Pretty much every movie related website on the Internet has come up with some sort of Best of the Decade list over the past month. But while the majority of them focused on straight up “Best of” lists featuring relatively well known films, I figured in the spirit of this website that I would instead focus on the lesser known films that have been made over the past ten years.

But one question I had to figure out was just how should I whittle down films as “Long Tail” films. Plenty of films started out as smaller films that eventually found their audience, while there is certainly a fair share of films that were initially given a wide release. So I decided I would use two different determining factors to help figure out which films would be considered part of the long tail.

The first is the amount of screens the film was released on during its theatrical run here in the US. I decided to go with a relatively small number of screens as the ceiling (100 at the films widest release) and that any film that broke that would simply be dismissed. This number essentially acts as the films initial chance to gain potential viewers. Films eliminated by this include The Proposition (158 screens), City of God (242 screens) and The Triplets of Bellville (463 screens).

Secondly I went off of reviews on IMDb.com. Once again I selected a fairly small number of reviews as the ceiling (no more than 10K). This number reflects the film’s total audience, as the films that are more popular with mainstream audiences, or those that have rabid fan followings, typically break that number quite easily. Film eliminated by this number include such seemingly smaller films like Oldboy (28 screens, 87016 votes), Dead Man’s Shoes (2 screens, 16286 votes) and Let the Right One In (53 screens, 45413 votes).

While still far from a perfect system, this seemed to work pretty well in eliminating a fairly large chunk of lesser known films, making it a far more manageable task for me to select some of my favorites from what remained. One interesting note, this process seemed to favor documentaries as twelve ended up making the list. So while the quality of documentaries has grown throughout the decade, it still seems like the form still has a ways to go to capture the public’s attention.

And without further ado, I give you this decades 30 Best Long Tail Films.

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When I was growing up in Wisconsin I would often times kill time at my local video store. I would roam through the aisles, looking at the VHS boxes, searching for something interesting to watch. I was fascinated with genre mash-ups and Ralph Bakshi’s films and quickly immersed myself in them. But Waukesha wasn’t exactly stationed along the cutting edge of pop culture, so I had some rather sizable gaps in both my film knowledge and exposure.

It wasn’t until college that I began meeting people who were giving enough to introduce me to German Expressionism, Italian neorealism, and Turner Classic Movies. From then on I always have had great respect for people who introduce me to new and exciting things, especially when it comes to films.

Which brings me to my girlfriend, Anna. I found my first excuse to talk to her when she was reading Watership Down, which was one of my favorite books (as well as animated films) as a child. Much to my delight she had never read it before so it afforded me the perfect opportunity to lay down some serious knowledge, and from there we soon began introducing each other to all sorts of of new experiences. One interesting thing to note is she was far more open to trying out my recommendations early on then I was with hers. This is quite simply explained. She likes Bjork, Dogville, and Ayn Rand. I like cool crap.

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