Best Montages in the past 5 years?

You missed 5 full years? That's around the time Detour 2, Wezlet's H3M1 and PoisonousSlinky's Final came out. I seriously doubt you haven't seen any of the ones I'm posting, but if you haven't you've missed a lot of good content. 

I'll get some of the more obvious watches out of the way first:

All of Phurion's best moments from Halo 3, packed into a neat little package. Vibrant and stylish if I had to describe it in 2 words.

People already said Mastery which is a must. 

Slight bias - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2agkxPT-7g

Not even in this one, but still bias -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCdEHOf3Gv4

A must -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIVLlj3CL3Q

​Love this video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4po8ffk07fU

Pretty sick newer vid -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN2Xc8ramf4

Marksman pretty much listed everything I was thinking of lol. Pretty much anything Muggsy, FatRat, and Hyena have made is worth a watch.

Some other great videos include (my favourites anyways): 

• ​Into the tranQ (Sillygoose)
• Ruxs' Revival (good gameplay, music isn't everyone's cup of tea)
• Old Man Makowski (many of Sillygoose's videos were awesome)
• Exeption's Legend (whaTime)
• Bryan's Strategy HRM1 (Zhestal)
• Prime (Hwnt)
• VYE (whaTime)
• Elegance (Chaos)
• Lethul & Formal H3 Dual (Muggsy)

I think Chimp's All the Gold 2 and my final montage are pretty good when it comes to Reach MLG gameplay as well.

I love prime

I recommend checking this out

A few must-watches that haven't been posted yet (all Halo 2):

Immortal Pt. 3: GP and Edit - sk0ls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un-mo9C1yb8

​

Chasing Shadows: GP - Blazin / Edit - Halzred

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoAGBRoEDUI

​

Augment: GP - Hustla / Edit - Scace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Valez8TQg04

Started a critique on Dlongo. This is mainly for personal interest, but i think these are pretty good so far and would like to share my thoughts. Can't believe i made a custom gif.

[This is me writing down every thought i have while watching]

Dlongo H3M -

• LOVED the first 50 seconds. Those transitions were great. My personal editing style is to focus heavy on syncing and transitions so this hit home with me. The second logo was a bit too long. Could have been 5 seconds instead of 10. Never understood why some 'Intro' logos people make have to show every angel of the 3D model even though we can't tell what it is at all until the final 3 seconds of the 10 second clip.
• It's starting to feel like I've watched multiple montages in the same video; they just have the same color grading. After each song we get a pause, black screen, and then a new song starts and another chapter montage begins. Each part starts and ends with a few cinematic shots (the theater usage in this montage is great) then turns to the gameplay the exact same way the previous part happened. When a montage is over 10 minutes, i think one needs to try their best to make it seem like it's a 5 minute montage; by the end you want people not to have wanted it to end. You don't want people checking to see how much time is left unless their checking it because they don't want it to end. The pace of this montage is like this - starts in the lowest of valleys, ends on the highest peak. Now this isn't bad. Every montage needs peeks and vallies. We can't be always way high up there or always down. However, in this case, it's too drastic and too regular. All of this i just described is the FLOW of the montage. HERE is a custom gif i made explaining the flow. This is what it should look more like. Let the flow be like water, baby.
• The transitions are still great, but each clip seems so rushed at certain points- too many cuts. Sometimes, for a brief moment, it's hard to tell if it's the same clip or a new one. Thus, it's really hard to focus on the gameplay. Which is why most people watch montages. (even though i focus on the editing)
• Update: THANK YOU  Lana Del Rey for slowing our pace down and ending with a nice flow through the song. Good ending. Glad that song was last, it relaxed us down.
• TLDR; I really enjoyed this. One of the best I've watched so far. Transitions and syncs were great. The flow was off. It felt like watching a few montages in one video rather than all one montage. This is the flow of the montage. Great use of theater. Sometimes cuts away from clips too soon (hard to tell what happened for a brief moment.

Phurion FH3M -

• Good pace for the amount of clips he had.  Felt like we got through the first half in 3 minutes; this can be good, but in this case it almost felt like i was being rushed through the video to get to the second half and couldn't really enjoy each moment without a rewind or two.
• The second half started off nice, but then it just felt like the editing got in the way of the gameplay from 7:28 to about 8:01 which shouldn't' happen in a Phurion montage cause his clips are so nice. (The pit ninjas and that headshot overkill on construct at the end were really nice). Anyways, i enjoyed it. I do have to say that song at the end nearly tilted me. Also, i forgot Phurion played on 11/10 sensitivity.
• *may need to rewatch and give a better analysis*

Dutchy 4&F -

• Good job, boys. Really enjoyed it. I must say though, there was a bit too much screen flicker here, here, here, here, quickly here, here, here, here, here, here, here, this one was actually really nice, here, and the finale. Though i  have used it once in one of my montages before here. Sometimes seems necessary when there is a dull moment in a clip.
• Great colors.

• *may need to rewatch and give a better analysis*

Trevx64's FH3M -

• Obviously awesome, unique gameplay. I won't comment on the editing simply because i know it wasn't the focus of the montage and that's perfectly fine. I really enjoyed this. It was a welcome break from all the other montages and that's not taking anything away from this one.
• Music was picked well for the mood of the montage. Upbeat. Saving one of the best clips for last is always a good choice.

Jumpify: Overture - H3M -

• Alright, this is the last and final talk about flow, but i feel it must be done. The first song is perfect; it's just long enough and it's slow pace really lets you play around with your clips. This is the perfect time to mess around in theater mode and really add some interesting cinematic shots in between the actual gameplay (which i wish there was more of). I bet if we gave this song to zhestaL we might get a masterpiece (if the following song had a more uplifting beat for the climax). The reason the first song was the perfect length was literally 25 seconds before the song switch i thought to myself "getting a bit boring now. I really hope he switches up the flow and hits us with a new faster paced song to really let the climax of the montage hit" and all of the sudden this happened. When the song started i literally said "YES" out loud, but sadly we were given more of the same. However, the transition between the songs was really good. It didn't like the usual announcement "hey! here comes a new song!" The timing was good and it had a similar sound to the first song so we weren't taken aback. Idealy, you shouldn't want to notice the music change at all.
• Overall, i really enjoyed this even though i may have fallen slightly bored by the slower music.

Hyena: Mastery

• <3

FatRat : H3M3 - 

• <3.
• The gameplay after that brief pause, though. what. o.0 - Perfect flow. Music was perfect. Here is another one of my custom charts with how the music is in the video and how it should be here. Only complaint i have is the song transition here. Which isn't always a bad thing when you change a song like that, it's just so drastically different from the one before.

I really appreciate you taking the time to watch my video and giving an in-depth review like that.  I agree with a lot of what you said.  I really wish I was exposed to a lot more of these posts, they're more appreciated than simple "good job's".

A lot of the others have really shared the best videos to have come out the last 5 years, but these are worth checking out too: