Welcome to my 20th annual year-end movie rankings.
Didn't think I'd been doing it this long, did you?
I didn't either. But then I did a little math and said "Yep, I started in 1996 and it's now 2015. That's 20 years."
That's two decades of increasing obsessiveness. Back when I first started, my list consisted of a mere 43 movies. Twenty years later, I'm watching exactly a hundred more than that -- and if you think that's a coincidence, you don't know that I also have a thing for numerology. Oh yeah, that's also in maybe a month's less time. Remember back in the day when the Oscar nominations weren't announced until around the 10th of February, for a late March telecast? Even though I have my regrets about the movies I haven't seen in time to rank, I can't imagine a month more at this sustained level of viewing intensity. It'd probably kill me.
Would it be any way to celebrate 20 years in the obsessive ranking business if I didn't set a new personal viewing record this year? I don't think so, so I did. My 143 this year were seven more than last year's record, which was eight more than the record-setting year before that. I suppose there will come a point when my screening capabilities simply max out, but I haven't gotten there just yet.
This despite the fact that were some additional demands on my free time in 2015, both a side job for a little extra income and another viewing project that I have yet to tell you about but will soon enough. See what I mean about increasing obsessiveness?
And because I couldn't see everything despite another record-setting year, allow me to cast a spotlight on the five movies I am most sorry I couldn't see in time, because they were not released in Australia yet:
5. 45 Years
4. Brooklyn
3. Steve Jobs
2. Anomalisa
1. Spotlight
Honorable mentions: The Danish Girl, Heart of a Dog, Son of Saul, Trumbo
The fact that a movie written by Charlie Kaufman, a guy who wrote two of my previous #1s (Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine), is not my biggest regret tells you just how sorry I am to miss out on ranking Spotlight, this year's likely best picture winner.
So what were the ten best of my record-setting year? Here, have a look.
10. Queen of Earth - Well this was unexpected. I greeted Queen of Earth with skepticism, and only prioritized a viewing because it popped up on Netflix streaming. Why skepticism? I'd heard it discussed twice on podcasts and seen an out-of-context clip online as part of another article I read. This was one instance where I thought I'd already seen the movie, and used the negative reactions of the podcasters as a confirmation of my instinct that it wasn't worth seeing. Boy was I wrong. This story of two women during a week's stay at a lakehouse, which dips into their similar stay the previous summer when their fortunes were reversed, is the most harrowing psychological horror I saw in 2015. Would it be exaggerating if I said Elisabeth Moss gives one of the best performances I've ever seen? Her every facial nuance suggests a person burdened with mental anguish, yet never once does she seem to be performing. Katherine Waterston's performance is less attention-grabbing, but it's even more chilling at times -- and here I thought she was just Sam's daughter. Alex Ross Perry's update of Persona is one worthy of the comparison.
9. The Revenant - What mountains are there left for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Emmanuel Lubezki to climb? Only a year after the release of last year's best picture winner (and my #1), Birdman, they've come out with a movie that is even more ambitious, and literally involves the climbing of mountains. The Revenant has the creative pair's now-trademark technical derring do coming out its ears, but perhaps even more impressive than the how-did-they-do-that camera tricks is the utterly feral performance that Inarritu draws from Leonardo DiCaprio, who may finally be on his way to taking home his first Oscar. DiCaprio is brought to nearly sub-human places of emotion and the instinct to survive, the grittiest part of a movie whose every gritty detail -- and every beautiful grace note -- is captured by Lubezki's lens. If we aren't seeing three men at the top of their game here, I don't know when else we might see that, and you can add in one of my favorite Tom Hardy performances ever. The Revenant reverberates with cinematic vitality.
8. Tangerine - If you say you've never seen a movie like Tangerine before, you have to specify which part of it you're talking about. Most of us haven't seen a movie about transgender prostitutes in Los Angeles, but most of us also haven't seen a movie shot entirely on iPhone 5's. Both aspects of this film are revelatory. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor overcome their novice status to take us on a quest around Los Angeles that takes on the proportions of Greek mythology, all to find the natural-born woman with whom one's pimp boyfriend has been cheating on her while she's been in jail. Oh, and it's also Christmas Eve. It's outrageous but it's also sneakily contemplative, as the mood will change as quickly as the soundtrack -- from dubstep to a type of ethereal synth, from righteous to melancholic. It's both epic and intimate, formats the iPhones prove capable of supporting in equal measure. Sean Baker blew me away with his previous film, Starlet, and he's still blowing.
