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Posted on January 9, 2022 by badblokebob
Finally, for the last time (not really the last time): what I consider to be the best (or, more accurately, my favourite) films I saw for the first time in 2021 (that bit's correct).
This year, I tried to make a start on my list early (I began pondering it and pruning my long-list back in November, whereas normally I don't even start that until January 1st), all so I could post it fairly promptly once we reached the new year. Well, it's now the 9th, which is one of the latest dates I've ever posted my 'best of' list, so that didn't really work, did it?
The 21 Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2021
No, it's not 21 for '21 — it's 10% of whatever my final total is (as it has been since 2016). This year that total was 207, of which the appropriate percentage is 20.7, but I can't very well include seven-tenths of a film, can I, so it rounds up to 21. (If you think that's too many for a list like this, feel free to scroll down and start wherever you like.)
As always, all the movies I watched for the first time in 2021 are eligible, not just brand-new releases. However, I did watch 31 films that had their general UK release in 2021, and five of them made it into this list, so I've noted their '2021 rank' too.
21=
Holiday Affair
Anna and the Apocalypse
Reader, I have cheated! After 15 years of sticking to (my own self-imposed set of) The Rules, I have caved and broken the proscribed number of films allowed on this list, and also allowed a tie (I don't think I've allowed a tie before, although one year I did comment that the top 4 were all effectively in first place — but I still sorted them). Why has this happened? As I'll talk more about in the Honourable Mentions, I got stuck at 32 films for the longest time. I managed to whittle it down to 23, but after days of being stuck there I just gave in. If I could have decided which of these were #22 and #23, they could've been taken off the list; but as I can't, here are all three, tied. At least they're connected, by being overtly Christmassy films, which is kinda why they've all got stuck together — "which of the many Christmassy films I watched this year did I like the most?" Turns out, that's a three-way tie (unless you also include the one that's at #9…)
20 Carol
Okay, this one's quite Christmassy too. Indeed, it's practically "Holiday Affair but with lesbians", a comparison I'm sure would've come up more if Holiday Affair was better known.
19 Spontaneous
High schoolers begin mysteriously exploding in this sort-of-horror cum comedy cum teen romance, which I found both hilarious and surprisingly emotional.
18 Daughters of Darkness
An erotic horror movie — sounds like schlocky trash, but mixed through a European arthouse sensibility it comes out the other side as a dreamy, surreal experience.
This is a pretty obscure sci-fi spy flick: it has under 700 ratings on IMDb; I hadn't heard of it before Indicator's Blu-ray release — but it deserves more. It's almost like a Le Carré thriller in its slow-burn intellectual depiction of Cold War plotting, but with a dose of just-beyond-the-possible SF mixed in.
16 Futureworld
Another '70s sci-fi thriller that I think deserves better. This widely disparaged sequel to Westworld is very in keeping with other films of its era: it's a paranoid thriller about a pair of journalists investigating a corporate conspiracy — in this case, Delos' attempt to rehabilitate their robot theme park after the disaster in the last film.
15 Love Affair
A prototypically romantic melodrama (it's been explicitly remade twice, not to mention the other films that have borrowed from it), I was expecting a bit of fluff but ended up finding it surprisingly affecting. It dodges the clichés I thought it was bound for, in addition to being beautifully shot.
14 Strictly Ballroom
Another one that confounded my expectations. As Baz Luhrmann's debut feature, I expected a dry run for where he'd go stylistically in Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! But to regard Strictly Ballroom as anything less than a fully-fledged member of the Red Curtain Trilogy is to do it a disservice. Its ludicrous, over-the-top treatment of a ludicrous, over-the-top world is both absurdly hilarious and totally captivating.
13 Godzilla vs. Kong
2021 #5 Big monkey punch giant lizard! No one's going to call this movie high art, but goddamn if it isn't entertaining pulp-SF gubbins with giant-size fights thrown in for good measure. Honestly, I don't know what some people expect from movies like this when they go about criticising them. If giant animals having a brawl isn't to your taste, fair enough, but if you were expecting a meditative character-driven insight into the human condition or something, more fool you.
12 The Invisible Man
The fourth feature from Universal's genre- and studio-defining run of horror films in the early 1930s. Dracula and Frankenstein may have become more iconic, but, for my money, this is the best movie from the bunch (and I'd rank The Mummy second). The special effects are more extensive than you might expect for the era, and even hold up pretty well today, while Claude Rains is superb as the cackling villain, James Whale's direction is highly effective, and there's a nice vein of humour to balance the darkness.
11 Captain Phillips
That Tom Hanks wasn't even nominated for most major awards for his performance here is a crime against cinema. He's extraordinary as the eponymous captain of a cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates. Paul Greengrass brings his usual edgy tension to proceedings, but its Hanks's humanity that ultimately elevates the piece. The final scene is one of the greatest single pieces of acting we will ever see.
Hammer does Holmes. Peter Cushing is a note-perfect incarnation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Great Detective in what was, sadly, the famed horror studio's only attempt at filming Sherlock. Personally, I've never thought The Hound of the Baskervilles was a particularly good detective mystery novel — but it is quite a good gothic adventure, which makes Hammer the perfect studio to have brought it to the screen. As that, this version doesn't disappoint, with Terence Fisher's direction leaning hard into the appropriate atmosphere, plus a superb cast — alongside Cushing, André Morell is a superb Watson. I wish they'd done a whole series with the pair.
2021 #4 Some people seemed surprised when this film delivered exactly what its trailers had promised: an arty-yet-fantastical interpretation of the Arthurian myth. It's a moody, earthy take on the material, but one that also has room for magical realism, fairytale-esque fantasy, and flights of inexplicable oddness. The measured pace and off-kilter tone (plus the pitch-dark cinematography) was never going to be to everyone's taste, but for those on its level, it's intoxicating. And if you think Die Hard counts as a 'different' Christmas movie…
2021 #3 I was worried that I'd find Nomadland a bit boring and "not my kind of thing". It seemed like the kind of film where you hang out with the characters and their landscapes, rather than a piece of clear narrative storytelling. And it is that — but, for once, it worked for me. It's almost like a TV travelogue, visiting places worth seeing and unusual people worth meeting. You watch to appreciate the scenery, to understand the people, to experience a different way of life. It's a film to escape with — to get away from ordinary life and spend time in these captivating places. Within and alongside that, it creates a beautiful, deeply humane, quite powerful experience. [Full review.]
Having grown up reading sci-fi magazines, I'm very aware that, when it comes to Star Trek movies, "even ones good, odd ones bad". And this first one has a particularly poor rep — "slow" and "boring" seem to be commonly-attached adjectives (which I can't help but feel stems back to expectations on its original release, which came in the wake of the success of Star Wars, so presumably people expected a fast-paced action-adventure). But as I settled down to begin watching all the Trek movies from the beginning, I found myself in for a very pleasant surprise. It's not even trying to be a Star Wars-style adventure, but something different entirely; almost more akin to 2001 in its sense of wonder and exploration, digging into an imagining of a genuinely alien lifeform rather than running about blasting rubber suits with laser guns. Engaged with on the right terms, I enjoyed every minute of it.
The third film in Irish animation outfit Cartoon Saloon's Folklore Trilogy — and Wolfwalkers really does feel like an authentically-told folktale, not a Disneyfied modern reimagining. A big part of that is the animation style. Even if you think you're becoming inured to it from the studio's previous work, it has surprises in store; moments of additional innovation or beauty. It's constantly impressive and regularly breathtaking. Combined with the magical story, the result is a simply gorgeous film.
Dune: Part One
2021 #2 Frank Herbert's Dune is probably one of my favourite novels, and previous attempts to film it have either been interesting but fundamentally flawed (the 1984 film) or faithful but limited by format (the 2000 miniseries), so when it was announced a new version would be masterminded by Denis Villeneuve — one of only two directors to top my year-end best-of list twice, once with another tricky-to-pull-off re-envisioning of a sci-fi masterpiece — well, my hopes were high. Suffice to say, he delivered, albeit in a film that is 'very Villeneuve'. That is to say, it's a rather brutalist take on the material, lacking the fanciful, weird interpretations of Lynch, Jodorowsky, or even (to a lesser extent) the TV version. In some ways that's a shame, but it's also true to the filmmaker. That the film has to abandon the story halfway through, forced into a rather low-key cliffhanger, is merely a factor of the length of the material rather than a fault of the filmmaker — some have taken serious issue with it, but, personally, the film ended where I always expected it to. And, as a fan, I'd rather this two-part adaptation, giving the story the necessary screentime, even if that means a limp end to Part One, rather than have the whole book in a rushed three-hour single shot. That said, this might be why it's at #5 on my list rather than becoming Villeneuve's third #1. I'm optimistic that, once we get Part Two (and, possibly, a Part Three adapting Herbert's first sequel), the whole will be even greater.
The Kid Detective
This is one of those high concepts you wonder why someone hasn't though of sooner: what would a 'kid detective' (you know, like the Hardy Boys or the Famous Five or whatever) be like grown up? One answer to that would likely fuel a CW-esque YA series, but here we get a more real-world treatment: the detective who was exalted as a kid, a quirky story for the local paper and whatnot, is now a washed-up has-been as he tries to follow the same career as an adult. Like several other films on this year's list, here was a film that looked like it would tickle a particular itch of mine, and delivered — it was everything I expected it to be and more. It's both an amusing extrapolation of its central premise and a solid mystery in its own right, with a surprisingly moving conclusion. One part in particular gave me goosebumps, and you've got to love anything that can elicit such a physical reaction.
Joint Security Area
Before Oldboy or The Handmaiden, director Park Chan-wook gained international attention for this 2000 military thriller about a shooting in the DMZ between North and South Korea. After a South Korean border guard apparently kills two North Korean soldiers and wounds a third on their side of the border before fleeing back to the South, heightened tensions between the nations rest on an investigation by a neutral investigator. As the Swiss Army major tries to find the truth of what happened amidst conflicting accounts, the obvious point of comparison is A Few Good Men, but JSA also made me think of Paths of Glory in its ultimately-tragic message about the wasteful futility of war. But although these point towards its tone and effect on the viewer, it outshines simple comparisons to be its own magnificent thing.
David Byrne's American Utopia
I'm not a music critic — heck, I don't even listen to all that much music on a regular basis, if I'm honest — and yet what is essentially a concert film has made it almost to the top of my favourite movies this year. What gives? I wish I could explain it properly, but, I confess, I don't quite understand why I loved American Utopia, all I can say is that I did. It had an almost profound impact on me that I can't quite account for. Of course that's mostly down to the music and staging by Byrne and his fellow performers, but Spike Lee's direction and editing transform the theatrical show into a near-perfect cinema version. My only unfulfilled wish is that this had been made during the world's 3D phase, because movement in a three-dimensional space is a key part of the show's staging, and I'd love to be able to watch that in 3D.
2021 #1 This belated return to and continuation of the Matrix trilogy has divided critics and audiences alike. You'll find plenty of people online prepared to slag it off at the slightest prompt. But for others of us, it's a borderline masterpiece. Personally, it's not just a film I enjoyed, but something I've almost been waiting for — and by "almost" I mean that I never expected to actually get it. This isn't a by-the-numbers attempt to recreate the adrenaline highs of an enduringly popular action movie. Instead, it's the kind of wild-swing hyper-meta self-deconstructing take on a popular franchise that I've always longed for a legacy sequel to attempt, but no one has been bold enough to try (or, possibly, no one's ever been able to convince the suits to allow it). Sure, if all you want from a Matrix movie is people looking cool in sunglasses while they engage in precisely-designed epic action sequences, then Resurrections will leave you disappointed. If you appreciate a film that has something pertinent and meaningful to say about our current entertainment culture, there's a lot to like.
As usual, I'd just like to highlight a few other films.
Normally I'm loathe to mention any films that just missed out on the top list — it is what it is, and if I wanted it to be longer I should just find an excuse to make it longer. That said, this year my "top 21" was stuck at 32 films for the longest time — as I mentioned back at #21, you may remember. So, it feels like those 11 almost-rans deserve a mention; except it's nine almost-rans, because I couldn't even get it all the way down to 21. I'm not sure these are truly #24–32 (for that distinction, I'd have to properly reconsider some others from my 89-film long list that I'd eliminated earlier), but, nonetheless, there were (in alphabetical order) The Father, Festen, The Mummy (1932), My Fair Lady, My Man Godfrey, Official Secrets, The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, Psycho Goreman, and The Quatermass Xperiment. In other years, maybe they would've been luckier.
That said, they're not the only films that might feel aggrieved to have missed out (if films had feelings), because, while there are 4-star films in my top 21 (even in my top ten), there are 5-star films that didn't make the cut. I awarded 25 films full marks in 2021, and 13 of them made it into my top list — namely Captain Phillips, Carol, David Byrne's American Utopia, Dune: Part One, The Green Knight, Joint Security Area, The Kid Detective, Love Affair, The Matrix Resurrections, Nomadland, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Strictly Ballroom, and WolfWalkers. The less fortunate (but still great) ones were The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Cinema Paradiso, The Father, Festen, Kind Hearts and Coronets, My Fair Lady, My Man Godfrey, Official Secrets, Sansho Dayu, A Single Man, When the Wind Blows, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? There were also full marks for the original King Kong when I gave it the Guide To treatment.
Additionally, let's recap the 12 films that won Favourite Film of the Month at the Arbies, some of which have already been mentioned in this post and some of which haven't. In chronological order (with links to the relevant awards): WolfWalkers, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, David Byrne's American Utopia, Captain Phillips, Official Secrets, The Invisible Man (1933), Strictly Ballroom, The Kid Detective, The Green Knight, Dune: Part One, Nobody, and The Matrix Resurrections.
This year I watched 31 movies that had their general UK release in 2021, but that means there were a considerable number I missed. So, here's my annual alphabetical list of 50 films from last year that I've not yet seen. In the past I've used IMDb's dating to settle what was eligible for inclusion as "a 2021 film", but nowadays I'll allow in something that's listed as 2020 if it's only due to festival screenings or (as was the case with one film this year) its own premiere.
The main downside to watching so few big new movies is that there's not much room here for the stuff that's smaller but still significant, which is a shame. And where I did make space for those films, some of the year's big-but-not-huge movies lost out. That said, in some ways it made selection easier: normally I begin with a long-list of something like 120 titles, in which I typically find 20 to 30 'must includes', then I weed through the rest to choose the remainder. This year, the 'must includes' numbered 46. I could easily have doubled this list and still been featuring films everyone's heard about, not least because I did leave out some multiplex fillers in favour of artier-but-acclaimed films. Maybe next year I'll finally go all-out and make this a list of 100. That would fit the site's name, after all.
For now, it's 50 once again. As ever, the included films were chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety, and designed to include a spread of styles and genres, successes and failures.
Army of the Dead
A Quiet Place Part II
The Sparks Brothers
tick, tick…BOOM!
And that, ladies and gents, is officially the end of 100 Films in a Year — not just for 2021, but for ever.
