remained his music’s most consistent theme even as lyrics and tone have changed. No other song marked as big of a departure as 2018’s "This Is America," in which race, gun violence, the media, and spirituality were all examined with naked honesty. At the 61st Grammy Awards, "This Is America" took home Record of The Year, Song of The Year, Best Music Video, and Best Rap/Sung Performance, undeniably changing the views and tastes of an industry which previously shunned him. At the same time, Glover wasn’t limiting himself to just changing the music industry and began to make his influence felt throughout the landscape of TV.
“I knew what FX wanted from me. They were thinking it’d be me and Craig Robinson… and it’ll be kind of like Community.” But Glover had different ideas. “I was Trojan-horsing FX. If I told them what I really wanted to do, it wouldn’t have gotten made.” What he did end up creating instead was Atlanta, a TV series that acts as case study of black life in the American South, drawing heavily from his own childhood spent growing up just outside of Atlanta. It included comedy but it couldn’t be designated as such. Nor could it be designated drama, crime or action, even though it had episodes that relied heavily on each. Perhaps Lena Dunham, creator and star of Girls said it best when she proclaimed, “That’s not a genre – that’s Donald.” Even in a decade that’s seen larger opportunities afforded to black creators and their stories, Atlanta stands apart, causing Get Out creator, Jordan Peele, to state “For black people, Atlanta provides the catharsis of 'Finally, some elevated black shit.”
It’s taken nearly the full ten years for Donald Glover to transform from a jack of all trades to a master of many, but within that time his development isn’t something to be solely reflected in a mirror but the very categories of culture to which he contributes. Whether it’s television, movies, or music, the decade would be hard-pressed to name a person who had more influence on as many fields as Donald Glover. Then again, with so many successes, it might just be easier to think of him as artistic institution than flesh and bones going forward. —Nate Houston
Kevin Hart
Definitive Works: Central Intelligence, Ride Along, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
The rise of Kevin Hart over the last ten years has been a sight to see. It’d be rude to say “it was impossible to see that the guy from Paper Soldiers would be one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood 17 years later,” but it kinda feels like that’s the case. After spending the 2000s building up his rep as a comedian and taking on hilarious smaller bits in some of your favorite films, he turned things up a notch on all fronts.
Kevin’s really lived by the mantra of making your next move your best move. You can see how his schtick of being the loud little guy in films like Think Like a Man (2012) turned into bigger budget action comedies like 2014’s Ride Along, which in turn informed projects like 2015’s Get Hard or, more importantly, his work with The Rock in films like 2016’s Central Intelligence. That, of course, birthed the megasuccessful Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which turned in almost $1 billion at the box office during the holiday season in 2017. He may not be the biggest movie star on the planet, but he’s one of the most consistent, making audiences laugh while he himself smirks on his way to the bank.
Hart has always been everywhere; he hosted the 2011 Bet Awards, and can be found everywhere from NBC hosting a pair of competition shows to almost hosting the Oscars. His HartBeat Productions not only signed a first-look deal with Nickelodeon, but also produced 2018’s Night School. Hart has made the Time 100, and his influence can be seen in many facets of the world of entertainment. One has to imagine that any number of budding comedians making it to Wild’n Out hope that they can walk in Hart’s footsteps. It won’t be easy, but Hart’s left such a legacy behind him that there is a blueprint to pick up and work from. —khal
Barry Jenkins
Definitive Works: Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk
Rewatching the clip, you can tell almost immediately that something’s going awry. Warren Beatty opens the red envelope at the 89th Oscars, removes and silently reads the card, and then, wearing a long, elastically confused face above his bowtie, inspects the inside of the envelope. He looks to his co-presenter Faye Dunaway, who smiles encouragement his way. He appears almost scared. After taking another confused pause, Beatty lets Dunaway read the title of the winner for Best Picture, and if you were watching at home you might have thrown your hands up in exasperation. Moonlight, Barry Jenkins’ queer Black coming-of-age story, had lost.