7. The Duke of Burgundy - Peter Strickland makes my top ten with his second straight feature (after 2013's Berberian Sound Studio), this enigmatic yet intensely rewarding story of lesbian butterfly experts involved in sado-masochistic relationships. That sounds like a joke or at the very least an instance of high absurdism, but Strickland's approach to the material is anything but mocking. Instead he explores the profound and very real shifts in the dynamics and roles played in any long-term relationship, identifying imbalances that are perhaps inevitable. His humanistic goals have a very lush exterior, as the film has a 70s throwback feel, is shot mostly in a mansion in Hungary (though the movie is in English), and bears the kind of production design in which both the lingerie and the perfume receive acknowledgement in the opening credits. Infusing this wonderful atmosphere is an eye for the macabre and the unexplained that we might credit to David Lynch -- if it weren't now appropriate to credit it to Peter Strickland.
6. The Hateful Eight - It's a western but it's also a whodunnit. It's a film shot on 70 mm but also one that takes place mostly in one location. It's an epic that could also be a stage play. It's a metaphorical Mexican standoff in the moments when it's not an actual Mexican standoff. And it's yet another movie that no one other than Quentin Tarantino could make. Tarantino keeps giving us movies that are recognizable variations on his previous movies, with all his trademark interests present, yet they keep feeling fresh and new. And he's back to playing with chronology in a way that he hasn't in his last couple movies, meaning that this also has the feeling of a Tarantino classic -- in addition to just a classic type movie in general, complete with an orchestral prelude (Ennio Morricone's original music is stunning) and an intermission. I only just saw this yesterday and have a suspicion it could go even higher with longer to sit with me -- or, some of the violence (specifically toward women) could make me start to question it if I think about it too much. Better just lock it in now at #6.
5. The Last Five Years - Who says a movie you saw in the beginning of March still can't make your top ten? Richard LaGravenese's adaptation of the Jason Robert Brown musical truly lived with me all year, as I watched it twice on the same iTunes rental and then promptly bought the soundtrack, which I've listened to somewhere on the order of seven or eight times. One song still brings me to tears even after I've listened to it 20 times. That's just how sharp, observant, funny, and ultimately tragic this commonplace story of a couple meeting, falling in love and breaking up is. What isn't commonplace is it's unique structure, in which the songs song by Cathy (Anna Kendrick) go in reverse order through the narrative from their breakup back to its beginning, while the songs sung by Jamie (Jeremy Jordan) go forward, alternating with hers. It's the same kind of rollercoaster of emotion of any great relationship ... even the ones that are doomed.
So what were the ten best of my record-setting year? Here, have a look.
10. Queen of Earth - Well this was unexpected. I greeted Queen of Earth with skepticism, and only prioritized a viewing because it popped up on Netflix streaming. Why skepticism? I'd heard it discussed twice on podcasts and seen an out-of-context clip online as part of another article I read. This was one instance where I thought I'd already seen the movie, and used the negative reactions of the podcasters as a confirmation of my instinct that it wasn't worth seeing. Boy was I wrong. This story of two women during a week's stay at a lakehouse, which dips into their similar stay the previous summer when their fortunes were reversed, is the most harrowing psychological horror I saw in 2015. Would it be exaggerating if I said Elisabeth Moss gives one of the best performances I've ever seen? Her every facial nuance suggests a person burdened with mental anguish, yet never once does she seem to be performing. Katherine Waterston's performance is less attention-grabbing, but it's even more chilling at times -- and here I thought she was just Sam's daughter. Alex Ross Perry's update of Persona is one worthy of the comparison.
9. The Revenant - What mountains are there left for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Emmanuel Lubezki to climb? Only a year after the release of last year's best picture winner (and my #1), Birdman, they've come out with a movie that is even more ambitious, and literally involves the climbing of mountains. The Revenant has the creative pair's now-trademark technical derring do coming out its ears, but perhaps even more impressive than the how-did-they-do-that camera tricks is the utterly feral performance that Inarritu draws from Leonardo DiCaprio, who may finally be on his way to taking home his first Oscar. DiCaprio is brought to nearly sub-human places of emotion and the instinct to survive, the grittiest part of a movie whose every gritty detail -- and every beautiful grace note -- is captured by Lubezki's lens. If we aren't seeing three men at the top of their game here, I don't know when else we might see that, and you can add in one of my favorite Tom Hardy performances ever. The Revenant reverberates with cinematic vitality.
