The 2010s were the decade when Hollywood's traditional center held -- but only just. Of the 98 major films and television seasons VirtueVigil has reviewed and scored from the decade, 50 score STRONGLY TRADITIONAL. That is more than half the field. No other decade we have measured comes close to that concentration of traditional conviction at the top. But the distribution tells a more complicated story. The woke machine was not idle during the 2010s. It was building. And by 2019, it had produced four of the six most ideologically aggressive titles in the entire dataset -- including The Boys, which at -24.28 WOKE is the single most woke property VirtueVigil has ever scored.
The story of the 2010s is a story told in two halves. The early decade gave us Captain America: The First Avenger (+23.08), Lone Survivor (+22.89), and Man of Steel (+21.20) -- films that believed in heroism without reservation. The middle years produced Fury (+26.18) and American Sniper (+34.15), war films that treated sacrifice as sacred. But by 2017, the pivot was unmistakable. Get Out (-12.10 WOKE) weaponized the horror genre for racial critique. The Last Jedi (-11.38) dismantled the mythology of its own franchise. Captain Marvel (-16.19) made identity the entire product. And The Boys (-24.28) arrived in 2019 as a comprehensive demolition of every traditional value the superhero genre had spent a decade building.
This was not the collapse of the 2020s. The 2010s produced Risen (+50.40 TRAD), a biblical epic with a 0.0 woke score that stands as the most traditional film ever reviewed. Paddington 2 (+29.90) proved a film about radical kindness could dominate the box office and critics alike. Chernobyl (+25.72) turned a Soviet disaster into a searing argument for truth over lies. The center held. But the data shows exactly where the cracks formed and when. What follows is the definitive ranking of 98 major 2010s films and television seasons, scored and ranked from most traditional to most woke. Every entry links to the full VirtueVigil review with complete category breakdowns.
Top 15 Most Traditional
#1. Risen (2016)
Risen is not merely the most traditional film of the 2010s. It is the most traditional film VirtueVigil has ever scored. The 0.0 woke score is not a rounding error -- it is a statement. Kevin Reynolds' film follows a Roman tribune named Clavius, charged by Pontius Pilate with investigating the disappearance of Jesus' body after the crucifixion. What he finds is not a political conspiracy but an event that shatters his conceptual framework of what is possible. The film treats the resurrection as a historical event requiring investigation, not a metaphor requiring interpretation. Clavius is a soldier, a man whose entire identity is built on Roman competence and order, and the film's central drama is watching that identity dissolve in the presence of something it cannot explain. This is not a "faith-based film" in the modern bumper-sticker sense. It is a procedural about the most consequential event in human history, told from the perspective of a man whose job is to suppress inconvenient truths. At +50.40 TRAD, it stands in a category of its own.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Risen
#2. American Sniper (2014)
American Sniper was the most contested film of the decade, and the controversy itself proved the film's thesis: that the American public has lost the vocabulary to discuss what it asks of its soldiers. Chris Kyle, played by Bradley Cooper in a performance of extraordinary physical and psychological discipline, is the most lethal sniper in American military history. The film does not deconstruct him, does not pathologize him, and does not apologize for his body count. It presents a man who believed -- with a conviction that made the coastal media class deeply uncomfortable -- that he was protecting his country by killing its enemies. The 2.45 woke score is negligible. Eastwood's direction is austere and unsentimental. The final sequence, with real footage of Kyle's funeral procession, is one of the most emotionally devastating endings in American cinema. The film made $547 million worldwide, more than any other Best Picture nominee that year. Audiences understood what critics refused to.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of American Sniper
#3. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)
13 Hours is Michael Bay's most restrained and effective film, and it is no coincidence that it is also his most traditionally structured. The story of six CIA security contractors who fought to defend the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 is told without the visual excess that defines Bay's Transformers films. These are men who were ordered to stand down -- repeatedly -- and who chose to fight anyway. The film's outrage is not partisan. It is operational. The soldiers on the ground knew what needed to be done and were prevented from doing it by a chain of command that prioritized liability management over lives. The 1.7 woke score reflects the near-total absence of progressive framing. Bay treats the Benghazi contractors as what they were: Americans who did their jobs under impossible conditions while the system designed to support them failed at every level. +30.64 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of 13 Hours
#4. Paddington 2 (2017)
Paddington 2 held a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score for years, and the reason is not critical groupthink. It is that this film is morally flawless. Paddington Bear is a Peruvian immigrant living in London whose entire philosophy can be summarized as: if you are kind and polite, the world will be kind and polite in return. The film tests this premise to its breaking point. Paddington is framed for a theft he did not commit, imprisoned, and sentenced to hard labor. He responds by making marmalade, redecorating the prison in pastels, and befriending the terrifying cook Knuckles McGinty. The villain, Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant, in the performance of his career), is a narcissistic actor who frames Paddington to steal a fortune. The film's moral argument is that kindness is not weakness. It is the most radical force in the world. The 2.1 woke score is negligible. The film's multicultural London is treated as a joyful fact of life, not a political statement. Paddington does not lecture. He just is. And the world bends toward him. +29.9 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Paddington 2