For minutes the producers of Damien Chazelle’s sunny low-stakes musical La La Land share warm surprise and gratitude at their win, thanking loved ones and collaborators. And then whispering breaks out behind the second speaker, producer Marc Platt. Producer Jordan Horowitz—who now has possession of the red envelope—goes from a look of pleased winner’s disbelief to genuine concern. A shorter man wearing a very official headset takes the envelope from Horowitz and it’s like watching a trail of fire race toward a gasoline pump. Something’s really wrong. Meanwhile, Platt finishes his speech. A third producer, Fred Berg, steps to the mic while behind him the hushed side conversations rage and Emma Stone’s face collapses. Horowitz returns to the forefront, replacing Berg, who has just muttered, “We lost, by the way.” “There’s a mistake,” Horowitz declares. From the floor seats, Taraji P. Henson films the scene with an iPhone in a pink case.
Moonlight had lost the Academy Award for Best Picture. Moonlight had won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Both of these things were somehow true.
The mistake is one of the indelible moments of the 2010s, a remarkable live TV gaffe the likes of which no one had seen before. It underscored just how special the small film’s success was, all but telling the cast and crew this shouldn’t be happening. (Made for $1.5 million, Moonlight is the lowest budget movie to ever win Best Picture.) Holding the Oscar statuette, Jenkins himself said, “Very clearly, even in my dreams, this could not be true. But to hell with dreams—I’m done with it, because this is true.”
As much as this decade is the tale of an industry on its knees before replicable blockbuster IP and the many tendrils of the Marvel-Disney behemoth, it’s also a fact that the 2010s saw the release of nourishing and bold work like Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. Jenkins directed both films, leaving his mark on cinema in the 21st century with his deep explorations of Black American lives.
There’s a poem called “For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend” by the Black lesbian poet and activist Pat Parker, and its opening lines go, “The first thing you do is to forget that i'm Black./Second, you must never forget that i'm Black.” From my vantage—white, cis, straight—Jenkins’ films make that dictum come alive. I feel awestruck by the intimate access afforded by Jenkins’ filmmaking to these particular characters; in their stories, I greet the humanity that I want to call my own too. It feels like a kind of privilege to watch them. They make me grateful.
Moonlight is, among many things, a story about how meaningful it is to touch and be touched in a loving way. It’s an adaptation of Tarell Alvin McCraney's play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, and it’s certainly the only Oscar movie to use chopped and screwed on its soundtrack. If Beale Street Could Talk is, among many things, about beauty in sight and sound. It’s an adaptation of James Baldwin’s lean novel about injustice and incarceration in 1970s New York, and its colors pop like a Demy musical.
Both films were shot by James Laxton, who has worked with Jenkins since they met at Florida State University Film School in Tallahassee in the early 2000s. The partnership of Laxton and Jenkins has set a new technical standard for care at capturing Black people on film: the richness of myriad shades of Black skin—no one appears sallow or washed out or so blandly and thoughtlessly dark as to be indistinct. For years to come, we will be watching movies, commercials, TV pilots and music videos where someone gave the direction: “Make this look like Moonlight.” Teju Cole’s description of the work of Black photographer Eli Reed comes to mind watching how Laxton and Jenkins captured the faces of Mahershala Ali and Trevante Rhodes in shadowed car interiors moving through Florida humidity: “luxuriantly crepuscular.”
That Jenkins marries this beauty with genuine emotional depth is his genius. (Points for working with Houston’s own OG Ron C to make chopped-and-screwed mixtape companions for his films, too.) He’s forty years old and will hopefully have a career as long and vital as Scorsese or Varda. We’ll see his followers in young talent who will have an expanded sense of what’s possible because of the work he’s brought to the screen. Films like his spread and take hold in ways that IP-based content must try to enforce from the top down. Franchises target and inhale directors and writers and performers into their machinery, like an alien abduction. Barry Jenkins makes movies that will seed the imaginations of storytellers who will rise up from below and then light out on their own. So much infrastructure is designed to prevent such a fluke—it isn’t supposed to happen. But it does anyway. —Ross Scarano
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
Definitive Works: Hobbs & Shaw, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Fast Five, Moana
While we examined the decline in certified movie stars over the last ten years, that doesn’t include former WWE Superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. There’s something about the larger-than-life icon, who’s 1,000-watt smile and mountains of charm have turned him into one of the biggest tickets in Hollywood today.