Well, you already know that's not exactly true. But it's the end of the challenge as I've been attempting it for 15 years, replaced by a new take. In 12 months' time, when a new "best of year" list is due, it won't be drawing from 'the challenge' in the same way… though, that technicality aside, I rather suspect it won't be too different from this post. And if, once again, I'm so spoilt for choice that I struggle to get it down to whatever number I decide the list should include, well, is that actually such a bad thing?
Posted in 2021, 5 stars, year in review	| Tagged Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Christmas, top ten, top 10, films, movies, The Matrix, film, cinema, Dune, The Matrix Resurrections	| 4 Replies
And so, we reach the end of 2020.
I don't know about you, but this feels like a, "what, already?!" moment to me. Putting my year-in-review posts together used to seem to take ages, but this year it feels like I've barely begun and now it's over. But that's enough about my subjective perception of time — let's talk about movies in 2020, like Tenet, which is partly about… um, never mind.
This final year-in-review post does what it says on the tin: it's a list of my favourite films that I saw in 2020 (normally my least-favourites would be here too, but I did those already). A note for newcomers and/or reminder to the forgetful: rather than just 2020 releases, I select my list from all 264 movies I saw for the first time during 2020. That's partly because there are tonnes of new releases that I never see in time — which is also why this post contains a list of 50 significant films I missed.
Compiling this year's lists has taken a lot of thinking, rearranging, cutting, reflecting, re-adding, re-rearranging, and a certain amount of "oh, that'll do, what does it matter anyway" to actually get them out the door. Here's what I ended up with…
Since 2016, I've replaced the usual "top ten" with a "top 10%". As I watched 264 films in 2020, that means this year's list has 26 films. (If you think that's too many, feel free to scroll down and start from wherever you like.)
Although all the movies I watched for the first time in 2020 are eligible, I did watch 57 films that had their UK release in 2020, so I've noted the '2020 rank' of the eight that made it in. (I also saw a couple of 2020-UK-release films at FilmBath Festival in 2019. As they were already ranked as 2019, I've not factored them in here.)
26 Klaus
The animation is absolutely gorgeous in this Oscar-nominated BAFTA-winning Netflix original about a disaffected postman who helps originate the legend of Santa.
25 The Looking Glass War
The mundanity of real-life espionage; conflicted morals; the futility of the whole thing — this John le Carré adaptation is full of all the things that made his work so great.
24 Dial M for Murder
As intelligent and tense a thriller as you'd expect from Hitchcock; so good it even manages to make you overlook its obvious stage-bound roots. Superb in 3D, too.
2020 #8 This #MeToo-era reimagining of the HG Wells / Universal Horror classic could hardly be more timely. But even leaving that aside, it's a chilling exercise in ratcheting tension.
22 The Last Black Man in San Francisco
From its astounding opening to its hard-hitting final act, Last Black Man is an astonishing cinematic experience about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. [Full review.]
21 Aniara
A space ship full of colonists is sent irretrievably off course in this Scandi sci-fi that's driven by big ideas about human behaviour in extremis.
20 Paris When It Sizzles
William Holden and Audrey Hepburn are clearly having a whale of a time in this marvellously cine-literate '60s romp about a struggling screenwriter.
19 Philomena
Judi Dench is extraordinary and Steve Coogan is a revelation in this intensely affecting drama about a wronged woman searching for her son who was taken decades earlier.
18 Fanny and Alexander
Ingmar Bergman described this as "the sum total of [his] life as a filmmaker". Blending familial drama with a dash of magical realism and the supernatural, it's a masterful work.
17 Belladonna of Sadness
Delicate watercolour artwork and medieval folklore smash against a storyline fuelled by rape and a penis-shaped devil in this astonishing animation full of psychedelic imagery and experimental music. I've never seen anything quite like it.
16 Patrick
2020 #7 It's "Agatha Christie meets the Coen brothers in a nudist camp" as the eponymous handyman searches for his missing hammer in a world full of wobbly bits, where anyone might've taken it. [Full review.]
15 Tenet
2020 #6 If you let go of the need to fully understand the mechanics of the film's time-reversal conceit, Christopher Nolan's latest is an audacious and exciting spy thriller. It's a shame real-world arguments have come to overshadow what is actually a suitably thrilling spectacle.
14 Soul
2020 #5 Pixar have often been praised for making films for grown-ups. That's not something I'd wholly agree with, until now. Not as cutesy as the rest of their output (largely), Soul asks big questions about what makes us who we are. All wrapped up in a buddy-quest storyline, of course.
13 Knives Out
Rian Johnson's tribute to whodunnits a la Agatha Christie pulls off something that genre can't always manage: rewatchability. It barely matters who actually dunnit when it's this much fun spending time with the outrageous suspects and Daniel Craig's implausibly-accented detective.
12 The Old Dark House
As amusing as a droll comedy and as atmospheric as a creepy old-school horror, James "director of Frankenstein" Whale's genre classic is just a lot of fun.
11 Laputa: Castle in the Sky
If this anime were live-action, it would be an action-adventure blockbuster. It's got it all: thrills, humour, emotion, wonder… That makes it so accessible, it would be a perfect starting point for any Westerner new to anime. [Full review.]
Taron Egerton stars as Elton John for this unusual biopic of the singer. Part traditional musician biopic, part jukebox musical, director Dexter Fletcher remixes John's music into some imaginatively staged sequences, while Egerton and his supporting cast (in particular Jamie Bell) give thoughtful, nuanced performances. The cumulative effect is a movie that is highly enjoyable but not without depth. [Full review.]
Alfred Hitchcock is probably most renowned for his Hollywood movies (Pyscho, Vertigo, Rear Window, etc), but we shouldn't forget his British output — these are the films that got him Hollywood's attention, after all. The director's second appearance on this year's list is one of the last films he made before that jump across the pond. It's a mystery thriller about an old lady who somehow disappears from a moving train, and a couple of youngsters who try to find out how and why. It's witty, it's clever, and it's exciting — all the things for which Hitch is best known.
Judgment at Nuremberg
This fictionalised account of the military tribunals that took place following the Second World War sets its sights not on the trials of major Nazi leaders, but on the subsequent trials that assessed the guilt of people further down the chain — here, four judges and prosecutors who helped facilitate the Nazi's crimes. For such weighty material, this is an appropriately weighty film — a long, complex, methodical, harrowing account. Boldly directed by Stanley Kramer, and with an incredible cast all giving first-rate performances, this remains a powerful, brilliant film.
Tim's Vermeer
Computer graphics pioneer and inventor Tim Jenison is an art enthusiast, fascinated by the work of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, in whose work his engineer's brain sees a near-impossible photographic accuracy. So, he sets out to prove and expound upon existing theories that Vermeer painted with the aid of some kind of optical device. What unfolds is an astonishing story of obsession, dedication, and art historiography, which challenges your idea of where the line lies between art and technology.
2020 #4 Sam Mendes's single-take(-kinda) World War One adventure ended up losing many of the big prizes to Parasite last awards season (FYI, they both count as 2020 films here due to UK release dates in January and February, respectively). But that doesn't mean it's any less of an extraordinary experience. I love a long single take (fake or not), and I love stories that unfold in real-time, and I feel World War One has been under-represented on screen — so when Mendes takes all of those things and executes them brilliantly (having Roger Deakins on cinematography helps), you get a film that's right up my street. [Full review.]
If 1917 uses all the skills of modern tech to craft an almost old-fashioned epic, Bait is practically the polar opposite: old-school techniques (a wind-up camera; hand-developed 16mm film; post-sync sound) to tell a very modern story (broadly, about the economic plight of Cornish fishermen). It could be pretentiously arthouse or an insufferable polemic, but it's neither. Instead, the story is told with genuine heart, drama, and humour, and the handmade aesthetic adds an appreciable, beautiful texture. [Full review.]
2020 #3 If you use Letterboxd, the latest film from acclaimed South Korean director Bong Joon Ho comes with a heavy millstone round its neck: according to that site's users, it's the greatest film ever made. Like Citizen Kane before it, such a label can be a distraction, and makes some people want to push back against it (is that why I've only ranked it at #4? You decide). "Best film ever" or not, the first non-English-language film to win the Best Picture Oscar is a timely deconstruction of class systems — just who are the eponymous parasites, actually? Even aside from big societal questions, it's a thrilling piece of filmmaking; tense, exciting, and surprising.
2020 #2 Can a filmed stage production be the year's best film? Um… Well, that's a major reason why Hamilton is in 3rd place for my 2020 viewing and 2nd place for 2020 releases: it's not really a film, right? Well, it's definitely some kind of historical record — not of the life of Alexander Hamilton, but of a theatre production that took the world by storm. Here we get to witness the original Broadway cast in the show's original staging, allowing us all the chance to witness a genuine cultural phenomenon first-hand. But this is not merely a couple of cameras plonked into the audience for the sake of posterity: director Thomas Kail users multiple cinematic techniques to make a film that truly feels like a film. Yes, it's still theatrical, but it feels like this is how this story is meant to be (cf. something like Dogville: also very theatrical; also definitely a film). Theatres will reopen and we'll be able to see Hamilton in the flesh again; and someday they'll inevitably make a 'real' movie adaptation; and even still, this film will stand as a legitimate, magnificent experience in its own right. [Full review.]
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
2020 #1 Writer-director Eliza Hittman's story of a Pennsylvanian teenager forced to travel to New York for an abortion is told with documentary-like subtlety and understatement, but the result is incredibly moving and powerful. Without ever explicitly stating it, the film is an eloquent condemnation of US systems that force poor and struggling individuals to jump through hoops to access care that those of us in the rest of the developed world might consider basic rights. It's a potent reminder that, for all its claims of being a highly-developed world-leader, for many of its citizens the US is as regressive, prejudiced, and unequal as the 'Third World' countries it so often seeks to demonise. [Full review.]
If there's one feature that links many films on this year's list, it's timeliness: films that connect with some of the big sociopolitical issues of our day. Do the Right Thing was made over 30 years ago, but in its subject matter — a stiflingly hot day in a Brooklyn neighbourhood causes tensions to boil over into white-on-black violence — it could scarcely be more 2020. But this is not about "which film best encapsulates the year", and so Spike Lee's film tops my list because of all its other qualities, too. It's a portrait of a place; a day-in-the-life hangout movie, where we follow myriad characters as they go about their business; 90-or-so minutes in which we get to understand the neighbourhood, to know its inhabitants… before the powder keg explodes and everything changes. Except, as we now know, nothing's really changed at all.
First, the cinematic masterpiece that is Love on a Leash. If you're unfamiliar with this feat of cinematic excellence, may I recommend my review. It's not exactly #27, because at various points while curating my list I had it in the top ten, the top twenty, in 26th place… but, eventually, not in the list at all. As I discussed in my review, it's a film that's hard to categorise: it's simultaneously a one-star disaster and a five-star artistic experience. It's an object lesson in why criticism of art can never be objective, because it's unquestionable that it's terribly made in every respect, and yet it's nonstop entertaining, even thought-provoking, and certainly unique. (Of course, some people would say it's objectively bad. Those people are wrong.)
I'm someone who believes "best" and "favourite" can be different things: in 2020, I saw some movies I would acknowledge as great but that didn't make the Top 26 because they didn't really entertain me; equally, some films got in that are indeed great but I may never rewatch, whereas I left out simpler fare that I'm sure I'll revisit. In a ranking of the "best" films I saw this year, no way does Love on a Leash get close; but in terms of my "favourite" films, it might've been pretty damn high. My final Top 26 falls somewhere between those two stools, but does carry the "best of" name, and so it felt insulting to any other film in the list (or, indeed, to those that tried but failed to squeeze in) to rank Love on a Leash above them. So here it is instead: first among my "honourable mentions", with two solid paragraphs dedicated to it — more than any film in the actual list. So who's the real winner, eh?
Next, let's recap the 12 films that won Favourite Film of the Month at the Arbies, some of which have already been mentioned and some of which haven't. In chronological order, with links to the relevant awards, they were Laputa: Castle in the Sky, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Lady Vanishes, Aniara, Belladonna of Sadness, Paris When It Sizzles, Hamilton, Bad Boys for Life, Fanny and Alexander, Tim's Vermeer, An American Werewolf in London, and Klaus.
Finally, I always list every film that earned a 5-star rating this year. It's especially pertinent this year, given how few reviews I've actually posted; although, as I noted in my stats post, it's possible some of these ratings will be revised when I come to write a full review. But, for now, the 39 films with full marks are 1917, All About Eve, All Quiet on the Western Front, An American Werewolf in London, Anand, Aniara, Bait, Belladonna of Sadness, Dial M for Murder, Do the Right Thing, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Fanny and Alexander, The French Connection, Hamilton, Harakiri, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, In the Mood for Love, The Invisible Guest, Judgment at Nuremberg, Knives Out, Lady Bird, The Lady Vanishes, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Women, The Looking Glass War, Love on a Leash, The Lunchbox, A Man for All Seasons, Man on Wire, Marriage Story, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Parasite, Paris When It Sizzles, Philomena, Rocketman, Safety Last!, Soul, and Tim's Vermeer. Plus, this year I also gave five stars to Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 3D, and (earmarked for the 'Guide To' treatment at some point) Tim Burton's Batman and Monty Python's Life of Brian. There were also several short films that merited the accolade, namely Flush Lou, The Last Video Store, The Monkeys on Our Backs, and The Starey Bampire.
It may have felt like 2020 was a year bereft of movies, as blockbuster after blockbuster got kicked into 2021, but plenty of stuff still came out — both major releases that took the streaming plunge, and smaller titles that probably wouldn't've seen huge theatrical box office anyway; not to mention stuff that's going to count as 2020 due to festival screenings but won't really be released anywhere until 2021; and, of course, all the streamers' own original movies.
Even though I did watch 57 movies that had a UK release in 2020, there were a considerable number I missed. So, as always, here's an alphabetical list of 50 films from 2020 that I've not yet seen. (I normally use IMDb's dating to decide what's eligible for inclusion, but I've allowed a handful that are listed as 2019 only because of festival screenings.) These have been chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety. There are many more I want to see that I could have included, but I always attempt to feature a spread of styles and genres, successes and failures.
An American Pickle
Bill & Ted Face the Music
The Call of the Wild
The Eight Hundred
The Half of It
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Miss Juneteenth
Possessor
Saint Maud
True History of the Kelly Gang
The Witches
And that is 2020 over and done with — hurrah!
Ignoring for a moment all the news that's currently telling us how 2021 will be just as bad, if not worse, one thing to look forward to is that it's my 15th year writing this blog. 15 years! I feel old… The actual date of the blog's 15th birthday is at the end of February 2022, so I've got a little time yet to prepare some kind of celebration.
In the meantime, let's watch some more films…
Posted in 2020, 5 stars, year in review	| Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, cinema, Do the Right Thing, film, films, Hamilton, Love on a Leash, movies, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Parasite, Tenet, top 10, top ten	| 8 Replies
The Best & Worst of 2019
Posted on January 10, 2020 by badblokebob
As it's January 10th, what better date to post my top 10 from last year's viewing? (Yes, I know: "an earlier one.")
As well as my favourite films I saw during 2019, this final review-of-the-year post also includes my least favourite films, as well as a list of 2019's most noteworthy releases that I missed.
Before we begin, a quick reminder that these lists are not selected from films released in 2019, but from all 151 movies I saw for the first time during 2019.