8. Tangerine - If you say you've never seen a movie like Tangerine before, you have to specify which part of it you're talking about. Most of us haven't seen a movie about transgender prostitutes in Los Angeles, but most of us also haven't seen a movie shot entirely on iPhone 5's. Both aspects of this film are revelatory. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor overcome their novice status to take us on a quest around Los Angeles that takes on the proportions of Greek mythology, all to find the natural-born woman with whom one's pimp boyfriend has been cheating on her while she's been in jail. Oh, and it's also Christmas Eve. It's outrageous but it's also sneakily contemplative, as the mood will change as quickly as the soundtrack -- from dubstep to a type of ethereal synth, from righteous to melancholic. It's both epic and intimate, formats the iPhones prove capable of supporting in equal measure. Sean Baker blew me away with his previous film, Starlet, and he's still blowing.
7. The Duke of Burgundy - Peter Strickland makes my top ten with his second straight feature (after 2013's Berberian Sound Studio), this enigmatic yet intensely rewarding story of lesbian butterfly experts involved in sado-masochistic relationships. That sounds like a joke or at the very least an instance of high absurdism, but Strickland's approach to the material is anything but mocking. Instead he explores the profound and very real shifts in the dynamics and roles played in any long-term relationship, identifying imbalances that are perhaps inevitable. His humanistic goals have a very lush exterior, as the film has a 70s throwback feel, is shot mostly in a mansion in Hungary (though the movie is in English), and bears the kind of production design in which both the lingerie and the perfume receive acknowledgement in the opening credits. Infusing this wonderful atmosphere is an eye for the macabre and the unexplained that we might credit to David Lynch -- if it weren't now appropriate to credit it to Peter Strickland.
6. The Hateful Eight - It's a western but it's also a whodunnit. It's a film shot on 70 mm but also one that takes place mostly in one location. It's an epic that could also be a stage play. It's a metaphorical Mexican standoff in the moments when it's not an actual Mexican standoff. And it's yet another movie that no one other than Quentin Tarantino could make. Tarantino keeps giving us movies that are recognizable variations on his previous movies, with all his trademark interests present, yet they keep feeling fresh and new. And he's back to playing with chronology in a way that he hasn't in his last couple movies, meaning that this also has the feeling of a Tarantino classic -- in addition to just a classic type movie in general, complete with an orchestral prelude (Ennio Morricone's original music is stunning) and an intermission. I only just saw this yesterday and have a suspicion it could go even higher with longer to sit with me -- or, some of the violence (specifically toward women) could make me start to question it if I think about it too much. Better just lock it in now at #6.
5. The Last Five Years - Who says a movie you saw in the beginning of March still can't make your top ten? Richard LaGravenese's adaptation of the Jason Robert Brown musical truly lived with me all year, as I watched it twice on the same iTunes rental and then promptly bought the soundtrack, which I've listened to somewhere on the order of seven or eight times. One song still brings me to tears even after I've listened to it 20 times. That's just how sharp, observant, funny, and ultimately tragic this commonplace story of a couple meeting, falling in love and breaking up is. What isn't commonplace is it's unique structure, in which the songs song by Cathy (Anna Kendrick) go in reverse order through the narrative from their breakup back to its beginning, while the songs sung by Jamie (Jeremy Jordan) go forward, alternating with hers. It's the same kind of rollercoaster of emotion of any great relationship ... even the ones that are doomed.
4. Love & Mercy - The musician biopic is probably the least exciting or inventive genre of all time, but Bill Pohlad's film proves that all you need is to go slightly outside the box to give us something memorable and genuinely touching. The biopic of Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson is such a movie, made possible by the decision to concentrate on two periods of his life that proceed forward as parallel narratives, with two different actors (Paul Dano and John Cusack) playing the role. As much as Dano's great performance confirmed my feelings about him and Cusack's renewed old feelings that I thought were dead, the most unexpectedly great performance of the movie may belong to Elizabeth Banks, as deceptively more than just Wilson's savior from self destruction. The movie also has a terrific sound design as it both captures Wilson's encroaching mental problems and shows us how the genius came up with the seminal album Pet Sounds. Love? Mercy? All of it is good.
3. Sicario - Our sentiments exactly, Emily. The most effective viewer surrogate of the year is probably Emily Blunt's Kate, who takes in all the horrors of the Mexican drug trade in an uncompromising masterpiece from a director who made my top ten last year, Denis Villeneuve. The fact that I might like Enemy, my #9 last year, as much as or more than Sicario is a sign of the quality of 2014 more than a comment on this year's #3, which knocked my socks off. I can't tell you how many times I've mentally come back to perhaps my favorite sustained 15 minutes of the year, when that convoy of American humvees barrels its way into Juarez with machine-like precision and effectiveness, through dingy streets strewn with bodies, to extract an informant and bring him back across the border come hell or high water. Both of which come, by the way. Roger Deakins is a genius for his photography of the real Juarez and Mexico City as a stand-in, but the credit goes to Villeneuve for putting the whole thing together -- including the terrific performances of the actors -- into something truly indelible.