Sure, he was already on fire when he slowly moved from the world of professional wrestling into acting, but the last decade? The Rock turned it up to 11 and kept it there. While 2010 saw him still doing films like The Tooth Fairy, he was added to the Fast & Furious franchise with 2011’s Fast Five, giving the stalling series a much-needed Nos boost (which eventually turned into 2019’s Hobbs & Shaw, which featured The Rock essentially branching off into his own space within this world). He’s, in turn, gifted franchises like G.I. Joe and Hercules with his presence, but has steadily brought asses to seats with a dizzying array of movies. He’s lent his voice to Disney’s Moana, battled monsters in Rampage, brought Baywatch to the silver screen in a huge way, all contributing to the $10.5 billion his films have made worldwide.
And that’s the key, honestly. With the cache he built while standing atop the WWE, Johnson has held onto the fans by being the best representation of a certified movie star he can be. He’s being asked to run for President of the United States, for crying out loud. Johnson called himself the People’s Champ, and in turn has found a way to stay the people’s champ. Are his films being thrust into discussions during AWARD SZN? Hell no; his type of feel-good, fast-paced blockbusters aren’t made for the critics. He’s giving the people brightly-colored vacations from their regular life, complete with booming soundtracks, perfectly-executed one-liners, and the satisfaction of seeing good prevail. Johnson mastered sports entertainment and used that knowledge to take over the other facets of entertainment, completely owning the 2010s while doing it. —khal
John Landgraf
Definitive Works: American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Atlanta, The Americans
Not only is John Landgraf the most successful television executive of the 2010s in terms of critical hits, he has become something of a prophet in the era of peak TV. In fact, Vanity Fair called him just that in a 2018 piece, “Peak TV Is Still Drowning Us in Content, Says TV Prophet John Landgraf.” Elsewhere he has been called a “soothsayer” and “philosopher king.”
The output of FX under Landgraf reads like a list of the top shows on Metacritic over the past decade. His hits of the last ten years include Sons of Anarchy, Justified, The Americans, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, You’re the Worst, Pose, Atlanta, Better Things, Louie, American Crime Story, American Horror Story, and Fargo.
In addition to his ability to develop great TV shows, Landgraf also has a keen view of the television industry and where it is headed. Though most TV viewers don’t know about them, Landgraf’s TCA (Television Critics’ Association) executive sessions were among the most important moments in 2010s television. In his yearly presentation to critics, the unusually candid executive had a habit of predicting future trends as television moved from the “Golden Age of TV” to “The Streaming Wars,” and over-keen insights into the state of television. In fact, it was Landgraf who, in 2015, coined the phrase “Peak TV.”
Landgraf will be remembered as the rare executive who stood by quality in the age of too much TV. In 2016, he famously said, “I would be absolutely proud to have made and to program Orange Is the New Black, right? But the average quality of the shows [Netflix] puts out is not as good as ours, and I think that’s a lack of careful attention.”
His infamous broadsides against Netflix weren’t just good copy, they framed the current TV moment as a battle of two divergent viewpoints. Netflix has flooded the zone with every sort of content of wildly varying quality. FX has made fewer and better shows, focusing obsessively on their little corner of the TV landscape.
It isn’t yet clear if Landgraf has been right or wrong. It remains to be seen if FX will remain its own prestige brand or will be sucked into Hulu or Disney+ in the coming years never to be seen again. But, no matter what the next decade brings, the FX executive should be remembered for boldly planting his flag and making some damn good television along the way. —Brenden Gallagher
Ryan Murphy
Definitive Works: American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Pose, Glee
If you made a list of the most culturally important shows of the 2010s, you would find that Ryan Murphy created at least four of them. Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, and Pose each mark unique and vital contributions to both the creation of and politics around television in the 2010s. Additionally, Murphy found time to write a number of other shows that didn’t necessarily shift the TV landscape but further developed the delightfully campy Murphy brand and delighted his army of dedicated fans, including The New Normal, Scream Queens, Feud, 9-1-1, and The Politician.