The Five Worst Films I Saw For the First Time in 2019
"Worst of" lists are very unpopular on Twitter nowadays (there was a whole to-do about them when the pro ones started popping up last month). I do kind of agree that they're of dubious value, but it remains an unavoidable fact that some films are poor or disappointing and therefore, as part of an overall review of the year, it seems only fair to remember the weaker side of it too. (Especially as I've been so tardy with reviews this year, and therefore haven't shared my negative opinion of all of these elsewise.)
So, in alphabetical order…
With Robert Pattinson being cast as Batman, there was a lot of commentary about how he'd done so much good work since Twilight — and I realised I hadn't seen any of it. Someone described this David Cronenberg film as basically being a Bruce Wayne movie, so that seemed as good a place to start. Sadly, it proved nothing about Pattinson's acting ability, nor Cronenberg's enduring ability to make good movies. I found it confusing, cheap-looking, and boring.
[Full review]
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead
Talking of boring, here's the most recent work from director Ben Wheatley. I've had mixed feelings about his previous films, but they were all at least interesting in some way. Colin Burstead is not. In the review I've written but never got round to posting, I describe it as "like an art house EastEnders" and say "it's really slow and frequently abstruse." Over a year after it first aired it's still available on iPlayer, but I wouldn't recommend you seek it out. [Full review]
Holmes & Watson
I don't rank these, but if I did Holmes & Watson would come last. A movie so shockingly inept it's a wonder that it's a studio movie made by seasoned professionals — I'm no fan of Will Ferrell, but you'd think at this point he'd be in movies that are at least competently produced. Weak filmmaking wouldn't really matter if it was funny, because that's the sole and defining purpose of a comedy, but there are no laughs here either. A total disaster. [Full review]
Made as a pilot for a TV series, then retrofitted into being a movie after that failed to get picked up, it might seem like I'm kicking this when it's down to name it a "bad movie". The thing is, it would've been a bad TV show too. Its biggest problem is that, stylistically, it feels 25 years older than it is — like mid-'90s syndication filler, rather than the slick, contemporary, spy-actioner I think it wanted to be. The Saint is an IP with potential, but this does not utilise it. [Full review]
Okay, Episode IX probably isn't one of the five worst films I saw in 2019 (I gave it 3 stars after all, though I was being generous), but it was certainly the most disappointing. Maybe I shouldn't've had hope, but I enjoyed both Episodes VII and VIII, so I thought there was a reasonable chance they could stick the landing. I was wrong. And it makes the preceding Sequel Trilogy films lesser with it, because it exposes the lack of overarching point to any of it. [Full review]
Where others may do a top ten, or twenty, or fifty, nowadays I do a top 10%. This year I watched 151 films, so my 'top ten' has 15 films.
Although this list is selected from all the movies I watched for the first time in 2019, I did watch 34 films that had their UK release in 2019… plus four that will have their UK release in 2020, which is a first. So I've lumped those in with the 2019 lot and noted their '2019 rank' in case you're interested.
Moviemakers like to make movies about people who set out by themselves to make movies — think Son of Rambow, Be Kind Rewind, or Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Brigsby Bear follows in their tonal vein, as a quirky story about a young man freed from a lifetime of imprisonment who's determined to complete the story of the TV show his captors used to make just for him. Think Room written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. [Full review.]
Gunman's Walk
A very much overlooked, nigh-on forgotten minor Western, which I'm sure I never would've seen were it not for Quentin Tarantino including it in his pre-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood movie marathon (as an example of the kind of Western programmers that film's actor hero would've starred in). But I'm glad he brought it to my attention, because I found it be a well-told, well-performed study of toxic masculinity and parental influence, with a splash of gun control rhetoric to boot. This may've been made in 1958, but it has a heckuva lot of accurate stuff to say about our society six decades later. [Full review.]
This is the kind of movie I'm not sure I'll ever watch again, because living through its terror once was enough. I watched it back in February but there are images that still pop into my head to chill me. A masterful work of horror. [Full review.]
2019 #4 This is a movie not to everyone's taste, as some middle-of-the-road reviews, and Amazon's lack of backing for it in awards season, attest. It's easy to dismiss it as a filmed Wikipedia article, because it's obsessively accurate and methodical in the way it lays out the facts of its case — about the CIA's ineffective use of torture post-9/11 — but, in fact, that fits both the style of its lead character-cum-hero, and the purpose of its existence, which I think is to help expose the truth more widely. After all, we know what went on, but who's actually had to face any consequences for it? In apportioning blame, writer-director Scott Z. Burns is strikingly nonpartisan, refusing to let the Obama administration off the hook for their part. So it's a shame it hasn't connected more widely, because its message is important; and even besides that, it's an absorbing thriller… about someone doing paperwork.
I probably saw better films than Mandy during 2019, but I saw few that were as aesthetically striking — and certainly none with a header pic that could equal this shot of star Nic Cage. It's a nightmarishly surreal journey of revenge, with plot points and visuals that can't be described, they just have to be experienced. And oh my, what an experience. [Full review.]
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
This overlooked '30s-set rom-com boasts a starry cast and a likeable bounce, and I guess that's where many people's assessment of it stops — if they've even bothered to assess it at all. But what really worked for me was the way it feels like an actual movie from its era, with the quick-talking wit of screwball comedies, the slight earnestness of a simpler age, and the confidence to throw in some more serious undercurrents without the fear it will ruin the fun. Instead, they elevate it. As a throwback to classic cinema, it's delightful.
2019 #3 On Letterboxd I simply stated this was "the most truthful movie about what it's actually like to be a teenager I think I've ever seen," and that just about sums up why its here. The milieu of its story is very Now — teenagers locked to their phones, living their lives through Instagram and YouTube — but look past the ultra-current specificity and there's a universality in the experience of shy, insecure thirteen-year-old Kayla. Most of us have been there, and Eighth Grade captures just what it was like. (Before anyone asks/complains: this counts as a 2019 film because its UK release wasn't until April '19.) [Full review.]
The premise of Spike Lee's detective movie sounds like a joke — "what if a black man joined the KKK?" — but it's a true story. With that in mind, you may expect a deadly serious, heavy-going movie. Instead, Lee mixes in a lively humour that keeps the movie entertaining even as it hits you with serious points. And very timely ones, as the controversial (but, in my opinion, merited) closing moments make clear. [Full review.]
2019 #2 Reading reviews, I didn't have particularly high hopes for this French romantic comedy-drama — it looked like it might be nice, and that's about all. A pleasant surprise, then, to find there's so much more to it than just a pleasantly diverting couple of hours. The story of a man who attempts to relive the day he met the wife who no longer loves him, it's sharply witty, surprisingly beautiful in places, and genuinely emotional by the end. Surely it's destined for an inferior American remake.
There are several true-story crime thrillers close-by on this top ten — if you watched them back-to-back with Searching, they might show it up a little bit, because it does get a little Movie Logic in its final act. But that's worth letting slide because of the very particular way it tells its engrossing story. The entire movie takes place from the POV of a computer screen, as a desperate father tries to work out what's happened to his missing teenage daughter. Pleasingly, the film doesn't break its own rules, but uses the limitations to its advantage to create a new, timely way of viewing a narrative. And while the final act may be a bit grandiose compared to real life, its array of twists are satisfying. [Full review.]
Director Bong Joon Ho is attracting a lot of attention this awards season (heck, this year) for his latest, Parasite, and made my top ten last year with his long-delayed-in-the-UK sci-fi parable Snowpiercer. This surprisingly-hard-to-come-by (someone do a good Western Blu-ray release, please!) film wasn't his first, but was what initially garnered him some attention outside Korea. A true-story-inspired crime thriller, it invites comparisons to David Fincher's Zodiac in the way it follows obsessed investigators as they try to uncover the truth behind an unsolved wave of murders. Zodiac is one of my favourite films, but Memories of Murder is strong enough to withstand the comparison. (Also, yes, it predates Fincher's film. I'm not claiming one copied the other, they just approach the same genre from a similar headspace.) [Full review.]
If I'm honest, I was prepared to dislike Scott Pilgrim — I mean, there's a reason it took me almost a decade to get round to it. It always looked Too Cool; kind of too hipster-ish, though I guess in a geeky way. (Well, "hipster" and "geek" have been more closely linked than ever this decade, haven't they?) I remember distinctly when it went down a storm at Comic-Con and so everyone believed it was The Next Big Thing, only for it to flop hard at the box office (providing a much-needed course correction on everyone's view of the power of Comic-Con). But here's the thing: it's directed by Edgar Wright, and I should have trusted that. And so the film is everything you'd expect from the director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and Baby Driver — deep-cut references (this time to video games), piles of humour, but also a dose of genuine emotion. Best of all is how it's ceaselessly, fearlessly, creatively inventive with its cinematic tricks. No other film on this list is so overtly Directed, but in a good way.
Sherlock Jr.
Sherlock Jr. is almost 100 years old now, but it still plays as fresh as a daisy. That's the wonder of Buster Keaton, who mixes daredevil antics with genuine movie magic to produce an unforgettable farce with more laughs per minute than [insert your comedian of choice here] and more I-can't-believe-he-just-did-that stunts than one of Tom Cruise's impossible missions. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Heck, they probably wouldn't let 'em.
This methodical French crime thriller is famed for its centrepiece — a half-hour heist that takes place in virtual silence — and that is indeed an unforgettably effective, edge-of-your-seat piece of cinema. But the film around it is so good, too: the events and plans that lead up to the heist; and the fallout of what occurs after. If you want to be a pedant then film noir "can't be made outside America" — but even if that's true, well, tough, because this is noir at its absolute best.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
2019 #1 If my end-of-year #1s had a reputation, it would probably be for choosing recent movies. Every year I theoretically have the entirety of film history to choose from, but only once have I given my #1 slot to a film that was more than 18 months old. But this year takes that to extremes: I've given #1 to a film that isn't even out yet (in the UK). Never mind Skyfall or Blade Runner 2049 only being 2 months old when I picked them — here, Portrait of Lady on Fire is currently -2 months old (its UK release is scheduled for 28th February). Still, it's screened at plenty of festivals and had a few international releases, and received plenty of acclaim — well deserved, I think (obviously). It's the kind of film that casts a spell, with its remote setting that isolates us with its characters, absorbing us into this vital moment in their lives; its thoroughly gorgeous photography, which is appropriately painterly; and a very particular pace, which some would dismiss as "slow" but I thought was just right. It also has a healthy, perhaps surprising dash of Gothic in how its narrative plays out, which particularly appealed to me. Basically, it's an all-round stunning work. [Full review.]
I'm always loathe to mention "films that almost made my list", because that feels like cheating (I may as well just make the list longer and include them). However, because I only included four films released in 2019, I thought I'd flag up a few more of my favourites from the year itself. These aren't #16–19, then, but they are 2019's #5–8, because they're the four 2019 releases that came closest to getting in. But I'll leave their exact ranking to your imagination and just list them alphabetically: Deadwood: The Movie, Jojo Rabbit, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and The Personal History of David Copperfield. Of course, there were dozens of acclaimed and/or popular 2019 films that I didn't see, so take this ranking with a large pinch of salt — if I revisited yearly rankings after I'd caught up on more movies, they'd change entirely.
Another honorary mention I want to make is more for a person than a film: Thomasin McKenzie, who almost single handedly earnt Leave No Trace a place in my top 15. I mean that as no disservice to everyone else involved — their combined work put it in contention, but it was McKenzie's superb performance that almost tipped it in. (So, I guess that is #16.) And the other reason I'm mentioning her rather rather than just the film is because she was also excellent in Jojo Rabbit — easy to overlook among that film's showy cast, but a pivotal and well-played part nonetheless. She's definitely one to watch.
Now, let's recap the 12 films that won Favourite Film of the Month at the Arbies, some of which have already been mentioned in this post and some of which haven't. In chronological order (with links to the relevant monthly update), they were The Player, Memories of Murder, Isle of Dogs, Searching, The Meg, Deadwood: The Movie, Sherlock Jr., Rififi, The Red Shoes, For Sama, La Belle Époque, and Eighth Grade.
Finally, I never end this without mentioning all the films that earned themselves 5-star ratings throughout the year — especially as I haven't reviewed most of them yet, so they merit their moment in the spotlight. During 2019 there were 25. 13 made it into my best list, so rather than name them again I'll let you have fun guessing which were the two to only get 4-stars (hint: only one of them is in the actual top 10; and the other has a review, so you can easily find it out). The remaining twelve were Les diaboliques, The Favourite, For Sama, Isle of Dogs, Jojo Rabbit, The Killer, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Player, The Red Shoes, Roma, Rope, and Waltz with Bashir.. Finally, I also gave full marks to Monty Python and the Holy Grail (which will be the subject of a "Guide To" at some point) and three short films, Pleased to Eat You!, Hey You, and Facing It (all reviewed in this roundup).
I watched 34 films from 2019 during 2019, which means there are plenty of noteworthy releases I didn't see — so here's an alphabetical list of 50 I missed. (Why it's 50, I'm not quite sure; but I've been doing it for 13 years, I'm not changing it now.) They've been chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety; plus I've made an attempt to include a spread of styles and genres, successes and failures.
As usual, I've followed IMDb's dating in my selection process, which means there are movies listed here that haven't actually come out in the UK yet. And some films have likely fallen through the cracks because they're listed as 2018 but I wasn't aware of them in time for last year's list (though I've made one exception in that regard). But there are always more films worth noting than can be included, anyway. I mean, this year my starting list was 119 films long (maybe I should increase how many I include…)
Dolemite is My Name
The Farewell
Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Hustlers
The Kid Who Would Be King
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu
The Souvenir
The Two Popes
Whew, another year over!
Time to do it all over again…
Posted in 2019, year in review	| Tagged Buster Keaton, cinema, film, films, Holmes & Watson, movies, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Rififi, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Thomasin McKenzie, top 10, top ten	| 3 Replies
Later than planned, here it is: my picks of the best (and worst) films I saw in 2018! Plus, as usual, a list of some major titles I missed, thus explaining why they're not on my top list (i.e. because I haven't seen them).
I'd hoped to have this up by Sunday morning, but life increasingly got in the way, not helped by it being a more mammoth task than usual. You'd think picking a top 26 would be easier than picking a top 10 (there are more slots!), but you end up with the same dilemmas, just further down the scale. And, of course, a longer list means there are more films to sort into order — I mean, how do you decide which is 'better' between a dystopian sci-fi parable, an excoriating relationship drama, and a groundbreaking action movie when you love them all? And that's just one example…
Anyway, this is what I ended up with. And just a final reminder before we get going: these films are selected from all 261 movies I saw for the first time in 2018, not just new releases.
This year I watched some films so bad that The Snowman hasn't made the cut. Perhaps The Snowman is worse than some of these films, and certainly everyone involved in it should've done better; but it seems something went wrong during its production (15% of the screenplay wasn't even shot!), so I feel like those involved can't be wholly to blame. However, the following five films are (to the best of my knowledge) just bad. So, in alphabetical order…
The third film in J.J. Abrams' sci-fi anthology series was dumped on Netflix at short notice, presumably in the hope people would watch it before hearing how terrible it was. Its sci-fi concepts are internally inconsistent, while the Cloverfield connections were clearly retrofitted with reshoots. [Full review.]