#5. Fury (2014)
Fury is the most unflinching World War II film of the 2010s, and its traditional architecture is built on an understanding that war is not glorious -- it is necessary, and it destroys the men who fight it. Brad Pitt's Sergeant Don "Wardaddy" Collier commands a Sherman tank crew deep in Germany during the final months of the war. His crew has been together since North Africa. They have seen everything. They have done everything. When a fresh-faced typist is assigned to their tank as a replacement, the film becomes an education in what it costs to survive in a machine that exists to kill. The 4.9 woke score reflects the film's frank depiction of the psychological damage war inflicts. But the resolution -- Fury's crew, alone and outnumbered, choosing to make a stand at a crossroads to protect a supply column -- is one of the most traditionally heroic endings in the decade. They die. They know they will die. They do it anyway because it is their job and because the alternative is letting the SS column reach the rear. +26.18 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Fury
#6. Chernobyl (2019)
Chernobyl is the finest television miniseries of the decade, and its traditional score is driven by the simplest argument imaginable: truth matters, and lies kill. The five-episode HBO series reconstructs the 1986 nuclear disaster with documentary precision, and the villain is not radiation. The villain is the Soviet system of bureaucratic dishonesty that made the disaster possible and then compounded it by refusing to acknowledge the scale of the catastrophe. The scientists and engineers who risked their lives to contain the meltdown are the heroes, and the series treats their sacrifice with unadorned respect. Valery Legasov's testimony -- "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid" -- is the moral thesis of the entire project. In a decade increasingly defined by institutional dishonesty, Chernobyl arrived as a devastating counter-argument. The 2.0 woke score reflects the near-total absence of progressive framing. This is not a story about climate change or capitalism. It is a story about the cost of lying, and it is universal. +25.72 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Chernobyl
#7. Cobra Kai (2018)
Cobra Kai is the most successful legacy sequel of the decade, and its ideological architecture is the reason. The series begins from a premise that no one in Hollywood would have greenlit on paper: what if the villain of The Karate Kid had a point? Johnny Lawrence is a middle-aged alcoholic handyman living in Reseda, still haunted by the All-Valley Tournament of 1984. He reopens the Cobra Kai dojo not out of nostalgia but because teaching a bullied kid to fight back gives his life meaning again. The show is structurally traditional -- mentorship, discipline, the transmission of values from one generation to the next -- but its genius is the refusal to pick sides. Johnny's philosophy ("strike first, strike hard, no mercy") is dangerous. Daniel LaRusso's Miyagi-Do philosophy has become smug and sanctimonious in middle age. Both men are right. Both men are wrong. The show's 3.9 woke score reflects its limited identity politics content. Everything else is karate as moral philosophy. +23.12 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Cobra Kai
#8. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Captain America: The First Avenger is the most ideologically coherent Marvel origin story, and the reason is that its protagonist's superpower is not physical. Steve Rogers is a 90-pound asthmatic from Brooklyn who wants to enlist in the army because he hates bullies. He is rejected five times. Dr. Erskine chooses him for the super-soldier program not despite his weakness but because of it: "The strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength." This is the moral architecture of the entire character. The serum amplifies what is already there. Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. The Red Skull is what happens when the same power is given to a man with no moral center. The film's WWII setting is not cosmetic. It is the moral foundation. The Howling Commandos are an integrated unit before the U.S. military was integrated, and the film treats this as natural, never didactic. Steve's sacrifice at the end -- putting the plane in the water, losing Peggy, waking up 70 years later -- is the most emotionally resonant ending in the MCU. +23.08 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Captain America: The First Avenger
#9. Lone Survivor (2013)
Lone Survivor is a film about Operation Red Wings, the 2005 Navy SEAL mission in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 19 American servicemen. Marcus Luttrell, played by Mark Wahlberg, was the only survivor. The film does not ask whether the war is just. It does not question the rules of engagement that prevented the team from executing the goat herders who discovered their position and alerted the Taliban. It presents what happened: four SEALs, outnumbered fifty to one, fighting down a mountain while their bodies are destroyed by rocks and bullets, refusing to stop. The 2.45 woke score is negligible. The film's loyalty is entirely to the men on the ground -- their training, their brotherhood, their willingness to die for each other. The rescue helicopter shot down by an RPG, killing all 16 aboard, is one of the most gutting sequences in modern war cinema. The traditional framework is absolute: these men were heroes, their sacrifice was real, and the film exists to honor them. +22.89 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Lone Survivor
#10. The Lion King (2019)
The 2019 Lion King remake was criticized as a shot-for-shot recreation that added nothing. But the ideological content of the original -- which was already among the most traditionally structured animated films ever made -- transferred intact. The story is Hamlet on the savanna: a king murdered by his brother, a prince in exile, a return to reclaim the throne and restore the natural order. Mufasa's lesson to Simba about the Circle of Life is not environmentalism. It is a cosmology. The lions eat the antelope. The antelope eat the grass. When the lions die, they become the grass. This is not an argument about recycling. It is an argument about cosmic hierarchy, the transmission of duty from father to son, and the restoration of rightful kingship. The 2.7 woke score reflects the film's near-total indifference to progressive messaging. Simba's arc is the hero's journey without irony or deconstruction. He ran from his responsibility. He returns to face it. The kingdom is restored. +22.64 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Lion King