Ryan Murphy redefined television by pioneering the limited series. Prior to 2014, the Emmys awarded an “Outstanding Miniseries.” Today, instead of a miniseries, we award an “Outstanding Limited Series,” which generally means a short, self-contained season of an anthology series or a TV show that lasts for only one season. When American Horror Story was first nominated under the old format, its competition was all TV movies and British shows. Today, the category is dominated by 10-episode American series that use the anthology format Murphy pioneered. Under Murphy’s influence, the limited series has become the hallmark of television prestige. Murphy’s complete remaking of the way television works has resulted in a total of 31 Emmy nominations and six wins for him personally, and many more for the actors and technicians who have worked alongside him.
Murphy has also done as much as anyone to change representation on television. His greatest achievements in terms of quality, American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, and Feud, were milestones in racial, LGBTQ, and female representation respectively.
Murphy bookended the decade with two of the most important moments in LGBTQ representation in television history. Glee brought an unabashed, boldly comic portrayal of the very gay world of high school musical theater to network television and Pose changed the way gay and trans people of color are portrayed on screen. Off-screen, Murphy has changed the game as well. His Half Initiative—aimed at making Hollywood more inclusive by creating equal opportunities for women and minorities—has set the standard for diverse directorial hiring in Hollywood. His recent nine-figure deal with Netflix should give him plenty of opportunities to expand on his mission of increasing diversity in front of and behind the camera. —Brenden Gallagher
Christopher Nolan
Definitive Works: Inception, Interstellar, The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk
Some 19 years ago, on the set of Insomnia, Al Pacino declared to one of the movie’s producers, Steven Soderbergh, “At some point in the very near future I’m going to be very proud to say I was in a Christopher Nolan movie.” Insomnia was, of course, only the director’s second feature film. In the waning days of 2019, on the eve of his eleventh set to be released next summer, “a Christopher Nolan movie” is, as Al predicted, an Event. But as franchise filmmaking dominates the mainstream theater-going experience, Nolan’s filmography isn’t just a treasure trove—it’s a blueprint.
At the tail end of the aughts, Christopher Nolan’s long con on the studio system was almost complete. He’d just released The Dark Knight, a new gold standard for the superhero genre; this decade would open with Inception, arguably his most popular non-Batman movie to date (and financially the most successful). At the time, Nolan was employing a one-for-them, one-for-me release strategy, alternating one original film (directed by him and typically co-written with brother Jonah) in between entries in his Bat-trilogy. When that concluded in 2012 with The Dark Knight Rises, the Hollywood blockbuster machine was his oyster: Christian Bale recently revealed the studio did indeed solicit the duo on returning for a fourth Bat-film, before attempting to hand Nolan another beloved DC Comics property in Superman. (Nolan ultimately opted for producer and story credit on Man of Steel). Rumors of an appointment to the Bond franchise swirled, but nothing ever materialized. Instead, Christopher did what few in his position have the restraint and clarity of vision to do: gracefully bow out.
Of the franchise system, that is. Nolan took on Insomnia, the only feature of his that doesn’t bear his writing credit, to prove to a studio he could handle a big production and be trusted with, say, revitalizing a marquee comic book character. He took Batman to prove he could play in the big leagues, and be trusted with, say, riskier ideas like a heady yarn about dueling Victorian magicians or a high-concept dreamscape heist movie. And once Batman reached an organic conclusion, Chris took the clout he’d accrued through it and cashed it in. He hasn’t written or directed anything relating to a franchise or some pre-existing IP since. Why play in someone else’s sandbox with Bond when he can cast Leo as a man capable of mentally building his own, in a movie that boasts all the globe-trotting action hallmarks of a #007 adventure, but set within a universe free of franchise confines and fan expectations. Inception was a long-gestating script that toiled in his desk drawer for years; the 2014 Spielbergian space family drama Interstellar fulfilled some of his earliest childhood ambitions; 2017’s Dunkirk is an Englishman’s ode to a slice of WWII only his countryman previously gave due credit to. It was nominated for Best Picture. While vaults of intellectual property were plumbed and DC blew all of the goodwill he earned them in a silver screen arms race with Marvel that was dead on arrival, Christopher Nolan made passion project after passion project—each of them crossing half a billion or more worldwide.