Talking of nonsensical sci-fi, this is even worse — not only is the science stuff implausibly done, it can't create plausible character logic either. Big dumb popcorn fun shouldn't be this dumb, because it stops it being fun. [Full review.]
I avoided this movie for two decades because I heard how bad it was, but then caved when the Netflix reboot came along. Sadly, its reputation is fully deserved — it's bad in every way you'd care to consider. Even Gary Oldman's no good in it. And, 20 years on, it also looks incredibly dated. [Full review.]
This is a cult favourite with some people (known as "Phans", I believe), but I thought it was awful. None of it makes any sense, from the mythology to the way characters behave, and it's not very well made, either. [Full review.]
Another sci-fi movie! I clearly made some poor genre viewing choices in 2018. Anyway, even his is Cloverfield meets Independence Day filtered through the minds of the directorial brothers behind Aliens vs Predator: Requiem, and is every inch as terrible as that sounds. [Full review.]
Rather than end the year with a good ol' top ten, since 2016 I've been doing a "top 10%". This year's record-obliterating tally was 261, so it's my biggest top "ten" ever too, with 26 films. Think that's too many? Feel free to scroll down and start wherever you like.
As I said at the start, all the movies I watched for the first time in 2018 are eligible for this ranking, not just new releases. However, I did watch 50 films that made their UK debut in 2018, and nine of them made it into my top 10%, so I've noted their '2018 rank' too.
26 April and the Extraordinary World
This French steampunk adventure features gorgeous animation to render a creative alternate history. A sharp turn into pulp sci-fi almost lost me, but it's too wildly imaginative not to enjoy. [Full review.]
25 Sholay
Probably the most iconic Bollywood movie of all time, Sholay's 3½-hour running time has something for everyone: it's an action adventure comedy romance musical thriller! [Full review.]
24 The Lives of Others
This German Cold War tale is tense and thrilling like a spy movie, but emotionally and politically loaded like an art house drama. [Full review.]
23 Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
2018 #9 The year's best fourth-wall-breaking superhero comedy. It's a kid-friendly cartoon, but there are plenty of jokes aimed at adult superhero fans too. [Full review.]
22 Das Boot: The Director's Cut
A rounded portrait of life and combat beneath the waves, with one of the most effective surround sound mixes I've ever heard. [Full review.]
21 Network
A newsroom satire so insightful and timelessly pertinent, you could remake it virtually word-for-word set today. [Full review.]
20 Fight, Zatoichi, Fight
The blind masseur-cum-swordsman turns babysitter in this atypical but excellent instalment of the long-running series. [Full review.]
19 Creed
Rocky returns to train his dead friend's son in this spin-off that honours the series' legacy to emotive effect. [Full review.]
18 Call Me by Your Name
The kind of movie that makes me nostalgic for a time I never experienced (and, to be honest, wouldn't necessarily actually enjoy). [Full review.]
17 Muppet Treasure Island
Our felty friends take to the high seas for one of their best movies, packed with swashing buckles and superb musical numbers. [Full review.]
Dario Argento's seminal shocker was remade this year, which led me to finally see the original. It's a masterpiece of uneasy atmosphere, with striking colours and music. [Full review.]
15 Game Night
2018 #8 Hilariously funny, with some of the best line deliveries of the year (or ever), and cleverer than it has any right to be, this is so good it makes up for the bait-and-switch of the cute dog being prominent on the poster but not in the film. [Full review.]
14 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2018 #7 Fantastic performances colour in all the shades of grey for some complicated characters in this dark (but, at times, surprisingly funny) drama. [Full review.]
13 Zatoichi's Pilgrimage
Once eyed by Tarantino for a remake, this instalment sees Ichi attempting to atone for all his killing… only to get drawn into protecting a village from a vicious gang boss. [Full review.]
12 Black Panther
2018 #6 The Marvel formula, now available in black. But there's more than that to this film, which plays like an Afrofuturist Bond movie. [Full review.]
11 The Warriors
A gang must fight their way home across a city out to get them in Walter Hill's actioner, which is thrilling thanks to an almost-mythological simplicity and directness. [Full review.]
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
2018 #5 Netflix attracted a lot of attention by suddenly announcing and releasing this "choose your own adventure" movie at the end of December. Unlike when they pulled that stunt in February (see my worst movies list, above), Bandersnatch merited the hype. It could've been a gimmick, but, in the hands of Charlie Brooker and the Black Mirror team, content mirrors form, and we're treated to a paranoid sci-fi story that couldn't've been told as well any other way. [Full review.]
2018 #4 Spider-Men other than Peter Parker have been a fixture of comic books for yonks now, but here they make it to the big screen, accompanied by a powerful message about who can be a hero. Realised with startlingly inventive animation, it's destined to be a genre classic. [Full review.]
Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam movie is best known for its bootcamp first half, with the abusive drill instructor played by R. Lee Ermey, who brought his experience of having done the job for real. Nonetheless, I was impressed to find the second half (set in Vietnam itself) was equally affecting. [Full review.]
Phantom Thread
2018 #3 I'd rather gone off the work of Paul Thomas Anderson in recent years, and a drama about a London fashion house in the '50s didn't particularly appeal either… but blow me down with a feather, the combination has produced this work of exquisite beauty. Maybe not "beauty" in the traditional sense, but as a character study of two very particular souls, with more than a touch of Gothic melodrama about its style and story, it's my kind of beauty. [Full review.]
2018 #2 This year, the superhero movie went full comic book, with both Spider-Verse and this bringing the storytelling style of a team-up event series to the big screen. In the case of Infinity War, it was the (beginning of a) culmination of ten years' work that has revolutionised the blockbuster movie business. But even leaving that aside, what Marvel produced here is a film with a scope, scale, and narrative style not quite like any other. [Full review.]
The darkness that's barely concealed beneath the pleasant veneer of American high schools is exposed in this pitch-black comedy, which mixes violent teen wish fulfilment with a certain degree of societal satire to boundary-pushing effect. It's not as transgressively shocking 30 years on as it might've been back in the '80s, but it's still so very.
Yes, I only got round to seeing La La Land this year. The Best Picture winner that wasn't, you can certainly see why everyone thought the tradition-led Academy Awards would pick this as their winner — it is, in part, a love letter to classic Hollywood musicals. But the songs are better than just pastiches, there's a realism to the storytelling and performances that's more modern, and the whole film sings with the joy of moviemakers dedicated to producing something beautiful. [Full review.]
If La La Land is about beauty, Snowpiercer is about human ugliness. Its setup may stretch credulity (following an apocalyptic event, the remnants of humanity all live on one long train that constantly circles the globe), but just go with it and you're treated to an insightful commentary/allegory about class divides and interdependence, wrapped up in a pulse-pounding action thriller with the relentless forward motion of… well, you know what. [Full review.]
The third film in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy catches up with Celine and Jesse in middle age, after years of togetherness, with two kids (plus his kid from a previous relationship) and a host of problems bubbling under the surface. Midnight is notably different from the lovey-dovey-ness of Sunrise and Sunset, but it's a powerful examination of the tension in a long-term relationship, and all the more so because we've connected with these characters on and off in real-time. The first two leave you feeling warm and fuzzy; this is more like being punched in the gut. And yet, together, they are one of the greatest trilogies ever made. (I really hope they do a fourth one, though.) [Full review.]
2018 #1 I have the whole history of cinema to choose from, but, once again, a new release tops my top ten. Sometimes, with hindsight, I wonder about my picks for #1; other times, I'm pleased to see I was right many years later, as my top film stands the test of time. I suspect this will be one of the latter, because the lengths to which writer-director Christopher McQuarrie and, especially, star Tom Cruise have gone to show us something we've never seen done before, and to entertain us with cleverly conceived and astoundingly executed action sequences, is really above and beyond the call of duty. It's resulted in one of the best action movies ever made. As the first film I felt compelled to see twice on the big screen for nearly a decade, not to mention that I listened to over six hours of podcast interviews with McQuarrie as he dissected it every which way, there couldn't really be any other pick for my film of the year. [Full review.]
As ever, there were lots of films I liked a lot that there simple wasn't room for (my original long list, which I add to throughout the year, had 93 films on it). If I just listed a bunch more films I liked that would be kinda cheating (why not just do a longer list?), but, nonetheless, there are a few I'd like to highlight for specific reasons.
While compiling my top 10%, I hit on two kinds of movie that I felt should be eliminated from consideration but that I still really wanted to mention in some way. In other years, any or all of these films might've made the "best" list, but it was a tough year and something had to go! Well, that's exactly what "honourable mentions" are for, right?
The first are movies that were not traditionally "good", but I still got a lot of enjoyment out of them; what some people might call "guilty pleasures", I guess. In particular I'm thinking about Gods of Egypt (my review explains all about that) and the 1975 Zorro, which was an entertainingly chaotic romp. Also Happy Death Day, which I really enjoyed as a tonal throwback to turn-of-the-millennium teen horror movies, and Benji, which is a young kids' film through and through, but with a loveable doggy star to 'aww' over.
The latter crosses over somewhat into the second category: films that were only fairly good overall, but I bloody loved one element of them — so, Benji in Benji, for example. Also: Winnie the Pooh in Christopher Robin, the Live Aid sequence in Bohemian Rhapsody, and all the action sequences in The Villainess. If I did lists like characters or scenes of the year, they're the kind of the thing that would be right near the top.
Now, let's recap the 12 films that won Favourite Film of the Month at the Arbies, all of which have already been mentioned in this post, one way or another. In chronological order (with links to the relevant monthly update): La La Land, Black Panther, Happy Death Day, Avengers: Infinity War, The Warriors, Sanjuro, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Christopher Robin, Heathers, Suspiria, Creed, and Snowpiercer.
Finally, I never end this without mentioning all the films that earned 5-star ratings in the year. There were 39 in total during 2018, including 22 that made it into my top 26. Those were Avengers: Infinity War, Before Midnight, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Black Panther, Das Boot: The Director's Cut, Call Me by Your Name, Creed, Fight, Zatoichi, Fight, Full Metal Jacket, Heathers, La La Land, The Lives of Others, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Network, Phantom Thread, Sholay, Snowpiercer, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Suspiria, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Warriors, and Zatoichi's Pilgrimage. The remaining 17 were The 400 Blows, Big Fish, Compulsion, The Director and the Jedi, The Elephant Man, The Hunt, Laura, Paper Moon, Princess Mononoke, Ran, Sanjuro, Scarface, The Shape of Water, Strangers on a Train, Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D, They Shall Not Grow Old, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Plus I also gave full marks when I wrote about rewatches of Blade Runner 2049 (in 3D) and Superman: The Movie.
I watched 39 films from 2018 during 2018, which leaves a considerable number of notable releases that I've not yet seen. Therefore, as is my tradition, here's an alphabetical list of 50 films that I've not seen which are listed as 2018 on IMDb. That means some of these 'missed' films are awards-y movies that aren't actually out in the UK yet, but that's the way this goes. (I have included one film that's listed as 2017, because it only had a handful of festival screenings that year. But there was another that I was going to put here which was actually released in several countries at the end of 2017, so I decided it shouldn't be allowed. That was, ironically, You Were Never Really Here. Oh how I laughed at the accidental pun. Now you can too, readers.)
As always, the films in this list have been selected for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety. There are many more I want to see that I could have included, but I always make some attempt to include a spread of styles, genres, successes, and failures.
Creed II
The Girl in the Spider's Web
Johnny English Strikes Again
Mary Poppins Returns
Sicario 2: Soldado
A Simple Favour
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Whew! That's that over for another year. (Well, aside from the insane number of reviews I still have left to post…)
Posted in 2018, year in review	| Tagged Avengers: Infinity War, Before Midnight, cinema, film, films, Heathers, La La Land, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, movies, Snowpiercer, top 10, top ten	| 2 Replies
Having listed all I watched in 2017 and analysed it thoroughly, it's time for the finale: what I thought were the best films I saw last year.
After that, a list of major new releases that I missed, thus explaining why they're not in my best selection (i.e. because I haven't seen them).
But first, the less honourable list: the five worst films I saw in 2017.
In alphabetical order…
Youthful Pretentiousness: The Movie. That it was written and directed by a 47-year-old, but seems to have gained none of the perspective maturity should afford, makes it even worse. It's also a true story, and we should maybe feel sorry for the guy involved, but… well, he kind brought it all on himself, didn't he?
You can just about enjoy this unwelcome sequel as a dumb actioner if you switch your brain off, but you really have to try to have a good time with it thanks to the cheap production values, rampant xenophobia, and furious American patriotism. If you still need putting off, consider this: I bet Trump loves this movie.
Last year Space Jam was recommended as one of the 50 "Must See Movies Before You Grow Up". I disagree. It's not funny, it's not clever, and, even allowing for the limits of mid-'90s technology, it's not very well made. It's joyless and flat; a waste of time and effort. Also, one of this year's two one-star films.
Vehicle 19
This is the other. It's a low-budget thriller starring Paul "the one from Fast & Furious who died" Walker as a regular guy who gets in the wrong rental car and finds himself embroiled in a political conspiracy. It's also all shot from within the car. That's the kind of filmmaking conceit I enjoy, but Vehicle 19 provides nothing else entertaining to go with it.
Warcraft: The Beginning
Writer-director Duncan Jones, who showed such promise with Moon and Source Code, wasted several years of his career making this. Apparently he was keen to live up to what fans of the franchise expected, not just produce a generic fantasy movie with a brand name. Maybe for those guys he succeeded. For the rest of us, it's… well, to be frank, it's just crap.
This is the top 10% of my viewing from 2017. I saw 174 new films this year, which means this year's "top 10" has 17 films. Should you think that's excessive, just scroll on down and start reading wherever you please.
As always, this list is culled from all the movies I watched for the first time this year, not just new releases. However, I did watch 44 films that had their UK release in 2017, and seven of them are on my list, so I've noted their '2017 rank' too.
17 Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
2017 #7 Luc Besson's gorgeous-looking Euro-comic space opera is a strange, sometimes messy movie, but somehow it keeps getting better the more I think about it. (Full review.)
16 Moana
Disney's Polynesian princess has fantastic tunes, exciting adventure, hilarious gags, and, of course, a lot of heart. Also, a storyline that isn't at all about finding romance. (Full review.)
15 Kingsman: The Golden Circle
2017 #6 Matthew Vaughn's spy sequel endured a pretty mixed reception back in the summer, but I loved it. It's inventive, provocative, irreverent, and fun. (Full review.)
14 Train to Busan
The zombie subgenre should be played out ten times over by now, but then you get something like this. As with the best zombie flicks, it's more about the humans than the monsters. But also it's about the intense and suspenseful action sequences.
13 Long Way North
This French-Danish animation delivers understated beauty in its deceptively simple visual style, and an equally subtle but strong feminist streak in its story of one girl's mission to reach the North Pole.
12 What We Do in the Shadows
If there's any horror creature more played-out than zombies, it's vampires. Unless you've got a new angle, of course, and this fly-on-the-wall 'documentary' about a gang of Kiwi vamps imbues its subject with hilarity and new, er, life. (Full review.)