2. Creed - The most unexpected entry in my top ten is also almost the highest. I hadn't remembered that the next Rocky movie was even coming out this year until my editor at ReelGood invited me to attend the critics screening. If I hadn't been able to work it out with my wife to go straight from work on a Monday night at a busy time of the year for both of us, I may never have even seen the movie at all. (Let's pretend for a moment I would have been immune to the overwhelmingly positive reviews.) But just to prove that it wasn't only being taken aback by the ridiculous quality of Creed that made me rate it so high, I went again a week later, and found my enthusiasm for it diminished by no more than one to three percent. The only thing that even approaches the electric filmmaking Ryan Coogler brings to the movie is his evident love for the material, which made me love it again as well. Sylvester Stallone may be handing the baton to the awesome Michael B. Jordan, but Creed makes me want to see a man whose retirement I have often campaigned for take on any role, if he can bring this kind of passion and dedication to it. As you read this I suspect Stallone will have just become the Oscar frontrunner for this role, which may be the most unexpected thing about my #2.
Inside Out becomes the first animated film I have ever ranked #1 for the year, though if I had started ranking my movies just a year earlier than I did -- 1995 instead of 1996 -- then the aforementioned Toy Story would have taken top honors that year. Inside Out was also my most perfect theater-going experience of the year, as I got to share it with my wife (an increasing rarity), my son (as mentioned above), and a packed theater of people who were laughing and crying just as hard as we were. Well, my son might not have been crying. Let's give him a few more years. With nothing but sequels on Pixar's schedule for the forseeable future, it's probably also the last Pixar #1 we'll see for a while.
And now ... drum roll please ... the five worst.
5. Irrational Man - Challenges for the worst Woody Allen movie I've ever seen. Stilted, clumsy, mean-spirited, delusional, and wastes Emma Stone. Major crimes against humanity here.
4. Pan - As dreary and dismal as "children's" storytelling gets, even when it thinks it's being cheery. It's no wonder my son ran screaming from this, though he couldn't have known in those first ten minutes just how dismal it would get.
3. Accidental Love - Hide behind the name Stephen Greene all you want, David O. Russell, but this tonally fractured and all-around ill-conceived comedy about a woman with a nail lodged in her brain who takes on congress is your fault.
2. Hits - Misses. One after another, ad infinitum. This would-be comedy's dead spots have dead spots. It would never have occurred to me to doubt the comedic instincts of David Cross until he turned in this laughless mess, which was so devoid of value that they allowed prospective viewers to legally torrent it.
1. The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) - Reprehensible and repugnant. And I actually liked the first two movies in this series. This one exhausts 80% of its running time not on a centipede, but on a racist, sexually violent, murderous prison warden -- Dieter Laser, wildly overacting in his unwelcome return from the original movie.
And now all the rest, including the other 128 I have yet to mention in any shape or form:
- Inside
Out
- Creed
- Sicario
- Love
& Mercy
- The Last
Five Years
- The
Hateful Eight
- The Duke
of Burgundy
- Tangerine
- The
Revenant
- Queen of
Earth
- Star
Wars: The Force Awakens
- The Walk
- Woman in
Gold
- The Armor
of Light
- Room
- The End
of the Tour
- The Big
Short
- The
Nightmare
- The Diary
of a Teenage Girl
- Faults
- Amy
- Kingsman:
The Secret Service
- Spy
- Chappie
- Ex
Machina
- Wild
Tales
- Slow West
- Mad Max:
Fury Road
- The
Stanford Prison Experiment
- Far From
the Madding Crowd
- Shaun the
Sheep Movie
- Goodnight
Mommy
- A Pigeon
Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
- Going
Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
- The Witch
- Me and
Earl and the Dying Girl
- Circle
- Jurassic
World
- Wyrmwood:
Road of the Dead
- Appropriate
Behavior
- A Sinner
in Mecca
- Everest
- Blackhat
- Unfriended
- The
Martian
- It
Follows
- Bridge of
Spies
- Dope
- The Look
of Silence
- The
Program
- Digging
for Fire
- The
Wolfpack
- Macbeth
- Hotel
Transylvania 2
- Magic
Mike XXL
- Carol
- The
Gallows
- Finders
Keepers
- 99 Homes
- While
We’re Young
- Get Hard
- Cymbeline
- Gemma
Bovery
- Welcome
to Me
- Samba
- The Man
from U.N.C.L.E.