At press time, under eight months away from release, his next film Tenet has no synopsis—it barely has a teaser trailer save a maddeningly opaque 40-second teaser that doesn’t exist online and only ran with IMAX screenings of Hobbs & Shaw or Joker. It is, at least, a top 10 anticipated release of the year. The auteur director still exists, sure, but they’re usually making indie and/or awards-bait fare. The blockbuster director still exists, but in majority service to Star Wars, the MCU, the DCEU, Bond, Mission: Impossible, etc. Christopher Nolan is, quite simply, the only director in his peer group whose name alone is putting asses in sold-out IMAX seats. He’s the compromise where Marvel stans and film bros meet, in the middle of the summer, to watch things explode beautifully and have something to analyze after. He is an anachronism, a creator who used established brands to make himself into one, a rare breed still eliciting trust and (hefty budgets) from a major studio to tell a brand new story. He’s Bruce Wayne in Italy, freed from the grind and living on his own terms.
As the franchise system continues to co-opt emerging, idiosyncratic talent in service of furthering the company vision, his is a path I hope others follow. I watch a film like Knives Out, which feels like a collective exhale from Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and his cast that includes an off-duty James Bond, retired Captain America and Michael Myers-less Laurie Strode and hope Nolan is something like a North Star for a way forward and out. Less Star Wars, more Loopers. Because for this decade and the foreseeable future, Chris Nolan has been living the dream—and the top is still spinning. —Frazier Tharpe
Jordan Peele
Definitive Works: Get Out, Us
Jordan Peele is such a lit horror director that it’s easy to forget that he had a whole ass comedy career, including a hilarious run with Keegan Michael Key on Comedy Central’s Key & Peele. For a time, their off-the-wall humor was what the country needed. They allowed President Barack Obama the space to let that frustration out, with one hilarious sketch turning into a memorable meme. After 2016’s Keanu received favorable love, Peele’s career took an impressive left turn...into the realm of horror.
If you’d been paying attention to Peele’s Keanu character, you could tell that a love of cinema was there; even still, many were skeptical of his 2017 directorial debut, Get Out, which turned a common joke in the black community about yelling things like “get out of that house” at the screen in theaters into a frightening satire that felt unlike anything we’d seen in some time. Peele’s eye for detail and unique tales turned into a successful debut, which was a massive financial success (taking in roughly $124 million on a $4.5 million budget, making it 2017’s 10th most profitable film). Done in coordination with Blumhouse, Get Out not only made Peele an Oscar winner, but formed a bond with Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, which bore 2019’s Us, which found Peele once again reimagining race and class relations in a horror vein, this time giving Lupita N’yongo a chance to shine in a stunning performance as a mother looking to protect her family from an interesting group of visitors. It was another financial success, turning a $20 million budget into $255.1 million at the box office.
Peele’s legacy is intriguing; it helped Blumhouse branch out to other audiences—go back and look at Blumhouse movie posters over the past two years; it’s been awesome to see how many of them feature “FROM THE PRODUCERS OF ‘GET OUT’” above the title. More importantly, Peele is in a similar position that Lena Waithe is; their “it” person status means that Peele’s name get attached to a number of projects, many which become successes on their own. He produced Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which gave Lee his first (non-honorary) Oscar win. He helped bring Tracy Morgan back to television after a life-altering car accident with The Last O.G. Peele was tasked with resurrecting The Twilight Zone for CBS All Access—we kind of wish his fingerprints were on more of the series, but either way, who else could you entrust with that legacy? He’s also been announced to be working on everything from a modern reboot of the cult classic Candyman, a series about hunting Nazis for Amazon Video, and the highly anticipated Lovecraft County for HBO, among a number of other projects.