#11. Dunkirk (2017)
Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan's most disciplined film and his most traditionally structured: survival is heroic. The evacuation of 338,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940 is told across three interlocking timelines -- land (one week), sea (one day), and air (one hour) -- that converge in a rescue that transforms a military disaster into a moral victory. There is no character backstory. No romantic subplot. No speechifying. The soldiers on the beach want one thing: to get home. The civilian sailors crossing the Channel want one thing: to bring them home. The Spitfire pilots above want one thing: to protect them. The film's 1.7 woke score is one of the lowest on this list. Nolan strips away every layer of ideology and presents the pure mechanics of survival and sacrifice. When the civilian boats appear on the horizon -- the Little Ships of England, crewed by men too old for military service -- the emotional impact is overwhelming. This is what a nation looks like when it decides to save its own. +22.38 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Dunkirk
#12. Midway (2019)
Midway is the most traditional war film Roland Emmerich has ever made, and the 0.7 woke score is the second-lowest on this list. The film reconstructs the Battle of Midway, the June 1942 engagement that broke the back of the Japanese Navy six months after Pearl Harbor, with a reverence for the historical record that Emmerich's disaster films never attempted. The dive bombers who sank four Japanese carriers in five minutes did so against impossible odds, and the film treats their sacrifice as what it was: the turning point of the Pacific War. The 0.7 woke score reflects the film's near-total indifference to progressive framing. There is no critique of American imperialism. No subplot about the humanity of the Japanese pilots. The film's argument is simple and unapologetic: the men who flew into the Japanese fleet at Midway saved the free world. Everything else is commentary. +22.12 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Midway
#13. Creed (2015)
Creed is the Rocky sequel no one expected to work, and it works because it understands that the franchise's traditional architecture is indestructible. Adonis Johnson is the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, raised in privilege but driven by a need to prove himself that no amount of money can satisfy. He seeks out Rocky Balboa in Philadelphia, now an old man running a restaurant, widowed, alone, fighting cancer. The film is about the transmission of values from one generation to the next -- discipline, sacrifice, the refusal to stay down when you have been knocked down. The 2.7 woke score is negligible. Coogler's direction is technically extraordinary (the single-take fight sequence is the best boxing scene ever filmed), but the ideology is straight out of 1976: a man's worth is measured by what he is willing to endure. Rocky tells Adonis that the hardest thing he ever had to do was not fighting Apollo or Drago. It was watching the woman he loved die and getting up the next morning. The fight is easy. The life is hard. +21.94 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Creed
#14. Stranger Things (Season 1) (2016)
The first season of Stranger Things is an 8-hour love letter to 1980s Amblin cinema, and its traditional architecture is the entire product. Will Byers goes missing in Hawkins, Indiana. His mother Joyce refuses to believe he is dead, even when his body is pulled from the quarry. His friends -- Mike, Dustin, and Lucas -- mount their own investigation on bicycles with walkie-talkies. Eleven, the telekinetic girl who escaped from a government lab, becomes their secret weapon and Mike's first love. The 5.4 woke score is driven by the government conspiracy plotline (sinister federal scientists, MKUltra references), but the moral center is unshakably traditional: a mother's relentless love, friendship tested in crisis, and a sheriff (David Harbour's Jim Hopper) who rediscovers his purpose by protecting a child. The Duffer Brothers understand that the 1980s nostalgia is not about synthesizers. It is about a cultural moment when stories still believed that good people would do the right thing when it counted. +21.34 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Stranger Things (Season 1)
#15. Man of Steel (2013)
Man of Steel is the most divisive Superman film ever made, and its traditional score is higher than its critics would expect because the film's argument about Superman is fundamentally conservative. Kal-El is sent to Earth by parents who chose to die rather than see their planet's ruling caste determine their son's fate. He is raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent, a Kansas farming couple who teach him that his powers are not for display and that the world may not be ready for him. Jonathan's death -- Clark could save him but does not, because his father tells him not to -- is the most contested scene in the film. It is also the moral keystone: Clark's restraint is not weakness. It is the acceptance that his father's choice matters more than his own power. The 3.4 woke score is remarkably low for a superhero film. General Zod is a eugenicist who believes Krypton's genetic caste system was correct. Superman's destruction of the Genesis chamber -- Krypton's last hope for racial purity -- is a literal anti-eugenics statement that requires no progressive filter. +21.2 TRAD.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Man of Steel
The Middle: TRADITIONAL Through MIXED
The middle of the 2010s rankings is where the decade's true character emerges. Seventy-five films and television seasons cluster between +20.58 TRAD (The Dark Knight Rises, #16) and -1.96 WOKE (Sicario, #82). Within that band live nearly every major cultural artifact of the decade: the MCU's entire Infinity Saga, Nolan's Inception and Interstellar, Tarantino's Django Unchained and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the horror renaissance (Hereditary, It, A Quiet Place), and television's prestige explosion (Game of Thrones S1, Yellowstone S1, True Detective S1).