Grown-up sci-fi in this thoughtful and plausible exploration of man's first contact with alien life. Would surely make a great double-bill with Arrival. (Full review.)
2017 #5 The latest attempt to bring the giant ape to the big screen is a creature-feature B-movie writ large, emboldened with all the CGI modern Hollywood can afford. Despite the marvellously pulpy story, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts brings a surprising amount of class to the endeavour, with some gorgeous cinematography and strikingly staged sequences. This may be 2017's most underrated blockbuster. (Full review.)
2017 #4 Christopher Nolan's first non-sci-fi/fantasy movie for 15 years is ambitious in other ways, trying to condense a massive military operation into a single movie — with the added pressure of it being a story both not often told and of immense importance: it represented a massive turning point in the Second World War. He carries it off with bold filmmaking that focuses on the intensity of the experience for the men in the thick of it, which is where he places the viewer. It's 90 minutes of non-stop ratcheting tension, with a bit of well-earned patriotic catharsis at the end. (Full review.)
Dan Gilroy's neo-noir thriller foregrounds Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as a guy looking to make his fortune by racing around nighttime L.A. filming bloody crime scenes. There's a state-of-the-nation element in the satirisation of trashy TV news and its bloodthirsty producers, but the real star is the, er, star: Gyllenhaal's well-measured turn as a driven, unpredictable, possible psychopath. (Full review.)
The director of Once delivers another fable about people finding love through music. This time it's about a gaggle of school kids, lending a coming-of-age universality and a kind of nostalgic melancholy — you don't have to have been in a band, or grown up during the film's 80s setting, to relate to the bittersweetness, the horrors and the wonders, of young love. (Full review.)
I watched It's a Wonderful Life out of a sense of duty: it's an iconic Christmas film, well rated on polls like the IMDb Top 250, but (obviously) I'd never seen it. I set out merely to rectify that, expecting to find something a bit saccharine and twee… but, blow me down, it's not that at all: it's a beautiful, brilliantly made, genuinely moving film. I even got something in my eye during the (inevitable) conclusion. My only regret is I didn't watch it sooner.
2017 #3 I don't think many people (if anyone) expected much when they rebooted Planet of the Apes back in 2011, but what's followed is one of the great movie trilogies of our time. This concluding instalment could've lived up to its title and been an epic battle extravaganza, but that probably would've been a soulless disappointment. Instead, it remains focused on its characters — primarily Andy Serkis' remarkable performance as the apes' leader — to tell a tale that's as much about internal battles as external ones. (Full review.)
Empire magazine picked this as their best film of 2016, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with them (even though, today, I've ranked another one higher). The story of a young delinquent bonding with his reluctant foster father, it features the kind of quirky comedy, but with heartfelt dramatic undertones, that you only tend to get from small countries and their indie movies. It manages a perfect tightrope walk that renders it both sidesplittingly hilarious and sweetly moving. (Full review.)
I watched Kubo and Wilderpeople back to back all the way back in January, and felt at the time they were dead certs for my top ten — and here they are, almost a full year later, side by side again in the very upper echelons of my list. I thought long and hard about that, dear reader, because I didn't want to be placing them here on the autopilot of 12-month-old suspicions. Now, I'm sure I'm not. Kubo is a majestic adventure movie, with truly stunning stop-motion animation and a powerful story, that deserves to be recognised outside of the confines of "animation" or "kids' movies". (Full review.)
2017 #2 This is the third movie in my top ten driven by music (the others were Kubo and, of course, Sing Street) — which is neither here nor there, merely a connection I literally just noticed. In this instance "driven" is the operative word, because it's about a brilliant young getaway driver who choreographs his escapes to music blaring from his iPod. Writer-director Edgar Wright extends that conceit outward into the entire movie, with almost every key sequence perfectly underscored by an eclectic soundtrack. The action is thrilling, the dialogue is snappy, and the whole concoction is pure movie-magic entertainment. (Full review.)
2017 #1 Talking of placing things on autopilot, here's another I made sure to have a good think about. When I first thought, "I wonder what my #1 movie will be this year?", my mind immediately fired back with, "Blade Runner 2049." But I made sure to think it through, in ways I won't bore you with, and I came fairly close to putting Baby Driver here, but in the end I settled on Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi sequel (meaning the Canadian director tops my list for the second year in a row). I'm not even sure where to begin praising or explaining why this film is my favourite of the year, there's just so much about it that's perfect: the numerous thought-provoking sci-fi concepts that are carefully explored; the endlessly gorgeous cinematography (if Roger Deakins doesn't get that Oscar now…); the way it builds out of the first movie but doesn't entirely rely on it (as Drew McWeeny put it in his top ten article, "Blade Runner 2049 stands as a work of science-fiction that is so packed with ideas and invention and character that the single least interesting thing about it is that it also happens to be connected to another movie")… I could go on (but that's what my full review is for). It's an incredible piece of work that can stand proudly alongside the classic original — which is perhaps its greatest achievement.
Firstly, I can't end this without mentioning the 31 films that earned themselves 5-star ratings this year. Already included in my top 17 we had these 13: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Contact, Dunkirk, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, It's a Wonderful Life, Kubo and the Two Strings, Long Way North, Nightcrawler, Sing Street, Train to Busan, War for the Planet of the Apes, and What We Do in the Shadows. The remaining 18 were: The 39 Steps, Black Swan, City of God, The Conversation, Drive, The Exorcist, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Girl with All the Gifts, Her, In the Loop, It Follows, Manchester by the Sea, A Matter of Life and Death, Moon, Moonlight, Nocturnal Animals, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, and Yojimbo. Plus there was also full marks for the Black & Chrome version of Mad Max: Fury Road, and for two films I reviewed after watching them during my Rewatchathon, Jaws and The Terminator.
Additionally, let's recap the 12 films that won Favourite Film of the Month at the Arbies, some of which have already been mentioned in this post and some of which haven't. They were all in contention for my top 17, but obviously they didn't all make it in. So, in chronological order (with links to the relevant monthly update): Kubo and the Two Strings, Fandango, Long Way North, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Nightcrawler, Baby Driver, War for the Planet of the Apes, Shin Godzilla, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Blade Runner 2049, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and It's a Wonderful Life.
Finally, a special shout-out to several of this year's big superhero movies, which I enjoyed a lot but didn't quite make it into my top 17: The LEGO Batman Movie, Logan, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok. I liked most of the others too (even Justice League, as my review attests) but, unlike those four, they were never seriously in the running for my top 17.
I watched 36 movies from 2017 during 2017, including most of the big blockbusters, but that still leaves a considerable number of notable releases that I missed. As is my tradition, then, here's an alphabetical list of 50 films that I've not seen and are listed as 2017 on IMDb (with a couple of exceptions for films that are really from 2017 but happened to screen at a festival or two in 2016). In many cases these 'missed' films are awards-y movies that aren't actually out in the UK yet (there are "2017" movies scheduled through until at least July 2018).
The films in this list have been selected for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety — some of these are films I have no intention of watching!
All the Money in the World
The Emoji Movie
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
The Florida Project
The Foreigner
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
The Lost City of Z
Molly's Game
Victoria & Abdul
And that's 2017 all wrapped up. Well, apart from the fact I've got 54 reviews left to write. That's the worst it's ever been. I'll be a while getting through them yet (even if I posted one a day from tomorrow, I'd still be going in March).
Anyway, a belated Happy New Year to you all. May 2018 bring you the viewing of many films — at least 100, amiright?
Posted in 2017, Editorials, year in review	| Tagged Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, cinema, Dunkirk, film, films, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Kubo and the Two Strings, movies, top 10, top ten, War for the Planet of the Apes	| 5 Replies
100 Favourites II — The Top 10
Posted on March 26, 2017 by badblokebob
And so I reach the pinnacle of my list — my most favourite films I've seen for the first time in the past ten years. (Well, if we're being precise, in the past ten years and three months, but not counting anything from the last three months. But that's less snappy.)
Over three previous posts I've counted down #100 to #11, but here's the perfectly rounded number everyone loves for a list: the top ten.
4th from 2008
(previously 3rd | original review)
Before The Matrix there was Dark City, which tackles some of the same philosophical issues as the Wachowskis' trilogy, only in a less opaque and verbose fashion — and, as I said, did so first. Of course, it lacks the groundbreaking action sequences that made The Matrix such a hit, but as a thoughtful piece of stylish sci-fi noir it probably bests its better-known thematic cousins. I also reckon it's still a bit underrated… including by me, really, because it's nine years since I first watched it and I still haven't got round to seeing the Director's Cut. (Note to self: fix that.)
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
1st from 2014
(previously 2nd | original review)
Calling on the same skill set that produced the Indiana Jones movies, Steven Spielberg created an adventure movie that perfectly balances plot, action, and humour. Despite the freedom afforded by crafting the entire thing in CGI (rendered with stunning realism by Weta), Spielberg knows when to hold back and maintain a level of realism, only to cut loose when warranted. The top end of this list definitely skews blockbustery-y — well, it is "favourite" rather than some kind of "objective best" (not that that'd be strictly possible anyway) — but, nonetheless, I think Tintin is a very fine and underrated example of the form.
(previously 1st | original review)
As Watchmen was to superhero comics, so Kick-Ass is to superhero films: taking familiar building blocks from other films and TV series, it deconstructs the genre through a "what if someone tried to be a superhero for real" storyline, asking questions about the glorification of violence and the sexualisation of its characters — all while being a funny and exciting action-comedy. Perhaps it's having its cake and eating it, and that leads some people to miss the point (some by enjoying it a bit too much, some by thinking it has nothing to say), but I don't think that stops it being one of the best and most thoughtful superhero movies yet made.
It's felt like you can't escape vampires in film and TV for the last couple of decades, but trust a European movie to give them a unique spin, right? So it's both a coming-of-age-y arthouse-y movie about two 12-year-olds and first love, and a scary horror movie about violent supernatural creatures. It works by not shortchanging either aspect, instead combining them to transcend genre boundaries. So it's a genuinely touching, emotional and relatable drama, as well as a creepy and horrific fantasy thriller.
There's always been a bit of a 'wannabe' air to the Mission: Impossible films, like maybe someone thought it could fill the void left by Bond disappearing post-Dalton, only it took so long to make it to the screen that Bond himself got there first in the shape of Pierce Brosnan. Nonetheless, the series has trundled along… though I don't want to sound like I'm doing it down too much because I've always enjoyed it — the second one made my first 100 Favourites list, even. But Rogue Nation is where M:I finally out-Bonds Bond. Mixing action thrills and a genuine sense of jeopardy with just-ahead-of-reality gadgets, a knowing sense of humour, and a cast full of likeable characters, it's superb blockbuster entertainment.
A phrase like "three-and-a-half-hour subtitled black-and-white movie" is going to conjure up a certain experience in the minds of most viewers. That experience is most probably nothing like Seven Samurai — although it is, of course, a three-and-a-half-hour subtitled black-and-white movie. On the surface it's about a bunch of warriors protecting a small impoverished village that can't defend itself, and it has a lengthy action-packed climax to deliver on such promise, but it rises above that thanks to its reflective attitude towards its characters and their very existence. No, wait, I said it's not your typical three-and-a-half-hour subtitled black-and-white movie!
3rd from 2008
(previously 5th | original review)
I'd wager most would rank Seven Samurai higher in the Akira Kurosawa canon, but I give Rashomon the edge because the form of its storytelling appeals to me. It retells the events surrounding a murder from the subjective viewpoint of each of the characters who were there, and of course their accounts differ. Its title has become a byword for such narratives, but there's more here than just trendsetting plot construction — it's a fantastically made film, exquisitely shot and magnificently performed.
2nd from 2008
David Fincher's meticulous true crime thriller may be his best movie — and when we're talking about the man who made Se7en and Fight Club, that's certainly saying a lot. It may look like it's a murder thriller — it is about the hunt for a serial killer, after all — but in many respects it's more about obsession and addiction, and how such things can come to take over your life. But if you don't want to ponder that kind of thing, there's always chills like the basement scene to keep you viscerally engaged. (The slightly-different Director's Cut is the better version of the film and, if we're being specific, would be my pick here; but I watched that a couple of years later, so it was the theatrical cut that figured in 2008's top ten.)
The James Bond films have always been action blockbusters, and more often than not immensely popular and successful ones. Skyfall changed the game though: by hiring Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes it was instantly booted into Prestige Picture territory — and still managed to deliver the most financially successful film in the series' long history, the first billion-dollar Bond. But box office success is not why Skyfall is #2 on my list. It's the beautiful cinematography; the way it adds thematic weight to the character without breaking the formula; the sense of Bond's history without over-explicit reverence — and the way those aspects makes it both familiar and fresh at the same time. Plus it delivers on the action, larger-than-life villain, and one-liners just like a Bond film should. Its artistic success may be a case of the stars aligning and lightning striking (the lacking-by-comparison follow-up Spectre proved that), but Bond has rarely been better.
Eight years and three months ago, when I named The Dark Knight my #1 film of 2008, I wrote that "I'm unashamedly one of those who believe The Dark Knight isn't just one of the best films of 2008, it's one of the best films ever." It's nice to be able to stand by such a brazen assertion. And, having thought long and hard about what I would declare as my most favouritest movie from the 1,283 new ones that I've seen in the last decade, I clearly do stand by it. I love superhero movies, I love crime thrillers, and I love epics, so it's no surprise that a movie which combines all three — and does them all well — would top a list of my favourite movies.
Now: what's a good list without some statistics?
Posted in "100 Films"..., 100 Favourites, 2017, James Bond, superhero films	| Tagged 100 Films in a Year, 10th anniversary, Batman, film, films, movies, Skyfall, The Dark Knight, Tintin, top ten	| 8 Replies
I watched so many films in 2016 that I'd forgotten I saw some of them so recently. Going back over the list, there were films I watched as late as March that I was amazed weren't things I'd seen a couple of years ago. I don't know what this signifies, really, other than that watching almost 200 films in a year has warped my perspective.
Anyway, it's now time to consider the quality of that viewing: which films were the worst? Which the best? And what did I miss?
This year I saw some films so bad that Home on the Range hasn't made my bottom five! In alphabetical order, they were…
300 was hardly the height of cinematic class, but this makes it look like an accomplished work of auteurism (though, considering how Zack Snyder has continued down a similar aesthetic path, perhaps it always was). It's just poorly made, with flat performances, cheap direction, aimless violence, and CGI that wouldn't look great in a computer game.
Maybe if director Ralph Bakshi had got his way Cool World would be a masterpiece. Maybe not, too. Torn between conflicting interests (it's a kid-friendly movie with adult content) and with distractingly poor technical aspects (the animation and live action often seem mismatched), it's an unappealing mess.
DreamWorks' animated movies never quite achieve the crossover acclaim that greets almost anything Pixar spit out, which is sometimes a shame… and sometimes it really isn't, like with this irritating movie about an irritating alien and his irritating human friend. Pixar have never made anything this annoying. Not even Cars.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again
"Is this even worse [than The Rocky Horror Glee Show]? Well, that's a bit like someone forcing you to eat a dog shit and a cat shit before asking you which tasted nicer." Most accurate review I've ever written.