Peele’s found a way to transition into the next phase of his career kind of by accident; no one expected Get Out to be the critical and box office darling that it was, and after surprising the world, Peele set about selecting the right projects to suit his talents. Peele’s making the most of this light that’s currently shining on him in the last few years, and in turn, paved the way for how creatives like Phoebe Waller-Bridge (creator of Fleabag and Killing Eve) now operate after awards success. And he’s doing it all while staying true to himself. —khal
Brad Pitt
Definitive Works: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ad Astra, World War Z, Moneyball, Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave, Selma
They don’t make em’ like Brad Pitt anymore.
Sure, it’s a reductive and cliché statement about the current era of Hollywood, a period that’s changed dramatically over the last decade—but even in often repeated platitudes, there’s an inherent amount of truth. And so it goes with Pitt.
Just take a look at the depth and breadth of the films he’s acted in over these last ten years: Tree of Life, Moneyball, World War Z, Fury, 12 Years a Slave, The Big Short, Allied, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ad Astra...even when a movie isn’t critically or financially successful, Pitt is often the most interesting and captivating element. That’s always been the case, but this decade seems to have really unlocked something special in him. Looking at some of his roles these past 10 years and you’ll realize the risks he’s been taking come in how he’s started to reveal himself to audiences in ways we haven’t seen before. Examine how Billy Beane is as a father in Moneyball, the way Cliff Booth looks back on the end of an era in Once Upon a Time, or Roy McBride’s journey for connection in (the unfortunately largely unseen) Ad Astra; each performance seems to have unlocked a little bit more about the notoriously private man, finally letting us see a few of the steps behind the magic trick. And so often what he does is magical—his kinetic magnetism never failing to electrify a screen.
Those risks extend behind the camera too. His production company, Plan B, isn’t some vanity project. Rather it’s a dedicated effort to wield his power to help bring important stories like Moonlight,12 Years a Slave, and The Big Short to the screen and drive them all the way to award recognition. He’s actively involved in those projects, championing them like he would Phantom Thread. It’s a bold declaration that says just because these budgets are small, doesn’t mean their impact should be.
Brad Pitt doesn’t need to prove anything to us any longer—but if there’s one thing reminded us over these years it’s this: he’s in a rarefied air that’s all his own. —William Goodman
Richard Plepler
Definitive Works: Game of Thrones, Girls
Even if someone has never had an HBO login, they’re probably still very aware of the classic shows that they’re missing out on—The Sopranos, Sex and The City, and Game of Thrones, to name a few. If a show is produced by HBO, it’s likely to be of quality. That’s largely due to the efforts of Richard Plepler, who had been with the cable network since 1992 and served as its CEO from 2013 until this year (he abruptly resigned after AT&T acquired the network under the Time Warner merger). In the last three decades, Plepler helped HBO survive a storm of industrial changes. When streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu started churning out original programs at assembly line rates, HBO resisted the binge-watching model of releasing all episodes at once and generally stuck to its weekly Sunday night episode launches. The result was a dedication to creating programs of high production quality and storytelling, making HBO a leader of the so-called Golden Age of Television in the late 2000s.
Initially working in politics, Plepler joined HBO in 1992 as a PR executive, in an era when HBO was known as a cable network that ran movie reruns than original content. Eventually, he oversaw programming and was largely responsible for launching programs that launched on Sunday nights. He was eventually named co-president in 2007 and CEO six years later. The shows that launched during his tenure were risky, dark, and raunchy – and more often than not, groundbreaking. Across Plepler’s run, shows like The Sopranos and Game of Thrones centered on violence and power, complicating viewers relationship with protagonists through an emphasis on “antiheroes,” while others such Sex and the City and Girls explored the complicated lives of adult women aiming to get their lives together. The diversity of the programming developed loyal audiences (and a Brinks Truck of Emmys) that developed the network’s reputation as a premium content provider. The loyalty proved its value as HBO brought in $2 billion in profit during his tenure.