The distribution tells the story. The top of the middle is dominated by war films (Hacksaw Ridge at #23, 1917 at #24), superhero films still operating within traditional frameworks (The Dark Knight Rises, Avengers: Infinity War), and the decade's best dramas (Ford v Ferrari, Shutter Island, The Accountant). As you move down through TRADITIONAL LEAN (#51-#72), the ideological content becomes more contested: Captain America: The Winter Soldier balances its surveillance-state critique against its traditional action architecture; Django Unchained's righteous revenge is filtered through Tarantino's transgressive aesthetic; Frozen and Moana push Disney princess conventions while retaining traditional romance structures.
The MIXED zone (#73-#82) is where the decade's tensions become visible in the scores themselves. Uncut Gems (+2.50), Deadpool (+1.96), La La Land (+1.78) -- all traditional by the narrowest of margins. Then the floor drops: Blade Runner 2049 (-0.36), Black Swan (-1.60), and Sicario (-1.96) cross into negative territory. These are the hinge films, the artifacts where the 2010s' traditional center and its rising woke current are in genuine contest, neither side winning decisively. Not every film needs a paragraph. The full table at the bottom of this page contains all 98 entries with scores and links.
Top 15 Most Woke
#98. The Boys (2019)
The Boys is the most woke property VirtueVigil has ever scored, and the -24.28 margin exceeds even Avatar by nearly double. The 39.72 woke score is not an accident. It is the product. The series is a comprehensive demolition of the superhero genre, reimagining supes as corporate-managed celebrities whose powers enable every form of predation. Homelander is Superman as malignant narcissist, a man whose patriotic branding conceals a bottomless need for adoration and a total absence of moral constraint. The Deep is Aquaman as sexual predator. A-Train is the Flash as drug-addicted killer. The entire superhero-industrial complex is a Vought International marketing operation designed to monetize power while concealing its costs. The 15.44 traditional score reflects the genuine camaraderie among the Boys themselves -- Billy Butcher's vendetta, Hughie's grief-driven rage, the crew's anti-corporate guerrilla warfare. But the net effect is a series that treats every traditional value the superhero genre ever advanced -- heroism, sacrifice, the use of power in service of others -- as a lie manufactured by PR firms. The Boys is what the 2010s were becoming by 2019: a culture that no longer believed in its own myths and was angry about having believed them in the first place.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Boys
#97. Midsommar (2019)
Midsommar is the most polarizing horror film of the decade, and its -18.18 margin reflects a film that is almost entirely progressive in its ideological framing. Dani is a psychology graduate student whose entire family is murdered by her bipolar sister in a murder-suicide at the film's opening. Her boyfriend Christian, a anthropology grad student who was about to break up with her before the tragedy, brings her to a midsummer festival in rural Sweden out of guilt. The commune they visit is a white supremacist pagan cult that practices ritual suicide and selective breeding. The film's governing insight -- and its woke architecture -- is that the commune's communal emotional processing (synchronized wailing, shared grief, collective validation) is portrayed as emotionally healthier than Christian's cold, withholding, gaslighting presence. The 2.4 traditional score is near-zero because the film's traditional content is virtually nonexistent: Christianity is irrelevant, family is annihilated in the opening scene, and the relationship at the center is a study in male emotional neglect. The ending -- Dani smiling as Christian burns alive inside a bear carcass -- is the most disturbing image of empowerment in modern cinema.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Midsommar
#96. Captain Marvel (2019)
Captain Marvel is the most ideologically aggressive MCU entry of the 2010s, and its -16.19 margin makes it the second-most woke film in the franchise's history. Carol Danvers is a Kree warrior who discovers she is actually a human Air Force pilot whose powers were stolen and suppressed by the Kree -- specifically by Jude Law's Yon-Rogg, who serves as a walking metaphor for the patriarchy: a man who constantly tells a powerful woman to control her emotions, smile less, and fight without her full capabilities. The film's central revelation is that the inhibitor chip on Carol's neck is not protecting her. It is limiting her. When she removes it, she becomes the most powerful being in the MCU. The 3.25 traditional score reflects Danvers' genuine heroism, her Air Force background, and her relationship with Maria Rambeau. But the film's ideological machinery is overwhelming: the military is an obstacle, male authority figures are consistently wrong, and the film's signature image is Carol going binary -- literally becoming too powerful for male control to contain. The controversy was not about the film. It was about whether audiences would accept its framing. Many did not.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Captain Marvel
#95. Succession (Season 1) (2018)