New Moon contains the single funniest scene in any movie I've seen this year. Unfortunately, New Moon is not a comedy (not deliberately, anyway) and that scene is not a comedy interlude (not deliberately, anyway). For all the Twilight saga's other sins, I will forever love it for giving us Face Punch. (Oh, but the rest of the film is pretty terrible.)
The Twenty Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2016
Last year I commemorated the fact I'd doubled my titular target by also doubling the size of my top ten, joking about having never done a percentage increase before. But that got me thinking: what if I did? So from now on my "top 10" will be a "top 10%" — which this year means it's a top 20 again.
My guiding principle when ranking this year's picks became films that excited me — not in the adrenaline-pumping sense of having fantastic action sequences, but in the sense of films which left me feeling thrilled by their cinematic achievements. Not that I'm saying every film here is some wonder of Cinema, just that the notion guided some of my choices. It's ended up with some very good, perhaps even better, films slipping down the chart. But never mind: as is usually the case with lists like this, it's only a snapshot of my thinking right now.
Finally: as always, this list is created from the movies I watched for the first time this year, not just new releases. However, I did watch 38 films that had their UK release in 2016, and six of them are in my top twenty, so I've noted their '2016 rank' too.
20 Ex Machina
An intelligent, considered sci-fi movie that ponders artificial intelligence and its potential right to life, but also a gripping psychological thriller about three individuals locked in a bunker. And there's Oscar Isaac's dance scene too.
19 Tokyo Tribe
Sion Sono's comic book epic mixes battle rap, comic grotesques, ultra violence, gratuitous nudity, more barmy notions than you can shake a stick at, and probably the kitchen sink too, into possibly the most batshit-crazy movie I've ever seen. Is it trash or art? It can be two things.
18 Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson described his typically-idiosyncratic young-love adventure as "an autobiography about something that didn't happen", which is possibly my favourite description of a film ever. A movie for the romantic adventurer in every childhood bookworm.
17 The Martian
The best comedy or musical of 2015 is neither of those things, but it is one in a pleasing run of intelligent sci-fi movies Hollywood is offering these days. Trust Ridley Scott and Matt Damon to make a movie about using science to grow potatoes into a gripping adventure.
16 The Russia House
An underrated le Carré thriller starring Sean Connery as a book publisher coerced into helping MI6 and the CIA bring over a defector, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer as his Russian contact. Strong performances enliven a typically le Carré plot: grounded, plausible, unguessable, with a surprising conclusion.
15 Zootropolis
2016 #6 A neo-noir crime thriller about racism featuring nudism and drug abuse… from Disney! It's still a kid-friendly animated comedy, of course, but one that functions particularly well — arguably even better — for adult fans.
14 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
It looks like such a boilerplate indie movie that I kinda expected to hate this, but it caught me off guard with characters I related to and a story that I found affecting without being saccharine. Probably the most emotional a movie has made me feel this year.
13 Lincoln
Famed for Daniel Day-Lewis' awards-scooping performance that is arguably one of the greatest of all time, there's actually much more to Spielberg's biopic. Playing like a gorgeously-shot period version of The West Wing, if you like men politicking in gaslit rooms, this is heaven.
12 Road Games
Now we move into my Top Ten. Yeah, I know it's #12, but I really thought these two would make it. I guess they're kinda =10th, then; though that would be cheating… Anyway: I hadn't even heard of this movie before this year, but the coincidence of a blog post and a Blu-ray release led me to purchase it and I was so glad I did. It's Rear Windscreen meets Duel Down Under in a superb Ozploitation thriller.
11 The Nice Guys
2016 #5 Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling reveal rarely-seen comic talent as a pair of not-actually-that-nice guys who nonetheless have some morals in Shane Black's spiritual sequel to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This has just as convoluted a plot, and it matters just as little — its major asset is that it's frequently hilarious.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Ultimate Edition
2016 #4 Yes, really. And, just so we're clear on what's going on here, neither Civil War nor Doctor Strange are in my Top 9. Is BvS 'better' than anything Marvel Studios put out this year? Hm. But is it a more interesting movie? I thought so. Zack Snyder made a dark, morally ambiguous, imperfect movie that reflects the dark, morally ambiguous, imperfect days we live in. Perhaps it's just too timely for its own good? People don't seem to want a movie that questions our heroes and our relationship towards them in a world where real-life heroes feel in short supply. It's clearly not the movie a lot of people think they need, but maybe it's the one they deserve right now.
Of all the films on this list, Cold in July has arguably the most surprising plot: it takes sharp right-angle turns at several points, never breaking the style and genre it sets itself in, but instead shuttling the viewer off in entirely different directions than expected. By the time it reaches its action-packed climax, you have no idea quite what it's going to do — and how better to end a neo-noir thriller than that?
2016 #3 This may be all the way down in 8th place, but in some respects it's #1: I'm not sure I've had more pure fun watching a movie this year than I did during Deadpool (The Nice Guys would be closest). Okay, so it's a little puerile really, but the humour comes thick and fast, and the regular fourth-wall breaking undercuts not just the film but the whole superhero genre. Having talked about the excitement of great Cinema at the start, this isn't that, but it is a fantastically good time.
The Limey
Steven Soderbergh transforms a pretty straightforward revenge story into an elliptical narrative that has you constantly questioning what you're watching — is it flashback, flash-forward, a dream, a plan, a fantasy…? In the end it's probably none of those things, but Soderbergh's unusual editing techniques create an arthouse/mainstream mash-up that is a uniquely querying, mystifying, yet satisfying experience.
2016 #2 In an era when Hollywood considers "science-fiction" a byword for "action-adventure", it's all the more remarkable that an intelligent, adult drama like this was backed by a major studio. It's partly a timely message about the need for mankind to understand each other across nations and work together, but it's also a thoughtful meditation on the human condition — what it means to be human, what it costs us, and if it's worth it. Director Denis Villeneuve paces events sublimely, imbuing the alien spacecraft with a wonder and fascination that you'd've thought lost in modern "anything is possible" cinema, but the film really belongs to Amy Adams and her layered, affectingly real performance.
Another thought-provoking science-fiction movie (for those not keeping count, it's the fourth in this list), Predestination has been less heralded but deserves to be better known. Adapted from a short story by genre giant Robert A. Heinlein, it's satisfying both as a tangled time travel mystery (with some great twists, whether you guess them or not) and as a consideration of human and historical issues about things like identity and feminism.
2016 #1 I'm as surprised as anyone by how much I liked The Revenant, having not been particularly enamoured of the previous Alejandro G. Iñárritu films I'd seen, but this gruelling survival-story Western oozes excellence from every frame. Leo's pretty good, as are the rest of the cast, but Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography is the highlight: appropriately crisp depictions of wintery nature, an incredible use of natural light, and single-shot sequences that blow Birdman out of the water. By telling the story primarily with these visuals, Iñárritu has created a work of true cinema.
Like Lincoln, this is a beautifully-shot biopic about people stood around in rooms talking. The big gun it has in its corner, however, is an actual West Wing writer — its creator, no less — Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin's screenplay is a precisely constructed marvel, brought to the screen by a quality cast capable of wrapping their tongues around his magnificent dialogue, and in Danny Boyle a director with the right visual sensibilities to make the material sing. What could have just been an Apple fanboy's wet dream is instead a gripping character drama with a surprising corporate thriller vibe at times.
An orange to The Raid's apple, this sequel is bigger and grander in every conceivable aspect. A sprawling crime epic, spanning many years, many locations, and many characters, it's the antithesis of the tightly-focused first film — but all the better for it. Even with the more intricate plot, there's still plenty of time for elaborate action sequences, crafted with even greater skill and inventiveness than the first movie. It's surely one of the greatest action movies ever made.
In a top twenty filled with crime thrillers (see: #15, #11, #9, #7, #2), gorgeously-shot movies (see: #13, #6, #4, #3), and remarkable female leads (see: #20, #15, #6, #5), it's only fitting that a film which does all of these so skilfully should top my list. Emily Blunt is the powerhouse FBI agent who finds herself out of her depth in a complex cross-agency investigation that leads her, and us, to some dark and morally questionable places. It's all incredibly shot by the reliably amazing Roger Deakins. Between this and his other entry in my top ten, I think Denis Villeneuve has marked himself out as one of the most exciting directors working right now.
I always want to include this section of my post, but sometimes I'm not quite sure what to put in it — if it was just some more ranked films, I'd've included them above. But this year I have something concrete to begin with, because there were several films that I surprised myself by not including in my top twenty. They were films that I really liked — and, perhaps even more so, lots of other people really liked and include in their lists — but which, for some reason, when I was sorting through my options, fell by the wayside in favour of… well, in favour of the films that did make it in. I'm talking about films like Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (maybe that's not on many other lists, but I really enjoyed it), The Iron Giant… and, of course, Rogue One. My already mixed feelings about the latest Star Wars movie were massaged by happening to read Andrew Ellard's Tweetnotes and Film Crit Hulk's dissection of the film while preparing this list, and while I don't necessarily agree with everything they have to say, between them they managed to clarify and illuminate some problems I already had with the movie, and that kinda put me off its inclusion.
A shout out, too, for those less-widely-loved films that I really, really liked but couldn't quite justify being in this top twenty — films like Crimson Peak, Dragon (Wu Xia), The Good Dinosaur, Grand Piano, Lost River, Pan, and Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights. And despite all those Shaw Brothers movies I watched, none ended up charting — but One-Armed Swordsman came close.
Finally, I can't end this without mentioning the 26 films that earned 5-star ratings this year — especially as I haven't actually published reviews for nine of them yet! So, 15 made it into the top twenty, but as they're spread throughout the list I'll name them again: Arrival, Cold in July, Deadpool, Ex Machina, The Limey, Lincoln, The Martian, The Nice Guys, Predestination, The Raid 2, The Revenant, Road Games, The Russia House, Sicario, and Steve Jobs. The other 11 were: 12 Years a Slave, Barry Lyndon, Hamlet, The Iron Giant, Macbeth, Napoleon, The Pianist, Spotlight, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Witness for the Prosecution, and Wuthering Heights. Additionally, short film The Present also got full marks.
During 2016 I watched 38 movies that were released in 2016, but of course that means there were plenty I missed. As usual, then, here's an alphabetical list of 50 films that are listed as 2016 on IMDb (unless IMDb got it glaringly wrong) that I've not yet seen.
They're chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety — though I've decided to not include any more bloody Ice Age films on these lists, because they keep making them, they keep doing pretty well at the box office, and I keep not watching them.
Bridget Jones's Baby
Don't Breathe
Eddie the Eagle
The Handmaiden
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
A Monster Calls
Sausage Party
Sully: Miracle on the Hudson
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
And that's 2016 over… apart from the 36 reviews I still have to post, of course. I think that's one of my worst ever. That's what comes of not doing my advent calendar.
It's also the end of 100 Films' first decade, which I intend to make even more of a fuss about than I already have when the official birthday rolls around at the end of February. I'm thinking lists, and probably statistics. Any excuse for some statistics.
But, for now, all that remains is for me to thank you for reading and wish you all the best with your own film-watching endeavours. Let's hope 2017 is a better one for us all.
Posted in 2016, Editorials, progress reports, year in review	| Tagged Deadpool, Face Punch, film, films, movies, Rogue One, Sicario, The Raid 2, top 10, top ten	| 17 Replies
2015 was, as I'm sure you've gathered, the largest ever year of 100 Films — or 200 Films in a Year, as it's currently known. For 2015 only, I think, because I have no intention of trying to replicate that feat next year (see here for more on that topic).
How better to finally wrap up a year than with a look at the best and worst, right? As always, my picks are not culled from films freshly released in 2015, but from this list of my personal viewing. (For what it's worth, that list includes 22 releases from 2015, as well as 37 from 2014, some of which others would count as 2015 titles… and some of them have indeed made my best-of list.)
You can also vote for your favourites from my pick, and find out which 50 most noteworthy new films I didn't see. There might be a few surprise along the way, too.
Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher
Marvel may dominate the live-action superhero arena right now, but DC has the edge in animation — and work like this is going to do nothing to change that. An uninteresting story that's blandly told in every regard, this is a total waste of time.
There are a lot of very, very good actors in this Jason Statham vehicle, but it's a terrible film that's even below standard for the star, let alone his supporting cast. So bad it feels like a spoof, there is no good reason for anyone to watch this movie.
X-Men's Bryan Singer is the latest filmmaker to take a fairytale and give it the Lord of the Rings treatment. That formula doesn't work here, unfortunately. The result is a flat, cheap-looking, overlong bore. Another waste of good talent.
Alfred Hitchcock once said that "movies are real life with the boring parts cut out." I guess this isn't a movie, then, because it's not real life and it's boring as can be. My least enjoyable viewing experience this year.
Runner Runner
Again, talented stars (Ben Affleck, Gemma Arterton) slum it in a poorly-constructed thriller with no thrills. That it's from the director of The Lincoln Lawyer, an excellent thriller that made my top ten a couple of years ago, only makes matters worse.
The Ten 20 Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2015
Given the extraordinary personal achievement in my viewing this year — doubling my titular goal — I've decided to also double my year-end top ten. It seemed appropriate.
Obviously I haven't done such a percentage-related increase (or reduction) of my list before now, but then no previous year has seen quite so remarkable a change in my viewing total. In other (smaller) years, these additional films may well have made the cut, so this is a way of giving them their due. (Besides which, my list is numbered, so you can ignore #20 to #11 if you want.)
Final point: although this list isn't limited to 2015 releases, there are six included, so I've noted their '2015 rank' too.
20 Ant-Man
2015 #6 After all the behind-the-scenes kerfuffle, Ant-Man probably had the lowest audience expectations for any Marvel Studios movie since Iron Man. Perhaps that's what allowed it to become the mostly purely entertaining Marvel movie since Iron Man, too.
19 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
The Mission series here reconfigures itself as the modern equivalent to classic Bond, washing down espionage thrills with gadgets and humour. The result is fantastically enjoyable, and only so low on this list because of a certain other film a bit higher up…
18 Grosse Pointe Blank
John Cusack and Minnie Driver have never been more likeable as a guy and the prom date he jilted, brought back together by their high school reunion. Oh, and he's now a hitman, in town on a job. Consitently funny, this is first-rate action-comedy entertainment.
17 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
An idiosyncratic crime drama from writer-director Jim Jarmusch, Ghost Dog stands alongside the otherwise-peerless Léon as a hitman movie that may not deliver enough action thrills for some, but is seeped in distinctive qualities of its own.
16 Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese's best-regarded works may hew towards the mainstream-intellectual, but here he sets his sights on genre material — specifically, a psychological mystery thriller — and produces a corker. Heavily Gothic in tone, it's the first of several such films on this list.
15 North West Frontier
A British-made India-set 'Western', this beautifully shot Boy's Own adventure is rollicking old-fashioned entertainment from start to finish. It's buoyed further by a cast of top-drawer British character actors, topped off with Kenneth More and Lauren Bacall. Magnificent.
14 The Passion of Joan of Arc
One of the most acclaimed films of all time — if we're talking "the history of cinema", it's certainly more important than anything else on this list. Almost 90 years old, it remains surprisingly accessible to modern eyes. An exceptionally affecting experience.