With Plepler’s exit, it’s hard to say whether HBO can maintain a roster of robust and compelling programming in this next decade as it did in those prior. It’s not necessarily because Plepler has a Midas Touch—but rather possessing an understanding that audiences come first, profits second. —Andie Park
Andy Samberg / The Lonely Island
Definitive Works: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, PEN15
Though “Lazy Sunday,” the breakout video short from Lonely Island, debuted in 2005, it was the most important comedy video of the 2010s. Lonely Island, the video sketch comedy group that included Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, proved that DIY digital video can lead to a big-time Hollywood career. Though there was internet video before Lonely Island, they were the first bonafide success of the digital comedy era. You can trace the web series boom back to them and their early work at LA internet video collective Channel 101.
Much of the most successful comedy television of the 2010s was the result of creators who followed Lonely Island’s model. Broad City, Insecure, High Maintenance, and Workaholics all grew in some way grew from web video into the big time, and it was Lonely Island that pioneered that path.
In addition to changing the way we look at internet comedy, Lonely Island also led to a renaissance of musical parody. Though figures like Weird Al Yankovic have been doing song parodies for decades, Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords made musical comedy cool again by making a high-production music videos to accompany their funny songs. Their work led to some of the best work on the Internet. Without them, we may not have gotten Awkwafina’s “My Vag” and we also likely wouldn’t have had to endure some of the awful song parodies that have plagued YouTube. With “Dick in the Box,” they opened Pandora’s Box.
Lonely Island reached its pinnacle with Popstar: Never Stop Stopping, Though the film flopped, it has endured as a cult favorite and is currently making many best comedy films of the decade lists. Popstar is not only funny, but has touching shades of autobiography, as childhood friends play childhood friends, but instead of comedians, they are pop stars.
Of course, Samberg’s comedic contributions to the decade go beyond what he achieved with Lonely Island. Like his Popstar character, he has gone solo, succeeding as a lovable, goofy leading man. His best-known role is probably as Jake Peralta in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but he has been all over the comedy world with memorable turns in projects like 7 Days in Hell, Celeste and Jesse Forever, and Brigsby Bear.
Samberg’s solo success is the final testament to the power of digital video in modern comedy. Not only can DIY digital video get you a ticket to Hollywood, but it can also land you on the A-list. —Brenden Gallagher
Shonda Rhimes
Definitive Works: Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder
While a number of the names on this list have been major figures in the world of film (and the changes in the film industry when it comes to streaming or content), Shonda Rhimes has steadily owned the small screen for over a decade. She’s the showrunner on Grey’s Anatomy, as well as it’s spin-off Private Practice, but her ownership of nightly ABC programming doesn’t end there. She’s also the creator of the Kerry Washington series Scandal, which kept audiences captivated in the politricks going down in Washington, D.C. for seven seasons. Rhimes even produces the Viola Davis-led How to Get Away With Murder, giving her a number of series that can just own your nightly television watching on ABC if she wanted.
Rhimes also spent the latter part of the 2010s plotting. She inked a deal with Netflix, bringing Shondaland to the mighty streaming service. They already had U.S. streaming rights on Grey’s and Scandal, and now they will have future Rhimes projects, including an upcoming series that is adapted from “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People,” which should be a messy treat.
