In spite of North Korea-sponsored hacks and Hollywood's subsequent self-censorship, constant doomsday talk of box office decline and much ink spilt about The End of Movies, it was a terrific year for cinema. It's always difficult in years like this to narrow down to ten favorites, but below is my attempt. These are films that moved me, astonished me, taught me, and focused my attention more clearly than any others this year. I heartily recommend them all to you:
10) Only Lovers Left Alive: Jim Jarmusch has long been one of my favorite directors, and his goth-hipster take on the vampire genre did not disappoint. Starring the always wonderful Tilda Swinton and Tom "Loki" Hiddleston as a pair of vampire lovers with impeccable taste (Basquiat, Lord Byron, David Foster Wallace), Only Lovers Left Alive is both darkly funny, elegant and mournful in a way only Jarmusch (Down By Law, Broken Flowers) can quite pull off.
9) Calvary: This dark comedy from John Michael McDonagh (Ned Kelly) tells the story of an Irish priest (Brendan Gleeson) who receives a death threat from one of his parishioners. The film plays at times like a Clue-esque whodunit but what I found most compelling about it is how it shows the day-to-day ministry of a priest caring for his flock. Against the backdrop of a post-Christendom Europe, where churches and clergy are viewed by many with suspicion if not contempt, Calvary shows one the beauty of one man's faithfulness and burden for the lost.
8) It Felt Like Love: This stunning debut film from Eliza Hittman follows a 14-year-old girl (Gina Piersanti) in Brooklyn as she navigates relationships and sexuality in those awkward girl-to-woman years. Subtle, realistic, quiet and immensely perceptive, the film reminded me a bit of Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank (2010). More than anything I've seen, It Felt Like Love shows the disturbing ways that our sex-saturated society and misogynistic media landscape warp young people's senses of love, body image, relationships and sexuality.
7) Ida: This Polish film from Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love) is quiet, spare (filmed in black and white) and understated, yet it packs a punch. Set in the devastated (physically, emotional, existentially) landscape of post-Holocaust Poland, the film follows a novitiate nun as she discovers details about her family from the time of the Nazi occupation. Perhaps the most beautifully shot film of the year, Ida is also one of the most insightful films I've seen about the lingering ghosts of WWII in contemporary Europe.
6) Noah: I've been unabashed in my acclaim for Darren Aronofsky's Noah and my insistence that, in spite of all the controversy surrounding the ROCK MONSTERS, "liberties taken with the story" and accusations of Gnosticism, it's actually a pretty excellent film--one of Aronofsky's best. Not only is it a great film but it's a rather reverential one too, taking faith in God more seriously (ironically) than some of the more on-the-nose God films that came out this year (I'm looking at you, God's Not Dead). Yes, its an unfamiliar take on the story. Yes, it's environmentalist (so is the Bible). Yes, it draws from more than just the Bible in its telling of a biblical story (so did The Passion of the Christ). Whatever. I loved it, I'm a Christian and my faith is richer because of this film. (my review)
5) Locke: The more I think about this film, a one-man-in-a-car-for-90-minutes tour de force from Tom Hardy, the more I find it impressive. Not only is it another fine entry into the growing genre of "minimalist actor showcase" films (see also: Robert Redford in the criminally under seen All is Lost), but it's also a master class in filmmaking. Only after the film is over, and just as you're getting used to Hardy's peculiar Welsh accent, does the force of its power start to hit you. It's a film that doesn't tell you what it's about but reveals itself over time (days, weeks, months in my case) and after much reflection to be a film that is about nearly everything. Countless times over the last few months, whether reading Genesis, watching the news, dealing with relational stress or driving the L.A. freeways, my thoughts have returned to Locke. That's the mark of a great film. (my review)
4) The Immigrant: The latest from James Gray (Two Lovers, We Own the Night), The Immigrant is a glorious and deceptively simple throwback to classic Hollywood melodrama. Featuring exceptional work from the always terrific Marion Cotillard and Joaquin Phoenix, The Immigrant explores the very American mingling of God and mammon, as well as grace and work, as it tells the tale of America's messy dream. (my review)
3) Under the Skin: Jonathan Glazer's follow-up to his stylish enigma Birth (2004), Under the Skin is a similarly provocative exploration of what it means to be human, particularly what it means to be embodied. Starring Scarlett Johansson in her second non-human role in a row (see also: Her), Under the Skin is quite literally about skin: the phenomenon of a soul clothed in a body, of our bodily substance, of what an alien's gaze at the awkwardness of humanity might look like if it spent some time in our shoes. It's also about incarnation, which is also a theme in Her. In the midst of our disembodying, digital age, films like these help remind us of the complexity and wonder of what it means to be human.
2) Two Days, One Night: The Belgian Dardenne brothers (The Son, The Child, The Kid With a Bike) make masterpieces so often it would be easy to take them for granted. "It's just another tour-de-force triumph of humane neorealism," one might say of their latest film, Two Days, One Night. "Ho hum." But the film, starring Marion Cotillard (her second Oscar-worthy performance of the year, in my estimation), is nevertheless worthy to be counted among the best movies of the year, even if it feels like another effortless outing in Dardenne-land. What makes Two Days stand out this year is how timely it seems, touching as it does on issues of depression and mental health, as well as economic malaise and the struggle between individual profit and collective responsibility. Like all the Dardenne brothers' films, Two Days feels beautifully specific and yet at the same time universal--a film about a woman, a husband and a community which we can all identify with.
1) Boyhood: Even if its acting and story were a bust (they aren't), Richard Linklater's Boyhood would still be something of a monumental achievement in cinema. Shot over 12 years (the patience!) with the same actors, showing on film the real growing up of a boy (real in the sense of each year he is visibly older, as are his family members), Boyhood chisels away from a mound of time to form an unprecedented cinematic sculpture of temporality and family-shaping childhood development. It's sort of like the Up series meets David Brooks' The Social Animal. As I've reflected on the film I've thought about the inaccessible reality of one's childhood: photographs and video documentation of it may exist, and one has memories. But they are fading and will one day disappear, as will the physical artifacts and photos. Eventually one's descendants will render their life only sketchily in their imaginations, and then not at all. The power of films like Boyhood is that they do what any human with memories longs to do: they reconstruct the elusive past, vividly conjuring holy moments of old that would otherwise be lost. (my review)
Honorable Mention: Cold in July, Foxcatcher,The Grand Budapest Hotel, Interstellar, Nightcrawler, The Wind Rises, Snowpiercer, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Selma, Whiplash.
Note: Several of the films on this list contain content (violence, nudity, sex, drugs, language, etc.) that should be approached with caution.