13 Kingsman: The Secret Service
2015 #5 In a year overloaded with spy thrillers, this Bond pastiche stood out by, a) getting in early (it was released last January in the UK), and b) being a helluva lot of fun. Thematically questionable it may be, but the filmmaking verve is a joy to behold.
12 Jurassic World
2015 #4 2015's highest grossing film, this sequel/reboot of the beloved franchise has proved somewhat divisive. It certainly has flaws in characters and plot, but director Colin Trevorrow has bottled genuine Spielbergian awe and wonder, and that counts for a lot.
11 Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
If this were only a top ten, I'd've slipped this in higher up, as much to recommend it as anything. In many respects it's a familiar mismatched-people-fall-in-love rom-com (hence why its position dropped), but the uncommon melancholic tone makes it feel unique.
I'd wager it's impossible to describe a Wes Anderson film without recourse to words like "quirky" and "unique", both wholly apt epithets for The Grand Budapest Hotel, naturally. Others include hilarious, clever, inventive, controlled, and delightful. The last may be the most appropriate of all: this is a film full of delights, from the performances, to the dialogue, to the locations, to the design, to the camerawork. Anderson is the kind of filmmaker who has a cult following, which can sometimes be a bad omen. Based on this evidence, his fandom might just have the right idea.
2015 #3 There has been an awakening — have you felt it? Well, of course you have. Everyone outside of China has. Half of them twice. The J.J. Abrams-led return to a galaxy far, far away may have received a mixed reception, due to it essentially being the cinematic equivalent of a greatest-hits cover album, dealing in nostalgia more than it does originality… but it's clearly been made by fans with an eye to crafting something that's both enjoyable and recognisably Star Wars-y — two balls the prequel trilogy less dropped, more hurled to the ground. It's a thrilling adventure with likeable new characters and, in my opinion, interesting new villains. There's scope for the makers of Episodes VIII and IX to produce something even better off the back of this, and that's exciting.
Terry Gilliam's 1984 for 1985 is set in a dystopian Britain almost as bad as our current one, where mindless, faceless bureaucracy rules the day. It's the kind of film where a typo can lead to a man's death; where Jonathan Pryce fantasises about being a sword-wielding angel fighting a giant silver samurai; and where Robert De Niro turns up as a terrorist plumber. You know, if Wes Anderson is "quirky" and "unique", I don't think we've yet invented words to describe Terry Gilliam…
I promised you more Gothic and here it is. Director Chan-wook Park places 7th on my top ten for the second year in a row with this dark psychological thriller about a reclusive teenage girl who meets her uncle for the first time when he comes to stay following her father's death. He's charming, but mysterious — what are the secrets that everyone seems to know but her? Dripping with style and atmosphere, Stoker is a feast for the eyes and ears; a beguiling, sensuous, classically Gothic thriller.
2015 #2 Director George Miller returns to the Mad Max series after a 30-year hiatus for the stand-out action movie of… well, "the year" seems to undersell it. Once upon a time he was bold enough to make a chase the entire third act of a film; now, the chase is the entire movie. This is action filmmaking elevated to a genuine art form — literally, if the award season buzz is anything to go by. While the done-for-real stunts are busy boggling your mind, there slips by a story that's surprisingly rich in theme and character. It gives added weight to a type of storytelling that could only be achieved on film — there's a reason Miller started with a storyboard and only bothered to write a screenplay when the studio insisted.
A third dose of Gothic now, this time with a heavier dose of the "horror" element that's so often attached to the term. Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan are mother-and-daughter vampires on the run, hiding out in a seedy seaside town, where Ronan tries to lead some kind of normal life as a perma-teen while her mother's busy doing what she's always done: whoring. These vampires aren't glamorous or sparkly, but damaged and discarded. Byzantium is not a very popular film, but its tarnished charms and fatalistic stylings, powered by two strong central performances and atmospheric direction, made me love it.
Supermen of Malegaon
Selecting these 20 films was tough, then putting them in order was just as hard, but one thing was a lock from the start: these are my top four films I saw in 2015. The only question was the order they went in, which on another day may have been completely different — any one of them could've been #1. This little-seen documentary (Channel 4 premiered it in the middle of the night a few months ago, although it's available on YouTube) takes us to a small, poor town in India where the locals make their own movies, and they're a roaring success. It's an inspirational film about living your dreams even when the world won't let you, though undercurrents of reality stop it from becoming too tweely self-congratulatory. I'm not overstating it when I say I believe this is an absolute must-see for any lover of film, and probably a good many people besides.
I feel like I'm being in some way Awkward with many of this year's choices, because there's a notable strand of films that aren't particularly well regarded by viewers en masse (see: #11, #7, #5, now #3). Well, I'm not being awkward, dear reader: I loved all of them, and I loved this one most of all. Like several of those others, it crafts a unique mood with lashings of style, in this case inspired by '80s movies and music. Dan Stevens is a mysterious ex-soldier who enters a family's life and brings a load of trouble in his wake, but is he (anti-)hero or villain? Even by the end, you might not be sure. Witty, exciting, stylish, idiosyncratic, this is one guest I want to stay forever. (Sorry — it seems I can't end any piece about this film without a terrible pun.)
34 years before Fury Road, there was The Road Warrior. A post-apocalyptic Australian Western, it sees Mel Gibson's titular drifter drafted into defending an oil-rich community from a violent gang of fetish-attired marauders. While the film has much to offer throughout, the real joy is the third act: a balls-to-the-wall multi-vehicle chase, as Max and co attempt to escape in a heavily-armoured oil tanker and the gang give chase in a fleet of vehicles. Maybe it's not as slick or extravagant as Fury Road, but it was done without a lick of CGI (for all Fury Road's "done for real" claims, there's an awful lot of computer work across that movie) and that added tangibility gives it the edge for me. Not to mention that it did it first — without Mad Max 2, we wouldn't even have Fury Road.
2015 #1 Not as life-affirming as Supermen of Malegaon. Not as stylish as The Guest. Not as groundbreaking as Mad Max 2. Certainly not as 'significant' as a host of films further down this list. But from the moment the familiar beats of the famous theme tune begin to pulse over the company idents at the top of the movie, Rogue Nation engages you in a perfectly-crafted entertainment. It delivers sequence after sequence of finely-tuned action-thriller excitement, both from Tom Cruise's crazy stuntwork and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie's Hitchcockian control of espionage scenes. The plot may only be solid rather than any great shakes, but it's supported by likeable heroes, a menacing villain, and well-pitched humour. It's all topped off with Rebecca Ferguson, who could hold her own in a stand-off with Daisy Ridley and Charlize Theron for 2015's most kick-ass heroine. Mission perfected.
As ever, I welcome your opinion on my top ten — not just in the comments section, but also in the form of a lovely poll. Multiple selections are allowed, so feel free to pick several favourites.
And if you feel I've made an unforgivable omission, I welcome your scathing criticisms in the comments.
Despite doubling the size of my selection, this was still a really, really tough year for picking favourites. Competition was harder than ever, not just because I watched 200 films (47% more than even my next biggest year) but because I made a conscious effort to watch fewer time-killers and more things I'd really been intending to see. As a result, films that I enjoyed immensely or admired intensely fell by the wayside, leaving several big guns to duke it out for the limited slots.
As if doubling my top ten wasn't enough, the tightly-fought race got stuck for a while at 30 titles. The closest to making it in was my 1,000th film, Mark Cousin's epic 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey (so epic that my review draft is still in the form of 4,300 words of notes). It hurt to leave it out, but something had to go. The remainder of those 30 (which I guess would be #22 to #30, then) were, in alphabetical order, The Babadook, Gone Girl, High Noon, Looper, Paddington, Scanners, Spectre, Stranger by the Lake, and Wings. In most other years, any of those could've found themselves comfortably in my top ten.
I can't end this without mentioning the 38 films that earned themselves 5-star ratings this year. 17 of them made it into the top 20 — I won't list those again, so you can go find the three four-star imposters for yourself (clue: they're right at the end… or start, in the order I've written it). The remaining 21 five-starers were Argo, The Babadook, Boyhood, Boyz n the Hood, Dreams of a Life, Filmed in Supermarionation, Fury, The General, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, High Noon, Interstellar, Looper, The Philadelphia Story, sex, lies, and videotape, Shallow Grave, The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Stranger by the Lake, Whiplash, Wings, and The Wrestler. Reading through those again, there are several I feel should've been in my top 30… or 20… but what would I take out in their place? This year's been too good, clearly.
Finally, on the same topic, there was one five-starer from each of my additional kinds of reviews (I love it when that happens — so neat). They were: non-list review 2001: A Space Odyssey, extended cut X-Men: Days of Future Past – The Rogue Cut, and short Feast.
Naturally, there were a considerable number of notable releases this year that I've yet to see. In my annual tradition, here's an alphabetical list of 50 films — chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety — that were released in 2015 and that I've not seen.
As is so often the case, it's a funny old mix, because there were some films that seemed too 'significant' to leave out. This is why, despite recording my progress with these in my statistics every year, I'll never, ever see 100% of them. For a current example, Minions is the 5th highest grossing film of 2015, so on the list it goes; but I didn't really like Despicable Me and haven't watched Despicable Me 2, so what are the chances I'll ever decide to spend some of my time on Minions? Pretty darn slim, I reckon.
Anyway, the 50 I've chosen to highlight — some of which I do very much want to see — are…
Beasts of No Nation
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
In the Heart of the Sea
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Snoopy and Charlie Brown…
And so, after all that verbosity, the largest ever year of 100 Films comes to an end.
Apart from the 21 reviews I still have to post, of course. (In that respect, 2014 isn't even finished yet.) But no matter, it will be done.
For now, all that remains is for me to thank you for reading, to wish you all the best with your own film-watching endeavours (having spent several days shut away in my own world of statistics and lists, I've a few people's posts to catch up on!), and to say "see you soon" for 2016 — the 10th year of 100 Films! I have some stuff planned…
Posted in 2015, 5 stars, Editorials, progress reports, year in review	| Tagged 2015, Ant-Man, Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher, Blitz, Brazil, Byzantium, George Miller, Ghost Dog, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Ghost Protocol, Grosse Pointe Blank, Jack the Giant Slayer, Jurassic World, Kingsman, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Mad Max 2, Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, North West Frontier, Parabellum, Rogue Nation, Runner Runner, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Shutter Island, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Stoker, Supermen of Malegaon, Terry Gilliam, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Guest, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Road Warrior, top 10, top 20, top ten, Wes Anderson	| 4 Replies
It was 100 Films' greatest ever year in terms of sheer size, but it was also one of the highest-scoring too, with the most five-star ratings I've ever awarded and the second-highest average score to date. Now it's time to look back over the list and ask: Which were the cream of the crop? Which were the dregs? And which significant new films did I not even see?
To top it off, you can make your voice heard by voting for your favourites (plural) in this year's top ten poll. Exciting stuff.
So without further ado:
Disney are back at the height of their powers of late, at least as far as the box office is concerned, with the phenomenon that is Frozen. Things weren't so rosy in the early '00s, though, leading them to abandon traditional 2D animation for the burgeoning world of 3D CGI. Their first effort was this dross, instantly proving it wasn't the style of animation that was the problem.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
I only gave this two stars (as opposed to one) for two reasons: 1) the rather cool cliff-swinging fight sequence, which deserves to be in a better movie, and 2) because for some unknown reason I'd given the Team America-esque first one two stars, and this is marginally better. Really, though, it's awful: messily told, tonally uneven, ridiculous in any number of ways. Even as a daft actioner, it's no fun.
Ghost Rider's maligned sequel, Spirit of Vengeance, wasn't particularly good, but at least it embraced the trashier, grimier aspects of the character (even if it was only in a PG-13 way). This first attempt to bring the Marvel anti-hero to the big screen tried to force the concept into the shape of a trad blockbuster, ending up with a Constantine rip-off. As hardly anyone liked Constantine, that wasn't a very good idea.
Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger!
I liked the first Nativity — it's not high art, but it's a perfectly lovely Christmas movie. This follow-up has to switch out Martin Freeman for David Tennant, which isn't a problem, but the new story is. Not that it's much of a story, more a series of loosely-connected misadventures. Throw in a climactic concert made up of truly dreadful new songs and you have a disappointingly charmless sequel.
Michael Bay can make good movies, but he seems to have forgotten how. There are many things wrong with this third Transformers flick, but what's most shocking is how ineptly it's put together. For experienced filmmakers, there's no excuse. Apparently this year's fourth instalment is even worse, but it's tough to imagine how. To quote a character in the movie: "does it suck or what? I mean it's like a bad sci-fi film."
Dishonourable Mention
Sin City: Recut & Extended
Not bad enough to actually make the bottom five, this recut took a film I remembered loving and messed about with it so much it made me doubt if I'd ever liked it in the first place. It could be my tastes have changed in the intervening nine years, but I suspect it's at least as much due to the frustrating and near-pointless rearrangement of the running order. I recommend you stick to the theatrical cut.
The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2014
Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape
The fascinating story of the outrage provoked in Britain by gory horror movies in the early days of VHS. Excellently constructed from talking-head interviews and archive clips, it not only tells the tale clearly but also presents spot-on juxtapositions. Informative both for those who lived through it and those for who it's now part of history, the important message is how easily such censorship was allowed — even encouraged — and that we must be on the look out for it again. Unfortunately it is happening again, to the internet this time, and once again is being championed via misinformation from those with a vested interest. I guess more people need to see this film…
The gang's all here for an all-eras X-Men team-up, the original cast teaming up with the First Class lot, and led by original franchise director Bryan Singer, for a time-travelling adventure inspired by the classic comic book storyline. Some surprisingly deep characterisation, buoyed by strong performances from a first-rate cast (how many of them are Oscar nominees/winners?), rubs shoulders comfortably with witty and inventive action sequences. The series that kicked off the current Hollywood superhero obsession proves it can still hold its own among the big boys that have come since.
Darren Aronofsky's multi-pronged narrative about the evils of addiction is sometimes cited as one of the bleakest films ever made. Even if you're prepared for that, the verve of the filmmaking transcends expectations. Finely-tuned editing and attentive sound design gradually position the viewer for the climax, a fast-cut perfectly-scored assault on the senses that almost batters you into submission. It may ultimately be grim and without hope, but it's so amazingly crafted that you're left longing to experience it again regardless.
Snatched off the street, locked in a bedsit for 15 years, then inexplicably released and given just days to figure out why it happened — that's the concept behind this dark South Korean thriller (remade in America to no fanfare and even less acclaim in 2013). Oldboy mixes what could almost be a straightforward revenge thriller with weird, almost surrealistic touches, for a whole that is ready-made to be cultish without the self-conscious Cult-ish-ness that such things are normally saddled with. It ends with twists and revelations so hard-hitting they equal even the famous single-take hammer-featuring corridor scene.
Found-footage and superheroes — two current cinematic obsessions, reviled by some and beloved by others. They had to come together eventually. Director Josh Trank keeps a handle on affairs, so that the film always sticks to concept without becoming samey, while screenwriter Max Landis reveals the true nature of his characters as he leads them from low-key beginnings to a barnstorming citywide climax that's a bit like the ending of Man of Steel, only really good.
