It’s been a busy year, hasn’t it? As the holiday season closes in, it’s time to share my year-end best of selections. There has been a good mix of interesting and varied titles over the past 12 months. So here are my top 10… okay, I cheated and put 12, so sue me.
As for those taking Oscar bets, things are going to get very interesting. I greatly enjoyed every one of the films mentioned here, but there’s no clear frontrunner for the big prize. It’s been a fairly varied year without a film winning a majority vote. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out come February. In the meantime, here are my personal favorite titles of 2015.
1. Mad Max: Fury Road – Easily the most visceral movie of the year. If you saw it on the big screen and the humming motors and incredible stunts didn’t get your heart pumping, I don’t think anything will. It’s an almost purely visual movie that builds its characters through action and manages to make you care about them all by the final act. Even better, it’s more than a simple chase; there’s some great subtext to the material. There wasn’t quite anything else like it this year.
2. Ex Machina – This exceptional sci-fi tale features only three central characters. In a remote location, a young employee attempts to test a female A.I. to see how human she appears. Over the course of several interviews, we see the creation begin to learn personality skills the lead begins to question his own humanity. I found it to be a dark and intelligent effort. Despite not moving from its main location, the performances and ideas presented kept me fully engaged.
3. Sicario – An idealistic young FBI agent takes a position with a government task force determined to take down a Mexican drug kingpin. She soon finds herself in over her head and the complex situation well beyond anyone’s control. The downward spiral that follows will definitely be too dark for some, but this is an impeccably made film that oozes dread and tension in its every frame. It also features Oscar worthy performances and cinematography.
4. Brooklyn – It’s been a quite year for immigrant stories and I’ve enjoyed all of the one I’ve seen. This is a sweet tale of a young woman making transition as she crosses the Atlantic to start anew in the US, but finds herself being pulled back. It perfectly captures many feelings associated with moving a great distances, including homesickness and feelings of guilt for straying from the family. The witty script is also contains great moments of humor between characters.
5. Room – This effective drama based on a book traps two of its characters in a room. That can be death if the dialogue isn’t up to snuff or the actors aren’t connecting with the material. Thankfully, everyone in the cast sells this tale with exceptional performances. Admittedly, the film tends to split people around the halfway point. I’m one of those who found the second half just as interesting as the first, simply because it delved into an area (psychological trauma) I didn’t expect to go.
6. What We Do in the Shadows – A hilarious comedy about a group of flat-mates living in New Zealand who happen to be vampires. Not only is the writing funny and the comic timing perfect among the bickering roommates, but it also includes a couple of poignant and oddly moving moments (something even the best of the genre doesn’t usually aspire to). It’s difficult to imagine anyone not enjoying this treat.
7. The Hateful Eight – It’s certainly a compliment when a writer/director can fashion a three hour movie around utterly reprehensible characters and still make it an engaging and at times dynamic movie-going experience. This flick does that thanks to its cast and clever (if also crudity-ridden) dialogue. You’ll have to wait for the payoff, but it’s memorable when it arrives. And that score by Ennio Morricone… just fantastic. I’ve still got some of those melodies running through my brain weeks later.
8. The Revenant – A man in the wilderness finds himself mauled by a bear and left for dead by his compatriots. DiCaprio gives a powerful performance as a man who loses everything and returns solely to take revenge on the responsible party. It’s also visually striking, using insanely elaborate long takes and natural light to show the harrowing experience in all its unpleasantness. Between the trippy dream sequences and elaborate fights, it’s a technical marvel.
9. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – This is a funny one. It took me a good fifteen minutes to come around, but once I got on its wavelength this comedy/drama really started casting a spell on me. It has great visuals, strong performances from its young cast, a quirky sense of humor that won me over and most importantly, a emotionally moving finale. And it’s even better the second time around. Frankly, teen lit adaptations don’t get any better than this.
