20. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

The Coen Brothers’ ode to those that could have, and probably even should have, been, Inside Llewyn Davis is far from the happiest film on this list. This whole movie aches with despair as the film follows its title character, a singer-songwriter in New York (Oscar Isaacs), as he navigates an emerging folk scene of the 1960s. Make no bones about it, this is unabashedly a movie about failure, it doesn’t have a happy ending and it doesn’t particularly leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside. The arrival of Bob Dylan at the end of the film is surely the nail in the coffin of Davis’ career. But therein lies the point, sometimes your best just isn’t good enough and more people don’t make it than do. This movie is the complete package, Isaacs’ performance is phenomenal, the writing here by the Coen Brothers produced arguably their best original script since The Big Lebowski or Fargo,  and T. Bone Burnett created one of the best scores of the 2010s.