- Kumiko,
the Treasure Hunter
- Manson
Family Vacation
- Creep
- Results
- Buzzard
- Bone
Tomahawk
- A Walk in
the Woods
- The
Wanted 18
- Mississippi
Grind
- Spectre
- Time Out
of Mind
- The
Assassin
- Tell Spring
Not to Come This Year
- Sleeping
With Other People
- The
Lobster
- Maggie
- Victoria
- (Dis)Honesty:
The Truth About Lies
- The
Connection
- Freedom
Stories
- The Age
of Adaline
- Knight of
Cups
- The Visit
- Truth
- We Are
Your Friends
- Cinderella
- The
Overnight
- People
Places Things
- Serena
- Mission:
Impossible – Rogue Nation
- India’s
Daughter
- Ant-Man
- Trainwreck
- Home
- One Floor
Below
- Phoenix
- The Night
Before
- The Gift
- Beasts of
No Nation
- San
Andreas
- Clouds of
Sils Maria
- Heaven
Knows What
- Furious 7
- Black
Mass
- Suffragette
- In the
Heart of the Sea
- Cooties
- Minions
- I Smile
Back
- Da Sweet
Blood of Jesus
- Boulevard
- Avengers:
Age of Ultron
- The DUFF
- Terminator
Genisys
- The Good
Dinosaur
- Mistress
America
- The
Emperor’s New Clothes
- The
Cobbler
- Aloha
- United
Passions
- Joy
- Tomorrowland
- Wild
Canaries
- Turbo Kid
- Fifty
Shades of Grey
- Maps to
the Stars
- The
Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
- Zombeavers
- Hot
Pursuit
- Cop Car
- Jupiter
Ascending
- The
Wedding Ringer
- Irrational
Man
- Pan
- Accidental
Love
- Hits
- The Human
Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
That's it. That's all. If this were the end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I'd be telling you to go home right now. (But not until you've left a comment, please! I love comments, especially on this post.)
Next year: I go for 150, or die trying.
4 comments:
That's quite a high ranking for Woman in Gold. I liked it pretty well, too, but I'm surprised at its placement on a list of this size. I have it at 14/29 on Flickchart, but it'd be a bit below the halfway point if certain movies marked 2014 on Flickchart (Clouds of Sils Maria and The Chinese Mayor to name two) were included.
Thanks David! That's entirely a reflection of how emotional I became at several points near the end of this movie. Parts of the end worked on me in the same way as parts of the end of Titanic, which was actually my #1 of 1997 (and I more or less stand by that pick). In fact I almost wish I could have gotten it into my top 10, except I do recognize some weak links in that movie (Katie Holmes being one).
Derek - Great list. Of course I don't agree with every choice on this list, but this year may be the most agreeable to me of any other year.
I wonder if you can identify any patterns in what a "Top 10" movie is for you? In re-reading your list today with fresh eyes, it dawned on me that 7 of the 10 are films in which (I would argue) physicality plays a huge role in their effectiveness (the exceptions being #1, #4, and #5). What I mean by this is that they hinge heavily on the audience buying into some sort of impressive physical presence that is at least in part created by the filmmakers for the purpose of the film. Most obvious are Creed and the Revenant, but I think that physicality is critical to the success of Queen of Earth (you discuss the facial nuance, but I would also argue there's an expert nature to how these actresses carry themselves and use their shoulders and their posture to denote differences in time and in the role reversal you mentioned. In The Duke of Burgundy too, fragility and strength - often at the same time and in the same person - is explored via the presentation of bodies in different stages of vulnerability.
I just wonder if this is a conscious predilection for you...or if maybe I'm identifying the wrong trend.
That's a really cool observation, not one that I had put together before. The thing I noticed most about my top ten films is that I have three "male" movies (Creed, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant), four "female" movies (Inside Out, The Last Five Years, The Duke of Burgundy and Queen of Earth) and three that seem in some way to be a distinct blend of male and female sensibilities (Sicario, Love & Mercy and Tangerine). Is that something significant, or could that really describe any ten movies anywhere in someone's chart? I don't know. But I like the diverse representation.
I like your observation though because I think that the very act of filmmaking is summoning a physical presence that wasn't previously there -- putting on a disguise, using tricks to create something with weight and substance, etc.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. As might be expected, your top ten is quite agreeable to me this year as well, as it includes four of mine! (Creed, Sicario, Love & Mercy and The Duke of Burgundy, for anyone reading this that hasn't seen Don's list.)
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