Succession's first season is a sustained argument that extreme wealth is incompatible with human decency, and its -14.50 margin is driven by a near-total evacuation of traditional values. Logan Roy is a media titan whose four adult children compete for his approval and his company while being systematically incapable of earning either. Kendall is a recovering addict whose business instincts are undermined by pathological insecurity. Roman is a walking impulse-control disorder. Shiv is a political consultant whose progressive politics are revealed as branding. Connor is delusional. The 2.4 traditional score is one of the lowest on this list -- the show's universe contains no functional marriages, no genuine parent-child bonds, no moral framework beyond the transactional logic of power. The show's genius is that it does not present this as tragedy. It presents it as farce. The characters are not evil. They are serious people, which the show treats as the worst possible thing to be. -14.5 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Succession (Season 1)
#94. Get Out (2017)
Get Out is the most important horror film of the decade, and its -12.10 WOKE score is not a critique of its quality. It is a measurement of its ideological content, which is almost entirely progressive. Chris Washington is a Black photographer visiting his white girlfriend's family for the first time. The Armitage family is affluent, liberal, and deeply evil -- they kidnap Black people and transplant the brains of elderly white people into their bodies, literally consuming Black identity. The film's governing metaphor is that white liberalism is a more insidious form of racism than explicit bigotry: the Armitages would never use a slur, and they want to wear Chris's skin. The 4.0 traditional score reflects Chris's genuine heroism -- his resourcefulness in escaping, his decision to save himself rather than succumb -- but the film's ideological architecture treats racial dynamics as a horror premise in which Black people are never safe and white people are never trustworthy. The Sunken Place is the most potent metaphor in modern horror. -12.1 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Get Out
#93. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
The Last Jedi is the most divisive Star Wars film ever made, and its -11.38 margin is the score of a film that deliberately dismantles the mythology of its own franchise. Luke Skywalker is not a wise master waiting to return. He is a bitter hermit who tried to murder his nephew in a moment of weakness and has cut himself off from the Force. The Jedi Order, the moral backbone of the entire saga, is dismissed by Luke as a legacy of failure and hubris. The film's thesis -- "let the past die" -- is an explicit rejection of the traditional structures that built the franchise. The 9.2 traditional score is real: Luke's final act is genuine self-sacrifice, projecting himself across the galaxy to face the entire First Order alone so the Resistance can escape. Poe Dameron's arc is a traditional lesson in hotheadedness tempered by leadership. But the 20.58 woke score reflects Johnson's determination to subvert expectations at every turn: Rey's parents are nobodies, Snoke is killed unceremoniously, the heroism of Finn's attempted suicide run is denied by Rose, and the Resistance is saved not by a grand victory but by a desperate escape. The film asked audiences to accept that the mythology they loved was a lie. Many refused. -11.38 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi
#92. Toy Story 4 (2019)
Toy Story 4 is the unnecessary sequel that undid the perfect ending of Toy Story 3, and its -9.20 margin reflects a fundamental ideological shift in Pixar's storytelling. The first three Toy Story films are built on the traditional premise that a toy's purpose is to be there for their child. Woody's entire identity is loyalty to Andy. Toy Story 4 asks whether that premise was ever valid. Woody is neglected by Bonnie and finds meaning not in service to a child but in personal autonomy -- leaving the group to travel with Bo Peep as a "lost toy." The 8.0 traditional score reflects Woody's sacrificial efforts to rescue Forky and help Gabby Gabby. But the 17.2 woke score is driven by the film's argument that self-actualization trumps duty, that the traditional toy-child bond is a form of dependency, and that Woody's greatest moment is not being there for Andy but walking away from everything he spent three films protecting. -9.2 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Toy Story 4
#91. Zootopia (2016)
Zootopia is Disney's most explicit social-justice allegory, and its -9.16 margin reflects a film whose ideological content is almost entirely progressive. Judy Hopps is a rabbit who becomes the first of her species to join the Zootopia Police Department, confronting systemic prejudice against "prey" animals at every level. The film's central mystery -- predators are going savage, seemingly reverting to their biological nature -- is revealed as a conspiracy by the prey-species assistant mayor to seize power by exploiting prejudice. The 12.32 traditional score is substantial: Judy's arc is the hero's journey, her partnership with Nick Wilde is genuine buddy-cop chemistry, and the film's resolution affirms individual character over group identity. But the 21.48 woke score, driven by the systematic racism allegory (the predators-are-dangerous narrative maps directly onto real-world racial stereotypes), the critique of institutional bias in policing, and the villain's use of fear-based identity politics, is among the highest for any animated film. -9.16 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Zootopia
#90. Parasite (2019)