How did Rhimes do it? It’s simple: she gave her audience what they wanted. ABC legit flipped their throwback “TGIF” (Thank God It’s Friday) slogan from the ‘90s into “TGIT,” built around a Thursday night schedule that is crucial for advertisers looking to get those pre-weekend ads into a larger audience. Rhimes had fans glued to television screens on the same night every week, which is a humongous deal for stations like ABC (and Netflix) when it comes to audience retention and how lucrative that can be. Her moves on the small screen in the 2010s have properly set her up for an intriguing 2020s. —khal
Ted Sarandos
Definitive Works: House of Cards, Stranger Things, Roma
In the twenty-two years since its inception, Netflix has evolved significantly from a starting as a DVD distribution company, with its signature red-sleeved envelopes, to becoming an entertainment powerhouse. Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, is a fundamental part of Netflix’s evolution as well as becoming a key player in the changing landscape of entertainment itself. Since 2013, Sarandos oversees Netflix’s massive $12 billion content budget and is responsible for producing all of Netflix’s originals content—largely fulfilling the company’s “spend big now, see returns later” investment motto. Under his leadership, Netflix also uses machine learning to enhance viewing experiences for its members—he claims that Netflix uses a “seventy-thirty [percent] mix” in which “[s]eventy is the data, and thirty is judgment.” In a sense, Sarandos is the living, breathing component behind Netflix’s data-driven efforts to optimize data and tailor content to a near surgical degree of precision in efforts to hook viewers to its binge-watching model. He has publicly said that “the diversity of storytelling is key. There’s no domination, only enhancement.” In this case, enhancement (through the form of monetary investment) supersedes domination.
Sarandos also has given a platform to numerous creatives in entertainment that’s unprecedented in the industry – he took a chance on upcoming filmmakers (i.e. The Duffy Brothers, who had only one unreleased film prior to creating Stranger Things) and given renowned professionals far more creative control than they could find in a typical Hollywood studio (such as Bong Joon Ho with Okja). Partly because of Sarandos’ efforts to diversify and create as much content as possible, Netflix has racked up forty-three of Emmys and six Oscars—which is considerable since it became a content house a mere six years ago.
Entertainment is nowhere near the same thing as it was fifty years ago, or even a decade ago. Sarandos has shown just how fragile the industry can be and how hungry audiences will always be for content. As long as the money is there, there’s always room for another show to produce. Another empire to build. —Andie Park
Lena Waithe
Definitive Works: Queen & Slim, The Chi, Boomerang, Master of None
One of the most interesting parts of a November 2019 interview Lena Waithe gave to The Breakfast Club in the run-up to the release of Queen & Slim (her first feature-length film as a writer) was how she had to remind people that she be writing. How quick many forget that she won a whole ass Emmy for Outstanding Writing in 2017; that was from the “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None, which mirrored her own coming-out story (and explored sexuality) via snapshots of Thanksgiving celebrations throughout the years. It was at that moment that Waithe, who’d been acting on Master of None prior to penning this episode and had worked on everything from Dear White People (the 2014 film) to acting in 2018’s Ready Player One. Hers is the kind of career that didn’t feel possible 10 years ago, but has helped shape what’ll be happening in the next decade.
Waithe’s currently on a tear—it feels like every few months, a new project with her name on it has been greenlit. Showtime has found success with her series The Chi, which takes a Wire-esque look at life on the South Side of Chicago. She turned the ‘90s romcom Boomerang into a whole ass BET series for the millennial set, keeping the Eddie Murphy film’s look at love at the workplace between an array of black faces intact. She’s found herself acting in Dear White People (the TV series) and on NBC’s This Is Us, and will be seen in the third season of HBO's Westworld, but it will more than likely be the aforementioned Queen & Slim, which was directed by Melina Matsoukas (in her first feature-length film) and features an engaging look at black life in America. Calling it a black Bonnie & Clyde is doing a disservice to what’s at the core of this road film and the conversations it sparks. Similar to a number of Waithe’s projects, the story could happen to any black folk currently living in America. It feels like the black life I grew up in, and how people react to the faults of black folk across the spectrum. It’s a powerful sword to wield in today’s climate.
Waithe has spent the last decade being that “it” creative, the one who’s looking to get put on so she can then help usher in the next phase of black creatives in Hollywood. In talking to black creatives over the last two years, that’s always what it goes back to: true change happening behind the camera. Waithe’s working to make that vision a reality, and make us laugh, cry, and feel along the way. —khal