Andrew Dosunmu's "Mother of George" is one of the best movies of the decade

Their top 100 movies of this era include great entries like "Moonlight," "Mad Max: Fury Road," "Lady Bird," "Inception," "The Wolf of Wall Street," "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," "Mission: Impossible - Fallout," "Black Panther," and our very own "Mother of George", named the 93rd best movie of the decade.

Andrew Dosunmu's "Mother of George" is one of the best movies of the decade according to IndieWire (Photo: IndieWire) Pulse Nigeria

This Nigerian film is one of the best movies of the decade

Released back in 2013 by Nigerian photographer and filmmaker, Andrew Dosunmu, it follows the interesting story of Ayodele played by Issach de Bankolé and Adenike Balogun (Danai Gurira).

Viewers watch on as the newly married Nigerian couple struggle with fertility issues while dealing with the pressures that come with owning and managing a small restaurant in Brooklyn, New York.

The movie was nominated by Tambay Obenson, a Los Angeles-based writer, filmmaker and a serial entrepreneur, who describes it as "devastating and dazzling in equal measure."

Explaining his reason for picking Dosunmu's movie, he writes, "The rare movie to shine a light on the lives and customs of Nigerian immigrants, "Mother of George" is exquisitely staged by Dosunmu - who makes full use of his background as both a Nigerian-American and a fashion photographer - and lushly photographed by cinematographer Bradford Young, who would leverage his work here into shooting the likes of "Selma" and "Arrival."

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"The film's beauty, however, is never self-serving. Dosunmu uses it as a lens through which to clarify the power of love and the possibility of betrayal as those twin energies flow through a woman who's caught between the weight of tradition and the pull of modernity. Made for the big screen but still waiting for a big audience, "Mother of George" is not only one of the best films of this decade, but it will also be one of the best discoveries of the next," he concludes.

Critics Consensus

Mother of George was well received at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was a winning breakout and on Rotten Tomatoes, a popular review-aggregation site. It was Certified Fresh with a great Tomatometer rating of 93 per cent.

The general agreement was that "Director Andrew Dosunmu's style takes some getting used to, but Mother of George compensates with powerful acting, a thoughtful script, and gorgeous visuals."

Since the release of Mother of George, Dosunmu has made his third film, "Where is Kyra?", which stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Kiefer Sutherland.

Unlike his two previous films, "Restless City", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and Mother of George which dealt with the immigrant's life, this moody thriller looks at the life of Kyra who struggles to survive after nursing her mother up until to the very moment of her death.

Describing the movie to Indiewire, Dosunmu said, “You have an actress like Michelle and people are wondering why you aren’t seeing her face – you know who she is and that’s good enough. I don’t want the audience to be caught up in seeing [a big star] in the emotional uncovering of what was going on. Being destitute creates a lack of light. How do you create the inspiration and the lightness fleeing out of people, fleeing out of people’s mind?”

As a renowned photographer, Dosunmu’s images have featured in Vogue, i-D, The FADER, Interview, Vibe, Paper, Complex, and Ebony.

His work has also been selected to participate in photography exhibitions.