Parasite made history as the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, and its -8.74 margin reflects a film whose class-warfare architecture is almost entirely progressive. The Kim family lives in a semi-basement apartment, folding pizza boxes for cash. Through a series of deceptions, they infiltrate the wealthy Park family's household -- son as English tutor, daughter as art therapist, father as driver, mother as housekeeper. The Parks are not villains. They are oblivious. They are nice. They just cannot smell their own privilege, and the Kims can smell it constantly. The 7.78 traditional score is driven by the Kim family's genuine loyalty to each other -- they are a family unit fighting for survival, however unethically -- but the 16.52 woke score reflects the film's central argument: that class inequality is structural, inescapable, and ultimately violent. The flooding of the Kims' semi-basement while the Parks' modernist home remains untouched is the decade's most potent visual metaphor for economic precarity. -8.74 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Parasite
#89. American Made (2017)
American Made is Tom Cruise's most cynical film, and its -6.58 margin reflects a true story that functions as a comprehensive indictment of American foreign policy in the 1980s. Barry Seal is a TWA pilot recruited by the CIA to fly reconnaissance over Central America, then to run guns to the Contras, then to fly cocaine back into the United States for the Medellin Cartel -- all with the tacit approval of the agency that recruited him. The 5.6 traditional score is low because Seal's arc is not redemptive. He gets rich, he gets caught, he gets used by every institution that touches him, and he dies. The 12.18 woke score is driven by the film's governing thesis: that the war on drugs was a lie, that the CIA was the largest drug trafficker in the Western Hemisphere, and that the American government's foreign policy apparatus was a criminal enterprise dressed in flags. -6.58 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of American Made
#88. The Social Network (2010)
The Social Network opened the 2010s with a portrait of the man who would define the decade, and its -6.28 margin is the earliest significant woke score in the dataset. Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg as a human algorithm processing social cues he cannot feel, creates Facebook after being dumped by his girlfriend and excluded from Harvard's final clubs. The 6.74 traditional score reflects the genuine entrepreneurial narrative -- a college kid building a billion-dollar company from his dorm room -- but the 13.02 woke score is driven by Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's treatment of that narrative as a tragedy of toxic masculinity: every woman in the film is a victim of Zuckerberg's emotional negligence, every friendship is transactional, and the platform that would connect two billion people was built by a man incapable of connection. The final image -- Zuckerberg refreshing his laptop, waiting for his ex-girlfriend to accept his friend request -- is the decade's thesis statement. -6.28 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Social Network
#87. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
The Wolf of Wall Street is Martin Scorsese's most controversial film, and its -5.94 margin reflects a three-hour bacchanal whose moral content is a subject of genuine dispute. Jordan Belfort builds a penny-stock empire on fraud, cocaine, and the systematic exploitation of working-class investors. The film presents his lifestyle -- the yachts, the quaaludes, the dwarf-tossing, the office orgies -- in such spectacular detail that critics accused Scorsese of glorifying the criminality he was ostensibly condemning. The 4.2 traditional score is minimal: Belfort's marriage to Naomi is a trainwreck, his relationship with Donnie Azoff is friendship as enabling, and his eventual cooperation with the FBI is self-preservation, not redemption. The 10.14 woke score rests on the film's treatment of American capitalism as a confidence game in which the only crime is getting caught. Belfort served 22 months. He now makes millions as a motivational speaker. The film does not wink at this. It stares at it. -5.94 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Wolf of Wall Street
#85 (tie). Knives Out (2019) & Frozen II (2019)
Knives Out
Rian Johnson's whodunit revival is a class-warfare mystery wrapped in Agatha Christie aesthetics, and its -4.60 margin reflects a film whose politics are inseparable from its structure. The Thrombey family is a collection of wealthy white parasites circling the fortune of Harlan Thrombey, a mystery novelist who has been found dead. Marta Cabrera, Harlan's Latina nurse, is the only decent person in the film -- and the only one Harlan trusts. The 7.0 traditional score reflects the genuine mystery mechanics and the film's love of the genre. The 11.6 woke score is driven by the film's argument: that Marta deserves the inheritance not because she solved the mystery but because she is a good immigrant who worked hard while the white family schemed. The final image -- Marta standing on the balcony, sipping from Harlan's mug, looking down at the disinherited Thrombeys on the lawn -- is a class-revenge fantasy dressed in tweed.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Knives Out
Frozen II
Frozen II is more ideologically aggressive than its predecessor, which scored TRADITIONAL LEAN at +5.40. The sequel sends Elsa and Anna north to discover the truth about their kingdom's founding, and what they find is a colonial reckoning: their grandfather built Arendelle on a betrayal of the indigenous Northuldra people, and the enchanted forest's curse is the consequence. The 14.4 traditional score reflects the sisterly bond that remains the franchise's emotional engine, Elsa's self-sacrifice, and Anna's heroism in destroying the dam. The 19.0 woke score is driven by the film's anti-colonial framework, its treatment of historical reckoning as the prerequisite for restoration, and Elsa's arc toward independence from the kingdom and the traditional structures it represents. -4.6 WOKE.