10. Slow West – Here’s a nifty little underdog indie flick for you. This western is almost the antithesis to Brooklyn (listed above). It’s about a teenage Scottish immigrant heading across the country with a head full of dreams to find the woman he loves. Despite the best of intentions things go poorly and the movie shows his struggle with an impeccably black sense of humor. There’s also some striking cinematography, including a memorable final sequence set in a valley farmhouse. It’s low-key, quiet and quirky in the best possible way.
11. Anomalisa – Weird beyond words, the minimalist story involves a very alienated individual on a book tour who spends a night in a hotel an engages with various people. He struggles with deep-seated issues, especially when it seems that everyone he meets sound like the exact same person saying the same mundane things. It’s a beautifully animated, completely unique, hypnotically strange slow-burn. If you’re a fan of Charlie Kaufman (Beyond John Malkovich, Adaptation) you’ll appreciate it, but others may have some trouble with it.
12. Paddington – Yep, I’m a big fan of this family flick. Maybe it’s because I used to own a stuffed Paddington bear as a kid, maybe its the eye-popping production design and photography, or perhaps its the witty banter. Anyway you slice it, this effort is a whole lot of fun and my favorite kid’s flick of the year. It also has an effectively sweet message underneath about immigration and the difficulties experienced by those new to a country.
As mentioned, there were plenty of other great titles just hovering around the line – the top 12 were simply my personal favorites. All of the movies including the ones listed below are generally excellent and may also include your own year-end highlights.
Carol
It Follows
Trumbo
Spotlight
Mistress America
Shaun the Sheep Movie
Kingsmen: The Secret Service
45 Years
Inside Out
The Martian
Love and Mercy
Straight Outta Compton
Great Docs
I don’t know why, but I decided to separate documentaries into their own list. It’s a genre that doesn’t get as much attention as it should. Among the many excellent releases this year, here are my top 5.
1. The Look of Silence – Perhaps the most chilling feature of the year, this follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing is just as potent and powerful. An Indonesian optician whose brother was inhumanely butchered by Death Squad members goes about fitting the now aged generals for glasses. As he does so, the optician questions them about their horrific actions. It’s shocking material that sheds even more light on a horrific genocide that many governments chose to do nothing about.
2. Cartel Land – With unprecedented access, this title follows a physician in Michoacan, Mexico who starts his own vigilante force to help stop drug trafficking and some corrupt members of law enforcement from controlling the community. It’s all incredibly dangerous as viewers are taken into machine gun battles, disturbing interrogations and even interviews with cartel members as they make drugs. It becomes even stronger when corruption begins to find its way into the group. While a subplot set in the US isn’t nearly as engaging, there’s enough in the main story to keep viewers glued to the screen.
3. Best of Enemies – Here’s another great one. This pulsating doc chronicles a series of debates held in 1968 between liberal author Gore Vidal and conservative William F. Buckley. There’s a great sense of energy and pacing to the material as the two butt heads and provoke one another, at times making insulting comments at one another. The movie points to their exchanges as the starting point for various attack tactics seen during political debates today. It’s fascinating stuff.
4. Amy – Sure, we’re all familiar with singer Amy Winehouse, but this effort really gives a up close and personal look at the artist. Using footage taken by friends and family members, one gets a real sense of her life and problems with drug addiction. We also see that once success arrived, a lot of problems were ignored by some of those around her. Personally, one also gets the impression that as talented as the singer was, her desire to write material exclusively from a first-person perspective (relationship drama, drugs and alcohol) may have also led to her tragic end.
5. Red Army – This documentary opened very early in the year around these parts, but I still haven’t forgotten it. The fantastic narrative tells the story of the “Russian Five” from the Soviet National Hockey Team. Beginning in the 1970s, it gives incredible insight into the team’s management, including some fascinating footage taken behind the Iron Curtain during the cold war. We see the clashes, break-up and eventual reformation in the NHL on the 1997 Detroit Red Wings. Admittedly, it helps if you like hockey, but the arc of the players can be enjoyed by anyone.
That’s all for now, thanks for reading!