My tentative top 10. That being said, I'm more than comfortable with this list given I only have two or three more movies I'd like to see from 2015, and that I've already seen 11 movies this year I would rate 4.5-5/5. That is incredible. This year was fantastic for me, and I'm happy if these were the 10 best of the year.
10. Selma
Dir. Ava Duvernay
The deserving second half of the Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. double feature we have needed for so long. Where Lee mirrors the agony and drive of his iconic subject, Duvernay mirrors the reservation and calculation despite of hers. A hauntingly apt representation of its impassioned subjects commemorating their patience and pride of walking with conviction.
9. Room
Dir, Lenny Abrahamson
Melodrama be damned, Room is a frighteningly honest depiction of trauma with a keener eye than I have ever seen put towards the emotions of its characters. It walks the fine line of loving its characters, and handling their stories with love. A filmic explorations of the difficulties of relationships, and the warmth that makes those challenges worth overcoming.
8. Creed
Dir. Ryan Coogler
My kind of motivation. So much more than an underdog story, requesting pity in exchange for triumph by proxy, Creed fights for everything it wants, building new characters and stories from a world unneeding of their inclusion. The emotions Creed struggles to overcome are its own, without ever feeling forced or mechanical. Like the story of an immigrant rebuilding his shop after Superman and Zod flew through it during an epic fight, Creed feels like the real world collateral of real people trying to reconcile their ambitions against the fictional gods surrounding them.
7. The Big Short
Dir. Adam McKay
Remember what I said about Selma finding strength in a proud walk? The Big Short cares so little for its own well being, so angry at its targets that it plans on throwing itself at them in a chaotic fit. It isn't pretty, or proud and its hardly admirable, but it is so cathartic and well aimed that any damage it self inflicts is worth the poise sacrificed. I don't want to come across as having been consumed by McKay's vivid anger... I see The Big Short as another movie (1 of 4 or 5 on my list) not so much about its subject matter but about how its characters react to the world they are revealed to. Like Carrell, sometimes The Big Short can't see past the red in its eyes, but watching from a distance, there is something so gracefully human about its outburst that holds all of the flailing parts together.
6. Steve Jobs
Dir. Danny Boyle
Set in monuments to design, filled with choruses of Sorkin's bold witticisms, exaggerating its characters to the surreal height we can only envision them atop, Steve Jobs, like its titular focus, has a clear contempt for reality. Like this singular real world character, the film models its ideals to the outside world, refusing criticisms that a closed system doesn't allow for audience/user input. Steve Jobs, the film and the man it represents, believes in perfection. Whether you find either to be as grand as their creators may hope is subjective; I do use an Android phone after all.
5. Ex Machina
Dir. Alex Garland
Genre films are my favourite kind of film. My favourite genre? Sci Fi without question. Like genre films do so well, and like Sci Fi films necessitate in their hallucinatory prescience, Ex Machina constructs the world it sees into an artful dream of wonder and anxiety. Ex Machina marvels at the mind of its characters, designed, unintentional, human and robotic alike. It carefully blurs the line between what we are, and what we think we are, creating a brief but expansive imagination of existential obscurity. Literally, and effectively, this movie is the definition of cerebral.
4. Spotlight
Dir. Tom McCarthy
Of the films this year socially hindered by its subject matter, Spotlight is most victimized by the troubling story its characters explore. For the sake of my argument, let's pretend these journalists were reporting any other story, and realize that the gravity of the film comes from its characters' proficiencies far more than its parallel subject. Spotlight is a (potentially premature?) swan song to journalism, and the kinds of people who make the profession meaningful. These characters, their emotional strength to remove their eccentric persons from the story they are compelled to share, and their exceptional talent root this drama in wanting what is best for others, rather than wallowing in misery for an easy Oscar win. None of it would work without the deft as all hell performances and the so subtle it hurts direction. That this movie is fourth on my list is absurd, but hopefully telling.
3. Faults
Dir. Riley Stearns
This is the hardest movie on my list to articulate in favour of. It is strange and surreal, but in its many, many abnormalities is a consideration on thought, its many origins and its many extensions. Where we come from, who we are and who we become all at once, in a dark and dirty little film that I could have watched for the rest of my life if it didn't have to end. Slyly comical and hazily dramatic, it might feel to most that Faults is a lot of not much, but its small package and relative impact have stayed with me everyday since I watched it. I'm upset I'm not good enough a writer to explain why i loved Faults as much as I did, but I am utterly excited that I can't place my finger so precisely on why it works, because every missed attempt I have at selling this movie just gives me another excuse to rewatch it.
2. The End of the Tour
Dir. James Ponsoldt
If there weren't a moment in this film, about four fifths through, where the mechanics of its construction didn't poke through its facade and deject me so acutely, this might have been a top 5 movie of all time for me. Other than that one plotty inclusion to instigate a movie and relationship which hardly needed such an artificial prodding, The End of the Tour is a smart, lovely, delicate and poignant film so near to perfection I want to cry just looking at it. There is so much to say about this movie I have written upwards of five times trying to begin examining the thoughts swirling within it, but have failed every time to find the brevity this film so effortlessly manages. About being smart, about being sad, about how being smart makes us sad, about how being sad shows us how to be smart, and about who we are to each other and how we can help and hurt one and other as distance grows and shrinks. There is too much to be said about this movie, and if it needed a piece of conflict to assure itself it was a "film" than I can excuse at least that. I disappeared with this movie, and reappeared more thoughtful about the world.
1. A Most Violent Year
Dir. J.C. Chandor
This is the kind of film I wish every film knew how to be. It is mature and intelligent, exhilarating and suspenseful, engaging during and worth considering afterwards. No single element of this film stands out more than another, because everything is as close to great as I could reasonably ask. It's all in service of a moralist riddle; A philosophy prompt made filmic. What is "most right?" For as difficult as our lives can all be, for as challenging every hurdle is to overcome, that is the center of what we all continue to think. We all only want a little bit more, no matter how much we have. But getting that is full of complications we will struggle to not morally subvert. In that way, A Most Violent Year echoes reality with entertainment and artistry. Maybe not by showing us the way, but by giving us the opportunity to ask ourselves whether the characters in this film are justified in their actions. Who we want to be, and how we choose to get there.
This year was outstanding. My list may change a little but I hope I've at least made a case for these 10 terrific films. I actually chose to disqualify Green Room from this year just so I could instead fit these 10. Hopefully we'll see it on next year's list (I'd wager so). Anyways, thanks fs for a great year of discussing movies. On to the next one.