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#84. Us (2019)
Us is Jordan Peele's most ambitious and least ideologically coherent film, and its -4.25 margin reflects a premise -- the Tethered, an underground population of doppelgangers created by a government experiment, rising to kill and replace their surface-world counterparts -- whose political meaning resists easy categorization. The 8.89 traditional score is driven by the Wilson family's genuine protective instincts: Adelaide and Gabe fight to save their children with everything they have, and the film's most emotionally resonant sequence is their daughter Zora's transformation from phone-obsessed teenager to a warrior wielding a golf club. The 13.14 woke score rests on Peele's broader argument about American duality -- the comfortable surface life built on the invisible suffering of an underclass, the Hands Across America imagery, the revelation that Adelaide herself was originally a Tethered who swapped places. The metaphor is less precise than Get Out's, but its direction is unmistakable. -4.25 WOKE.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Us
Complete Rankings: Every 2010s Film Ranked #1-98
| Rank | Title | Year | Trad Score | Woke Score | Margin | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Risen | 2016 | 50.40 | 0.00 | +50.40 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 2 | American Sniper | 2014 | 36.60 | 2.45 | +34.15 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 3 | 13 Hours | 2016 | 32.34 | 1.70 | +30.64 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 4 | Paddington 2 | 2017 | 32.00 | 2.10 | +29.90 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 5 | Fury | 2014 | 31.08 | 4.90 | +26.18 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 6 | Chernobyl | 2019 | 27.72 | 2.00 | +25.72 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 7 | Cobra Kai | 2018 | 27.02 | 3.90 | +23.12 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 8 | Captain America: The First Avenger | 2011 | 26.88 | 3.80 | +23.08 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 9 | Lone Survivor | 2013 | 25.34 | 2.45 | +22.89 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 10 | The Lion King | 2019 | 25.34 | 2.70 | +22.64 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 11 | Dunkirk | 2017 | 24.08 | 1.70 | +22.38 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 12 | Midway | 2019 | 22.82 | 0.70 | +22.12 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 13 | Creed | 2015 | 24.64 | 2.70 | +21.94 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 14 | Stranger Things (S1) | 2016 | 26.74 | 5.40 | +21.34 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 15 | Man of Steel | 2013 | 24.60 | 3.40 | +21.20 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 16 | The Dark Knight Rises | 2012 | 24.78 | 4.20 | +20.58 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 17 | Ford v Ferrari | 2019 | 22.00 | 2.00 | +20.00 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 18 | Shutter Island | 2010 | 23.00 | 3.00 | +20.00 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 19 | A Quiet Place | 2018 | 22.54 | 2.90 | +19.64 | STRONGLY TRADITIONAL |
| 20 | Game of Thrones (S1) | 2011 | 20.30 | 1.00 | +19.30 | TRADITIONAL |
| 21 | Grown Ups | 2010 | 21.70 | 2.50 | +19.20 | TRADITIONAL |
| 22 | Yellowstone: S1 | 2018 | 23.38 | 4.20 | +19.18 | TRADITIONAL |
| 23 | Hacksaw Ridge | 2016 | 21.35 | 2.40 | +18.95 | TRADITIONAL |
| 24 | 1917 | 2019 | 20.60 | 2.00 | +18.60 | TRADITIONAL |
| 25 | True Detective: S1 | 2014 | 21.28 | 3.10 | +18.18 | TRADITIONAL |
| 26 | Logan | 2017 | 23.52 | 5.80 | +17.72 | TRADITIONAL |
| 27 | Inception | 2010 | 20.44 | 2.90 | +17.54 | TRADITIONAL |
| 28 | Bridge of Spies | 2015 | 19.32 | 2.10 | +17.22 | TRADITIONAL |
| 29 | Ant-Man | 2015 | 21.00 | 3.90 | +17.10 | TRADITIONAL |
| 30 | The Accountant | 2016 | 22.96 | 6.00 | +16.96 | TRADITIONAL |
| 31 | Thor | 2011 | 18.20 | 1.70 | +16.50 | TRADITIONAL |
| 32 | John Wick: Chapter 3 | 2019 | 22.54 | 6.10 | +16.44 | TRADITIONAL |
| 33 | Sully | 2016 | 18.34 | 2.70 | +15.64 | TRADITIONAL |
| 34 | Guardians of the Galaxy | 2014 | 21.28 | 5.82 | +15.46 | TRADITIONAL |
| 35 | Interstellar | 2014 | 23.16 | 7.72 | +15.44 | TRADITIONAL |
| 36 | Avengers: Infinity War | 2018 | 16.80 | 2.00 | +14.80 | TRADITIONAL |
| 37 | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | 2014 | 25.62 | 11.00 | +14.62 | TRADITIONAL |
| 38 | John Wick | 2014 | 15.30 | 0.70 | +14.60 | TRADITIONAL |
| 39 | Avengers: Age of Ultron | 2015 | 18.34 | 3.85 | +14.49 | TRADITIONAL |