Why aren't there many thrillers set inside the jury room? I'd wager because 12 Angry Men got there a long time ago and nailed it. A man is on trial for murder; we join the case as the twelve-man jury enter their deliberation room. Eleven of them are absolutely certain; one thinks they ought to discuss it. For the next 90 minutes, twelve men sit in one room and talk to each other… and it's absolutely gripping, tense and thrilling, with moments that make you virtually punch the air with excitement. It's a masterclass in constrained filmmaking, from director Sidney Lumet, and acting, from a cast of twelve peerless performers.
The sequel to the prequel of the Planet of the Apes takes the fad for all-CGI characters and brings it to maturity with a fully-realised ape society, played by mo-capped actors led by Andy Serkis, that is far more interesting than the human portion of the story. This is a story of interspecies relations where everything could be fine if it weren't for past distrust and people constantly bringing guns along — like the best sci-fi, it reflects our world back at us. They claimed Avatar proved motion-captured performances should be considered alongside 'the real thing'. Rubbish. Dawn, however, makes that case completely.
Hated by Stephen King, author of the original novel, and his most die-hard fans, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation sees Jack Nicholson and family as the caretakers and sole residents of a remote hotel over a snowbound winter, when very creepy things begin to happen… Goodness knows what any of it ultimately means (I know there are plenty of wild theories — I've got Room 237 recorded to catch at some point), but as an exercise in eliciting emotions of dread and almost-primal fear, it's second to none.
The sixth feature film to star Hergé's boy reporter (yes, really) sees the master of action-adventure cinema, Steven Spielberg, bring us the best Indiana Jones movie in over 20 years — only it's computer animated and stars a blonde Belgian chap with a posh British accent. Rendered with incredible realism by Weta, with a screenplay that perfectly balances investigation, action and humour, and direction that knows when to maintain verisimilitude and when to cut loose with all the freedom CGI can offer, Tintin is a quality entertainment. Very nearly my film of the year, but for…
Regular readers will know I love a single-location thriller, and this is one — it just happens that the single-location in question is the entire orbit of planet Earth. There may not be much of a plot ("woman gets stranded in space; tries to get to safety"), but it doesn't matter: director Alfonso Cuarón reminds us of his mastery of the single-take, using it to better connect us to the characters' experiences. I'm sure people were right that it's best in 3D on a huge screen, but even in 2D on a telly it's spectacular. It's also the third film in my top five that's only been made possible thanks to advances in computer graphics — that surely says something about how an intelligent use of CGI still allows filmmakers to innovate.
Top 10 Poll
As ever, I welcome your opinion on my top ten — not just in the comments section, but also in the form of a lovely poll. This year you can pick multiple options, so feel free to vote for all your favourites.
And if you feel I've made an unforgivable omission, do feel free to berate me below.
Yet another record: for the first time ever, all of my top ten films are ones I awarded a full five stars to. That's once again testament to the quality of this year's viewing, because I felt sure at least one four-stars-er would make the list. To be precise, that was The Green Hornet, which I know isn't widely liked but I rather loved — I called it "one of the best superhero movies of the current generation", in fact. On the day, though, I couldn't in good conscience say it was better than any of the films I have included. I guess that confers 11th place on it.
In total, 27 main-list films earned themselves a five-star ratings this year. As well as those in the top ten (for which, see above, obv.), the others were After the Thin Man, All is Lost, La Belle et la Bete, Dead Poets Society, Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, In Your Eyes, The Kings of Summer, Rear Window, Saving Mr. Banks, The Searchers, The Secret of Kells, Sightseers, The Thin Man, The World's End, and Zero Dark Thirty. Additionally, both of the 'other' titles I watched and reviewed — The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition) and miniseries The 10th Kingdom — also scored full marks.
There are any number of other films I could highlight here — my long-list for the top ten had over 50 movies on it, and at least 25 of those were genuine contenders — but two categories stand out. Firstly, after finishing the Falcon series earlier in the year, towards the end I made a start on The Thin Man, watching the first three out of six films. They're excellent fun, the tonal inspiration for the likes of the Saint and the Falcon (which I've previously covered in full), but on the whole even better. Expect reviews before too long.
Finally, we all know superhero and comic book movies are everywhere right now, and will continue to be so if the announced plans of Marvel Studios, Warner Bros, Fox, Sony, and the rest, come to fruition. It's felt particularly true for me this year, with not only a few well-received recent releases (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men: Days of Future Past), but also getting caught up on an array of recent entries (all but two were from the past decade, and one of those is only 11 years old). All told, there were 22 superhero, comic book, or related movies on this year's list — that's 16%. For a single subgenre — and not one where I've (say) dedicated myself to watching the entirety of one series — that does seem rather a lot…
The Films I Didn't See
As is my tradition, here's an alphabetical list of 50 films that were released in 2014 but I've not yet seen. They've been chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety. It's biased slightly towards ones I might actually see at some point, though there were a couple of highly-successful or much-discussed ones I felt couldn't/shouldn't be left out. Feel free to assume which ones those are.
Exodus: Gods and Kings
Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie
Muppets Most Wanted
Party like it's Nineteen Ninety Nine…
It's 100 Films' ninth year — crikey, when'd that happen?
Expect more archive reposts (can I finish them before my 10th anniversary?), a third round of "What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen" (it's got a killer new acronym…), and — fingers crossed — both my 1,000th review and the official 100 Films' #1000!
All that and hoverboards. We were promised hoverboards.
Posted in 2014, 5 stars, Editorials, superhero films, year in review	| Tagged 12 Angry Men, 2014, Chicken Little, Chronicle, comic books, David Tennant, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Ghost Rider, Gravity, hoverboards, Nativity 2, Oldboy, Requiem for a Dream, Sin City, superheroes, The Adventures of Tintin, The Shining, top 10, top ten, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, video nasties, X-Men: Days of Future Past	| 5 Replies
2010 has been kinder to 100 Films after the last two years, where I first barely scraped to 100 and then failed to reach it (not that I've gone on about it). This year, I made it to 100 in September before going on to a grand total of 122 — which, if you're interested, makes it my second best year, behind the first by seven films.
But now 2010 is over — well, obviously, it finished a week ago — but I mean that 100 Films' 2010 is over, this being the final post related to those 122 films… other than the half-dozen reviews I've yet to post, that is (and that too is an improvement on last year, when I had 20 left over). This final look back has my usual mix of features: a 'Bottom Five', a 'Top Ten', some 'Also Ran's, and 'Didn't Run's too.
I'm sure you don't need reminding at this point (but just in case) that this is all a review of my 2010 — the films I saw for the first time, not those that hit cinemas for the first time. If you'd like a list of the 122 titles that had a chance of reaching either of these lists, please look here.
Sitting comfortably? Good. Then how about:
The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2010
This year's only single-star film nearly didn't sink to such depths, but it was ultimately deserved. It's an action movie without much action; a thriller without any thrills; a fantasy movie that isn't meant to be one. It's also a load of rubbish and you should avoid it. Play the game instead.
Righteous Kill
De Niro and Pacino, together, for a whole film! Cor! Except it's more bore (see what I did there?) in Jon Avnet's needlessly complex thriller, with filmdom's most guessable twist — there's a good chance you'll've got it from the trailer. Watch their one shared scene in Heat on loop instead.
Another British children's fantasy book series reaches the big screen, but unlike uber-success Harry Potter or the Narnia series, this is ruined the traditional way: Americanisation. Though set in Britain with a largely British cast, ruinous changes abound. A few good moments can't redeem it.
If you thought Daredevil was bad, don't even consider going anywhere near its spin-off. I liked Daredevil, but I could find little to enjoy in this sloppy, ill-considered fantasy/action flick. It's this kind of incohesive tosh that kills whole genres. How do such risible screenplays even get made?
The Emperor's New Groove
I could've put something like Iron Eagle as my last choice, but I just don't care enough about it to hate it. Emperor's New Groove, on the other hand, is a Disney animated film — I always want to like Disney's animated films (I guess it's a childhood thing) and this one is rubbish. Boo.
This year's top ten seems inordinately coloured by comedy — perhaps, more than ever, it's not so much the "best films I've seen" as "my favourite films I've seen". Look out for a few more serious honourable mentions at the end.
10) Clue
I think it's safe to say Clue isn't the greatest film ever — indeed, I've ranked nine above it (ho ho), and there are certainly Better films I've left off this list — but I enjoyed it immensely, now that I've finally seen it. I can't help but think its lowly-to-non-existent reputation means a lot of others who'd enjoy it haven't seen it either.
9) Is Anybody There?
Comedy-drama — or "dramedy", if you're American — often comes in for stick for being neither funny enough to be a comedy nor dramatic enough to be drama. And, sometimes, this is rightly so. When pitched right, however, it's like real life, and that's the tone Is Anybody There? hits. An affecting exploration of loneliness, regret, hope, and more.
8) Sherlock Holmes
The Guy Ritchie-directed reinvention of Sherlock Holmes could — perhaps should — have been a blockbusterised disaster. Instead, he's still the genius detective we know and love, only now with added ass-kicking abilities. No, it's not the definitive Holmes, but it is a jolly good and surprisingly inventive take on the character.
7) His Girl Friday
Sharp, fast, intelligent, hilariously funny — they don't make films like this any more. Quite literally. Instead, we have the risible …Movie series pumped out at us every year. Something to do with the lowest common denominator Hollywood world we live in, I'm sure, though that's an explanation rather than an excuse.
6) Coraline
Last year two documentaries formed the centre point of my top ten, this year it's two children's films — but both are ready to be enjoyed by adults too. In fact, Coraline's so dark and scary in places one might argue it's more aimed at a slightly older audience. Plus Eamonn Holmes hates it. What more recommendation do you need?
5) Nanny McPhee
More childish than Coraline, perhaps, but there's an awful lot to enjoy nonetheless. Far more than the Mary Poppins rip-off it looks like from the outside, Nanny McPhee rattles along through a colourful but grounded tale that imparts moral messages without battering you round the head. It's properly magical.
4) Anatomy of a Murder
Procedural crime dramas relentlessly fill our TV schedules these days, but few can hold a candle to Otto Preminger's masterpiece. The precision-engineered storytelling masterfully refuses to deviate from the case at hand, and who but James Stewart could be a lawyer defending a murderer and still have us cheering for him to win?
3) Inception
Christopher Nolan's latest managed the rare feat these days of being a genuine blockbuster with an original story, and converting that into high praise and box office too (and without the ticket-selling boost of 3D). More impressively, it did this while baffling much of its audience. Remains to be seen if it benefits or suffers from repeat viewings.
2) Toy Story 3
Returning to a beloved franchise over a decade later would be a mistake in the hands of most filmmakers, but this is Pixar. Toy Story 3 is a worthy successor to its '90s predecessors; a funny and moving tale that tackles big, emotional themes while still providing a kid-friendly adventure-comedy. It may well be the best film of 2010.
1) Kick-Ass
I've not had so much debate over my #1 film before (though 2008's 2 & 3 kept me busy for a while). Despite provoking outrage in some quarters, Kick-Ass is an arresting deconstruction of the superhero myth, both as "what if someone really did it?" and how the genre has been presented on our screens. Funny, exciting, it really does… yeah, you can add the pun.
Special Mentions
As usual, I just want to highlight a few other films, for various reasons.
I normally mention the 5-star films first, but this year I found it tougher than usual (or, at least, tougher than last year) to settle on the final few slots in my top ten. The films that consequently just missed out by a sliver of fate — and the way my opinions wavered on that particular day — were The Hurt Locker, M and Speed Racer. A few others survived almost as long, but those are the ones I really struggled with.
Secondly, then, I must mention the 16 films that earned themselves 5-star ratings this year. A very respectable seven of them made it into the top ten, namely Anatomy of a Murder, Coraline, His Girl Friday, Inception, Kick-Ass, Nanny McPhee and Toy Story 3. It always seems silly to include 4-star films over some of those that achieved full marks, but that's life. Two more are among those 'almost's — The Hurt Locker and M — while the other seven main listers I left out were The Damned United, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Miracle on 34th Street, Die Puppe, Slumdog Millionaire and The Spiral Staircase. Finally, from outside the main list, was The Special Edition of Beauty and the Beast — or Beauty and the Beast SE to you and I.
Penultimately, a quick mention for a few noir-ish oldies. None of them quite managed to squeeze into my top ten, but this year I've really enjoyed the likes of Ministry of Fear, The Outrage, Odd Man Out and, of course, The Spiral Staircase. Plus, the cake-centric intro to my Ministry of Fear review is still one of my favourite things I've written for this blog.
And finally, while I'm on older pictures, a quick nod to the rest of the Ernst Lubitsch silents I watched in a rather intensive week back in January. Die Puppe was my favourite, but it was great all round to indulge in a chronological run of one filmmaker's early work. I find silent movies to be a rather rich flavour of film — there's much to appreciate, but too many too close together and it gets a bit sickly. I rather gorged on them that week, hence why there's been no repeat (as yet) of my Silent Week concept. Hey-ho.
As ever, allow me to remind you that this hasn't been a Top 10 of 2010 (only my 2010), but as new films do feature it's worth considering that there were, as always, a number of notable releases this year that I've yet to see. Unsurprisingly — I mean, I only made three trips to the cinema and only saw seven 2010 films in total.
In my annual tradition, then, here's an alphabetical list of 50 films — chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety — that are listed as 2010 on IMDb and that I've not seen.
This year, I considered changing my remit to cover films released in the UK in 2010, for a more accurate account of what I might actually have seen. Using IMDb's dates means various films fall through the cracks — foreign films that take time to get here usually, but also productions like Season of the Witch, which was made in 2009 but not released 'til early 2011. But I hate it when you see all of [X Year]'s Best Picture nominees turn up in an [X+1 Year]'s list of best films simply because over here they were released a couple of days into January instead a couple of days before it. IMDb's year of production is, one might argue, as arbitrary a way of dividing them up as UK release date, but it does last longer in the consciousness — and it stops The Best Picture Of [X Year] turning up in a My Favourite Films Of [X+1 Year] list. I suppose I'm at a slight advantage though: by definition I don't have to have seen these films, whereas a magazine / website / film review programme / blogger has to have had the chance to see something (and, obviously, to have used that chance) to put it in their year-end Top 10.
But hark at me, I've waffled on for an age about something fundamentally unimportant. Here's the damn list.
Eat Pray Love
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The Ghost (aka The Ghost Writer)
Knight and Day
The Last Airbender
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang
Piranha 3D
Shrek Forever After
Tron: Legacy
Vampires Suck
Winter's Bone
Still here?
That's the end, then. And if you read it all, you encountered somewhere in the region of 78 films (slightly more if you followed the Lubitsch link). That was worth coming all the way down here for, wasn't it?
Right, I'm off to watch some more films. I've got another 100 to get through you know.
And that's the end of my repostathon, too!
The blog's archive is now as up-to-date as it's ever likely to be.
Posted in 2010, Editorials, progress reports, year in review	| Tagged 100 Films in a Year, 2010, Repostathon, top 10, top ten	| 1 Reply

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