| 40 | Coco | 2017 | 18.34 | 4.00 | +14.34 | TRADITIONAL |
| 41 | Hereditary | 2018 | 18.36 | 4.20 | +14.16 | TRADITIONAL |
| 42 | Whiplash | 2014 | 16.40 | 2.40 | +14.00 | TRADITIONAL |
| 43 | The Greatest Showman | 2017 | 20.58 | 7.28 | +13.30 | TRADITIONAL |
| 44 | Rogue One | 2016 | 21.00 | 7.78 | +13.22 | TRADITIONAL |
| 45 | Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | 2019 | 19.20 | 6.80 | +12.40 | TRADITIONAL |
| 46 | Jurassic World | 2015 | 15.33 | 4.00 | +11.33 | TRADITIONAL |
| 47 | Spider-Man: Far From Home | 2019 | 17.99 | 7.40 | +10.59 | TRADITIONAL |
| 48 | Drive | 2011 | 14.49 | 4.00 | +10.49 | TRADITIONAL |
| 49 | The Avengers | 2012 | 13.60 | 3.50 | +10.10 | TRADITIONAL |
| 50 | Ready Player One | 2018 | 18.90 | 9.28 | +9.62 | TRADITIONAL |
| 51 | Prisoners | 2013 | 14.14 | 5.00 | +9.14 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 52 | The Revenant | 2015 | 21.49 | 12.39 | +9.10 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 53 | Thor: Ragnarok | 2017 | 18.80 | 9.90 | +8.90 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 54 | A Star Is Born | 2018 | 16.24 | 7.40 | +8.84 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 55 | Doctor Strange | 2016 | 14.00 | 5.35 | +8.65 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 56 | Wonder Woman | 2017 | 13.30 | 4.80 | +8.50 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 57 | It | 2017 | 15.54 | 7.40 | +8.14 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 58 | Django Unchained | 2012 | 21.50 | 13.40 | +8.10 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 59 | Captain America: Civil War | 2016 | 17.64 | 9.96 | +7.68 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 60 | Spider-Man: Homecoming | 2017 | 13.02 | 6.22 | +6.80 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 61 | Bohemian Rhapsody | 2018 | 13.20 | 6.50 | +6.70 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 62 | Lincoln | 2012 | 15.89 | 9.24 | +6.65 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 63 | Captain Phillips | 2013 | 15.80 | 9.50 | +6.30 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 64 | Venom | 2018 | 11.76 | 5.68 | +6.08 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 65 | Gone Girl | 2014 | 12.18 | 6.18 | +6.00 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 66 | Frozen | 2013 | 18.40 | 13.00 | +5.40 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 67 | Aladdin | 2019 | 12.04 | 8.18 | +3.86 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 68 | The Grand Budapest Hotel | 2014 | 10.64 | 7.10 | +3.54 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 69 | Moana | 2016 | 15.00 | 11.80 | +3.20 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 70 | Avengers: Endgame | 2019 | 13.60 | 10.50 | +3.10 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 71 | The Hunger Games | 2012 | 12.60 | 9.80 | +2.80 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 72 | Batman v Superman | 2016 | 14.30 | 11.80 | +2.50 | TRADITIONAL LEAN |
| 73 | Uncut Gems | 2019 | 8.70 | 6.20 | +2.50 | MIXED |
| 74 | Deadpool | 2016 | 9.80 | 7.84 | +1.96 | MIXED |
| 75 | Moonrise Kingdom | 2012 | 7.84 | 5.88 | +1.96 | MIXED |
| 76 | La La Land | 2016 | 11.62 | 9.84 | +1.78 | MIXED |
| 77 | Deadpool 2 | 2018 | 10.14 | 8.55 | +1.59 | MIXED |
| 78 | Black Panther | 2018 | 20.03 | 18.82 | +1.21 | MIXED |
| 79 | Joker | 2019 | 13.60 | 13.00 | +0.60 | MIXED |
| 80 | Blade Runner 2049 | 2017 | 16.24 | 16.60 | -0.36 | MIXED |
| 81 | Black Swan | 2010 | 7.28 | 8.88 | -1.60 | MIXED |
| 82 | Sicario | 2015 | 15.88 | 17.84 | -1.96 | MIXED |
| 83 | Mad Max: Fury Road | 2015 | 8.40 | 11.60 | -3.20 | WOKE LEAN |
| 84 | Us | 2019 | 8.89 | 13.14 | -4.25 | WOKE LEAN |
| 85 | Knives Out | 2019 | 7.00 | 11.60 | -4.60 | WOKE LEAN |
| 86 | Frozen II | 2019 | 14.40 | 19.00 | -4.60 | WOKE LEAN |
| 87 | The Wolf of Wall Street | 2013 | 4.20 | 10.14 | -5.94 | WOKE LEAN |
| 88 | The Social Network | 2010 | 6.74 | 13.02 | -6.28 | WOKE LEAN |
| 89 | American Made | 2017 | 5.60 | 12.18 | -6.58 | WOKE LEAN |
| 90 | Parasite | 2019 | 7.78 | 16.52 | -8.74 | WOKE LEAN |
| 91 | Zootopia | 2016 | 12.32 | 21.48 | -9.16 | WOKE LEAN |
| 92 | Toy Story 4 | 2019 | 8.00 | 17.20 | -9.20 | WOKE LEAN |
| 93 | Star Wars: The Last Jedi | 2017 | 9.20 | 20.58 | -11.38 | WOKE |
| 94 | Get Out | 2017 | 4.00 | 16.10 | -12.10 | WOKE |
| 95 | Succession (S1) | 2018 | 2.40 | 16.90 | -14.50 | WOKE |
| 96 | Captain Marvel | 2019 | 3.25 | 19.44 | -16.19 | WOKE |
| 97 | Midsommar | 2019 | 2.40 | 20.58 | -18.18 | WOKE |
| 98 | The Boys | 2019 | 15.44 | 39.72 | -24.28 | STRONGLY WOKE |